It’s funny that over the last 30 plus years of hip-hop, an artist’s hometown is still equated to their subgenre. The overblown East Coast / West Coast beef of the nineties remains one of the most canonized aspects of hip-hop culture, and Outkast’s famous “the South got something to say” is a nearly colloquialized adage. Regionalism is core to any genre of music, but in hip-hop culture, a special pride is placed in your home and in your hood; it’ll be repped to the fullest, and it’s influence will always surface in your music, whether it be the slow, dark grooves of Texas, Motown soul chops, or upbeat and warm, Miami bass. Every city, every year, and every man has a sound; two artists who simultaneously defy hip-hop geography and proudly show their personal history are CEO Trayle and Warhol.SS.
But what about artists who don’t really have a home? Plenty of rappers have moved throughout their lives and childhood, either picking up on pieces of each state along the way, or failing to settle into a clear niche. For example, even 2pac lived in Baltimore and New York of all places before transplanting to Cali, and it’s evident in his early music that he wasn’t on the typical gangsta lean as he employed more jazzy, boombappy production and contemplative subject matter. Too $hort, so associated with The Bay, meanwhile, spent much of the peak of his career living in Atlanta (although the same goes for Pac, to a degree). Thankfully, $hort was able to adapt to the popular crunk sound of the day and bring back with him what would become a staple of Oakland hip-hop in hyphy.
Hip-hop is often a diasporic genre, especially being so young that you can clearly track its spread across the country; by nature of sampling and mishmashing classic African American genres, hip-hop is founded in cultural exchange. A common theory these days, however, is that regionalism in rap is dying. With the advent of the internet and how easily we can access music from across the country, a generation of young artists might take on broader influence and the genre will be homogenized. It’s possible, and quite likely, that a kid in New York could be more tapped into Detroit trap than what’s hot in his own city these days. While this hasn’t yet come to fruition, it is true that mainstream rap is as geographically neutral as ever, having progressed out of the Atlanta trap era.
Two important artists today who are a product of both that displacement throughout their lives, and the broader musical influence available are CEO Trayle and Warhol.SS. While their styles are quite differently and they come from across the country, those influences meet in Atlanta through somewhat parallel careers. While Trayle originally hails from the Bronx and spent time in Alabama before Atlanta, Warhol reps Chicago despite living briefly in Minneapolis as well, and boasts a diverse musical background. Both artists have had ups and downs in the industry so far, with Trayle’s YSL affiliations, “Ok Cool” virality, and occasionally struggling to string quality projects together, while Warhol has undergone sonic transformations after not quite living up to the hype and budget of his debut Chest Pains.
Thankfully, both CEO Trayle and Warhol.SS seem to have their best work ahead of them. 2022 saw the release of their albums HH5 and Where’s Warhol 2, each some of the most replayable and unique takes on trap in recent memory; but with that being said, those two takes couldn’t be much more different. While Trayle employs vocal layering and dark, suffocating trap beats that exude a street paranoia, Warhol has a much more cloudy, Lucki inspired sound with a greater focus on Chicago’s gang culture. Despite branching off in two different directions sonically, the two rappers’ engrained wariness of the culture bleeds through in their music and transcends borders – even to the point of quality collaborations such as “No Fucks Given” and “LA Drankers“. Other great recent work of theirs includes Stay Dangerous and this year’s 3200 Vol. 2.
While everybody wants to be the smartest in the room and claim that hip-hop is either dying or fundamentally changing – that hip-hop could ever really and truly sell out or lose its regional heart; but for a hungry listener, it’s easy to find distinct, focused sounds from across the world that speak to each and every city’s story. Artists who relocate throughout life – such as Trayle and Warhol – are direct evidence of how geography fundamentally shapes one’s music, and the amazing results that are, in fact, possible when they blend.