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Eves, tell me you're from the South without telling me you're from the South, I spit.
My adolescence dancing to crunk music and snap music.
True, that works, But to be fair, those Johns were popping everywhere in the US in the early adds.
You're right, But because they were born in the South and they were under the banner of Southern hip hop, it felt like it was a quintessential part of the black Southern experience at the time.
Cuche And you.
Know what, Katie, I missed that music.
And I don't just mean in a nostalgic I have fond memories attached to it kind of way. I mean I miss the energy, I miss the playful, miss the organized chaos and the joy of it all. Maybe it's just easy to want things to be like they used to be. But for the brief and delightful time that Crunk and Snap were in the limelight, hip hop felt so bright, and now I can't help but feel like a lot of that light has faded.
Today's episode Survival of the crunkas.
All right, we're gonna do a little exercise. Okay, close your eyes. Now, imagine yourself as a teenager, say thirteen. Yeah, you're in a friend's living room on a summer weekend. Okay, yeah, her mother has graciously let four other girls stay over for a sleepover, and y'all have already eaten dinner, plus the obligatory post dinner snack of hot Cheetos and Sprite Remix.
You've already changed into your pajamas, you've made prank calls from the house phone, and you've watched reruns on UPN and you're a little spent because you've just finished playing about six rounds of Hood Rules UNO. But the night is still young, and y'all decide that it's time to crank.
Some music up.
It's the mid two thousands and y'all want to dance, so of course it's going to be some snap music. Y'all take a vote and your choice wins.
But what is it?
What song are you playing from the six disc? Seedy Changer, so.
Jo boy O, Fitness ho, watch me a row? Why speak creat Day?
That's a good choice. Good choice.
So snap music was actually a child of crunk, which grew out of the party life. It's origins lie in nightclubs and Miami bass music, and it's made to get you hype.
In other words, the perfect fight in music.
I mean, yeah, if you want to put it like that, and the lyrics definitely encourage wreaking havoc from time to time. See three six Mafias Tear the Club Up, an early entry in the genre, Our.
Little Scrappy is No Problem, in which he says you can get crunk in the club, roll with your hood, get stomped in the club.
Yeah. A lot of that enthusiastic energy and adrenaline did work itself out in the music in some aggressive lyrics, but hey, they were still party songs, exciting beats and call and response, a lot of vibes that would have you bouncing your shoulders and sweating with their dancing partner. Despite the violence that the songs were nodding too, and.
Some fites did pop off around these songs. But crunk music was also a mainstay in more wholesome settings like gray school dances and talent shows.
I mean, some of these songs were literally telling you to dance and how to do it. Get Low a song that at our tender age we absolutely should not have been listening to. But Little John and the East Side Boys and the Yin Yank Twins were telling us to drop that, shake it fast, pop it to the left and the right, back it up and then wiggle with it. Simple, clear instructions, so easy your grandma could do it.
Okay, And now that I think about it, it's giving WOBBLESI.
Hey, good enough for the radio, good enough for the line dance at the family cookout.
That's a stretch. That's a stretch, but the points dance.
The fact is krunk had gotten really popular by the early to mid two thousands. That simplicity, those repetitive lyrics, the energetic vocals that called to release energy through the body through movement and action in one way or the other,
was hitting a nerve with the people. Krunk had a plethora of hits with songs like bone Crushers, Never Scared Crime Mobs, Knuck if You Buck, and get some crunking System by Trilville and Pastor Troy, and it was getting cross genre play with artists like Usher and Sierra.
And Little John was truly the king of krunk. He produced so many of these songs.
Absolutely, and the word krunk was in all but one of his album titles. He fully embraced the impact of his crunk legacy. And if it weren't for Little John and the other artists who made krunk a mainstream success, Snap music wouldn't have been able to ride in on its coattails, even though the Yin Yang Twins were super associated with crunk music. In a twenty twenty one interview with Sean Press, Cain said that they made strip club music,
not crunk music. This was d Rock's response to Sean Press saying the world thought of their music as crunk.
It's all adrenaline.
So it was a very specific moment in time when that music came out.
