How come Baltimore and DC never produced any rappers?

[Sankofa Alwayz]

Since we are talking about Southern stuff lets talk about music and the DMV.
I worked for Strawberries Inc (the company that owned Waxie Maxie's and other record stores). My office was in Greenbelt mall.
You know who the biggest sellers were in PG County in the late 90s and early 2000s?

2pac
Scarface (including FaceMob)
Bone (including Mo Thugs and all off shoots)
Lil Wayne (his biggest buying region was DC around 2006)
Outkast

I made CRAZY commissions special ordering Suave House records for stores. DC folks had never heard of Mr.Mike and Tela and South Circle. I literally had customers come back thanking me for the referral talking about "this sh1t is cranking".
Now if we gonna keep it super 100....
Does anyone remember how popular "Sprinkle Me" from E-40 was in DC?
Listen to the elements in that song...now listen to the old suave house records
Now listen to "Time for Freakin".....
Now tell me the emerging DC sound wasn't leaning in a southern direction in the mid 90s.
Anybody remember the Southwest Ryders double album which was a collab between west coast and southern artist hosted by E-40?
This was a hot selling album in DC.
Once again I'm a little bit older but I made money in music off these trends so I remember all this stuff.

It sounded like it was trynna find a regional direction to root itself in, especially with DJ Kool sounding East Coast-ish and Section 8 Mob basically sounding like an exported West Coast group sonically lol. I don't know how I’d classify Nonchalant’s music tho, 5’O Clock sounds like something you’d prolly hear on the radio or at a function in mid-90’s Houston or on a film OST where the movie takes place somewhere on the East Coast (sounds like something that could’ve been on Lean On Me tbh)

 

[Sankofa Alwayz]

DMV has this weird image where people think its all hood outside the capital parts and all Maryland is suburbs except for Baltimore.
And they think Virginia is all country. It's funny how even today a lotta people dont believe that was really Baltimore in THE WIRE.
When I tell them those are all actual streets and none of that is a studio set-up they can not believe it, especially if they have been there (inner harbor only) - they simply can't fathom the desolation and straight up dead blocks.
DC gets so many tourists and they see like 15% of the city and they think they've seen IT ALL.
They do the mall, reflecting pool, Georgetown, Friendship Heights, Lincoln/vietnam memorial, smithsonian, museums and thats pretty much it - maybe if they have a local friend/guide they venture into select parts of SW or NE, the gentro parts of course.

San Fran is the same way - people do the Golden Gate, Union Square, Fishermans Wharf and maybe the Marina then they are out. They dont see the Mission, SoMa, Sunset/Parkside etc and they definitely dont cross that bridge east to the town (Oakland).

Back in 2005 my Korean friend (born and raised in DC) came to San Francisco on a tourist trip with his mom. He called me and at that time I lived in Richmond CA, back then Richmond was like #7 most dangerous city in America. I gave him directions and he was saying in Union Square - so he goes to the front desk and ask which cable car to take to get to the train station - they ask where he's going and he tells them Richmond - the front desk people are like - "thats a dangerous area you shouldnt be going there". So he gets to the train station and he's friendly talking to people and they ask where he's going and he tells them Richmond and people are like "it's going to be dark by the time you get there - tell your friend to meet you somewhere else like Berkeley or something "......so he's on the train and chatting with strangers and a guy ask him where he's headed and he says Richmond and a black guy tells him "if anybody black tries to talk to you just keep walking"......so i'm chilling in the house like 5 blocks from Richmond station and he calls me all shook like "hey meet me at the station" - I repeated the directions and told him to just come on via foot and he insisted I meet him halfway so I'm like FINE, so I start walking and I finally see him down the block walking all nervous, head on a swivel looking like a lion might jump out the bushes. My roommate at the time was my brother (born and raised in DC, went to Wilson HS) and we had a bunch of friend over - all Richmond locals. He tells me the story I just told you while we are rolling blunts. We walk to the taco truck, later we get chinese food, we go to the homies house, all in richmond - chilling. I finally ask him has he seen anything different OR worse than he's seen in DC growing up and he's like ...NOPE....I told him EXACTLY. He felt silly letting people psyche him out like that.

regardless of region pretty much all hoods are the same...if you know how to move in ONE you know how to move in ALL.
Don't be a bama and you wont be a target.
Y'all got me reminiscing

