Inspired by the release of Lil Jon & The Eastside Boyz’s Crunkest Hits, an evaluation of crunk’s strange musical legacy:
For the first half of the 2000s, crunk music was rap music. The production of Lil Jon — the fight songs of Memphis’ Three 6 Mafia by way of shiny, Atlanta pop-rap — was a hybrid style technically “from Atlanta,” but with roots extending across the South (some Miami Bass and a distinct, New Orleans-based Cash-Money/No Limit influence too), but it was never beholden to area code or region. Crunk was southern hip-hop malleable enough to make room for a Midwestern double-time rapper like Krayzie Bone (“I Don’t Give A Fuck”), universally hard-edged enough to support lyrical New York tough guys like Styles P and Jadakiss (“Knockin’ Heads Off”), or just plain fun enough to direct Usher’s career away from slow jams (“Yeah”).
Crunkest Hits, a compilation of some of Lil Jon and the Eastside Boyz’s most well-known songs, featuring “I Don’t Give a Fuck,” “Knockin’ Heads Off,” “Yeah,” and eleven others, arrives in stores this week. That’s less than a year after Crunk Rock, Lil Jon’s much-delayed, rap-metal genre mash-up, which was actually more like a Hot Topic-infused party record. Crunkest Hits makes a much better case for the idea of “crunk” as “rock.”
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Looking back the type of control Lil Jon had on Pop music for a couple year span is sort of crazy. There were of course other popular acts at the time, but Lil Jon’s production popularized some songs and acts that would have went no where without him. I also like how on both Waka Flocak and Crime Mob’s first album the songs he produced sound simplest and most uncrunk songs on the entire CD, which is sort of great seeing other producers carry on the torch of crunk.
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12 Mar 11 at 2:01 am
I actually am just now remembering your Trillville post from a few days ago after this comment. I think I kinda took Crunk for granted or underrated how fucking insane this stuff is, you know?
And yeah, good point about Crime Mob too. Lil Jon’s sorta never got caught up in owning crunk or dominating it, in part b/c he stole it from Three 6, but also because he seems pretty smart about this stuff.
Brandon
12 Mar 11 at 2:41 am
Yeah, Lil Jon never stepping up to control crunk is sort of a good thing. I mean, I love “Knuck If You Buck” being a hit for Crime Mob and only partly connected to Lil Jon (him being the person that got them their chance at more mainstream exposure). Also, his taking from Three 6 is sort of awesome, because it creates two strands of Crunk that are similar, but are still different from each other.
As the Crunk from the early 2000s is different from what Three 6 was doing a decade earlier. Which makes Lex Luger’s take on crunk interesting, because he clearly takes from both and if rapper chooses a more interesing tracks from Lex then there would be he would be a more intersing producer. But rappers seem find with reproducing “Hard in the Paint” and that is sort of sad.
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12 Mar 11 at 7:53 am
My god. I am not going to post that late or in that state of mind again.
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12 Mar 11 at 3:01 pm
Nah, you’re fine, ha. I do agree there’s just dudes straight up recreating “Hard” but there’s just such an obsession with hit-grabbing now b/c no one is really getting hits, you know? Also frankly, Lex is a less diverse producer than Jon. His “people just take my “Hard”-sounding beats” defense only half-works I’d say.
Brandon
14 Mar 11 at 4:32 am
I would agree and say that Lex is not the most diverse producer, but then again he has a couple of my favorite beats from this year in “Everything Bricksquad” and “H.A.M.”, while I may not love “H.A.M.”, I cannot help but enjoy the Lex’s production actually given a budget behind it. That being said the stuff he has done with Wiz (and other less equiped rappers) does show the limits of his style.
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14 Mar 11 at 7:36 pm
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