Black Masculinity in Childish Gambino’s “Hold You Down”
Childish Gambino aka Donald Glover is a rapper from Stone Mountain, Georgia— which is more or less a suburb of Atlanta. He grew up poor in a busy and full home as his parents constantly had foster children in and out of the house. He ended up going to college at NYU and writing for the show “30 Rock” before starting his own stand up comedy career, and now rapping/acting career. He is set to have large roles in the upcoming Spiderman film and Magic Mike 2, and his rap albums have garnered critical acclaim and Grammy nominations. “Hold You Down” is standout track from his debut album “Camp” for both it’s good musical quality and meaningful message.
The song begins with the chorus which is all about Childish Gambino being willing to “hold you down” which in effect means to stand in your corner through thick and thin. The first verse then begins rather promptly and Gambino starts to reminisce about the way he was bullied as a kid for not being cool and having the newest clothes. He then talks about one day how he stole a cool jacket from lost and found but the other kids knew it wasn’t his so it did not help his social standing at all. Then Gambino recollects about music he listened to at the time like the Notorious B.I.G. and how he always wanted to be a “dope boy” but that he was always more of a nerd. He then gets into some great wordplay, which is typical of him, with the lines “It’s funny how you smoke niggas then you start coffins/all my people need a throat lozenge” which is a play on words for killing people and smoking cigarettes at the same time. The end of the first verse is when the racial commentary of Gambino not fitting the mold of a black boy gets very intense as he says he was not comfortable in church because he wasn’t black enough and the barber shop was full of culture shock for him because he went to a black barber but did not often experience other exclusively and stereotypically black aspects of society. He gets even more somber then, saying “But we all look the same to the cops, ain’t that good enough?” which seems even more relevant now in the light of recent police brutality, particularly in the incident of the black University of Virginia student who was educated and from a wealthy family yet was subject to terrible mistreatment from the police regardless of those things purely because of his skin color. The verse ends with the lines “White kids get to wear whatever hat they want/ but when it comes to black kids one size fits all.” That is very true in that all black males are stereotyped as thugs and things like that whereas by the way they act and dress, white males can almost pick and choose stereotypes that they will be seen as.
After the chorus is repeated, Gambino begins another hard-hitting verse saying “The reason they say I’m nothin what they seen or heard’s/the same reason Will Smith always opposite latino girls.” That is referencing the fact that if Will Smith starred along with a black woman in a movie it would be “too black” and alienate white audiences but if he starred alongside a white woman it would bring up the “young buck” stereotype and be threatening to whites, but a latino woman is perfectly in between. ‘Bino then goes on talking about how whites will only see a black person as another stereotype is if they try overly hard to embody that type, and he goes very far with that in his verse saying “this one kid said something that was really bad/ he said I wasn’t really black cuz I had a Dad.” That is awful, but it proves the point but people go beyond skin color to verify stereotypes and that Gambino was alienated from the black male stereotypes in every way possible. He continues talking about how we need to see others for who they really are, not who we think they should be, before getting into some braggadocio and ending with the line “They ask me what I’m doing and I said I’m stealing rock back, nigga.” In the previous line he referenced Jay-Z so that line is a reference to Jay-Z’s rap labels (Roc-a-fella records and Roc Nation) but it also is a statement about the white appropriation of black (rock) music and how he is going to make it black again, which is again a very strong racial statement.
As a whole, this song very blatantly explores the stereotypes and ideals of black masculinity in our society and makes some strong, thought provoking statements about it which should be listened to by a wider audience and provide a good example of why you should not stereotype people.
“Blacking Up” and White Privilege
The movie “Blacking Up: Hip-Hop’s Remix of Race and Identity” draws interesting connections and poses good questions to viewers about the relationship between the appropriation of hip-hop culture and rap music by mainstream, white, America. Many black people who spoke in the film such as the notorious comedian Paul Money and the very well respected Amiri Baraka more or less think that white people taking black people’s culture inherently makes a mockery of the culture because white’s do not have to endure the same things as blacks because of white privilege.
This connects specifically with the music of hip-hop culture, rap music, because rap music started on the basis of social change and to this day one of it’s most common topics is the struggle of growing up poor, often in an inner city, and having to deal with racial stereotypes and racial profiling. When white people take that culture and have not had to endure the same things it can be seen as them mocking because they do not have the basis from which to make real music along those lines. The movie connects this to minstrelsy because minstrelsy was the appropriation of black music and stereotypes onto a mainstream-friendly American stage, during which many performers wore black-face to physically appear black such as the example used in the film who was Al Jolson, and the filmmaker is posing the question as to whether white people putting on a rap persona to perform and make rap music is similar to the black face put on in minstrel shows. I would argue that the groups the filmmaker presented (Crackd Out, Too White Crew) clearly did represent modern-day minstrelsy but that the majority of white rappers make rap music with respect and find a place in rap/hip-hop culture that they can occupy with their own experiences and ideas (like the artists interviewed Eyedea, Sage Francis, and Aesop Rock). Any white person engaging in rap music and hip-hop culture is to some extent responsible for cultural appropriation, but not directly for making it a minstrelsy.
