There is a kind of luscious pleasure about the South that only those who come from there can speak to with any degree of authority. There are plenty of people who can attest to it, and there are fantastic stories that come out of the memories of those who’ve lived there. It’s also very rare to hear anyone who’s spent part of their life in Georgia, speak of it without getting a kind of rare glint in the eye, that speaks to a magnificent array of beautiful and strange experiences, all contributing to a great love of the place. There are many different sides to Georgia, of course, and many different layers. From pockets of extreme poverty to luxury hotels. Georgia is a kind of microcosm for the country.
There are multiple histories here for all of the levels, and the further one looks into it, the more complex things get. It’s always fascinating, however, and it’s always interesting to spend time considering how things came to be. Today we can look at contemporary phenomena, like hip-hop music, and see, with groups like Outkast, connections to some very old roots here, as well as connections to multiple points of culture all over the planet.
It’s like that with everything here, because the Georgia that we know is formed by memories and experiences of complex and difficult lives. It is also vastly more in touch with the world at large than is usually imagined, and has contributed to modern culture for a long time. With the case of Outkast, formed by Dre and Big Boi, who were students in the same high school in East Point in Atlanta, there are several influences going on simultaneously. It’s easy to see their own contribution to global hip-hop culture, as well as to trace how it has worked in creating their own musical vocabularies. What makes their music so distinctive is its uncompromising ability to drive through the whirlpools of negativity and create new harmonies that can’t help but leave the listeners feeling more right with the world than before. Their complexity and layering speaks to a sensibility that is very much part of the local scene, historically and right now.
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