�'Cause they�re used to fantasy, and it�s what they do to dream, call it �fiction addiction� �cause the truth is a heavy thing� ~Big Boi, OutKast
I�m southern. There�s my disclaimer.

I�ve been marinating on the relationship between African American life and southern �fault� since my thesis days. I�ve come to the conclusion that, in similar fashion to blackness in white America, the south is the scapegoat for all ills associated with African Americandom. In likeness of the homie William Shakespeare, bull shitteth.



I. �I�ve been to the Skyscraper Top:� Southern Blackness in the Early 20th Century America
The Great Migration of the early 20th century is often lopsided to depict a fleeing of African Americans from the south to the north because of racial injustices and the need to get away from neoslavery (sharecropping). Promises of economic advancement and progress overshadowed those of racial equality. What is often lost in translation is the fact that Jim Crow�s cousin, James Eagle, resided in the northern, urban hubs of the east coast and Midwest. Unlike Jim, who was crass, blatant, and protruding, James had poise and (sophisticatedly) reaffirmed a white supremacist discourse.

What is also overlooked by the romanticism surrounding the migration as a progressive movement is the fact that blacks already assimilated and comfortable with the social practices and notions of the city often frowned upon the southern black emigrant. This is especially prevalent in literature of the Harlem Renaissance, where southern African American migrants laced the inspiration for the conscious reawakening of black art. With the exception of authors like Zora Neale Hurtson and Jean Toomer who embraced the south, other critics and urban enthusiasts like Alain Locke dismiss any usefulness of southern culture or life. Locke�s essay �The New Negro� smashes southern credibility and capability, referring to it as a �medieval land� unable of progress. Because the black body is often (erroneously?) argued to be reflective of the socialization of the space it inhabits, Locke�s argument extends to African Americans who did not desire or could not find the means to migrate North. This latter notion is explored in the work of August Wilson�s Gem of the Ocean. Set in 1904 Pittsburgh, protagonist Solly Two Kings desperately attempts to bring his sister back from Alabama because of racial violence and the inability for blacks to travel out of the state. He compares his journey to the sense of urgency he experienced as an Underground Railroad conductor.

Rudolph Fisher�s short story �The City of Refuge� (1925) speaks to the naivete of the southern implant and all too trusting King Solomon Gillis in Harlem. While Gillis� name is an inversion of the biblical character King Solomon (the wisest man to ever live), Gillis� reasoning and scapegoat lies in his fascination and romanticizing of the cityscape. Fisher draws the reader�s attention specifically to Gillis� southern background, often flashing back to North Carolina and juxtaposing his experiences with whiteness in the south and Harlem. His excuse for allowing a brutal beating by policemen was the fact that one of them was a man of color. Breathlessly, Gillis� awestruck sentiment �they even got cullud policemans!� justified his unjust treatment by both the police and Mouse Uggam, the swindler who uses Gillis as a drug mule.

Later migratory narratives like (Richard) Wright�s Black Boy and (Ralph) Ellison�s Invisible Man speak to similar tropes of the Migration, expanding  upon the racial injustices against blackness (and, in Wright�s case, black men) the North often offered.

II.�Haters Everywhere We Go� � Extreme Localism and Southern Black Culture
The south, a no man�s land for black culture and humanity, retained its position as the birthplace of African American disappointment in later social movements. The 1960s Civil Rights Movement (majorly southern) was often frowned upon by Black Nationalist thought and advocates (majorly west coast and Midwest) because of the supposed submission to whiteness through nonviolence.


As the latest manifestation of black expression Hip Hop Culture carries the same sentiments towards the Black South. What perturbs me immensely is this fabled universal Hip Hop Aesthetic � they gotta rhyme this way, they gotta flow that way, they gotta move the crowd in this direction � when in fact Hip Hop performance and identity is not universal nor should there be an expectation that what works in Brooklyn or the Bay is the same thing that will work in the Bayou or �da Bany (I gotta shout my hometown). Murray Forman refers to the construction of these individualized identities as the extreme local. The notion that these fragmented spaces frame an identity specific to the occurrences of that particular space (whether region, state, or block) suggests a different sense of urgency and agency that umbrellas one�s lived experiences.

I am by no means defending the crap that has been flooding the airwaves as of late � the Wacka Flacka Flam travesty immediately comes to mind. I am, however, pointing out that southern rap did not start with the Flim Flam Bam and Souljah Boy Tellems.

Southerners too desperately cling onto our golden age of yesteryear � the �Liberation� of OutKast making hits in the dungeon, Mind Games with the Geto Boys, the traumatic experience of watching a man die by the bard Scarface, and the (Goodie) Mob welcoming you to the "Dirty South" with a plate of Soul Food heated and waiting. We follow many of the same trends as rap culture can throw at us � a breakthrough white emcee (we got three!), an inner city homesite (SWATS, the Trap, and the Block to name a few), a signature sound (you can thank us for that knock in your trunk that accompanies your favorite east coast rapper), traumatic and peculiar experiences surrounding blackness, and a call to arms. While this may seem to follow similar suit to our east coast, west coast, and Midwest contemporaries, the addition of rural rap narratives to the southern hip hop experience presents a unique facet that speaks to a part of the black experience that is often distorted and underappreciated. Rural rap narratives from the likes of Field Mob and David Banner speak to the residue of plantation caste systems in southwest Georgia and the Mississippi Delta, respectively. In these instances, blackness and slave discourse are often so tangled and inextricably linked that rappers pickup where their slave predecessors left off.

So, here are some concluding thoughts:
1.) Why is the south considered inferior and incapable? While southern rap fanatics (pointing at self) may fiend for another OutKast, Scarface, or Goodie Mob album, we have new talent on the rise that transcends to reflect a changing southern community � B.O.B., Yelawolf, Z-Ro are only a sampling.

2.) Is the South capable of any post-(insert movement here)? The hot button topic of the moment is postracialism and more than likely southerners have been crossed off the �likely� list because of its historical connections to racial supremacy discourse. Representations of the south are tropologically stagnant; many of the same tropes that lead southern writers and culturists in the nineteenth century are rehashed in different packagaing for the twentieth and twenty first century.  While this distorted nostalgia is not reserved specifically for the southern United States, what is problematic is the idea that these recycled themes are hindering any growth whatsoever - aesthetically, culturally, or otherwise.  And this is acceptable for outsiders looking in because of the comfort level of knowing that it won't nor is it expected to change.

3.) The south is NOT a scapegoat � Idiots and bigots are nationwide. Look at Arizona. Rap critics, whack emcees exist everywhere. But, for some reason, we always get highlighted.