I have a lot of fun memories of it because it was such a hype period of time. It was a period of time wherever it was clearly having a lot of fun. Yeah, there was a lot of adrenaline.
I think adrenaline is a really good way to put it in That's something that I immediately think of because it's about being in the club, it's about dancing together, it's about getting buck Like there's just so much energy in life, in the lyrics, in the production of the songs, and in what they were calling you to do in the songs. And I don't know if I have an answer to it or if I can put my finger on it, but like, what is it that we needed that for in that moment?
Why was that music so popular? Do you have any ideas well?
I think the adrenaline comes from the fact that it was like about togetherness in a way, like the songs when they come on, you know, people rush into the dance floor, Like if you drinking your sprite and you hear that beat drive you write it like everybody does it, so it's like a group thing, you know, and like
you're bouncing off the energy of somebody else. So you know, if you knuck it in bucket or ready to fight so am right, you know what I'm saying, Or you know, if you ain't never scared, I ain't never scared either. So it's like that energy that you're feeding off of with the people that you're with, even if you don't know them. They could be strangers like I ain't never scared. I ain't never scared. And also like there are groups of people singing these songs right like Lil John and
the East Side Boys, Yingang Twins. You look at the music videos like they're all you know, at the skating rink or at the club or just in a parking lot, just all together, and it's kind of like maybe there's one main person, but they with they crew, they would they click or whatever. It wasn't like, oh I'm the star, like get away from me. Like they was in the trenches. They was on Cascade Row, you know what I'm saying. And especially like because Atlanta I think was like leading
it Atlanta supremacy. You're just down to earth making music for the streets. It's fun. We're gonna get these dances off, we're gonna talk a little bit of shit, and we're gonna have a good little time.
It's like we all having a block party together. Basically.
Yeah, and there is also a chaotic energy in that period in Atlanta, but in the United States at the time.
I mean just thinking about the style of dress.
Extra tall tees, extra long shorts, shades for no reason, bangled.
Down to earth. You could get that stuff. You get a ten back of these shirts for the cheek, for the low and you're looking fresh and people are like that shit, you.
Know, and those mesh slippers. Do you remember those mesh slippers that everybody used to get. They had a moment and I don't blame you.
Me and my household, I did not see slippers, but they approved my point that it was a chaotic time in a lot of ways. And I think that you know, this was post millennium chaos. So I think we were kind of moving into these years. We were still having a lot of fun. We were still like figuring out Internet things. There were just energy coming at us from all these different directions.
Yeah.
I think very like experimental too.
Yeah, it's very experimental and very loose, Like that's one thing that I get from this period of time, like we didn't take ourselves too seriously.
Yeah, And I think because you know, like the ninety nine two thousand, it's like, oh, it's gonna be two thousand, We're going to be like in the future people were like on their little like Millennium wave like trying to be like futuristic in dress. But like by that time, I think people were like, Okay, well it's just the same old, same all, Like let me throw on these tall te's, let me put it on this hat at like an impossible angle and like hit the street.
And it got something air brushed on it.
Oh yeah, absolutely, some ristones are somewhere, whatever the case may be. So yeah, I think like we didn't take ourselves too seriously, and it showed in the music. It showed in like you know, getting beats off of YouTube was YouTube grow wherever folks was getting beats.
Yeah, it was it was just going to come up when it comes to music and.
Then just putting it out because like a lot of times people would just put it out and it would go viral for the time and then that's how people heard it, and then that's how it got on the radio. The music industry really like pushing this in the beginning. It was the people pushing it.
Yeah.
It was a grassroots, like really collective effort to like make this music spread and it did.
Yeh.
A testament to.
As much as as many issues as we might have with the music. Now you know, it was hot Hot, it was snap music. It was different. Yes, it was a successor to krunk. Still fun, still made to get you hype, still holy southern, Still more about the style than the substance. But it was a little more lighthearted than crunk, A little sillier.
I mean the genre is home to Laffy Taffy, a Snap classic. Not the most serious of songs.
