OutKasted Conversations Episode 1: Justin Hosbey, PhD Regina: Hey, what's up, everybody? I'm Dr. Regina Bradley. And this is OutKasted Conversations season two, episode number one with the homey, the wonderful, the great Dr. Justin Horsey, assistant professor of anthropology here at Emory, Emory University. Dr. Horsey, how you? Justin: I'm doing well, how are you today? Regina: I mean, I’m trying to be cute, you know. Justin: You are. You pulled it off. Regina: A little something something. You know we got to get this conversation started. You know, I have to ask you the official question to get into the club. Yes. How did you become OutKasted? Justin: Okay, I became OutKasted, watching Martin. Regina: What? Justin: As a child. I remember the episode of the Player’s Ball – Regina: Your parents let you stay up that late? Justin: Well, actually, that’s the thing, the one exception I had was staying up past eight o'clock was Martin on Sunday. Regina: Word? Justin: Yes, that was my one exception. Regina: Oh OK. Justin: So, I watched Martin. It was a family thing. [laughter] Thursday he was Thursday, but I remember the episode of Martin with the “Players Ball” episode, which is one of my favorite episodes, but then OutKast performs, like at the very end of that, and I learned later that I think L.A. Reid had coordinated them to kind of perform on Martin because there was a big black TV show and that was like their first televised performance. So as a child, I didn't know who they were, what it was, I just said, okay, this is a nice little song. Player's Ball it sounded like it was made for the show though I didn't know it was like their actual song. You thought it was, like, part of the whole Martin series. So, but then, you know that's how I first learned about who OutKast was. Regina: Okay, so that's when you first saw them but when did you become like “These are my people?” Justin: My people? I think ATLiens. Ok. ATLiens. When I first heard that song, I think it was “Elevators.” The first song I heard was “Elevators.” I saw the video for it. And I think I was maybe about eight or nine years old. And I remember seeing like them as aliens and the pyramids and how they would walk in and just that [singing lyrics to Elevators] “Me and you...” Yeah. And it was kinda like okay. What? Who is this? It is I think that's what I love about OutKast is sonically it was a sound that when you first heard that song you were like: Wait, what is that? Who is that? And very few songs make you feel that way. But I think “Elevators” was the first conscious time I say, Oh, wait, this is a group called OutKast and they're from Atlanta and I love this song. And from there I was hooked. Regina: Okay, so tell the truth, though, because you, you from Atlanta? Yes. So, you're officially from here. You don't say the T’s, right? Justin: No, no, I don't say “At-lan-ta”, no “I’m from Alanna.” Regina: So, I mean like, you know, in your work. Atlanta is pretty like pronounced – Yes, it is – in how you think about this idea of anthropology, you know, and how we think about storytelling and everything like that. So, for the folks who aren't academically initiated just yet, when you say that you are an “ethnographer,” what does that mean? Justin: What it means to me is I like to do kind of, deeply textured, you could call them analyses of particularly southern black social life. So, I like to meet Southern black people, learn about their culture, learn about how they interact with the world, how they make meaning. And also, I'm thinking about just the historical kind of political economy of the South anyway, and trying to always keep that in kind of relief that I think about the city's where I do research in now. So, I do research now in New Orleans and Atlanta. So, thinking about the history of the plantation and how that structured so much of social economic life in the South and about how black people have always found meaning even within that kind of context and have resisted and fought against it and often use performers art and expressive art to do so. So, I think as the ethnographer, I'm just I really want to do kind of deeply textured, rich, kind of, you know, almost narratives of black social life in the US south. Regina: So, you cheating on Atlanta with New Orleans? Justin: I am. I am a long time. Regina: So, I mean, I really, I really like that point when you're talking about how arts and culture help us really think about the deeper textures of the society communities that we're in. How do you think OutKast. Can OutKast be considered, you know, ethnographers. And how so? How do they do that? Justin: Definitely. You know, every time you know my I have my godmother lives in East Point. So, I pass Headland and Delowe , like every time I go to her house. And like, just knowing before they put a sign there saying, “This is the infamous Headland and Delowe,” being in East Point and just knowing that they're right there in the MARTA bus stop. In my mind whenever I think about East Point and that spot right there in that plaza right there, I think of OutKast. You know when I think about just riding 85 and I-20, Like so many of the kind of landmarks of Atlanta that people think geographically, I think I learned through OutKast lyrics. I think as a child, you kind of know but then when you hear somebody rapping and spit it and it rhymes it's like, Okay, yeah, right. No. Riding down 85 going down I-20 trying to find something there doing that. I think, for them they kind of helped me understand, in many ways, the geography of Atlanta. I think the way that they talk about, you know, places and situations and different kind of black cultural hubs in the city, they helped me understand and organized, kind of in my mind. Okay, this is Atlanta this is where that is, this is where that it is. This is how they spacialize, Black people live in this part of Decatur. They live on this part of the West Side. They live…Old (National) on the Southside that helped me organize lots of…especially from the race and class and space in Atlanta. OutKast, I think their kind of discography, could help you really distill out, particularly the 1990s, what black Atlanta is. What was happening in black Atlanta. Regina: I mean, like, let's take that a step further, though, because, you know, we think about Atlanta today. It's like you don't necessarily have to put black Atlanta to do right now. That's a lot of black focus. Exactly. But, you know, that hasn't always been the case. So, you know, there have been historical studies like Maurice Hobson's Legend of the Black Mecca, right? But from an anthropological perspective, you know, can you talk a little bit more about how, not necessarily just outcast, but also just like Atlanta artists in general have kind of reintroduced, reconfigured this idea of what Atlanta means as a geographically black Southern space. Justin: Yeah, yeah, what I love about, I think, particularly black artists, particularly black hip hop and R& B artists who are from Atlanta and who really claim Atlanta is that you can kind of see in many ways I feel like the facades of Atlanta. And I feel like in many ways they deconstruct those facades of Atlanta, particularly black Atlanta. I think that for people who are not from Atlanta, Atlanta black folks are just they’re the bomb, they’re the shit, they do everything. Y’all got the best this, the best that, y’all had the money, y’all had the cars. It's very kind of materialistic in what they see. I come to Atlanta and as a black person, gain material wealth being there could be somebody like people who are doing well there. I think that with artists like OutKast, with artists like goodie Mob, even contemporary artists like, you know, I like 6lack, R&B singer. I think that they really peel back the layers of the fact that Atlanta is a city that has the greatest income inequality of any city in United States. And I think that they offer, I think, through their lyricism that even like 21 Savage… Lots of people, lots of trap artists, they really break down the facade that is, that all that glitters is not gold and how in Atlanta there is that accumulation of wealth for black people, for some black people, but there's also an underbelly of black folks who are struggling and who are kind of like the coals in the furnace that are making the furnace run that gives the wealth to the other people who are wealthy in the city. And I think that oftentimes with their work, they lend voice to that.