“An event like SoundClash says there are no limits to the type of the custom. We don’t have to stay in a single discipline,” The Suffers lead singer Kam Franklin knowledgeable CassiusLife.
The South doesn’t merely have one factor to say; they’ve a varied combination of voices speaking. Lil Nas X’s genreless domination, Chloe Bailey’s sensual dynamism, Leon Bridges retro soul, and Jack Harlow’s personable bravado dominated normal custom with sounds uniquely their very personal however all with origins throughout the South. The South hasn’t dominated the music commerce for a few years attributable to any monolithic sound, nevertheless by being expansive adequate to foster a bevy of music scenes that not solely co-existed nevertheless went on to have an effect on each other and music scenes all around the world.
That is what made Pink Bull SoundClash a formidable reminder of the South’s musical supremacy. Pink Bull SoundClash is a reside music rivals the place two artists battle it out by performing songs beneath an assortment of pointers in a number of rounds. For the Cowl spherical, artists put their spin on a popular music. Each artist performs their very personal music in a mode completely divergent from their normal sound for The Battle spherical. For the Takeover spherical, the two competing artists perform each other’s songs collectively by one artist starting and the alternative performing the rest of the music midway by way of. The last word spherical, The Wild Card, is the place artists get to convey out a specific customer.
CassiusLife traveled to Atlanta to watch R&B crooner Shelley go in opposition to Compton rapper Westside Boogie in Atlanta. Days later, we frolicked in Houston as hometown soulful heroes The Suffers and New Orleans’ Grammy-nominated jazz fusion band Tank and the Bangas sonically duked it out.
Held on the newly opened spacious venue The Japanese on November 30, Shelley and Westside Boogie carried out on a bifurcated stage with a runway lit with a crimson pink mild on the proper side of the stage and one emanating blue mild on the left. Shelley rocked on the blue side whereas Boogie carried out on the pink sed. Neither one is from Atlanta, and nothing regarding the stage manufacturing uniquely represents Atlanta’s music custom. Nevertheless, as has been the case for Atlanta over the previous 20 years, the custom’s have an effect on is unmistakable as quickly because the music begins.
For the Cowl spherical, Shelley, a Virginia native who frolicked in Los Angeles sooner than transferring to Atlanta, lined Outkast’s heartfelt banger “Roses” with the magnetic temerity of an individual who’s had the Atlanta conventional embedded in his ideas and coronary coronary heart for years. He was able to transform the provision of the music because of the sound is second nature to him. His cowl of Andre 3000’s conversational crooning acquired right here after he ran by way of his private catalog, along with “Cash Machine,” “Get It Myself,” and “Rich and Effectively-known.” Transitioning from his private music to masking a southern hip-hop conventional reveals how inextricable the southern hip-hop legend is to Shelley’s mannequin of R&B. Shelley knowledgeable CassiusLife that Atlanta is a “direct provide” for inspiration due to its quite a few creative neighborhood of Black visionaries, some extent his specific customer performer elaborated on deeper.
“If I didn’t reside in Atlanta, I is likely to be trying to sound like I reside in Atlanta because of so many people are influenced by the Atlanta sound even when usually they don’t notice it’s the Atlanta sound because of it’s coming from any particular person not even from proper right here,” Youngster Tate knowledgeable CassiusLife. “It’s so precise, raw, honest, and true to self. Atlanta is a singular place as far as what’s allowed proper right here. That is doubtless one of many largest melting pots of society. So being proper right here, I acquired all the beautiful juices and gravy mixed in.”
Shelley launched Tate out to hold out her hit single “I AM” in the middle of the Wild Card spherical and despatched the packed Atlanta crowd proper right into a frenzy. Boogie, a traditionally cerebral lyricist who you’ll uncover deep in his feelings sooner than you uncover him down on the dance flooring, admitted to CassiusLife “that [Atlanta] vibe makes me have to make membership songs. Atlanta has influenced me in that sense.” He launched out East Atlanta savior 6lack to the gang’s enthusiastic shock and carried out “PRBLMS,” a music a few man going by way of the problems of his life. Even with a music as darkish as “PRBLMS,” he launched unbridled pleasure from the gang, a testament to the number of the type of Atlanta artists which will start a celebration.