One of the best quotes from the film came from Paul Mooney who said something along the lines of “white kids are bored, and the parents don’t want black kids in the neighborhood, but now they got lil naggers in they houses.” The line makes reference to the large fan base that hip hop has in suburban America, and makes a valid point about the silly way people view different aspects of black culture and the ways they try to control it. The line is also very relevant because suburban white kids make up the largest section of the market that rap occupies. But I think Amiri Baraka’s quote towards the end of the film was the most telling line and was very thought provoking as he stated “black face still goes on see, it’s just updated and more complicated.”
Ludacris’ “Southern Hospitality”: A Full Musical Analysis
“Southern Hospitality” is one of the standout tracks from Ludacris’ debut album “Back for the First Time” and it is produced by Pharrell Williams, one half of the production duo “The Neptunes” and currently one of the most famous musicians in the world. The song is very interesting because even for a rap beat, it is atypical. There are no samples, and really there is very little in the way of a melody. The song is very minimalistic. The entire song consists purely of percussion, Ludacris’ vocals, a few repeated notes from a wind instrument, and some other computer generated sounds–totaling three layers. The percussion serves to provide the beat for the song and keep it moving, the vocals along with the electronic noises and wind instrument provide the little melody that there is, and the computer generated noises are used to accent and add a bit of flavor to the beat from the percussion.
The song begins with a thudding bass pattern that moves pretty quickly in sets of five with two thuds, a quick break, two more thuds, another quick break, then one thud and quick break before the pattern starts all over again. That is the exact bass pattern that continues throughout the rest of the song uninterrupted. Behind that bass, beginning at the same time there is a small tapping noise that sounds almost like a handheld drum being tapped very quickly and consistently adding another layer to the bass. Soon after that some small clanking noises, sounding as if two small metal objects are being tapped together, are interwoven into the bass pattern in a beat that is syncopated with the bass, but more irregular in that the phrasing is a bit more complex. At the end of the first bass pattern, which comes about two seconds into the song, there is an electronic “ding” noise that sounds to mark the end of the phrase, and that establishes a pattern that is continued throughout the song.
On the third repetition of the bass phrase, more electronic sliding noises that sound almost as if a small toy car or something is straining to turn its wheels, but at a changing and sliding pitch, are interwoven into the elements that were already introduced. The next time the bass phrase is repeated, a clapping sound is made that hits on the pauses in the bass, adding more syncopation with a pretty quick rhythm. The following time the bass phrase is repeated, or about the fifth repetition of the bass phrase, hi-hats are introduced to accentuate the bass as they follow the exact same pattern and are placed at exactly the same moments, which created a real thudding sound as the bass and hi-hats crash simultaneously. That adds a very dirty-south like vibe to the song because one of the defining characteristics of most of the rap that would be considered “dirty south” is to rely heavily on a strong bassline. So by pairing the bass and the hi-hat together at the same time Pharrell manages to make a song called “Southern Hospitality” sound very southern in a very simple way.
After several more repetitions Ludacris comes in and begins to rap at about the twenty second mark. Ludacris raps at a reasonable speed, slowing down at the end of each line to emphasize the words in the end rhyme which always happens during a pause in the bass, adding another layer of syncopation to a song already full of it. The layers of computer generated sounds move rather quickly, and in contrast the vocals do not move particularly fast. That allows the vocals to have a spotlight on them because rather than getting consumed by a song with many parts that is all moving around the same speed, there is very little here to overshadow the vocals, and the percussion in the background really just helps hammer home the points that Ludacris is making. The only real changes from this point forward in the song come when the chorus arrives, as at the chorus Ludacris increases the vigor and overall volume of his rapping from a loud voice more towards a distinct pitch of shouting, and with that the small, several note segments from a wind instrument are added to accent the chorus. The small segments from the wind instrument again fall in the off-beats of the bass, adding syncopation and making up for Ludacris not sticking with the beat as precisely in the chorus.