At least he didn’t accidentally walk into The Tenderloin, breh would’ve thought he somehow winded up in West Baltimore or The Badlands of Philly

 

[Barlow]

Everybody doesn’t wanna be or really likes rappers like that in other cities

there’s other black American music genres to explore. I can see how if you’re not from here and you feel like you have a claim to hip hop, you can get stuck on that though

 

[submarine1]

I went to UMES and did a trip to Wisp Resort fam, I’m well aware of how country Western MD and The Shore are The Shore definitely felt Southern and so does most of Southern MD. Western MD felt more like a fusion of Appalachian, Western PA, and Southern with what Imma assume is Pacific NW-style air quality ....Basically like most of RDR2 lol

My elders never really viewed MD and DC as being the South but then again, most of them are/were originally from VA (Richmond and Tidewater region) and North Carolina.

But it’s funny you mention Pittsburgh because much of Central and Western PA felt country Southern til you hit up Harrisburg, Lancaster, Pittsburgh, or Erie...Only difference was the architecture and accents of course. I definitely wasn’t feeling Etters/Goldsboro when I stopped there for gas once Had to keep my head on a swivel like I was in the back roads of South Carolina. Kept getting a white trash Italian guido vibe from the place. Honestly, much of South Jersey gave me that vibe too outside of Cherry Hill, Atlantic City, and gutta ass Camden.

I’ve also dated a girl from The Pitt, them nikkas sound like and carry themselves like they from the Midwest, not no Mid-Atlantic/East Coast breh lmao

Western Pennsylvania is super mid-America culturally and when you get out there folks dont realize just how close you are to Ohio. We did Scribble Jam back in the early 2000s and to my surprise it was only a 7hr drive from DC to Cincinnati. And I didnt realize you can stand on a hill in Cincy and look out across the river into Kentucky. Cincy was a crossroads type of town, nikkas laying low from Detroit and Chicago, West Va and Pitt dudes going to college, Kentucky nikkas who had too much heat/beef to stay in Louisville...... Cincy is a hood ass city - easy to pick up chicks tho - they all wanna get outta there and go in whatever direction you going LOL.

 

[norfwestdc]

Unless you came from the DMV, heads think that the area is soft because of a lot of blacks with good paying jobs. I live in,NY and I been telling people that DC got gutter areas, but people think that I was joking until they see it for themselves.

D.C is an interesting place even in the 80s when the city was averaging about 400 murders a year the the amount of African-Americans unemployed and the amount making over 50,000 we the same.

 

[UberEatsDriver]

DMV has this weird image where people think its all hood outside the capital parts and all Maryland is suburbs except for Baltimore.
And they think Virginia is all country. It's funny how even today a lotta people dont believe that was really Baltimore in THE WIRE.
When I tell them those are all actual streets and none of that is a studio set-up they can not believe it, especially if they have been there (inner harbor only) - they simply can't fathom the desolation and straight up dead blocks.
DC gets so many tourists and they see like 15% of the city and they think they've seen IT ALL.
They do the mall, reflecting pool, Georgetown, Friendship Heights, Lincoln/vietnam memorial, smithsonian, museums and thats pretty much it - maybe if they have a local friend/guide they venture into select parts of SW or NE, the gentro parts of course.

San Fran is the same way - people do the Golden Gate, Union Square, Fishermans Wharf and maybe the Marina then they are out. They dont see the Mission, SoMa, Sunset/Parkside etc and they definitely dont cross that bridge east to the town (Oakland).

