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 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 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 … 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. Cause they the good side, the party side, the wonderful wealthy side, but also, you dig into the narratives. I think about “Toilet Tissue,” that's one of my favorite OutKast songs, just about how that's talking about, okay, a woman trying to really have an abortion, can't get an abortion, so what happens? Well she’s a teenager, she’s fourteen. Yeah, she’s fourteen years old? So, I think often I think that's why I think Atlanta artists really peel back the layers of that kind of decadent facade that I think that people get about black Atlanta and they're like, Okay, yeah, it’s nice and you come down here and visit and it looks really good. But then he pulled out the layers that really show you what’s happening for people who live here.

Regina: You did it. We're gonna go there. We're talking about the trap. We had a really interesting conversation a few months back about how different areas of Atlanta, trap meant something different. So, it's like, what trap meant for T.I. coming out of Bankhead is different than somebody else, like , for example, talking about trapping out of Gwinnett that's a long way to trap, out of Gwinnett. So can talk to me a little bit more about me, like, you know, trap isn't anything new, but it's really fascinating, especially for me, how it has, like, exploded in mainstream. You have, like, all trap, everything. Global, even. Yes. So, I'm just curious, you know?

Justin: You’ve heard of EDM trap? Yeah. Yeah. There’s EDM now. What?

Regina: I mean, like okay, so I had a student who told me, like Katy Perry's Dark Horse was trap, and I was ready to throw all my markers at her. And the reason I was ready to throw all my markers at her was cause I was like, first of all, trap isn't glorious. I really don't know about no white folks in the trap [laugh]. So, can you talk a little bit about, like, how trap helps us think about these geographic locations in the South and how they manifest.

Okay. Because, you know, after our conversation, I thought about it, and I talked to a couple of friends of mine, and I realized to me, thinking about the elements of trap music as it came together in Atlanta I feel like just speaking purely is somebody who, not as a scholar, but somebody who grew up in Atlanta and who has seen it. I feel like, you know, growing up, for us Three 6 Mafia was a really, really big, really, really big deal for us, kind of culturally also sonically. I think that the instrumentation, the way that they actually made the production style of kind of Juicy J--especially in the 90s, early 2000s, for us that was like, okay, that's sonically what we want to listen to. I think that in many ways, trap, the elements of trap, began also, I think in Memphis, I think lots of it and I think you can't say it came from Memphis. I think that lots of elements of it came from that production style from Memphis.

Regina: Memphis people gonna come for you, you know that, right?

Justin: Well, they don't believe that?

[laugh]

They think that they originated it?

Regina: I mean, like, you know depending on who you talk to I mean like if there is a debate about the origins of trap, then Memphis and Atlanta are definitely in the running.

Justin: Right. So, I definitely want to pay respect to Memphis but I think that growing up in Atlanta for me it was funny because when T.I. talked about trap music, of course, and him saying he coined the term or he was the first person who put the term on, I think about trap in terms of kind of subject matter and also sonically what the music does. And for me, I think about contemporary trap that's popular now, that sound for me emerged in East Atlanta. That's a sound, that kind of sound that Zaytoven and Gucci helped to build. (And Shawty Red) They helped to kind of cultivate that sound. And to me, I think that that when I hear it I just think of East Atlanta. I think of East Atlanta when I hear like that kind of trap music, however, T.I. being from the West Side, it's about the subject matter. I think about T.I. I think about Young Jeezy like the subject matter of that…Yes, that's trap music…But I think that oftentimes – does it make sense to kind of delineate between the subject matter and sonically? I think that there's a trap sound that I think the world has taken up and kind of tried to work with. And now you have EDM Trap, and they're kind of used elements of the East Atlanta kind of sound and what they're doing. But I think that in Atlanta itself, I think that you have trap music that's Eastside driven, you have trap music from the West side. Then, of course, you have Migos from the North. I think that they all bring something different because they all have different kind of black experiences. I think that they kind of experience and visualize the trap in different ways. If you're if you're from East Lake and you saw what happened in East Lake with the redevelopment gentrification of East Lake, ok that produces a certain kind of, I think, urgency of sound with what's happening in East Atlanta, which, in the case of being pushed out of East Atlanta. I think on the west side you know, I think about growing up, listening to OutKast, Killer Mike, you know, T.I. and for us on the west side, there wasn't that same sense of kind of like being pushed out urgency its more about, Black folk have always been on the West side. We've always lived here. We've got high schools here, we’ve got institutions here in west side that's how we live. We just comfortable here like that. Even though we still face those issues for real at the time, growing up didn't seem so urgent because I didn't see, I think now, I talked about in my interview with symposium about saying, like people living on Cascade. You know, I was driving down Cascade, go to The Beautiful restaurant and I saw somebody white living two doors from the Beautiful restaurant. I'm like, when did white people live on Cascade again. They left Cascade en masse in the sixties, and then now they're coming back up, you know, from the West End up through Cascade. So, I think in the Westside, people are feeling that crunch of gentrification.