Okay, a lot sillier. The artists moved on from tearing up clubs to tearing up the dance floor. Some songs had actual snaps in the beats. Do It Do It Pull Palace by Bhi with k raph and Little John Bunny, Hot by get Rich Click. We were squarely in the mid two thousands, paying per text message and downloading frame towns.
It was a struggle, wasn't it putting?
I think they like me and walk it out on our iPods, uploading low resolution videos of synchronized dances with our friends to YouTube.
Don't talk down on it like that, like you weren't bumping those two two.
Oh girl, me and everybody else.
Snap music successes were coming out of Atlanta, Left and right. Many Snap songs were topping the Billboard charts. Groups like Dem Franchise Boys and Defoel were becoming Snap superstars, and some Southern hip hop ogs like the Yin Yang Twins and Little John were still in the game.
Can't forget tea Pains, Buy You a Drink? All the kids and grown ups fell in love with that song. It was the perfect mix of R and B and snap, and he actually talked about snapping in it from the very beginning of the song, even in the second part of the title, Shoddy Snap.
Katie, what do you think was up with those snaps?
Like?
Why did we like them so much?
Then? You know, I think it just it was like the hoods. I am big pentameter, if you will, all right, get us together, keeping each other on beat. Okay, we were moving in unison.
It's basically the two thousand version of a scat Okay okay.
Yes, we were taking that collective memory h from our ancestors and.
Transforming it, transforming it, bringing it into the future.
Mutating it was evolving. It was the natural course of history.
Probably also has something to do with all the sense that was involved in the music, because I'm sure there were some technical aspects to it as well, but I appreciated those snaps. And Soldier Boy, as we all know, was a phenomenon and had a lot of snaps in his songs too. There's no doubt that Soljia had a huge influence on the trajectory of hip hop because of how he incorporated the Internet in his music. By his own words in his own tweets, he has said that
he was quote ahead of his time. I don't disagree with the sentiment, but I would amend that to say that he was right on time. The music industry was shifting strategies because it realized that music would soon rely heavily on digital platforms. People were file sharing and using social media more, and Soldier Boy capitalized on that to get more downloads and more notoriety. He would change the name of Crank That to the names of other popular songs and peer to peer platforms, and he leaked his
songs on MySpace. Here he is in a Billboard interview with Hillary Crosley that he did when he was seventeen years old, talking about his first album.
Well made you guys, make your album title a website.
Before on my record deal, I got my success through the internet, like I had too many hits on the site before My record. Deal is if I name my alms what tim dot com, it's gonna be like the website. So the website gonna be like the CD, like that, back and forth.
At the time we were recording this the Crank. That music video has five hundred and sixty eight million views on YouTube. It was his first single and it set the stage for a Snap music dance epidemic. There were dances that went along with songs before think of the Chickenhead, but regular folks started uploading their own videos of soldiers dances to YouTube.
YouTube was becoming.
A place where lay people could get a lot of attention and artists could promote their brands with a bunch of success. The TikTok dance crazes, the rappers who made their lanes on SoundCloud, the strategic use of social media to amplify your work and bring fans into the fold. That all has some precedent in Soldier Boys work in the mid two thousands. All Snap music was the soundtrack for all of this, So even the folks who don't care for it can't deny its deep imprint on the
music industry. A lot of folks were hating on Snap music, though, including Soldiers Music, saying they were killing hip hop. I mean it's it's like when any new music that the kids are into comes around, and Snap music it came with the whole host of new fingle technology that the old heads and the hip hop purists weren't used to being associated with real hip hop.
Yeah. I remember some folks like calling a ringtone rab really trying to play it mm.
Hmm, And just hearing that phrase makes me feel old, like it's something like still saying tape instead of records, listening.
To that terrible rap again, get off my patch?
And then and now.