The melody of this song is very basic because there is so little going on. The percussion and computer sounds are consistently on and off throughout the song, with the most minimalistic part of the beat coming at the beginning of Ludacris’ second verse around the 1:20 mark as the beat is temporarily stripped down to the drums and minimal noises it had in the beginning. At that point it follows the same progression that the song began with for the beat to reach its normal point again where it stays for the duration of the vocals, before it is slowly stripped down as the song reaches its end. With that being said, since the vocals are almost the only melody, the contour is regular and low as certain words are emphasized but pitch does not vary much with the exception of the phrase “throw them ‘bows” which is repeated in the chorus at a much lower pitch than the rest of the vocals. As a whole there is very little up and down in the contour of the melody, with the lows being Ludacris’ vocals and the highs being the few notes from the wind instrument.
In regards to the character the melody is somewhat disjunct. There is not a wide melodic range in the vocals as they are all low pitched but some of the computerized sounds in the background raise the pitch of the song as a whole from time to time. The phrases in the melody which really are just Ludacris’ vocals are in patters of five, with two short phrases, and then three long phrases following. They can be distinguished because when he sticks to one term, such as with “Cadillac” in the beginning of the song, there are five phrases and then he moves on to his next word to repeat. There are a couple different motives in the percussion that repeat over and over to make the beat, with corresponding digital sounds on top of them.
When it comes to time, this song is in duple meter with a tempo that is pretty quick. The rhythm is quick in the percussion and in the digital sounds, but slows down in the actual vocals as words that rhyme well are stretched out to emphasize the rhyme and those words, which slows down the rhythm of the vocals. An accent is put on the last note of each motive of vocals. There is no swing. The song has syncopation. There are two motives in the percussion, which are the motives that fit with time best. Lastly, when it comes to harmony, there really is no harmony in this song since the only melody is being provided pretty much exclusively through vocals. All these things come together to give a simple but fun song to listen to!
The only call and response is in the chorus when a phrase is begun and then ended with a lower pitch “throw them ‘bows.” The timbre of the percussion in this song is simple and thunderous with what sounds like multiple noises being made at the same time on the baseline, creating a real banging sensation to surround the bass itself. The timbre of the vocals is low and somewhat conversational except the word at the end of each line is lingered upon which helps each line of vocals end smoothly. The timbre of the computer sounds is interesting because there is a digital sliding sound that is repeated at different pitches and then there are couplets of notes that sound computerized and are close together, but with the way they sound they could almost be from a softer sounding wind instrument.
All of these elements come together to make a song that sounds very smooth, clean, and crisp— and to make one of the biggest rap songs of the turn of the millennium.
Potential Project Song: Big K.R.I.T. “REM”
Big K.R.I.T. is known for his complex and soulful beats and for his honesty in his lyrics, and this is one of his most well received and one of my favorite K.R.I.T. songs. This song is atypical of modern rap for the full, rich sound it has since much of popular current rap is very simple and purely bass driven with a couple chords on top (a la DJ Mustard), and lyrically it showcases K.R.I.T. being very candid which leads to him covering many serious topics in a way that is far more genuine and passionate than most rappers–even today when it is more widely accepted for a rapper to show real feelings beyond merely anger and lust which have always been thought to be masculine.
Lyrics:
[Hook] I don’t know about my dreamsI don’t know about my dreams
All I know is, I’m falling, falling, falling, falling
Might as well fall
I don’t know about my dreams
In a room full of tight stares
Was LFU a dream or a nightmare
I dare rap about my real life
Good Lord I gave my all but just don’t feel right
Jigaboos’ll minstrel you, but never me
Black face, my black face could never be
Sambo, my cammo, say otherwise
That revolution of mind will never televise
One album I’m still kickin
Def Jam I’m tell em I’m still whippin
Tell em I’m still winnin, Tell em I’m still in it
Next time, I drop a bomb, I swear Ima kill niggas
No pause is needed, I swear I don’t feel niggas
Snakes in my front yard, I swear I’m a deal wit em
All that still hear me, Pray that they still get it
I feel like I failed y’all, it’s hard to live with it, my dreams
I don’t know about my dreams
All I know is, I’m falling, falling, falling, falling
Might as well fall
I don’t know about my dreams
I don’t know about my dreams
Cause I’m more spiritual than lyrical
Produced my whole album, It’s nothing short of a miracle.
Was I wrong to be so heavy hearted?
I refuse to give up what I started
For false awards, and cover boards in every store
A different shore is a bore when all my people poor
Yeah there’s some broads galore, But yeah I want it more
Fuck a reality show, I’d rather do a tour
I’d rather crowd surf
Before I live as if God ain’t real, I’d rather die first
Bury me inside a cemetery
Remember me as just a visionary
I’m more Geronimo Pratt than OG Bobby
They love the fact you made it but hate, the fact you got it
Stairway to heaven is packed, I’m in the lobby
Too scared to go to sleep, Cause most times I often doubt my dreams
I don’t know about my dreams
All I know is, I’m falling, falling, falling, falling
Might as well fall
I don’t know about my dreams.
