Lil Jon pioneered the “Crunk” branch of Southern Hip Hop, and he has now revealed where all that energy came from.
The 53-year-old rapper joined Popcast for a chat that was published on Wednesday (March 27), during which he elaborated on spearheading the subculture while looking back at the inspiration behind it.
“I was going to punk clubs in the 80s, I was a skater in the 80s before it was cool,” he said, explaining that the Black kids at his high school in Northwest Atlanta would often ridicule him for wearing combat boots and an army jackets with the anarchy symbol with his “Pee-wee Herman kind of little swoop” hairstyle.
“Skateboarding honestly opened my mind to other cultures, other music,” he continued. “It made me be able to be in a room with people of different ethnicities and be able to have a conversation and relate, ’cause Atlanta is kind of segregated: Black people stay over here, the Mexicans over here, White people over here.
“All kind of kids is skateboarding, and we skateboarding all day. All over the city, we’re spending time together and then going to the skate contest, they’re playing [The] Faction, they’re playing Bad Brains, they’re playing Dead Kennedys. They’re playing all these bands and I’m like … all the bands are in the skate videos, ’cause we were buying the skate videos on VHS.”
The rapper and DJ then recalled attending concerts as he got closer to the culture, singling out a venue called the Metroplex that he described as “the realest punk club in Atlanta” back in the day.
“All of this to say I’ve been in the real punk clubs, I’ve been in real mosh pits, I’ve seen real punk bands, so I know the energy of that […] When you make music, your spirit is recorded into the songs, so my energy from being in those punk clubs — that spirit, that energy is going into the music.”
Listen to the Hip Hop veteran talk about his roots as a musician at the 47:14 mark below:
Lil Jon is best known for getting the party started, but he recently did a 180 and released a guided-meditation album. Last month, he added some context to Total Meditation in an effort to explain his transition.
In late March, the “Turn Down For What” hitmaker stopped by CNN’s King Charles show hosted by Gayle King and Charles Barkley. Over the chat, he explained his unexpected pivot to ambient music.
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When asked about the inspiration behind the 11-track endeavor promoting tranquility and introspection, he answered: “I was turning 50 years old. A lot of things going on in my life, a lot of life changes, health issues.”
“Health is wealth, health is everything. You want to be here for a long time.”
About stepping away from his iconic catchphrases like “Yeah” and “Okay,” Jon shared: “I can’t scream all the time! I have to talk regular sometimes. So of course I can do it. I’m a regular person like everybody else.”