伦敦国王大学（King's College London）文化与创意产业CCI（Culture and Creative Industry）研究生选修课音乐与美国文化（Music and American Culture）论文
“Music can serve as useful primary source material to understand the character and identity of places” (Kong, 1995: 184). Critique this statement by analysing the relationship between music and a specific American city or region, giving due consideration to the authorship, performance and reception of the music that you choose to focus on.
Atlanta and Trap Music
Trap music, which is perceived as a “cultural text” (Winchester, Kong, Dunn, 2003;50) of Atlanta, has witnessed tremendous development in the past few years. Several southern rappers with drug dealer personas, such as Gucci Mane, T.I. Young Jeezy, and Rick Ross, have published songs with typical lyrical themes portraying observations of hardship in the "trap", including street life, poverty, violence, and harsh experiences in urban inner cities. As Fordham and Keighren (2015, pp.3-4) say, “ Place, in various ways, is also tangled up with memory and identity.” The city image of Atlanta is greatly influenced by trap music. Given this background, this essay will first provide a brief introduction to the formation and development of trap music, followed by a five-part examination: The relationship between trap music and drug trafficking and gangs; the influence of the the Civil War and Sherman’s “March to the Sea”; the unique and crucial geographical location of Atlanta as a transportation junction; city planning and the six zones of Atlanta promoting the birth of street culture; and urban facilities like recording studios and nightclubs as creative fields. In brief, it will analyze the mutual influence of trap music and Atlanta’s geography, history, and humanism.
Trap is an Atlanta concept. It derived from the fact that Atlanta is developed on railroads and has numerous paths and dead ends. When one pulls down any of these paths or dead ends, and goes down a street to see some place living full of drug abusers and dealers, then one is trapped. Narrowly speaking, the trap refers to a place where drug deals take place, an open-air drug market in a blighted city neighborhood. Because many deals transpire on the streets, people crowd to these places; hence, David Drake (2017,pp.12-13)writes, “the trap in the early 2000’s wasn’t a genre, it was a real place” .
In Atlanta’s street culture, trap music and drugs usually are inseparable. One cannot have trap music, without “dope” (drugs), which is what inspires the rap. Atlanta rappers, like Dungeon Family, Outkast, Goodie Mob, and Ghetto Mafia, were the first to use the word “trap” in their songs. Gradually, music fans and media personalities started to call these trappers, who make drug traffic their main lyrics, “Trap Rappers” (Raymer,M. 2017). Take Master P’s hit song “Mr. Ice Cream” from his fifth album in 1996 as an example: the lyrics “Going crazy in the ghetto try to kill me/ my little homies lost life/ y’all fools feel me” and “If you sellin’ that ice cream ya got to make sure it’s good” portray drug dealing and struggle for success( Archive, 2017).
Trap music can be seen as an “evolution of a music style with place, or place-specific music” (Carney, 1998, pp.7-8). It used to be a sub-genre music, but it soon became quite popular through promotions of new generation rappers. It originated from Southern hip-hop and be typified by heavy 808 kick drums, double-time division hi-hats, and "cinematic" strings(Balaji and McAllister, 2009). And is defined by its ominous, bleak, and gritty lyrical content, which varies widely according to the artist (Bein,K. 2017).
The sounds and aesthetics of trap music have tight relationship with drug trafficking and abusing culture of Atlanta. These sounds contain lots of stupefying and enchanting effects, when a rapper starts rapping, the audience can feel the mood of smoking marijuana. When the lyric comes out, scenes of the street are drawn in the minds of the audience. The production and beat of trap music is often called the "crack baby beat". "Crack baby" was a term coined to describe children who were exposed to crack (freebase cocaine in smokable form) as fetuses; and emerged in the US during the 1980s and 1990s in the midst of a crack epidemic (NPR.org, 2017). During the childhood of these crack babies, they may have never learned an instrument but may have an electronic piano, perhaps a simple CASIO and use the 808 drum for beat. The electronic organ may have only had four kinds of tones. These "four sounds" could often be observed in trap songs like OG Maco’s “U Guessed It". Because it is similar to the previous "four tone", the 808 kick drum remains open-ended, allowing the singer to join in singing impromptu (Archive, 2017). When the flow is slow, producers would make the beat open so that rappers could fill in the vacancy and turn their improvisation into part of beat. From this perspective, trap music offers more space for rappers to freestyle, and thus more real emotion and description of lifestyles are present in trap songs.