White Privilege in Rap: Killer Mike and “Reagan”
The song “Reagan” by Killer Mike off of his critically acclaimed 2012 album “R.A.P. Music” is where Mike unleashes complaints about Reagans terms as president in a very politically charged song that touches on many things, such as white privilege. The song starts with a Reagan quote before Killer Mike tears off saying “The ballot or the bullet, some freedom or some bullshit,” which quickly tells the listener how Mike feels about Reagan and the United States government as a whole. The first verse talks mainly about how the people of the United States are kept in the dark as the government works with corporations to entertain them with useless and mindless things such as dancing and mansions, before ending the verse with several lines about the Iran Contra affair in the 1980’s when the United States government smuggled cocaine into America to benefit the rebel group in Nicaragua, and simultaneously began to destroy poor, inner city, predominantly black areas.
In lou of a hook, another Reagan quote is used after the first verse to preface the second verse, and this quote is Reagan contradicting the one used earlier in the song, effectively admitting that he lied to the United States public. When it really gets into privilege is several lines into that verse, as Killer Mike states “They declared the war on drugs, like the war on terror/but what they really did is let them terrorize whoever/but mostly black boys,” as Killer Mike began to unleash a vivid picture of police brutality then, and as we still know it today from recent incidents that made national news such as the deaths of Eric Garner and Tamir Rice. That is the main section that addresses privilege as white people are much less often harassed or taken advantage of by policemen— purely due to their skin color. From that point on Mike complains about overly long prison sentences, which blacks are again most commonly the victim of, in part due to their skin color, about how people in jail are really government slaves, and about how all presidents are just puppets of the wealthiest people in America, which to some extent is true. Ronald Reagan in particular helped pass laws and policies that were detrimental to some black communities such as the three strikes law, and further institutionalized the racism of America, thereby building white privilege even further up.
In the words of Killer Mike, “I threw a barbecue when Reagan died. Straight the fuck up— a Reagan’s dead barbecue. Kept it negro as a motherfucker.”
Annotated Bibliography #3
Baker, Soren. “Pop Music; Ludacris Lives His Dream; The rising hip-hop artist, 21, is signed with Def Jam South, a subsidiary of the legendary New York rap label that was his favorite while growing up in Atlanta.” Los Angeles Times 2001: Academic OneFile. Web. 4 Mar. 2015.
This is a biographical piece about Ludacris that was published in the “Los Angeles Times” which is relevant and helpful since “Southern Hospitality” is by Ludacris so his life and background provide important context for his music.
Berman, Marshall. “Close To The Edge: Reflections On Rap.” Tikkun 8.2 (1993): 13. MasterFILE Premier. Web. 4 Mar. 2015.
This article is from the field of sociology as it explores the cultural context of rap music and in turn, how rap music affects the culture from which it comes. This article takes a focus on Public Enemy and uses that group as an example of how rap can unite people and provide hope. This is useful because it demonstrates how to think about rap as part of society which is important for the sociological aspect of this paper.
Bloomquist, Jennifer, and Isaac Hancock. “The Dirty Third: Contributions Of Southern Hip Hop To The Study Of African American English.” Southern Journal Of Linguistics 37.1 (2013): 1-27. Communication & Mass Media Complete. Web. 4 Mar. 2015.
This article examines particular terms along with the overall vernacular used by rappers from the South who are considered to make “dirty south” rap from an English and language perspective which is relevant to this project because “Southern Hospitality” is a dirty south song, so this article could make parts of the song easier to understand and help explain how this song fits into the genre of dirty south rap.
Grem, Darren E. “The South Got Something To Say”: Atlanta’s Dirty South And The Southernization Of Hip-Hop America.” Southern Cultures 12.4 (2006): 55-73. Academic Search Complete. Web. 4 Mar. 2015.
This document will be useful to because it is about the rise of the dirty south and southern rap, of which Ludacris’ “Southern Hospitality” is both representative of and a part of. It explores how “dirty south” became a subgenre of rap the same way g-funk is and gangsta rap are, and the artists who played a part in that such as OutKast and Goodie Mobb in particular. This article is from the journal “Southern Cultures” which explores all things that geographically happen In the South.
Marshall, Wayne. “Giving Up Hip-Hop’s Firstborn: A Quest For The Real After The Death Of Sampling.” Callaloo 29.3 (2006): 868. MasterFILE Premier. Web. 9 Mar. 2015
This article is about sampling in rap music, along with the ideas that its costs have continually risen over time which is difficult for hip hop artists, many of whom rely on samples for integral parts of their beats. This examines rap from both musical and sociological perspectives and is relevant because “Southern Hospitality” includes no samples and this article could help provide reasons why rap is becoming less and less sample-based.