The Snap era isn't regarded super highly in the hip hop canon. It was a star that burned brightly but died pretty quickly. People recognize its meteoric rise, how much of a fun and unique time it was, how the artists who did snap music did it well. I would say it's artistry hasn't gotten much acclaim though, but it has been noted as a game changing phase between krunk and traps rise to the mainstream and all the darker
Southern hip hop that was to come next. In a wild interview that the King Yang Twins did on Hot one O seven point one in Memphis in the two thousands, Cain said that he didn't really like the party music that they made. I ain't really fallen on a club of music we make, but I ain't one of it. It ain't it ain't really talking about n okay. And that's the flip side of this coin. It was a fun moment in hip hop, but crunk and snap music were good time friends.
Snap music had such an impact. People were playing it all the time, Like you said, people were uploading their renditions of the dances and the songs to YouTube just because just for funzies, and like I imagine seeing your art everywhere. But like, knowing these nogoods was in three sixty deals, like I would be like, I don't, I don't like it, you know what I'm saying. Like if you made some art and you didn't get paid the amount you should have been like the hood loves you,
but the hood love ain't gonna pay those bills. And so I could see them not like feeling a way about it.
In that regard, you're talking about the artists who had Snap songs, who didn't necessarily make it big or make a lot of money from them.
Yeah, like the Yiang twins, I can see them signing a bad deal and not getting their worth monetarily, and so I can see them like being like, oh, I don't like that. If you own your masters, if you were getting one hundred percent of them checks, I'm sure you would love that music. You'd be like playing some more and play some more. But I can see not liking it or like kind of be wanting to separate
yourself from that like silly, youthful time. When you're older money ain't getting no money off of it until you have grown as a person and an artist, right, I would think that it was more like an economic.
Based on the way that they said it in that interview. It was in real time, so they were saying this at the same time they were putting music out out that would be considered part of that era. But the context of that conversation made it seem like there was actually something about the substance and what the messages that they were actually delivering to people in those songs wasn't
their favorite. And that's understandable because we know a lot of times artists do things to make money because they have to sustain themselves too, but also like they have arranged within their artistry, some of which may include conscious things and some of it may include things that don't
take that much thinking about. And when they were talking about it in that interview it was couch and another conversation, they were like, I think they were a little drunk or high or something, to be fair, but whatever the mood was, they were still you know, saying what they were saying, and they were just talking about how much they care about the kids and how important the kids are, and like raising them upright and them getting an education was okay. So some part of it really did seem
like them saying, this music is cool. I'm glad that it's resonating with the people. But it didn't seem like it's what they wanted to be defined as, and they didn't want people to see it as the limits of their artistry, Like that wasn't the boundaries of what they could actually do and the things that they could actually say in their work.
Yeah, I mean, I think people often like have this like false economy, like either you listen to snap music or you focus on your education, like you were our salutatorian and were snapping with the rest of us. So you know, so it's like, I mean, don't take yourself too seriously think that you are like the reason for the high school dropout rates.
R like no, fair, fair point.
Yes.
So do you think that snap music and crunk music is something that artists should be proud of, like an era they should look back on with pride?
Well, I know mister Soljia does.
Oh yeah, he's still talking about it.
Oh yeah, but yeah, I mean I do. It was an era. It was something that was created organically and it was fun. And people still be listening to songs. I mean people still be swags a white people. Oh yes, it still gets trying to get going on swag surfing. Recently they couldn't do it a little. Still, it's not much to it, but you know, it's still alive. It's still here oftentimes you know, at arena's or you know the high school football game, high school basketball music festival. Yeah,
so like it's still there. So, I I mean, if I was a part of it, if I had my snaphand crunk hits, I'd be like, yeah, I did my big one.
But it's interesting too, because like one Snap song was just one of so many others that brought people together versus now when you hear swagsurfing and you see the crowd like locking arms or like moving in.
Synchrony, that's it. That's the end of it.
After that, we all nod in our hands on our own back on our phones or something like that. So it's like a lot more isolated to see that kind of togetherness through song and like public spaces where there are a lot of people.
Bring back the pool Palace, bring back the poole palates. I remember doing that escap zone one night how recently middle school? Okay, so it was like you know everyone about skates, Yeah, oh yeah, of course, club up. I went and did the pool Palace all night, legs work killing me the I'm gonna do that tonight as my workout.
