“Southern Hospitality” Analytical Essay #2: Ludacris, the Man of Many Faces and Carefully Constructed Images

Regardless of where he was born, Ludacris is an unapologetically southern rapper. The South, and even Atlanta in particular, began to develop their own sounds in rap music before Ludacris started making music, but that did not stop Ludacris from attempting to make a song that would enter the pantheon of southern rap with “Southern Hospitality”—which is exactly what happened. Not only did the song “Southern Hospitality” help put Ludacris’ name out to the public in the south, it blatantly identified the area he claims to have come from and many of the customs there, acting almost as a guide to the southern rapper lifestyle. As a whole the song “Southern Hospitality” acts as an introduction to southern rap and southern rap customs for those who would be unaware of such things which it does by having a relatively plain beat with hallmarks of dirty south rap that does not detract the listeners attention away from Ludacris’ simple and easy to follow rhymes explaining things for the listener. This idea fits the time period in which the song was released, 1999, adding a real motive and meaning to what on the surface level could be seen as a silly song.

Rap in the South caught on later than rap in the Northeast and on the West coasts, and some of the earliest pioneers of southern rap would be groups such as 2 Live Crew, the Geto Boys, and UGK. These groups all had distinct sounds and hailed from southern cities such as Miami and Houston, and were skillful enough as lyricists and entertainers to draw some national media attention. The term “Dirty South” was coined by a rapper who goes by the name Cool Breeze, as a way to distinguish southern music in the rap world that had no context to be put in (Rehagen 22). The East Coast and West Coast rap scenes were both established and based in cities, but the south is less urban and is dirtier physically, because there is “red clay” and “dirt roads,” and hence the term “dirty south” was born (Rehagen 22). Yet it was not until years later, when acts like Scarface (of the Geto Boys) and OutKast really put southern rap onto the national radar in the mid-90’s. From the perspective of sociology, “dirty south rap” became a real subculture in the mid 1990’s which is evidence of the influence southern artists during that time period such as OutKast had (Miller 203). As a result of that increasing popularity, by the late 1990’s, dirty south rap began being embraced by the critics and public—even beginning to take up a large share of the music market (Grem 56).

To contextualize this within culture in the American South in the 1990’s it is important to remember that this time period was only several decades removed from the height of the civil rights era, and that many communities in Southern states resisted changes that came from the civil rights era harder than other areas of the country. Also, like in Northern cities, integration led to white flight which led to blacks being more or less segregated into neighborhoods and school districts even though the federal government technically prohibited segregation. A big difference lies in the fact that most Northern and Western cities are primarily liberal, supporting the needs of the lower classes whereas the entire area considered the dirty south is very, very conservative (Carter 93). Immediately post-civil rights era Barry Goldwater became the first politician to use the “Southern Strategy,” which involved using coded language to appeal to whites’ racial fears and thereby get whites in the South to vote based on race rather than their own interest (Carter 94). As a result, both poor people and racial minorities, namely black people, have been victimized by the political systems in the South for decades—ultimately that ends up with black people staying poor and ending up in prison, often times due to a lack of honest ways to live and the bias of the American justice system against blacks in particular. For example in 1950 it was estimated that between 50-75% of people in Southern prisons were black, even though blacks did and still only make up roughly 12% of the population, yet in 1990 it was estimated that in the South 48% of prisoners were still black (Roscigno 324). In these ways the racial climate, particularly in the South, has been uneasy for a very long time. While it took longer for rap music to reach the south, it did there what it did across the country which was give a voice to the voiceless, and the dirty south movement in rap began as the first big wave of Southern rappers began to be able to express those voices.

Ludacris in particular was and is very aware of that racial climate, which is easily noted through the original title of his debut album which this song was first released on, Incognegro. The word “incognito” is defined as “with your true identity kept secret (as by using a different name or a disguise)” (“Incognito”). This title would suggest that Ludacris is abandoning himself and becoming a random black person in America to make this album, which is full of stereotypical rap themes with song titles such as “Mouthing Off,” “Hood Stuck,” and “Ho”— the last of which he rhymes a surprising amount of words with the word “ho” and to emphasize his point even more he inserts the word “ho” into other words (ex. the “Ho”-zone layer, instead of ozone layer). This album sold well and then was re-released after Ludacris signed to Def Jam, under the  somewhat fitting name “Back for the First Time.”

While this dirty south area of subculture continued to grow and expand more towards the mainstream of culture and music, many people were already familiar with it as indicated by its growing amount of cultural significance, but being that it was growing so quickly and gaining popularity so fast, many people who were not familiar with it or it’s ideals were getting exposed to aspects of dirty south culture and music. That is where Ludacris’ “Southern Hospitality” gains its major significance. The song takes many topics that are significant in that dirty south rap culture and elaborates on them in the form of quatrains. So Ludacris picks four subjects for each verse and has a quatrain about each subject which is how the song acts as an introduction to dirty south rap culture for those who may be completely unfamiliar. Topics that Ludacris chooses to have quatrains on range from Cadillacs and sweat, to the phrases “Dirty South” and “twenty-inch.”