Back in 2005 my Korean friend (born and raised in DC) came to San Francisco on a tourist trip with his mom. He called me and at that time I lived in Richmond CA, back then Richmond was like #7 most dangerous city in America. I gave him directions and he was saying in Union Square - so he goes to the front desk and ask which cable car to take to get to the train station - they ask where he's going and he tells them Richmond - the front desk people are like - "thats a dangerous area you shouldnt be going there". So he gets to the train station and he's friendly talking to people and they ask where he's going and he tells them Richmond and people are like "it's going to be dark by the time you get there - tell your friend to meet you somewhere else like Berkeley or something "......so he's on the train and chatting with strangers and a guy ask him where he's headed and he says Richmond and a black guy tells him "if anybody black tries to talk to you just keep walking"......so i'm chilling in the house like 5 blocks from Richmond station and he calls me all shook like "hey meet me at the station" - I repeated the directions and told him to just come on via foot and he insisted I meet him halfway so I'm like FINE, so I start walking and I finally see him down the block walking all nervous, head on a swivel looking like a lion might jump out the bushes. My roommate at the time was my brother (born and raised in DC, went to Wilson HS) and we had a bunch of friend over - all Richmond locals. He tells me the story I just told you while we are rolling blunts. We walk to the taco truck, later we get chinese food, we go to the homies house, all in richmond - chilling. I finally ask him has he seen anything different OR worse than he's seen in DC growing up and he's like ...NOPE....I told him EXACTLY. He felt silly letting people psyche him out like that.

regardless of region pretty much all hoods are the same...if you know how to move in ONE you know how to move in ALL.
Don't be a bama and you wont be a target.
Y'all got me reminiscing

Probable cause he’s Chinese. I’m not afraid to walk in any hood in this country. Many people think I’m telling duck tales until I actually do it.


Many people told me don’t ever walk around Overtown in Miami. I did it anyway. Then again I like to think that for some reason nothing will ever happen to me. I need to stop thinking like that.

I also like to show people black people from other places that I am not afraid of them.


Weird shyt

 

[Cheech&Chong]

Shordie Shordie

 

[UberEatsDriver]

Cause DMV always had the reputation of a lot of middle class blacks and HBCUs. Especially educated black folk making $$$ in government.

DC was a murder capitol at one point

 

[UberEatsDriver]

That’s because we’re not breh It’s not even because of some shyt we’re supposedly “ashamed of”, we just don’t culturally identify with the South heavy despite technically being in the Upper South like that the same way we don’t identify with NYC heavy like that either despite technically being an East Coast subregion. Take me for instance, I’m a born & bred Prince Georgian and got ancestral ties to the South, specifically the Carolinas (even more specifically, Florence, SC) and many of us are proud of our Southern ancestry and love going down to visit distant relatives. We just don’t necessarily identify as Southerners. I’ve always identify more with the Mid-Atlantic than I do the South (at least Deep South) or Northeast (at least “deep” Northeast from Central Jersey on up). We’re definitely a cauldron that mixes the cultural influences of both regions tho...You’ll see that mix in certain fabrics of our being from how we carry ourselves to our architecture to our fashion to our mentality to the type of cuisine that’s traditionally popular out here to our accent and slang to our music and then some. Same thing can also apply to Baltimore as well, they’re a mix too but they definitely come off as a lil more up north to me

I wonder if it’s a ghetto bs educated thing. My lawyer friend who is born and raised in DC and is Haitian American doesn’t like being called southern and doesn’t think she’s southern and doesn’t sound southern at all.


As a matter of fact the only southern state she likes is Texas.

 

[UberEatsDriver]

My homegirl in New Orleans also posted how much fun she had in DC and how it’s was so far her favorite “northern” city.

 

[UberEatsDriver]

South Florida? Miami-Dade don’t consider themselves Florida period It’s an MIA girl I’ve messed with on and off that has the “Miami Against Florida” mentality lol

true

 

[TNOT]

Interesting convo. I don’t know much about the DMV area, especially musically, except for go go. At first I thought , well NOLA blew up on the rap scene, why didn’t the DMV? It’s way more complicated than a quick comparison could explain.
FWIW North Carolina is what I thought the DMV could have been in regards to a small region being respected in the larger music industry. They have that every man appeal.

 

[submarine1]

Probable cause he’s Chinese. I’m not afraid to walk in any hood in this country. Many people think I’m telling duck tales until I actually do it.


Many people told me don’t ever walk around Overtown in Miami. I did it anyway. Then again I like to think that for some reason nothing will ever happen to me. I need to stop thinking like that.

I also like to show people black people from other places that I am not afraid of them.


Weird shyt

Although I clearly said he was Korean

...but okay

 

[☑︎#VoteDemocrat]

I always felt that the Feds would shut that down

 

[UberEatsDriver]

Although I clearly said he was Korean

...but okay

Oh yea the Korean don’t like being called Chinese talk.


Yea the Koreans in NY kill me about that all that.

your man is soft tho