Objectively speaking, trap music should be considered as a subsidiary production of drug traffic gangs in Atlanta, such as Black Mafia Family (BMF). BMF was a drug trafficking organization founded by brothers Demetrius and Terry Flenory in the late 1980s and was originally based in River Rouge, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit. They had established cocaine distribution cells throughout the United States by the year 2003; The Atlanta, Georgia hub, which was operated by older brother Demetrius, was one of two main hubs for their operation (Drug Enforcement Administration, 2017). Around 2000, the organization tried to legitimize itself by entering the hip-hop music business, starting a company called BMF Entertainment. BMF Entertainment helped promote numerous artists, including Young Jeezy, as well as BMF Entertainment's artist, Bleu DaVinci, whose album The World Is BMF’s, was nominated for a Source Award. This powerfully proves the significant influence of hip-hop’s shadowy empire built by BMF (Creative Loafing Atlanta, 2017). At that time, dope(drug) parties were rampant. Drug trafficking in a way helped the economy of the whole Atlanta City: there was hustling and dissolute nightlife everywhere. Before BMF’s entrance into the music business, the Flenory Brothers were known to associate with a number of high-profile hip-hop artists, including Jay-Z and Fabolous. Gradually, these rap artists and gang members worked together and Hip-hop music companies turned into a way to launder money. (Dea.gov, 2017). Rappers only needed one gold album in record sales, and they put thousands upon thousands of pounds into the process.
In 2005, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) indicted members of the Black Mafia Family, ultimately securing convictions by targeting the Flenory Brothers under the Continuing Criminal Enterprise Statute. Both were sentenced to 30 years in prison. The BMF empire soon collapsed and gang members fled to every where of the world. But the influence of gangstas still roots in Atlanta’s hip-hop culture. One of the most famous trap music producers, Lex Luger, produced a song “B.M.F (Blowin’ Money Fast)” for rapper Rick Ross. The title itself, “B.M.F”, is an reference to the Black Mafia Family. Ross shouts out the name of the gang’s founder Big Meech when he raps the line “I think I’m Big Meech” enough for one to see how influential the drug trafficking group is to Atlanta trap music.
Today, from being originally underground, trap music has gradually become mainstream. Some producers have expanded their range to other genres, such as R&B, for example Mike Will Made It, and electronic music like AraabMuzik (Motherboard, 2017). The first group of people who watched trap grow have been aware of the need to change. The boom of Trap is almost over. Even so, new generations of street rappers like Migos are confident of maintaining its leading position with their creativity. They are making trap music but this time with a rhythm and style never represented before. In the future, people may find another word to replace “trap”, which if continually used by the mainstream, will eventually become tacky.
Moreover, with new technologies, trap music is evolving quickly in fascinating and complex ways for electronic music, not only limited to hip-hop. Thus, it shouldn’t be a huge surprise that trap is having its moment as a signifier of rugged authenticity for young, mostly white, electronic music producers. On SoundCloud, there are thousands of tracks labeled “trap” and “trap music.” In addition, with the impact of technological changes over the past decade, more short-term strategies have been adapted to yield more immediate returns (Balaji, M. 2012). Online-only music sales like on the iTunes store or HMV.com have become one of the main ways for rap artists to release their work. CDs or vinyl, on the contrary, have become an item for collectors only.
According to George Carney (1998, pp.9-10), trap music can be classified into the taxonomy as “The spatial dimensions of music dealing with human migration, transportation routes, and communication networks” because Atlanta’s rap history has a tight relationship with geography, transportation, and city planning. The relationship will be analyzed in the following four sections: Sherman's “March to the Sea” in the Civil War of America; Spaghetti junction in the urban traffic of Atlanta; America’s busiest airport Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta Intentional Airport; and the six zones of Atlanta.