Musical Analysis: Grandmaster Flash and the Furious 5 “The Message”
Grandmaster Flash invented scratching on the turntables, so he is a legend in his own right as a solo musician, but his greatest success came with his group Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, composed of himself and five emcees. Back then disc jockeys were rightfully the stars of the show, and so Grandmaster flash was the headliner. This song was largely produced by Grandmaster Flash, and he created what was to become the first popular single in rap music, greatly expanding the reach of the genre. Beyond that, he managed to do it in a pretty simple manner. The track begins with just the percussion for several seconds, highlighting the timing which is in a duple meter, and the underlying beat that will keep the track moving on pace, which is the main function of the percussion in this track, along with providing emphasis at specific moments. The drums move pretty slowly and keep a slow rhythm so after the drum line comes in, there is a quick and bland picking of guitar to foreshadow what is to come to the listener, and a small electronic whistle of sorts to introduce the many electronic noises that help form the melody of the track.
Things really start to pick up about 5-6 seconds in as the electronic noises fully get going with the scales that they will provide, sounding almost like disco noises (which is a genre this track is not far removed from in time) strung together in scales, and they also provide accents in between scales while there are pauses in the electronic noises. The electronic sounds move quickly and thereby have a fast rhythm but the later notes in the scales will be allowed to echo some, filling up the sound space more and making it seem as if there are more electronic sounds than there are. At the same time the electronic noises start, so do the bass and guitar. The bass combines with the drums to really provide the backbone of the track and does so with a relatively quick tempo and rhythm for a bass, which keeps the pace of the beat on track, and is very useful due to the lack of a bass drum in the percussion so it helps to fill that sound space.
The guitar comes in from time to time and plays some hollow, quick notes in a short scale of sorts which provides an accent and helps bring the overall sound of the track together before jumping out to tune in for quick moments later. It comes and goes so quickly that it’s rhythm is on the quicker side. Lastly, at about the 24 second mark the vocals come in. The vocals are somewhat rough and deep, contrasting with the higher drums and blending those to the lower bass, and offsetting the generally much higher pitched electronic sounds. Those (percussion, bass, guitar, electronic noises, vocals) are the five layers that really make up the track and work together throughout. The vocals are on the quicker side in terms of tempo and rhythm so they contrast with the slow drums, but are not overly fast. There is also no real call and response in the track, nor swing, but there is some syncopation between the bass and electronic noises as well as the vocals.
When it comes to melody, this song is interesting. The melody is created primarily by the electronic sounds and vocals, with the small amount of guitar thrown in. Those noises are all very contrasting as the vocals are low pitched and rough sounding whereas the electronic noises are mostly higher pitched and are smoother, easier noises. The contour of the melody is pretty low due to the vocals and bass which bring it down, but the guitar and electronic sounds pull it up in pitch from time to time. The song is relatively conjunct, but not too distinctly so, and the melodic phrases are somewhat average in length, maybe a bit long if anything. Like the phrasing, the motives are a bit long and that can mostly be heard in the bass and repeated computer generated scales, and there is a pretty large range since the vocals and bass are so low whereas the computer sounds reach much higher pitches.
There is not much in the way of harmony in this song, but what there is in the way of harmony is provided by the bass, electronic sounds, and sometimes vocals all sounding at once. It is on the consonant side as far as harmony goes, but many of the sounds are relatively hollow. The dynamics do not change as the overall soundscape stays consistent throughout the song, with the main changes coming in the form of added extra electrical noises such as a sound similar to a knife sharpening at about the 3:45 mark and sounds similar to a deck of cards being shuffled at right about the 5:00 mark. The timbre is relatively dry as many of the sounds are different and do not blend particularly well, as the sounds in the inner city are—representing the sound of where the music comes from and the grimy and rougher topics that are mentioned in the text of the song. When all of the aforementioned things come together, what do you get?
You get the first big rap single ever.
Gender in Lupe Fiasco’s “Bitch Bad”
In “Bitch Bad” Lupe Fiasco offers a critique of how he believes the portrayal of women in rap music has led to a disconnect between genders about what is expected out of the other. Lupe acts as if the average female in a rap video is some mixture of diva and freak, occasionally with the gangster bitch stereotype thrown in also. The first verse of the song focuses on a young boy in the car with his mother, who is a very respectable woman but is singing along to rap songs and through that, calling herself a “bad bitch.” As a result of the boy knowing that his mother is a respectable woman and mother, he will take the idea of a “bad bitch” to mean a respectable woman who can take care of herself and is well put together.