Throughout each quatrain, the thing that is being talked about is repeated at least once per line. For example, the first quatrain reads “Cadillac grills, Cadillac Mill’s/Check out the oil my Cadillac spills/Matter of fact, candy paint Cadillacs kill/So check out the hoes my Cadillac fills.” Through that quatrain it is easy to see the emphasis put on the word “Cadillac” because of the constant repetition of it, and the fact that the topic of the quatrain is repeated in each line immediately before the end rhyme serves to emphasize very blatantly that the end rhyme is applied to the repeated phrase and that those end rhymes are significant in relation to the current topic of the song. So just in that small quatrain Ludacris quickly conveys to the listener the importance of grills, mills, and candy paint in relation to Cadillacs using literary devices such as rhyme and consonance, while also using rhyme to convey how Cadillacs spill, kill, and fill. Through the one quatrain, Ludacris provides as much information about Cadillacs as one would ever need to understand the culture surrounding them without going into a detailed enough explanation that the listener would automatically get lost. Also, through the constant repetition and simple end rhyme (mills/splills/kill/fill) Ludacris simplifies the ideas that he is conveying quite a bit with the intention that new listeners could understand and push themselves to understand because on the face value of things what they are listening to seems so simple.

From the repetition of “Cadillac” Ludacris shifts to the repetition of the phrase “twenty inch.” The fact that phrase is a descriptor rather than a simple noun allows Luda to broach many different topics rather than restricting that quatrain to one specific topic, and it also allows him to play off of the previous quatrain by using phrases like “twenty inch high” and “twenty inch-ride” to add the idea of 20-inch rims to the Cadillac that he was previously talking about. By following a similar pattern throughout the song, Luda uses many descriptive phrases as the repeated themes, such as “mouth full,” “hand me down,” and “pretty ass,” so that in those quatrains he can touch on many topics rather than sticking to one—but that makes the quatrains when he does stick to one topic such as the ones about Cadillacs and sweat stick out even more and leaves them with more emphasis.

The music behind this song is very simple, as there are not many layers and there are no samples, making it a completely original beat created by Pharrell. The main layers of the beat are the percussion, electronic sounds, and vocals. The simplicity of the beat allows much of the attention of the song to be focused on Ludacris’ lyrics rather than enrapturing listeners with the music by itself and distracting them from the song in that way. The loud bass is used frequently as it is a hallmark of dirty south rap so it only makes sense that a song about dirty south rap would carry the trademark sounds of that subgenre of music. The bass also complements Ludacris’ raps because the bass hits twice while Ludacris is repeating the subject phrase for each quatrain to emphasize that subject, and then Ludacris pauses as the beat moves on before he adds the word that is the end rhyme which emphasizes those words also through their separation in time from the rest of the text. So the beat and Ludacris’ rhyme patterns help emphasize the important words in each line, which draw the listeners attention to those terms and makes it extra easy to follow along.

As a whole, this song is Ludacris’ introduction into dirty south rap for listeners who have not before been exposed to it or understood it. It informs the listeners how dirty south rap sounds, what it talks about, how it talks about those topics, and through those things quickly indoctrinates listeners who may not have been familiar with this type of rap music into it. In conclusion, dirty south rap is “a bold statement from rappers who felt estranged from Atlanta’s economic and social progress and excluded by their southernness from competing in a rap music market dominated by New York and Los Angeles” and this song is Ludacris’ final invitation to people who were not familiar with that musical movement after it hit the mainstream, allowing those listeners to catch up quickly (Grem 56).

Yet beyond serving as an introduction to dirty south rap culture, which this song undoubtedly does, this song is a satire of Southern rappers in general. The simple, story-book sounding rhymes and repetition sound very playful and the fact that it falls on an album called Incognegro on which Ludacris is making music under the guise of being a random black person is not a coincidence. Throughout the entire album Ludacris is making clever music all while satirizing Southern rappers by making songs about similar topics but making them ridiculous in different ways, such as the song “Ho” mentioned previously in which atleast every several words he either says “ho” or inserts it into another word. In this song Ludacris takes a different angle, making it sound very much like a children’s story book, which emphasizes his point throughout the song that Southern rappers are simple and childlike, caring about material possessions and meaningless ideas and images like kids do. Further indication that this song is a satire is some of Ludacris’ later works, some of which are also satire (ex. Word of Mouf) and some of which are very serious (ex. Release Therapy) and contain very deep songs about sexual abuse and struggles with faith. This is evidence that there are two sides of Ludacris, the intelligent, thoughtful Ludacris and the comical, satirical Ludacris—both of which make serious points. Incognegro came out before Ludacris was signed, demonstrating that he was not making this music for a major label, in which case it would much more likely be serious rather than satirical because these are themes that the music industry promotes. Then the labels liked this album as a serious album so Ludacris got signed, and his next few albums were just as ridiculous and satirical (Word of Mouf & Chicken-N-Beer), but by then he had established himself and made money, proving that he could survive in the industry. Then only several years later he released Release Therapy, his first fully serious album, and won a grammy because of it. In the context of the album and his career trajectory, it seems obvious that this song is a satire and is mocking southern rappers and their childish ways—while double timing it as an introduction to dirty south culture.

Works Cited

Carter, Dan T. “Is There Still A South? And Does It Matter?.” Dissent (00123846) 54.3 (2007): 92-96. SocINDEX with Full Text. Web. 26 Apr. 2015.

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.

“Incognito.” Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. Springfield: Merriam-Webster, Inc. Web. 26 April 2015.

Miller, Matt. “Rap’s Dirty South: From Subculture To Pop Culture.” Journal Of Popular Music Studies 16.2 (2004): 175-212. Academic Search Complete. Web. 9 Feb. 2015.

Rehagen, Tony. “Derivation Of Dirty South.” Atlanta 52.7 (2012): 22. MasterFILE Premier. Web. 4 Mar. 2015.

Roscigno, Vicent J., and Marino A. Bruce. “Racial Inequality And Social Control: Historical And Contemporary Patterns In The U.S. South.” Sociological Spectrum 15.3 (1995): 323-349. SocINDEX with Full Text. Web. 26 Apr. 2015.