Atlanta was the end of all railroad lines and used to be a commercial centers in America before the American Civil War. During the first eighty-years of Atlanta's history, numerous art activities were reported by local newspapers, proving that Atlanta was not culturally barren (Carlyn Gaye, C. 1981). However, this cultural growth was interrupted by the Civil War. When the Union Armies, led by General William Sherman, were slowly pushing deeper into confederate territory, Sherman had two goals: to capture the city of Atlanta, which was one of the few remaining industrial cities of the Confederacy; and to destroy the Confederate Army led by General Joe Johnston. Eleven days of fighting destroyed one-third of the Confederate Army in Georgia. The remaining force was too weak to defend Atlanta and the city fell. Before leaving Atlanta, Sherman ordered his men to set the city on fire. Almost all of Atlanta was destroyed. Sherman's army would continue to do this all the way to Savannah, Georgia, three hundred and fifty kilometers away. This cut a path of destruction more than one hundred kilometers wide. This campaign would be known as Sherman's “March to the Sea” (Frank and Campbell 2004). After the American Civil War, people replaced the burned ground with highways, and established the biggest airport in the world. Atlanta, as the major city of the “New South”, became a key transport hub for every road in the east coast.
One geographic landmark that needs to be mentioned is Tom Moreland Interchange. Tom Moreland Interchange, which is named after Tom Moreland, a former commissioner of the Georgia Department of Transportation, is at the intersection of Interstate 85 and Interstate 285, along with several access roads, in northeast Atlanta (Kueumi, 2017). I-85 is a major traffic corridor from the northeastern suburbs into downtown Atlanta. Basically, every one of these roads can take dealers to most city or state they want to reach and provide several hiding spots. Due to an eponymous song by the Atlanta-based hip-hop group Outkast, the colloquial name of "Spaghetti Junction" is immortalized and used till today.
Meanwhile, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta Intentional Airport is another geographic reason which makes Atlanta fertile soil of drug trafficking. First of all, Atlanta is the headquarters of Delta and is the most important hub airport in the U.S. Nearly half of passengers in Atlanta Airport are transported by Delta. Secondly, the geographical location of Atlanta makes it more convenient for travel to any other city in the United States. Starting from Atlanta, passengers can reach 80% of the cities in the United States within two hours (Web.archive.org). Taking a transferring flight is convenient, so Atlanta airport gets a great many international flights. International passenger volume in Atlanta ranks only second to Dubai airport and London Heathrow (Garrentt and martin 1954). Although drug trafficking by air is almost impossible due to modern security check technology, a large scale of passenger flows definitely adds to the burden of urban crime rate control.
However, the most crucial element that led to the birth of Trap music was the existence of the six zones in Atlanta. Starting in the mid-20th century, there was a large-scale migration of white people from racially mixed urban regions to more racially homogeneous suburban or exurban regions which known as White Flight. This trend led to "de-urbanization" in Atlanta. Most US cities have some measurable border, but not Atlanta. The borders of the six zones of Atlanta change every few years. And leave some areas on the verge of a regional police management. Moreover, after Sherman burned the place to the ground, in the past one hundred years, Atlanta was rebuilt by a succession of carpetbaggers, developers, and politicians, leaving the city's map a baffling, chaotic and fragmented spider web, with no logic at all.
Atlanta city central has good parts and bad parts mixed up by developers, and low-cost housing intermediaries sometimes vary from block to block. Generally, the northern part is mostly white and the south is mostly black. Everything in between is just a mess and mixed brotherhoods. The boundaries of the six zones change every few years and just add to the confusions. That makes Rap music a hood music. The hood is not a certain district but the area which black people gather to live. In a sense, the harsh reality and brief success portrayed in the lyrics and melodies stimulate motions of people who at the bottom of the sociaty, especially when they are living in a similar neighborhood.