The second verse centers around young girls watching rap videos and when they watch videos, being that they are girls, they focus on the women. The women in rap videos are typically very sexualized, scantily clad, and usually all over men. Since that is the image that is being served to them, that is what girls will think they should aspire to be like— that they should be all over men, and very in touch with their sexuality among other things.
The third verse is focused on a meeting point between a girl who was raised to think that she should be one type of “bad bitch” who is hyper sexualized and controlled by men when the boy thinks of a “bad bitch” as a respectable woman, leaving a large disconnect with the girl not being what the guy wants even though that is all she is trying to be. The lines “and he thinks she a bad bitch and she thinks she a bad bitch/he thinks disrespectfully, she thinks of that sexually” represent how the boy thinks that this girl is bad at being a bitch because she is nothing like his mother, but how the girl thinks she is doing the right thing because she is imitating the videos to a “T” and being extremely sexual. Lupe goes on to say that the girl is actually smart and nice, but she is acting like her idea of a “bad bitch” because she thinks that is what men and society want, which is sad because it indicates that her and the guy could actually get along but they won’t because of the disillusioned way she is presenting herself. Then the song ends with the lines “but bitch still bad to her if you say it the wrong way/but she think she a bitch, what a double entendre” indicating that even though she is trying to be a “bad bitch” the word bitch can still have it’s negative meaning to her, so it is all up to interpretation and everyone is just confused about the term bitch.
As a whole, Lupe uses this song to provide a social commentary to the use of the term “bad bitch” and the confusion and issues he thinks it will create with the younger generation to whom it is formative, rather than purely being seen as an aside of popular culture. This is relevant because it actually is critiquing the role of women in rap music and how that could affect society, creating a meta moment because this is still a rap song about “bad bitches.”
Stereotypes in “Southern Hospitality”
Ludacris’ “Southern Hospitality” is more or less the epitome of a dirty South rap song. That being said, many stereotypes of rappers are mentioned such as frequenting clubs, driving nice cars, spending money on things such as chains and clubs, and threats of violence. yet as a whole, not many racial stereotypes are present. Through lines such as “hand me down drug dealers,” “mouth full of platinum, mouth full of gold/ 40 block cal keep your mouth on hold,” and the last quatrain of the third verse which repeats the phrase “thugged out” reinforces the stereotype that young black men are thugs and they should be feared as a result of their priorities and the physical danger they may pose. With that the line “rip out your tongue cause of what your mouth—told” seems to be reinforcing a snitches get stitches kind of gang outlook that impedes cooperation with law enforcement in particular. In those ways the lyrics are representative of the stereotype that black men are thugs, but there is no real evidence of any of the older stereotypes about blacks in the lyrics to this song.
Being that Ludacris is from the South, this song contains more allusions to Southern and country life than the urban environment even though he calls Atlanta his home. The only real way this song references city life is through the idea that drugs and drug dealing is a city problem and the mention of triple-beam scales, and drug dealers. This song makes no explicit reference to anything city related because as a Southerner Ludacris is attempting to brand himself as a country person almost, playing off of a stereotype many people from above the mason dixon line have that everyone from below it are country hicks.
Musical Patterns in “Southern Hospitality”
The main piece of the music in Ludacris’ “Southern Hospitality” is the percussion. The drum line has one main rhythm that basically continues through before starting over again. It consists of multiple things, with a drum and cymbal being hit simultaneously for two beats, then a clap, then a drum and cymbal again for three beats but with a slight pause between the first and second beats, then a clap after those three beats are completed. Then the beat slows and there are two longer beats of the drum and cymbal simultaneously before that loop restarts.
All that is on top of the drum beat in this song there are intermittent taps that are relatively high pitched that happen in twos and threes on and off, looped throughout the song. Then at about the 40-second mark the electronic sounds begin and there are several different pitches of the same sound that resembles a digital sliding sound and when it happens, it is looped and gets lower and lower, repeating eight times before the loop begins again. At roughly the one minute mark is when a high pitch wind instrument chimes in a couple of notes for the first time, and that continues in seemingly every other break between the sliding sounds for most of the song, with a similar two note slide just of varying pitches, although always relatively high.
Throughout the beat, electronic sounds, and wind instruments, there are about four patterns going on at once when the beat fully gets going, and they seem to be in sync so that when one restarts, they are all restarting even though some are shorter than others.
