Well, first of all, I’m actively bad at it, because I mostly listen to liberal white men trying to reclaim country (and country-adjacent) music from the Nashville machine, but it comes down to hiphop being a fairly regional artform in a lot of ways.
Artists anywhere can adopt any style of course, but the local scenes can vary quite a bit, so what bubbles up commercially from a given region tends to match what they’re known for. Subject matter, slang, tempo, sampling & instrumentation, even accents can give you clues. Sometimes it’s fairly easy, like “Chopped and screwed” just screams Houston, with the vocals slowed down to the point where the pitch is noticeably affected. Atlanta rap, especially from the early two thousands, often has a bit more a party vibe and gained popularity as a bit of a reaction to the grimness of some east coast and west coast gangster rap from the preceding era. If somebody talks about “ghost ride the whip” that means there’s a reasonably good chance they’re from the San Francisco Bay area, where that’s a part of the local culture. There’s a million different things like that.
I’ve never quite become a fan like she is, but I can appreciate hiphop and rap as broad-ranging and important artform these days in a way I did not as a kid. It’s been kind of a master class in expanding my horizons.
Well, first of all, I’m actively bad at it, because I mostly listen to liberal white men trying to reclaim country (and country-adjacent) music from the Nashville machine, but it comes down to hiphop being a fairly regional artform in a lot of ways.
Artists anywhere can adopt any style of course, but the local scenes can vary quite a bit, so what bubbles up commercially from a given region tends to match what they’re known for. Subject matter, slang, tempo, sampling & instrumentation, even accents can give you clues. Sometimes it’s fairly easy, like “Chopped and screwed” just screams Houston, with the vocals slowed down to the point where the pitch is noticeably affected. Atlanta rap, especially from the early two thousands, often has a bit more a party vibe and gained popularity as a bit of a reaction to the grimness of some east coast and west coast gangster rap from the preceding era. If somebody talks about “ghost ride the whip” that means there’s a reasonably good chance they’re from the San Francisco Bay area, where that’s a part of the local culture. There’s a million different things like that.
I’ve never quite become a fan like she is, but I can appreciate hiphop and rap as broad-ranging and important artform these days in a way I did not as a kid. It’s been kind of a master class in expanding my horizons.