Like a journalist of Vice (Vice.com, para 3)once said “The emphasis on ghetto or the ‘hood’ as the dominant metaphor has been used plentifully in trap music, and even became a ‘state of mind’. ” For example, an all-white rap group Young Black Teenagers used this ghetto mindset to express that being black is not the basis of one’s race, but on the extent of one’s association with poverty-stricken lifestyle and lower-class Black people’ existence. (Boyd, T. 1994). Similarly, Asian rappers invented a new word, “chigga” to describe themselves. “Chigga” -Ch in chigga is in Chinese and the -igga is Nigga. It is what people call Asians who are influenced by urban hip-hop cultures and means “Asians who are dying to be black.” .
Some parts in the six zones, like Edgewood and Kirkwood, have colorful reputations for hip-hop and drug trafficking. Being cordoned off into self-enclosed communities of the city keeps young black men living in such neighborhood away from better education opportunities and upper-class business (Balaji, M. 2009), Thus, what people can see in zone six are numerous car break ins, ice drug, heroin, burglaries, property crimes, and many criminals are juveniles. In Atlanta, many African Americans are suffering urban displacement, degradation of the inner city, job loss, and they are portrayed by media as being hopeless and representing a threat to America (Balaji, M. 2009). This reinforces the dominant society’s concept of African American culture as a deprived wasteland. The economic and cultural basis of trap music underlines the African presence in American society, making studying trap music a paramount thing for understanding basis and laying bare the truth to the public (Boyd, T. 1994).
Although rap has become a vivid expression for young black and a powerful voice outlying feeling about life, it is also causing issues at local level. Teenagers who listen to trap music believe that composers actually did the things mentioned in the lyrics and try to imitate their thug and playa moods. For instance, in Atlanta there is a juvenile criminal gang wanted to show respect to the Mexican drug trafficking group Mitchuken family, so they call themselves little Mexicans and go around committing crimes, yet none of them are Mexican. It should be admitted that the lyrics of rap music are tied closely to socio-economic realities, and can even be called “Black CNN”. Some songs certainly do “Keep it real” (Balaji, M. 2012). But in trap, it is different. Although much of trap is catchy and swaggering, a lot of the genre’s material wouldn’t normally be considered “playful.” Selling cocaine is practically celebrated in the genre, and water whippin’ has been transformed into a popular dance move amongst the youth. Such problematic cultural tropes may mislead teenagers to engage in crime.
In the past 20 years, Atlanta has become a city shaping the street rap style – some may say it redefined the style of trap music. Behind this change are household names like Mike Will Made-It, Zaytoven, and the production crew 808 Mafia; they are all responsible for shaping the distinct trap sound. Meanwhile, all these artists are backed by the same person, Kevin “Coach K” Lee, a music manager, and one of most important gatekeepers in the whole music industry of Atlanta (Balaji, M. 2012) . As a co-founder of Quality Control (QC), “Coach K” act as an intermediary among rap artists, producers, and the consumer market. Migos was the first group signed by QC; then they signed Johnny Cinco, Rich Da Kid, .and OG Maco. QC contributes considerably to their rapper’s brand-building and credibility-making. The success of these rappers can never be separated from intermediaries like “Coach K”, which is the reason why conglomerates like Sony or Warner Music Group, which already own most well-renowned recording labels, keep investing resources to gain these local intermediaries’ favor. In return, rappers always support the brand name of the label. They spread the reputation of the label then acquire mutual benefit and common prosperity.
Patchwerk Studios is one of most important creative fields in Atlanta city(Scott, A. 1999). According to Gibson (2005), recording studios tie up with three kinds of actors: music recorders (musicians, studio engineers, producers), music consumers (broadcasters, audience), and non-human actors (recording technologies, acoustic space, city landscapes). However, in Atlanta, recording studios usually have backgrounds with gang members like Black Mafia Family. Initially, they were built and used to establish local record labels to cover crime and launder money. If a rapper can make a gold album, the large amount of money the company own makes sense. As Scott (1999, PP.5-6)says, “music is by its very nature the result of collaborative process intrinsically rooted in those same business interests”. Interest relationships between the music industry and the local drug trafficking gangs motivate the development of trap music. Apart from Patchwerk, there are many other record studio services for trap music. According to a map of the main locations of majors and affiliates and independent recording companies in the United States provided by Scott (1999), Atlanta ranks sixth in all cities in the U.S. just behind Los Angeles, New York, Nashville, and Chicago. Without these record studios, the quantity and quality of trap songs could not be guaranteed.