Ludacris’ “Southern Hospitality”: A Complete Lyrical Analysis
After a letting the beat come in and a short grunt, Ludacris opens the song talking about Cadillacs and some of their parts, such as “grills” and “mills,” with the grill being on the exterior of the body of the car and the mill being on the interior. The first line is two short phrases with parallel structure that create perfect and identical internal rhyme. In the second line of the song Ludacris continues with his Cadillac motif talking about the oil that comes out of the car, with “spills” at the end of the line creating perfect end rhyme with the first line (mill’s) and crossed rhyme with the first line (grills). The third line continues with Cadillacs, talking about the candy paint on his Cadillac which continues the end rhyme (kill) and also uses internal slant rhyme with the words fact and cadillac. That line also contains alliteration with the phrase “candy paint Cadillacs kill.” The subsequent line is about the women that end up in his Cadillac and continues the end rhyme (fills). That is the first quatrain, as each of Ludacris’ three verses of 16 bars each are broken down into quatrains that rhyme and are about one specific topic, then from quatrain to quatrain within a verse the topics and rhyme changes, although it is almost all monosyllabic rhyme. The talk about Cadillacs in the first quatrain is relevant because it shows that material things, particularly one kind of car, are important to Ludacris and when the song title is taken into consideration, it shows that cars—in particular ones with factors the Ludacris talks about such as big grills and candy paint, are important in the South. Since the release of this track, many southern rappers have adopted or further developed interest in vintage cars, especially Chevrolet’s and Cadillacs (see UGK, Big K.R.I.T., Curren$y, etc.).
The second quatrain opens with the repeated topic for that quatrain as the first quatrain does, but this time it is twenty inches. The first line of that quatrain has internal slant rhyme (wide/high), before the second line of that quatrain which has perfect crossed rhyme and slant end rhyme with the line before (ride/wide, ride/high) is talking about rim size for cars, which relates back to the previous quatrain because big rims became another topic about Southern rappers cars in particular that is popular to talk about (see T.I., Three 6 Mafia, and Big K.R.I.T.). Ludacris then continues with a line resembling the first in the quatrain that has internal exact rhyme (thighs/eyes), slant crossed rhyme (thighs/ride), and exact end rhyme with the following line (eyes/pies). That third line in the quatrain changes topic from cars to girls thighs and them making a male’s eyes wide, with the following line addressing the movie American Pie saying “hoping for American 20-inch pies” in which “pie” is used as a euphemism for female genitalia. In that, Ludacris seems to be making a reference to Americana in general, with a clear focus on women and sex.
The third quatrain in the first verse repeats the term “pretty ass” as the terms “Cadillac” and “twenty inch” were repeated in the first two quatrains,with the focus first falling on clothes and then shifting to girls for the rest of the quatrain. It continues with a similar pattern of rhyme as the first two quatrains with end rhyme that follows through (toes, hoes, goes, ‘bows), which is all exact in this quatrain, and internal rhyme in the first (clothes/toes) and third (ass/class) lines of the quatrain. There is also alliteration in the second line of the quatrain (make my). The use of the word “‘bows” at the end of that third quatrain is significant because it represents the first use of elision with a term that is repeated throughout the song—particularly in the chorus. The last quatrain of the first verse repeats the term “long-john” which follows a similar pattern with end rhyme through the four lines, some perfect (stalls/calls/balls) and some slant (pause/stalls). The phrase “long-john” is old and has roots in a number of different places, but particularly with long-johns meaning long underwear which is used to keep warm in the winter. That quatrain shifts the focus more from women to purely sex, which is how the first verse ends and the chorus is ushered in.
The chorus is very boisterous with each couplet of the eight lines rhyming, and the second and last couplets holding the same end rhyme. The chorus also is broken up into tow quatrains, with the first addressing men and the second addressing women, and repeating the same phrase at the end of each (throw them ‘bows). The first two lines of the chorus have alliteration (buy/bar and candy car) and the third has assonance (know/don’t/love/hoe) and a lot of repetition of the word you. The fourth line has internal and crossed rhyme (throw/‘bows/hoes) and the second to last line of the chorus has alliteration (or/open). The final line of the chorus has internal and crossed rhyme (flo’/throw/‘bows/toes) and the elision mentioned above in the shortened words “flo’” and “‘bows.” The subject matter through the chorus involves men spending money and dancing, and women dressed well with nice bodies dancing, with the presumption that the men and women are dancing together.
