Prominent cities where Black Culture has evolved into its distinct, unique culture.

[Crawford]

Detroit was probably the wealthiest black population on earth from the Great Depression through the 1970's. That era produced a lot, Motown being the most prominent. But also ton of odd religious and militant sects, now largely forgotten. Shrine of the Black Madonna, NOI spinoffs/rivals, prosperity preachers dabbling in Black Panther militantism, back to Africa movements, etc.

Black neighborhoods, till the 1970's, occupied some of the best neighborhoods in the city. Black growth followed Jewish/WASP flight, through the city's Northwest favored quarter, so middle class black Detroiters generally had larger/nicer housing than middle class white Detroiters of the same era, who were concentrated in the modest newer bungalow neighborhoods. Kinda like LA, the neighborhoods were suburbanish, leafy and auto-oriented from an early era. Boston-Edison, a mansion neighborhood that had housed bigs like Henry Ford, was a black neighborhood by the 1950's.

[pj3000]

Originally Posted by kool maudit

I remember when Boyz n the Hood came out, a lot of the hip hop iconography then was very New York-centric, very tilted towards that sort of 80s South Bronx look, New Jack City, Juice. So I was surprised, after a few years of Eazy Duz It and Straight Outta Compton on the walkman, to see that this fabled Compton looked a lot like where my grandmother lived in Florida.

I mean, you watched a Das EFX or Naughty by Nature video back then, and it was basically like "the guys who make this music live underground" or something. Lots of crumbling brick walls and piles of rocks. I was like 12 and didn't know all that much about these US cities.

Yeah, the whole Compton/NWA/South Central/LA gangsta aesthetic never really “rang true” for me back then, even as a middle school and high school-aged kid. Came across to me as exactly that - an aesthetic.

It seemed so put on to me... like “this is Hollywood trying to make us believe these dudes are so hard... yet it’s 75 and sunny and they’re drinking 40oz on the front porches of their houses that have palm trees in the front yard”.

I always referred to it as “suburb rap”

[kool maudit]

Cities are people though, not just buildings. If people are acting up a lot, even a pretty block will feel tense and disorienting.

I mean my brother was in town in '92 when the riots popped off and he sounded afraid on the phone, I remember that.

[pj3000]

^ of course. I wasn’t making any statement on reality.

It always just had a feel to me that Hollywood took something and ran with it.

[kool maudit]

Fair enough. There's a lot of different thoughts out there about how that happened and how it was close to an era of pretty high visibility for Five Percent and Five Percent-adjacent figures.

[kool maudit]

An another note, it seems like the Somali diaspora is pretty vital at the moment, which is relevant to Stockholm although it hasn't gelled here in the way it has in London or Toronto.

[pj3000]

Originally Posted by kool maudit

Fair enough. There's a lot of different thoughts out there about how that happened and how it was close to an era of pretty high visibility for Five Percent and Five Percent-adjacent figures.

Interesting... I never knew of much affiliation between five percent and west coast hip hop figures, specifically the “south central”/“gangsta” set. Or you mean drawing attention away from the affiliation with the more “mindful” rappers of the east coast primarily?

[Crawford]

Re. the neighborhood aesthetics, it's weird that we naturally assume that certain built typologies are somehow "harder" or contribute to greater pathologies.

For some reason, "black American hood" was stereotyped in a South Bronx-ish manner, with apartment blocks, towering housing projects and the like, when that's a pretty extreme outlier for black American neighborhoods. Even odder, the South Bronx was never a majority, or even plurality black neighborhood. It generally transitioned from Jewish or Irish to Puerto Rican or Dominican.

Most black Americans have lived in suburban, auto-oriented environments for generations, whether upper class areas or the hood. This is especially true in the South.

[BigDipper 80]

Dayton doesn't seem to get much national credit for being the cradle of Funk music outside of hip-hop historians and niche music fans. The Ohio Players, Lakeside, Zapp, Slave, Dayton, and Sun all came from the Miami Valley, and Bootsy Collins is from just down the road in Cincinnati.

Ohio in general was one of the major nexuses of the abolitionist movement, reflected particularly in Oberlin College being the oldest US college to accept black students, and Wilberforce University being the first private HBCU in the country.

[pj3000]

^^ sure, I don’t think it’s necessarily stereotyped as “south Bronx” (that’s obviously the extreme image that gets put out there), but I get what you’re saying.

The place “where my grandmother lived in Florida”, as kool maudit noted, just didn’t seem to fit the stereotype of the type of place from which a decidedly urban form of music and style could emanate.

[Segun]

LA: I definitely knew what it was. I remember feeling a bit of fear when a car would pull up bumping that trademark bass/soul clap combo from G-Funk.