Another “creative field” is Magic City Club, a strip club in Atlanta. It is a powerful social networking space for rappers and cultural gatekeepers ‘including trap club DJs, street teams, local radio hosts/program directors, and media managers’ (Balaji, M. 2012). Without the inter-mediation of Magic City Club, it would be hard to gather creative artists. The club is a key facilitator to promoting rappers and acts as a litmus test of whether a new song can achieve massive success. In some sense, people who clubs at Magic City turn out to be unofficial gatekeepers and build the club to a site of cultural production (Balaji, M. 2012). What’s more, a historical reason which make strip club become the touchstone of a good hip-hop song is "Chitlin Circuit". Chitlin Circuit is the collective name given to performance venues throughout the eastern, southern, and upper mid-west areas of the United States; areas that were safe and acceptable for African American musicians, comedians, and other entertainers to perform in during the era of racial segregation in the United States from at least the early 19th century through the 1960s (Englehardt, 2015). According to Ruth Brown 2017, an artist needed to play at four specific theaters to prove they had made it: the Regal, the Howard, the Uptown, and the Apollo. This was called the "litchman chain". That makes spreading new vibes on a small scale in night clubs a traditional and widely accepted method before the use of a wider range of promotion.
Though the majority of trap comes from home-bred Atlanta rappers, there are a select few trap artists that were born elsewhere. Migos' sidekick Rich The Kid was born in Queens, NY, and Soulja Boy was born in Chicago. Though these artists were born in different cities, they both spent some of their childhood in Atlanta, and the influence is obvious. One of the benefits of being in a city, as Chris Gibson (2005: 194) says, is a large urban area “usually provides both the socio-economic context” and “the inspiration for musical creativity”. Atlanta has become increasingly famous for trap music in recent decades, and gradually been labeled the “Motown of the south”. Any artist with talent or ambition will choose a city, which offers enough business, to engage in (Carlyn Gaye, C. 1981). Live performance venues like Magic City Club mean Atlanta has empty spaces to serve as a professional base for trap music artists. Atlanta is one big melting pot of talents. Becoming home to numerous commercially successful rappers mean the city is self-fulfilling and fruitful (Balaji, M. 2012). As Thomas (2005) points out: “success breeds success, as industry players are drawn to the attractions of what economists refer to as a ‘thick’ market”.
The spread of hip-hop relies on using intercultural expression and local vernaculars appealing to audiences mostly come from black communities (Balaji, M. 2012). Although hip-hop music has become de-spatialized due to the rapid development of modern technology and communication methods, place and space remain points of emphasis. A rapper’s origin would determine his or her brand-building, and often indicates the relationship between musician and audience (Balaji, M. 2012). Atlanta rappers blur the region of urban and rural, and distinguished themselves with the geographical and symbolic music genre of trap music. This built the concept that cultural production in Atlanta’s trap music are distinct from other regions.
To conclude, trap music has been evolving for a decade, and its full potential has yet to be reached. Each month, it seems like a new Atlanta artist emerges from nowhere, and takes the game by storm. Atlanta indeed gave birth to trap music, and trap music shapes the character and identity of Atlanta. Hip-hop’s southern capital has continuously flooded the industry with new artists and nightclub anthems, so it should be to no one’s amazement that Atlanta has once again struck gold. This study has presented a general description of the origin and characteristics of trap music, paying attention to the African American culture’s influence on this music genre. What’s more, this study has also tried to dig out the history and geographic reasons that contribute to the formation of trap music. More work is needed to conduct a market survey of trap music consumption in Atlanta’s local and foreign areas, to see if the analyse presented here can become more detailed and can have more sensitive levels of analysis. Further evidences are required to give a more specific description of the relationship between trap music and Atlanta.
