Dirty Decade: Rap Music and the U.S. South, 1997-2007
Matt Miller, Emory University
Essay Sections:
Introduction | Rap
and Place | The Rap Map Unfolds | Rap Scenes and Styles | Marketing | Dirtiness Defined | Dirtiness in Southern Rap | Get Crunk |
Visual Culture | Conclusion | Notes| Recommended Resources
Get Crunk, Tear the Club Up:
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Crunk Sections:
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Crunk as Music:
An emphasis upon call-and-response lyrical constructions in the form of "hooks" or "chants" intended to be repeated by the audience is a central feature of crunk, one that it shares with Miami Bass, New Orleans bounce, and other, older, southern club-based rap styles. Crunk songs often use tempos around 75 b.p.m., which, being relatively slow within the rap spectrum, allows for sparse beats to be accented with double-time hi-hat parts and bass drum fills. Beats and basslines are augmented by minimalist synthesizer riffs. The crunk vocal style is often characterized by collectively shouted or screamed performances, often in a call-and-response structure. Producers working in the crunk style often use drum machines, sequencers, and other "instruments," rather than samples from older recordings. They design the spare music with club sound systems in mind, which are capable of producing an intensely physical experience.
While some critics lauded the "complex, smart Southern production work" behind crunk, others found the music "vulgar, gnarly, bass-heavy," "joyless and bleak" with "rough, distorted basslines" similar to "gothic dirges."74 The association of the "riotous, anthemic music" and its "rebellious chants" with "rambunctious behavior" figured centrally in artists' and critics' attempt to compare it to previous genres of youth music.75 As Lil Jon describes it, "crunk music is something parallel to rock 'n' roll or punk rock because of the energy it gives you."76 For artists and audiences, crunk is about the generation and release of collective energy. As Miami rapper Pitbull explains, "Crunk is just getting wild, off the chain," while Lil Jon aims to "get you [the listener] hyper and to get the party off the hook."77 This release and freedom from hooks and chains articulates the physical abandon that makes "rumps shake and jugular veins throb," offering momentary release from social pressures while serving a generalizable need for cohorts of young people to define and create their own leisure spaces.78
While some critics lauded the "complex, smart Southern production work" behind crunk, others found the music "vulgar, gnarly, bass-heavy," "joyless and bleak" with "rough, distorted basslines" similar to "gothic dirges."74 The association of the "riotous, anthemic music" and its "rebellious chants" with "rambunctious behavior" figured centrally in artists' and critics' attempt to compare it to previous genres of youth music.75 As Lil Jon describes it, "crunk music is something parallel to rock 'n' roll or punk rock because of the energy it gives you."76 For artists and audiences, crunk is about the generation and release of collective energy. As Miami rapper Pitbull explains, "Crunk is just getting wild, off the chain," while Lil Jon aims to "get you [the listener] hyper and to get the party off the hook."77 This release and freedom from hooks and chains articulates the physical abandon that makes "rumps shake and jugular veins throb," offering momentary release from social pressures while serving a generalizable need for cohorts of young people to define and create their own leisure spaces.78
There are divergent opinions as to whether crunk continues or departs from ideas and practices associated with the afro-diasporic music sensibilities that inform earlier genres of African American music. For those who understand crunk as "a superficial music obsessed with perversity," the style's novelty is emphasized in descriptions of "rowdy choruses less like classic call-and-response hollers and more like howls of pain."79 For many crunk artists, however, the style does not represent a repudiation or abandonment of the values and practices of prior African American popular music styles, but rather a continuation. "All of it," says Pitbull, "is African-based. It's all about the percussion and the changes behind them."80 |
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Crunk's destructive imagery shines through on the cover of a 1999 compilation of southern rap (Tommy Boy Music). |
A more poetic perspective comes from David Banner, the so-called "Mississippi Madman," who connects the energy of crunk with African American spirituality and youthful abandon: "Crunk is the closest thing there is to church music . . . you have to look at it from a spiritual perspective . . . it's the closest thing to pure adrenaline, the closest thing to pure freedom, that these kids have."81 In another interview, Banner further elaborates the spiritual dimension of crunk: "I think of crunk as being part of what religious people call the Holy Ghost. . . . It's just a spirit you have. People go to church to find the Holy Ghost. We go to the clubs to find the crunk. It's like a ball of fire in your spirit."82
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Essay Sections:
Introduction | Rap
and Place | The Rap Map Unfolds | Rap Scenes and Styles | Marketing | Dirtiness Defined | Dirtiness in Southern Rap | Get Crunk |
Visual Culture | Conclusion | Notes| Recommended Resources