If you drive far South enough in Chicago, you’re bound to wind up in the bungalow belt, which has a mix of drive in businesses and drive-up one story commercial districts. The scale can easily be mixed and matched with LA. Also, the gang culture led Chicago to identify with LA.

Closer to downtown you have (or had) big apartment buildings, big screeching El trains, walk up 3 flats, and endless blocks of high rise projects, which led us to a “Monie in the middle” situation of identifying with Hip Hop, where Ice Cube was the hottest rapper on the streets, then Jay-Z years down the line. For a few years, Chicago was like an subsidiary of Ruff Ryders, then Roc-A-Fella records, then Cash Money came out and everyone was wearing large white T’s. Then came the Pink Ts from Camron and the Dipset movement. That lasted a year. Celebs from these camps would often be found on the streets of Chicago. Chicago was always a major market for Southern acts such as UGK, and Eightball and MJG. Rap A Lot records from Houston recruited some Chicago acts. Only with Drill music did you see other cities copying Chicago

Sometimes the dusty, windswept, brown and tan colored buildings and prairie grass of the Midwest give a very tundra-like vibe, especially in the slums. That’s one aspect of the Midwest that differs from the East Coast, which is packed closer together and more haphazard and clunky. Bizarre.

It’s interesting you mentioned Moorish architecture, because a major Chicago gang, offshoot of the Black P Stone Rangers, adopted Moorish philosophy (Mo’s for short), they even built a temple. https://www.kentimmerman.com/rukn.htm

And their rivals were the more Hebrew based Folks, or Gangsta Disciples, with the 6 point Star of David as their sign. https://www.pinterest.com/moneymakem...ter-disciples/

Then theres the Vice Lords, who operated out the “Holy City” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Almighty_Vice_Lord_Nation

Speaking of Gangs, the Bay Area is the only metropolitan area in the US without a presence of Chicago-based or Los Angeles-based Black gangs. (They have Sureños and Norteños though). Crime is done independently, kind of like NYC in the 80s. In the Bay you can wear bight colorful outfits without having to worry about your safety.

Miami also has a home grown gang that went nationwide, the Haitian-based Zoe Pound.

[iheartthed]

Some of you have never watched an episode of Good Times and it shows, lol.

[Yuri]

People mentioned Rio de Janeiro and Salvador, cities widely known for their strong African presence, but another interesting one in Brazil would be Porto Alegre and other older cities in Rio Grande do Sul.

The state is one of the whitest in Brazil (over 80%), but before the massive European immigration in the 19th century, Rio Grande do Sul had a more traditional Portuguese/Spanish farm owners and African slaves colonial society. Both groups were later swamped by Italians and Germans, but they left a strong legacy. The "white part" pampa, gaucho, culture is more known, while the African one is not well-known outside the state. Even Brazilians from other parts of the countries are often surprised by non-White people in southern states.

Porto Alegre candomblé and umbanda scene is almost as strong as Rio de Janeiro and Salvador despite Black population being much smaller.

Minas Gerais state, known for its countless Portuguese colonial towns, has a big Black population and unlike Rio and Salvador, it has a more peculiar rural character.

[Segun]

Originally Posted by yuriandrade

Porto Alegre candomblé and umbanda scene is almost as strong as Rio de Janeiro and Salvador despite Black population being much smaller.

This fascinates me, as you’ll only see small relics of Voodoo in Louisiana and Florida. I don’t know if anyone practices Mississippi Hoodoo anymore. Today, there is a rekindled interest in Ifá in the modern Black Arts movement. They share many of the same Orishas and Loas.

[Yuri]

Originally Posted by Segun

This fascinates me, as you’ll only see small relics of Voodoo in Louisiana and Florida. I don’t know if anyone practices Mississippi Hoodoo anymore. Today, there is a rekindled interest in Ifá in the modern Black Arts movement. They share many of the same Orishas and Loas.

In Brazil it's also a small relic as well. It comprises only 0.3% of population and declining, as it's more and more besieged by the evangelicals rise that appeals mostly to the urban low middle-class, which is like 80% non-White.

And all over history, they suffered intense prejudice as their religion has been seen as "demonic".

[JManc]

Originally Posted by pj3000

Yeah, the whole Compton/NWA/South Central/LA gangsta aesthetic never really “rang true” for me back then, even as a middle school and high school-aged kid. Came across to me as exactly that - an aesthetic.

It seemed so put on to me... like “this is Hollywood trying to make us believe these dudes are so hard... yet it’s 75 and sunny and they’re drinking 40oz on the front porches of their houses that have palm trees in the front yard”.