Bibliography
Balaji, M. (2012). The Construction of Street Credibility in Atlanta's Hip-Hop Music Scene: Analyzing the Role of Cultural Gatekeepers. Critical Studies in Media Communication, 29(4), pp.313-330.
Balaji, M. and McAllister, M. (2009). Trap(ped) music and masculinity. 1st ed.
Bein, K. (2017). It's a Trap! An 11-Part History of Trap Music, From DJ Screw to Gucci Mane to Flosstradamus. Miami New Times.
Boyd, T. (1994). Check Yo Self, Before You Wreck Yo Self: Variations on a Political Theme in Rap Music and Popular Culture. Public Culture, 7(1), pp.289-312.
Carlyn Gaye, C. (1981). In pursuit of culture : a history of art activity in Atlanta, 1847-1926. 1st ed. Atlanta, Georgia: Emory University.
Carney, G. (1998). Music Geography. Journal of Cultural Geography, 18(1), pp.1-10.
Drake, D. (2017). Real Trap Sh*t? The Commodification of Southern Rap's Drug-Fueled Subgenre. Complex UK. [online] Available at: http://uk.complex.com/music/2012/10/real-trap-sht-the-commodification-of-southern-raps-drug-fueled-subgenre
Drug Enforcement Administration (2017). News from DEA, Domestic Field Divisions, Detroit News Releases, 06/15/06. [online] Available at: https://www.dea.gov/pubs/states/newsrel/detroit061506.html
Frank, L. and Campbell, J. (2004). When Sherman Marched North from the Sea: Resistance on the Confederate Home Front. The Journal of Southern History, 70(4), p.928.
Garrett, F. and Martin, H. (1954). Atlanta and environs. 1st ed. New York: Lewis Historical Pub. Co.
Gibson, C. (2005). Recording Studios: Relational Spaces of Creativity in the City. Built Environment, 31(3), pp.192-207.Baynews9.com. (2017). Musicians trying to save legendary blues joint. [online] Available at:http://www.baynews9.com/content/news/baynews9/news/article.html/content/news/articles/bn9/2015/8/27/musicians_trying_to_.html#.VeBFhlpYBO0.facebook
Jim K. Georges (2017). Interstate 285. [online] Available at: http://www.kurumi.com/roads/3di/i285.html#285ga
Jim Tharpe. (2017). Atlanta airport still the "busiest" The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. [online] Available at: https://web.archive.org/web/20070106042352/http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/stories/2007/01/04/0104airport.html
Joseph Patterson(2017). Trap Music: What is it? | Topman Generation. [online] Available at: http://archive.is/20130412001816/magazine.topman.com/category/ctrl-music/trap-music-the-definitive-guide/
Mara Shalhoup (2017). Hip-hop's shadowy empire.[online] Available at: http://www.clatl.com/news/article/13023259/hiphops-shadowy-empire
Merriam-webster (2017). Definition of WHITE FLIGHT. [online] Available at: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/white%20flight
Michel Martin (2017). Crack Babies: Twenty Years Later. [online] Available at: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=126478643
Raymer, M. (2017). Who owns trap?. Chicago Reader.[online] Available at: http://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/trap-rap-edm-flosstradamus-uz-jeffrees-lex-luger/Content?oid=7975249
Ruth Brown. (2017). Why We Should Build the R&B Music Hall of Fame Museum.[online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=voHveKbg6ZU
Scott, A. (1999b) The US recorded music industry: on the relations between organisation, location, and creativity in the cultural economy. Environment and Planning A, 31, 1965-1984.
Taliesin Gillies-Bower (2017). Quit Screwing with Trap Music: An Interview with Houston-Born Producer L�tic. [online] Available at: http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/quit-screwing-with-trap-music-an-interview-with-houston-born-producer-l�tic--2
Landscape Surgery. (2017). Texts in Place/Place in Texts I. [online] Available at: https://landscapesurgery.wordpress.com/2015/04/01/texts-in-placeplace-in-texts-i/
Winchester, H., Kong, L. and Dunn, K. (2003). Landscapes. 1st ed. Harlow: Pearson/Prentice Hall.