My friends Tony Greer and Jared Dillian have been continuing their markets meet Billboard mashup theme on their podcast, MacroDirt, and invited me back for a discussion on 2004. While I discussed the graduation theme - both in my personal life and for artists on the charts, Tony surprised me with some extra love for the greatness of Lil Jon.
After we recorded I came here, to the Personal Archive stack, to look for an article I thought I wrote based on an interview and came up empty handed. Luckily, the cutting room floor is equally searchable. I found the note my brain was calling to in my phone’s notes app (see the bottom of this post for a visual), went back to the NYT Popcast source material, and now - 2 years and change later - here’s the post I’ve been stewing on ever since.
"Crunk music is basically — we call it black rock and roll, or black punk-rock music, because of the energy."
You probably don’t know that Lil Jon, the Atlanta club DJ and strip club rapper, who had the pimp cup he’d always be carrying around and was famous for yelling OHHKAAY” and “YEAHHH” (remember the Chapelle show sketches?) was a punk rock skater kid.
Growing up in Atlanta he was all about riding and moshing. He saw bands like Faith No More, Misfits, Red Hot Chili Peppers, at the Metroplex - and all their opening acts. He was in pits. He felt the energy. It felt like home.
In a handful of years he’d be changing the world of music as a DJ all of a few blocks over. This is just what that section of Atlanta was like.
He started collecting and trading skate tapes. They were a currency of their own, back then. Skate tapes came with skate tape soundtracks, as skaters would sync songs up to their routines. Probably unsurprisingly, the music of choice included stuff like the Bad Brains, Dead Kennedys, The Faction and more. And that’s how a black kid in northwestern Atlanta who didn’t fit in got his first, real taste of music education.
We need to talk about some other building blocks here, too. Musical building blocks. Because before we get crunk, we have to let this whole punk aesthetic really set in. Lil Jon says crunk is “designed not for the lyrics. It’s basically designed to make you just get to a state of mind where you are about to go insane, but just before you go insane.”
Have you been to a hardcore show? That’s what I think of when I read that quote. And this one, for that matter:
“You get so much energy that you release all the negativity out of your body.”
By the time Lil Jon is becoming Lil Jon, he’s taking the energy he felt in those punk rock rooms, and generated off those skate tapes, and translating it. It’s a core metaphor by way of being a core experience of his. He just found a new medium to express it - via strip clubs and rap shows.
They still required a persona. They still required a messenger. And as he told NYT Popcast in 2024,
I used to pattern myself on stage like H.R… The way he is on stage, or was on stage - his energy and his unpredictability, he let the music take over him.”
As soon as you hear that, as soon as you see it - and if you haven’t seen H.R. in the era please stop what you’re doing and come to CBGBs in 1982 with me for moment because it’s still one of the greatest things ever. Here’s Bad Brains doing their thing - get the whole build up, too. Don’t just skip ahead. Let it build. Bask in the “Big Takeover” intro:
And now watch Lil Jon and Eastside Boyz come out onto a stage in Atlanta in 2013 (a little later than I’d wanted, but man is this wild):
What you’re seeing is the SPIRIT of the music. It’s the awareness of the metaphysical exorcism both genres produce. It’s a purge. Both that you get out of the music, and also what the music gets out of you.
And it’s all created by what you put into that very music.
I know in 2004 I didn’t exactly understand this connection yet. I actually had a soft spot for crunk. I loved the energy and the bass and the clear abandonment of the rules everything else was playing by. Yes, some of it was dumb, but in its unadulterated offensiveness, it had that magic to it too.
Lil Jon is a lesson in how to learn from an art form and come up with your own aesthetic. The fact that he’s still doing music - and has gotten sober, and designed the show for Usher in Vegas first, and later at the Super Bowl - there’s a reason he’s still as on top of his game as he is.
Back when he was making a name for himself as a performer, nobody else was acting like this. H.R. was but - outside of maybe M.O.P. and a few others who were more traditional in their approach, this was different. And, as it played forward, it’s what made Lil Jon as a feature such an enticing spice for so many other artists.
Other people wanted a taste of that flavor. His unique combination of ideas was a fingerprint people came looking for. His business was born and as importantly, all of his influences were now out in the world.
He’d go on to collaborate directly with Bad Brains. There was an album called Crunk Rock. He’s gotten to see artists like Travis Scott build mosh pits at festivals, first hand, and sit there thinking “I had something to do with that.”
It’s a lineage and Lil Jon played his role.
Think about it. Think about the role you’re playing in your own community, on your own journey. Nothing happens in a vacuum. And how cool is it when something smashes multiple communities together?
In a mosh pit or otherwise. At a tiny club or in a stadium.
That’s stuff to aspire to. Respect. OHHHKAAAYEEE.
PS. This is how my notes-to-self look. Note/excuse the poor thumbing in of text. Also note that the date of the last edit was probably me, mid-Tuesday morning, just before the market opened at work, taking a moment to put a *** before “the long tail of punk” as a reminder to write about it later.
PPS. This clip of Lil Jon talking about “i against i” is really cool, too.
PPPS. Bad Brains + Lil Jon (and Ice Cube is there as a bonus):
