The South had been knocking on the door for years. In 2006, it kicked the door off the hinges. Mainstream success meant compromise for most artists chasing radio play. A handful refused the bargain.
Oh man, this took me down memory lane. 2006 was the year I graduated high school and this retrospective was spot on. I have vivid memories of blasting T.I.’s King album as I drove to school in the morning, when the industry had declared Kingdom Come, “Kingdom Done”, driving home with my friends from the 16+ club on a school night rapping Knuck if You Buck and Where Da Cash At from Dedication 2 bar for bar, finally being old enough to go to the 18+ club for the first time and everyone doing that It’s Goin Down dance, Food & Liquor being the first “conscious” rap album I had been enamored with since Nas’ God’s Son. This was such a specific period of hip hop that often gets forgotten IMO but so much of what happened then set the stage for the trends that followed, specifically, trap music becoming even more mainstream and eventually global, and artists leveraging their mixtapes to build fandom and respect via the blog era.
Oh man, this took me down memory lane. 2006 was the year I graduated high school and this retrospective was spot on. I have vivid memories of blasting T.I.’s King album as I drove to school in the morning, when the industry had declared Kingdom Come, “Kingdom Done”, driving home with my friends from the 16+ club on a school night rapping Knuck if You Buck and Where Da Cash At from Dedication 2 bar for bar, finally being old enough to go to the 18+ club for the first time and everyone doing that It’s Goin Down dance, Food & Liquor being the first “conscious” rap album I had been enamored with since Nas’ God’s Son. This was such a specific period of hip hop that often gets forgotten IMO but so much of what happened then set the stage for the trends that followed, specifically, trap music becoming even more mainstream and eventually global, and artists leveraging their mixtapes to build fandom and respect via the blog era.
Loved everything about this comment it just brings so much joy