I always referred to it as “suburb rap”

Not me. The setting seemed pretty genuine and the backdrop is pretty similar to what you find throughout the south. Here in Houston for example, the vast majority of the AA population live in suburbanish areas.

[LosAngelesSportsFan]

Originally Posted by Segun

LA: I definitely knew what it was. I remember feeling a bit of fear when a car would pull up bumping that trademark bass/soul clap combo from G-Funk.

If you drive far South enough in Chicago, you’re bound to wind up in the bungalow belt, which has a mix of drive in businesses and drive-up one story commercial districts. The scale can easily be mixed and matched with LA. Also, the gang culture led Chicago to identify with LA.

Closer to downtown you have (or had) big apartment buildings, big screeching El trains, walk up 3 flats, and endless blocks of high rise projects, which led us to a “Monie in the middle” situation of identifying with Hip Hop, where Ice Cube was the hottest rapper on the streets, then Jay-Z years down the line. For a few years, Chicago was like an subsidiary of Ruff Ryders, then Roc-A-Fella records, then Cash Money came out and everyone was wearing large white T’s. Then came the Pink Ts from Camron and the Dipset movement. That lasted a year. Celebs from these camps would often be found on the streets of Chicago. Chicago was always a major market for Southern acts such as UGK, and Eightball and MJG. Rap A Lot records from Houston recruited some Chicago acts. Only with Drill music did you see other cities copying Chicago

Sometimes the dusty, windswept, brown and tan colored buildings and prairie grass of the Midwest give a very tundra-like vibe, especially in the slums. That’s one aspect of the Midwest that differs from the East Coast, which is packed closer together and more haphazard and clunky. Bizarre.

It’s interesting you mentioned Moorish architecture, because a major Chicago gang, offshoot of the Black P Stone Rangers, adopted Moorish philosophy (Mo’s for short), they even built a temple. https://www.kentimmerman.com/rukn.htm

And their rivals were the more Hebrew based Folks, or Gangsta Disciples, with the 6 point Star of David as their sign. https://www.pinterest.com/moneymakem...ter-disciples/

Then theres the Vice Lords, who operated out the “Holy City” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Almighty_Vice_Lord_Nation

Speaking of Gangs, the Bay Area is the only metropolitan area in the US without a presence of Chicago-based or Los Angeles-based Black gangs. (They have Sureños and Norteños though). Crime is done independently, kind of like NYC in the 80s. In the Bay you can wear bight colorful outfits without having to worry about your safety.

Miami also has a home grown gang that went nationwide, the Haitian-based Zoe Pound.

Aren't there bloods and crops sets in the bay area? I find it hard to believe that there aren't

[Segun]

^ I’m just basing it off of talk from videos and chronicles of the streets. There’s a few videos entitled “Why Bloods and Crips aren’t in the Bay”, it’s also absent in Bay Area gangsta rap.

https://therealstreetz.com/2019/01/0...a-gangs-hoods/

https://www.sfweekly.com/news/crip-l...-street-gangs/

[pj3000]

Originally Posted by JManc

Not me. The setting seemed pretty genuine and the backdrop is pretty similar to what you find throughout the south. Here in Houston for example, the vast majority of the AA population live in suburbanish areas.

Yeah, I know. Like I said above, I wasn't really making a statement about reality... and certainly not at all about where people live.

I'm talking about the diametrically-opposed aesthetic change in setting and image, from a decidedly northern concrete jungle to fully sun-soaked suburban sprawl. NY vs. LA, if you will. This image change viewed through the lens of a middle school-aged kid, who's environment and influence were much more the former.

And an image that was then cultivated and turbocharged by Hollywood/record industry because they knew who their audience target really was and what that target audience really wanted to consume... that being the whole gangbangers/pimps/hos package of "blackness".

[Wigs]

Originally Posted by Segun

I remember hearing ads for the LCBO in Toronto having a conversation between a group of Black Women with them using cadences and colloquial expressions like "Girrrrrrllllll....you KNOW..." I feel like I don't want to mention some roundabout influence from Drake, but I also feel it's not off the table.

Toronto is definitely the center of rap/hiphop/"urban" music in Canada.
It all started with Maestro Fresh Wes back in 1989
• Video Link

Too many to mention, but a lot of influential Toronto musical artists of the past 20-25 years have West Indies roots. I know in HS during the latter 90s we all looked up to these artists as being our own (distinctly Canadian/Torontonians) instead of West coast LA/ East coast NYC vibe.

Recently megastars Drake and The Weeknd have helped put Toronto on the map for Gen Z.
Below, Drake and Kardinal Offishal talk about influence of Maestro Fresh Wes
• Video Link


(I'm sure a Torontonian could delve way deeper into the history of Toronto's Black culture)