I think that oftentimes the sound and the way that music is expressed reflects the social conditions of the black people who were living there, and I think that that's why when I hear that thumping, that melodic sound, I'm like, okay, East Atlanta that just like these feel like East Atlanta. That's how in my mind, kind of a more… On the Westside it sounds a bit different. It's a bit more soulful, I think. Not that it's not soulful, but I think that the melodies and the chord progression is a bit more soulful R&B infused. But I feel like trap from the East Atlanta, it just feels most more urgent. And I think that makes me think about just how living conditions for black people in those areas are different. And they're facing different forces that are trying to kind of contain them or exclude them. And then the music emerges in that context.

Regina: So final question. So, we all know that Atlanta is now known as like the music capital, pretty much like of the world right now. You know, everybody come to Atlanta and they don’t want to leave, right? Right. You know what I’m saying. But, you know, as an anthropologist, you know how can music help us really understand this current social landscape of Atlanta and you know, where do we go from there? How do we how do we continue to like, document and evolve how we understand what Atlanta? Especially Black Atlanta to mean?

Justin: Yeah, yeah, I think it's important to always say Black Atlanta because to make it clear that we're talking specifically about black folks who engaged, who even live in Atlanta from Atlanta or engaged with Atlanta meaningfully. I think it's important to always make that note because I think white Atlanta is totally different from Black Atlanta, in many different ways. I think that when people are thinking of Atlanta, they're thinking of Black Atlanta. So, I think that just would just say that then. So, I think I think about some contemporary artists that I really like, like Earthgang, I like Earth Gang a lot. I like 6lack, and I think that – Raury? I love Raury. I love what Raury's doing. I love his artistry and how he's trying to reshape this whole corporate-driven, kind of industry thing. I think that really thinking about the ways that younger artists are taking up music and what they see, and how they find their voice in Atlanta and how they're thinking of certain issues in Atlanta and certain social issues in Atlanta, I think that's was useful. I think that by trying to figure out, for the younger generation, you know, those who aren’t experienced in the industry have accumulated lots of money and now they're rapping about what they do every day as a rich person.

The people who are really hustling, who are hungry, who are young, they're speaking the truth of Atlanta right now. I think that they're speaking about the violence in Atlanta, they’re speaking about the inequality in Atlanta, they’re speaking about, you know, loving it, loving Atlanta, loving being from Atlanta, living and dying in Atlanta. And I think that you know it's important we don't kind of talk about the negative so much, because I think that although our lives are kind of constrained by that violence, they're not totally subsumed by it. So, I think that in many ways they're getting into the ways that our lives are conditioned, and Katherine McKittrick, she says, she speaks on this a lot in her work, is just that kind of black life is kind of overdetermined by violence, but not totally it's not kind of subsumed by it. I think that the best of young Atlanta artists are talking about really, how to – the joys and pains and the loves and the hates and violence and the beauty of being black in Atlanta and being young in Atlanta. But I think living in a context of the greatest income inequality of any city in the United States and then being able to see black people you know who you feel like have accumulated a certain amount of wealth and then being able to see and touch them. Almost like you can, you can touch people. You can see celebrities here, you can see that. But then also thinking about my life, and I don't have access to that, though I'm still trying to find a job. I'm working two and three part time jobs. I can't get full time employment. I worked at the airport, I worked at…you know, just trying to figure out how the young people, young black people that were trying to hustle to make their way and how hard it is for them. And I think that the contradiction of having that black wealth staring at you every single day and being a young person trying to forget how to make my way within that. That explains the contradictory nature of Atlanta, and that's why I love the Atlanta TV show.

I think that Atlanta is a site of contradiction, and that makes that makes it beautiful to me. That makes it enriching, and it makes it really powerful. But I think that it's a site of total contradictions, even reading on Mo’s book on Black Atlanta and about the child murders, and about how, at the same time as you have the first black mayor of Atlanta, you had the Atlanta child murders making the backdrop, and it's funny because I think in the OutKast Bombs Over Baghdad video, I showed it in one of my classes last semester, and I showed them how, as Dre is running through that purple field, the housing projects had like the faces of the children who were killed at that time. So, like if you stopped I think even in the uhmm…if you go way back in the Blackberry Molasses video with Mista, those housing projects, before they were torn down, the faces of the children who were killed were murals on the project houses where they would say, “Stop. Watch, Care, Look!” And that being the backdrop, too, the glittering political success of Black Atlanta and the child murders.

Regina: Atlanta the city too busy to hate.

Justin: Yes. And black children are being killed. So, I think that that contradiction is what I love about Atlanta. But it is also important part it filters through the art of the people who are from Atlanta, who make music about Atlanta.

Regina: Excuse me, Dr. Horsey, y’all taught me a little something something. [laugh] So thank you so much for giving us a little bit of your time.

Justin: No thank you.

Regina: We appreciate you. I’m Dr. Regina Bradley. This is OutKasted Conversations. We'll see you next time. Y’all be easy.