A redneck that briefly liked rap

This might come as a surprise but the number 2 most popular music in redneck circles, at least among the youth, is rap music. We seem an unlikely fanbase given how the music doesn't resonate with us at all but for some reason, there is a massive following in the redneck community for rap music.

I was in college during the Snoop, Dre, and rise of Eminem days and I enjoyed that music about as much as anyone else. Good music is good music after all and I purchased a few of those albums myself back in the day. I remember going to the local CD store on release day and being one of the many people in line to buy the 2nd Eminem album and I also remember sitting in the parking lot playing "Stan" and being some amazed by it that I listened to it twice in the parking lot before I even left the store.

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You have to keep in mind that my enthusiasm for this song was so great because it hadn't yet been released on the radio or MTV so that day in the parking lot I was hearing that song for the very first time. It is just such a beautifully crafted song that was so different than anything else I had ever heard up to that point. It was, as I am sure you remember, a story being told from two different perspectives and if Eminem actually wrote all of that himself it is a masterwork of songwriting. By the end of it you are impacted by it and can put yourself in the place of the two characters in the story that he is telling during the song. Compared to other rap music that is just about violence and bitches, this one had a real magic to it that stuck with you. Perhaps that is a big part of the reason why Eminem was and is so highly regarded in the music industry.

However, at least in North Carolina, there was a song that is a more traditional rap song that was even more popular than "Stan" and perhaps you haven't even heard of it. The song lacks the storytelling that Eminem and others have but it used an old-school trick that gets people to listen to music based on a strange sort of tribalism because the song was all about North Carolina.

This gets used a lot with California and New York City but this was the first time that a big song was all about the Carolinas and it was played basically everywhere.

It was particularly special for me because at the very start of the video is the name of the city that I was born in and live in to this day. Petey Pablo didn't go on to do great things and if he followed down that same path as most one-hit-wonder rap stars the dude is probably broke as hell right now. But there was a time when PP was absolutely huge in North Carolina and he inspired other NC rappers to try to make it to the forefront.

I'm not really involved in modern music so I don't know if anyone else went on to make it but to this day when I hear this song it reminds me about how in bars and clubs people would do what the song said and "take your shirt off, twist it 'round your head, wave it like a helicopter." Some of the places I went to the women would do this as well. I never did. I'm far too conservative for all that.

I just looked it up and yeah, Petey Pablo blew all his money and also went to jail for a couple of years. I have more of a net worth than he does now. Pity.