The second verse opens with more of the crux of what Ludacris is talking about after using the first verse and chorus as an introduction, he opens up with the phrase repeated throughout the first quatrain which is “Dirty South.” That is the style of rap Ludacris represents so he is using this song as a way of introducing himself and telling the listener some things about him. This follows a similar pattern as the earlier quatrains, with repetition in the first and fourth lines and the end rhyme staying consistent throughout the quatrain (bread/fed/bed/head). The first and fourth lines also have alliteration (blowin’/bread and guls/gimme). This quatrain in it’s discussion of the dirty south mentions fried catfish and girls amongst other things. The third line (Sleep in a cot’-pickin dirty south bed) has elision (cot’) and with the phrase “cot’-pickin” being an obvious reference to the past of the American South throughout which for hundreds of years slaves who were African American, like Ludacris is, were abused and taken advantage of, and many of them had to pick cotton as one of their jobs since cotton was one of the largest cash crops at the time.
The second quatrain repeats the phrase “hand me down,” further indicating that those in the dirty south are not rich and use hand me downs. The first two lines follow parallel structure in their repetition. The first line has consonance (flip flops) and the second has alliteration (drug dealers) and they both have perfect end rhyme, as the rest of the quatrain does (socks/rocks/box/stocks). This quatrain talks about old things but also shifts a focus onto drugs by mentioning drug dealers, rocks, and swisher sweets. The third quatrain of the second verse repeats the phrase “mouth full” and talks about a plethora of things such as grills, guns, murder, and lying, which it would appear must all be related back to the dirty south and thereby thought of in that context. There is perfect end rhyme throughout the quatrain (gold/hold/cold/told) and the first line has repetition and a parallel structure. The second line has slight assonance (your mouth on hold) along with there being repetition of the word “you” in the third line and assonance (out/mouth) in the last line.
The last quatrain of the third verse goes from the seriousness of the end of the third quatrain into a more playful tone again. He uses the same repetitive structure in the first two lines as he does in the first two lines of the second quatrain of the second verse, first talking about drinks and shifting to sex. Then he goes into talk about burning and about fear, which bring about a more serious tone again, ending the verse on a serious note. As a result of the title of the song and first quatrain of this verse it can be assumed that the things mentioned are intimately related to the dirty south, and the serious ending about fear leaves the listener on a frightening note. The quatrain has normal end rhyme that is perfect all the way through, and on top of that and the repetition, the third line has internal slant rhyme (burn/third) and the last line has consonance (sweat/sleep/sweat) along with the repetition of the word you as in the third line in the previous quatrain.
After the chorus lightens the mood again, the third verse begins with a quatrain about being “hit by” things. The first line has repetition and parallelism (hit by-stars, hit by-cars) along with perfect internal rhyme, and perfect end rhyme and crossed rhyme with the next line (bars). The second line is clever because the word “bars” is being used as a homophone to indicate that the listener is getting hit by bars such as the place liquor comes from, but also the bars that are Luda’s rhymes. That line also contains metonymy through the use of the word “bars” in reference to the whole place drinking occurs. The third line contains more elision (yo’) and the fourth line contains the same parallel structure as the first, while paying a compliment to the Neptunes which is a production duo who produced the song composed of Pharrell Williams and Chad Hugo. The following quatrain sticks to exactly the same structure in terms of rhyme and repetition, but the thematic focus is much more clear as it focuses of African American things reminiscent of the hippie days of the 1960’s and 1970’s, by referencing afro-picks and soul glow which is a product made to be used in African American hair. From there, Ludacris deploys another clever line saying “rabbit out the hat pulling afro-tricks” which is referencing the way an afro could just appear out of a hat when it is taken off the same way a rabbit appears out of a hat in a magic trick, but it is also a play off of Trix cereal whose mascot in their commercials and on the box is a rabbit. The first line of the quatrain contains internal rhyme (picks/chicks) and perfect end rhyme with the following lines (chicks/dick/tricks). Also there is assonance in the phrasee “soul glow” along with further repetition in the last line of the quatrain.
The next quatrain focuses on the term “overall” and talks about the south saying things like “country” and “jeans” before quickly jumping into talk about drugs again by referencing a triple beam scale. This quatrain has serious repetition and parallel structure in the first, second, and fourth lines, and has good perfect and slant end rhyme (jeans/clean/mean/beams), while further introducing the listener to the dirty south. The last quatrain of the third verse focuses on the phrase “thugged out” and the transition from the southern and country topics before to this phrase indicate that those things are not mutually exclusive and that Ludacris can be both a country boy and a thug at the same time. This quatrain follows a similar pattern as the last ones with a repetitive parallel structure in the first and second lines. The end rhyme is all slant (chains/games/range/thangs). The word “range” in the third line of the quatrain is reference to a Range Rover, which is a big and expensive brand of car.
As a whole, Ludacris uses this song to introduce the listener to the Dirty South and uses imagery to help the listener envision the place he comes from by giving somewhat detailed descriptions of things like his Cadillac, mouth, and the dirty south lifestyle all while including doses of why he is a gangsta through topics such as fear, death and the idea of thugs.