Texas hasn’t gotten its due as a major piece in the complex puzzle of American art. We’re here to rectify that. Every two weeks, H. Drew Blackburn will conduct a thoroughly scientific analysis of the 254 integral (one for every county) books, movies, tv shows, albums, podcasts, songs, and magazine articles — you name it — that best exemplify the Texas spirit. These texts, products of immense talent, dig into the marrow of our being. When it’s all said and done and we’ve built The Texas Voyager collection, we’ll (figuratively) head to the Johnson Space Center in Houston and shoot it beyond the atmosphere, into the cosmos. A wise person once posed the question: “What if the aliens are hot?” Hold onto that hope — this is our chance to impress ‘em.
The butterfly effect works in mysterious ways.
Willie Hutch’s mother did something most Black folks did not do in the 1940s. This was the era of the Great Migration when, from 1910-1970, roughly six million Black people moved from the South to major cities in the North, Midwest, and West to escape Jim Crow and find better work opportunities. They were met with a milder form of racism (still racism!), but did stumble upon more access to opportunities. It’s a wonder why, after Hutch was born in Los Angeles, his mother took him and his siblings to Dallas where he grew up.
Had Willie Hutch grown up on the West Coast instead of Texas, he may have kept his given name, William Hutchinson, and lived a regular life. The doo-wop group he formed in high school wouldn’t exist. It’s possible that a passion for music would never have kicked into high gear, and there’d have been no need to find himself back in the City of Angels. He may not have made it to Detroit, where he curried Berry Gordy’s favor writing, composing, and singing music for the crème de la crème of soul music, Motown Records. He wouldn’t have penned “I’ll Be There” for the Jackson 5 and cut records with Marvin Gaye and Aretha Franklin. Forget about Hutch recording soundtracks for Blaxploitation staples “The Mack” and “Foxy Brown.” And if that never happened, “I’ll Choose You,” doesn’t get included in “The Mack,” which in turn means it never ends up getting sampled on Project Pat’s 2002 album “Layin’ da Smack Down,” and subsequently, “Int’l Players Anthem (I Choose You),” would not exist. Who truly knows what would have happened?
It’s strange to think that maybe if Hutch had been a product of the Great Migration, rather than an anomaly, The Jackson 5 might not have released what Michael called the group’s “real breakthrough,” showing the world those brothers weren’t just cute little kids making silly songs, but something more potent. This, of course, could have altered the entire trajectory of Michael Jackson’s career, which transformed pop music as we know it — would “Thriller” have even happened? The rabbit hole is still deep. I can go further, I promise, but the point really is that Hutch, who is seen as a minor figure in soul music by many, is inseparable from its legacy. In fact, he was the catalyst for one of hip-hop’s most ubiquitous songs — one that assembled the genre’s Southern dignitaries like the Avengers.
The personnel credited on “Players Anthem,” released in June 2007, hailed from Memphis (producers DJ Paul and Juicy J of Three 6 Mafia), Atlanta (OutKast), and Houston (UGK of Port Arthur if we’re being specific). Sure, hip-hop was born at sweaty functions in the Bronx where Black, Caribbean, and Latino youth danced to disco, funk, and soul breakbeats. And as the genre developed from party music into the world’s most salient expression of the Black experience, other boroughs put their stamp on making New York City the culture’s Mecca. Yet, ever since OutKast’s Andre 3000 stood on stage in Madison Square Garden during the tense 1995 Source Awards and declared “the South got something to say,” the region — particularly Atlanta — has replaced hip-hop’s birthplace as its most important territory.
For the past three decades, the South has dwarfed every other region in America when it comes to innovation and influence in rap music. Atlanta has its fingerprints on everything. Houston and Memphis’s independent DIY spirit, high-hat heavy 808s production, and interpretations of horror and funk have burrowed deep roots in hip-hop. Southern emcees and producers are now the architects of contemporary flavor. That Golden Age boom-bap sound is delicious to a hip-hop head’s ears, but it’s prehistoric to a Gen Z teen — closer to Duke Ellington than modern.
It really doesn’t matter if you’re young or old: “Players Anthem” is a bonafide classic. Whenever you hear it and wherever you are, you have to rap along as soon as Andre 3000 starts his verse — it’s the perfect manifestation of how his peculiarity sparks genius. Here is a song that is mostly about pimps and sex workers, in which he nimbly speaks about getting married. The real star of the show though is Pimp C, whose twelve-bar verse, full of quotables fit for a classic Blaxploitation film, kicks in just as DJ Paul and Juicy J’s coarse snares rattle speakers.
It would make sense that Pimp C’s verse would hit harder than a pocket full of stones. While he was serving a sentence for probation violation in the aughts, “Choose U” from the aforementioned Project Pat (Juicy J’s older brother, who is also closely affiliated with Three 6 Mafia) album threw the rapper into a state of awe. He couldn’t figure out why the song wasn’t an immediate hit. Pimp C became fixated on putting his touch on the song, calling DJ Paul from behind bars and clamoring for a shot to spit over that beat. As soon as he got out of the pen in December 2005, he couldn’t have hopped into the booth quicker.
At first, “Players Anthem” was supposed to be a UGK and Three 6 Mafia track. They were working on creating a supergroup called Underground Mafia, but the suits at Sony interfered and refused to clear the original version. Instead, OutKast got their hands on the song, the version we all know hit the airways, and they made an all-time great music video to accompany it.
The music video was a promenade featuring southern hip-hop’s Mount Rushmorian groups with cameos galore — Bishop Don “Magic” Juan, Three 6 Mafia, Chamillionaire, T-Pain, Fonzworth Bentley, David Banner, Kardinal Offishall, Nicole Ari Parker, the Dungeon Family’s Big Gipp, DeRay Davis. In retrospect, it marks the end of an era, which is fitting for its wedding theme. Weddings, after all, are just parties celebrating a big transition. The men in that video were becoming elder statesmen, and a new crop of guys like Lil Wayne, Gucci Mane, and Future would soon become Southern kings.
“Player’s Anthem” was Pimp C’s last video appearance before his death caused by complications attributed to his lean (or purple drank) usage on December 4, 2007. OutKast, hip-hop’s greatest duo, hasn’t released another album or done anything new of note since the video’s release. Three 6 Mafia released their final record in 2008. That’s okay though, because “Player’s Anthem,” will always be an essential Southern rap song — probably its most essential — and the deep lore behind it leads down many roads. This is a song that’ll be with us forever.