Actually, right, all the people want to do squads, Now, why would you do that if you could do the pool Palace. So do you think that Snap and Crunk have aged well or like, do you think that they will age well into the future? Will they be John runs that we listened to and we're like, yeah, that was that was a good time. That was good artistry. And the people deserve to listen to it for years to come.
Yeah, I think so, because unfortunately we are the adults now and so unfortunately, girl, I hate it here take me back. But you know, when you're at the plane, our oldies are oldies. Gonna include some Snap and crunk, you're right, like it or not. It ain't gonna be all teddy pinograss some, but it's gonna be a little John and the East Side Boys as well.
And mostly we're just gonna be leaning with him, rocking with laughing, taffying around. Yeah, well, at least it'll be fun. In the fifteen plus years since the US fell out of love with Snap music, mainstream hip hop has definitely took a turn toward the dark. Some folks would say that the Snap era was a dark time in hip hop history that were better off just looking at it as a distinct period in a genre that is relatively
new and constantly evolving. But I sorely missed that goofy, care free energy of the era, that hard one but rightful joy that was infused in the high hats and the lively dances. And it wasn't like everything was all sunshine and rainbows. The song still had a sprinkle of foolishness, a dash of objectification, a pinch of peacocking, but there was a release. Some burdens were taken off of our
shoulders so we could move them freely. Mainstream hip hop kind of moved on to killing, stealing, and thrilling, heavy on the making money moves, a lot of depressants and depression. We definitely got out of our bodies and into the recesses of our minds. There's a ton of wrap out there that wasn't and isn't on this wave. But the things that grow chart get radio rotation. Not too much happy go lucky out there. Yeah.
I like the Drakes, Futures, Kanye, and many folks who've come in their wake. I do think we see a little bit of that humor and lightheartedness in the women rappers like City Girls, Megan Thee, Stallion, Big Lotto, Cardi, Nikki.
Yeah.
I think so.
Some attitude, some happiness or at least contentment, and some dance routines, a little color, a little life.
But when I look at.
Mainstream hip hop generally and say it's adrenaline, nah, it's a downward energy, not an upward. One, it seems like crunk and snap music flourished in the two thousands because one, every sound has its moment. Two burgeoning technologies and internet platforms and technologies made simple, flashy songs valuable. Three the creators were skilled and it was their time. Four it came out of Atlanta, the star that a lot of hip hop revolves around. And five it's cool, it's fun,
and it's soft. In a quote in a two thousand and six article in the UK's Independent, Febo of DFOL said this, if you clap your hands and get crunk and stuff, you're gonna get sweaty, right. But there's always that player on the wall that just got that little step that he do all the time, and he snapping his fingers with it, and he looks so cool with it. That's who a female is going home with.
Ah wise words from philosopher Fabo.
He had us in the first half.
Okay, okay, but baby, we needed a break, a course correction, a reaction to all that hard action that had come before, the political rap, the gangster rap. And once we got that high energy out through krunk, we wanted to balance things out. And now the mood is cynical, sad, introspective, serious, More rappers talking about mental health. Maybe they're just talking about it differently than they were before, or maybe they're just more open to talking about their struggles in a
more straightforward way. But in totality, the outlook is pretty blue. Part of it seems like a natural switchback in the long term progression of hip hop music, and part of it is that the US is having a mental health reckoning. The number of people getting mental health treatment has increased significantly since the early two thousands.
Yeah, I think the music that we listen to is a reflection of what is going on in society. And so I think krunk and snap music would be a little out of place now because like this shit is not sweet, right, So we see some records that are like, oh, like this is fun, you know, like for the girls, you know, but I think the depressed rap it also has its place because she's depressing.
Yeah, but I guess I think when you say shit is not sweet, it's like it never was, and it definitely wasn't then too.
I don't think we have the consciousness to know that.
And yeah, that's where I was going with this is because what I was going to say, is that it's just different ways of processing, where processing before was ignoring and processing now is like actually like confronting the thing and talking about it.
So we were ignoring it because I guess it was like the recession in two thousand and eight.
I don't think as a whole we were ignoring it.
I'm just specifically referring to the way it was coming out through Krunk music and Snap music. Yeah, because we weren't really talking about conscious things, or we weren't talking about mental health.
It was just like it was we didn't have the language then to talk about mental health.
But I think when people talk about it, when rappers talk about it today, it's not oh, I'm going to therapy and I'm saying this, it's no like I'm sad.
Yeah, we had the language to say that before.
Well, I feel like in the Krunk I mean, toxic masculinity is still here in Wild Girl, but it was more of a masculine like saying you're sad. I feel like Drake brought that on. Drake comes on a little bit after he Mad It had his first album, what like two thousand and nine, mm hm, So I feel like, yeah, we could have, but then you was gonna get joned and he was gonna be a little bitch. Yeah, and no one's gonna think you were cool anymore.
Yeah, But I appreciate both ways because, like I said earlier, I used the word soft because there was a softness in the Crunk and the Snap era, even though it was masculine, because it was so tactile, because it was about movement so much, because it was about sharing, because it was about like creating and containing energy in these spaces with other black people and with people at home.
Because it's became a mainstream success. So yeah, it's interesting to see.
The ways that probably ideas around masculinity and around how people chose to express themselves or like release energy came about. But on a lighter note, anything can come back around.
So maybe sometime in the future we'll call for a Krunk or Snap revival.
Maybe rapper Deuce's song Crunk Ain't Dead got some attention a few years ago, But whether the pendulum will swing back in that direction, only time will tell.
Now it's time for roll credits, the segment where we give credit to a person, place, or thing that we encounter during the week. Eves who are what would you like to give credit to today?
I think I'd like to give credit to critical thinking, just because I think a lot of times people can do things like be ignorant on purpose, they weaponize their ignorance, have a lack of empathy, and choose to not use the knowledge that they do have, choose to not integrated.
Grow are you taking a shot and you would give me dead?
And my motherfucker because I'm talking to you contact. This isn't anything coded, it isn't about anything specific. It's just that I've been like reading and I think that a lot of the time, just.
Like why why are people like this?
You know? So it's not like I'm saying I have no flaws and no faults, but I appreciate, you know, being able to like think critically about things and change my mind. And so this week I wanted to give credit to critical thinking because I think it's an important skill to have that I'm grateful that I was in beute with from an early age, Like it was something that was like, this is critical thinking, and this is
how you do it for me in my life. And I'm grateful for all of my teachers who did instill that value in me and the importance of it, because not everybody gets that, and that's not always a fault of their own. It's like, you know, what are the communities that are around us, How are they helping us think? You know? What are ways in which we're not being educated by the people who are responsible for it. How are we being taught to the test a lot of
the times? How are people purposefully providing misinformation? Not giving you access to certain things? So there are so many factors to it that we don't have to go into here. But it's an important skill to have, and I want to make sure that I'm always using it in my life too.
Thank Critically, y'all, I would like to give credit to researchers who have written down their research and shared it with the public. I turned in the manuscript of my book this morning, and there were a lot of people who's research they just shared with me, research that is available in the archives, and it was really helpful to see what people before me had done, who they talked to, like, what books they read. So I'm grateful for them.
I imagine it would be nice to have people who so freely share too, and don't try to get keep now.
Oh fuck j store.
Oh we can go down a list for all the journals.
Baby fuck that, but a bitch beginning them log ins and I go to work. But yeah, they should make those available, like why you got to be associated with a university, like a specific university.
You have to go through the seven layers of hell to get into some of those articles.
I know, seriously, everybody I meet, are you in college? What's your password? I ain't gonna do nothing funny. I'm just trying to get these journals because they do make it so hard. But one day we'll be free. There will be a free jay store one day.
Yeah, some people are working on it. Thank you, open source folks. We'll see you next episode.
Bye y'all, bye.
On Scene is a production of iHeartRadio and Fairweather Friends Media. This episode was written by Eves Jeffco and Katie Mitchell. It was edited and produced by Tari Harrison. Follow us on Instagram at on Themeshow. You can also send us an email at hello at on Theme dot show. Head to on Themet Show to check out the show notes for episodes. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.