Whereas the development of the Pink Bull SoundClash Atlanta and Pink Bull SoundClash Houston events had been associated, they celebrated the number of Black music throughout the South in distinctly fully totally different manners. The Atlanta current felt additional like a traditional reside efficiency with Atlanta as a result of the headliner. For SoundClash Houston, The Suffers and Tank and the Bangs sonic jostling occurred on ranges that appropriately celebrated each of their space’s respective cultures. Tank and the Bangas had its lead singer Tarriona “Tank” Ball wailing about TSA confiscating her objects and emotions (“TSA”) whereas her band shredded on electrical guitars and threw Mardi Gras beads into the gang whereas performing in entrance of a makeshift creole cottage that seems like they took it correct off the French Quarters. On the alternative side of the big Bayou Music Center was soul/funk seven-person band The Suffers mixing a large band sound with lead singer Kam Franklin’s extremely efficient voice singing about making her strategy to the nice situations (“Take Me To The Good Events”) whereas flanked by two decked out vehicles generally called “Slabs” in Houston with an infinite chrome rim usually reserved for the wheels towering over them. There was an enormous gathering of followers in between the two ranges and solely wanted to flip their head left or correct to get two distinctly southern sounds usually separated by a number of of miles nevertheless united by an imperceptible bond.
“There’s a family connection for many Texans and Louisianans. There’s on a regular basis a well known connection. My godmother’s entire family is from Opelousas, LA. You probably can go to Wal-Mart within the midst of the night and catch a bus to Lake Charles to go gamble. When Hurricane Katrina acquired right here, a number of individuals in New Orleans relocated to Texas, nevertheless that they had been already proper right here,” Houston rap legend Paul Wall knowledgeable CassiusLife. “We already had an infinite Louisiana have an effect on. Other than Screwed Up Click on on, my favorite group rising up was The Scorching Boys. These are the live performance occasions Chamillionaire, and I was going to rising up. Houston is additional bluesy and laid once more at a slower tempo. New Orleans acquired that bounce. They’re polar opposites.”
Wall co-hosted the event from The Suffers side with New Orleans [bounce] legend Enormous Freedia emceeing from Tank and the Bangas side. Wall’s astute commentary regarding the cultural intermingling ensuing from a few years of southerners migrating between cities was saliently obvious all through SoundClash. All through The Takeover spherical, Tank and the Bangas and The Suffers lined each other’s songs, transitioning between each respective music’s distinctive act and the masking act within the midst of the performances. When The Suffers acquired midway by way of bathing the gang throughout the retro soul of their music “Peanuts,” Tank and the Bangas picked up correct the place they left off so seamlessly you wouldn’t be incorrect for contemplating it was initially a collaboration between the two groups. For Ball, the southern sound is as quite a few as they demonstrated at Pink Bull SoundClash because of the myriad of sorts which will coexist in anybody metropolis with out anyone determining.
“We come from an underground, underbelly part of New Orleans that’s often not confirmed. We’re on a regular basis influenced. We’re going to Second Line when Second Line come by way of. And we’re going to go to the Metropolis Mayfield Jazz Membership. Nevertheless, we’re not like that. We made our private sound,” Ball knowledgeable CassiusLife.
By the tip of every of the SoundClash events, it was clear southern musicians are as boundless as they’re quite a few of their abilities. A jazz fusion band from New Orleans can unlock the immutable soul of a grunge rock conventional like Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit” and a Houston funk band put their spin on Bonny Tyler’s vitality ballad “Full Eclipse of the Coronary coronary heart,” which Tank and the Bangas and The Suffers did in the middle of the Cowl spherical, respectively. In response to Franklin, these covers are “exhibiting some left-field stuff from artists we respect that is totally far far from what we do,” whereas nonetheless able to make them their very personal. Whether or not or not it’s out-of-towners infusing their music with Atlanta’s music lineage or merchandise of Houston and New Orleans’s influential sounds, Pink Bull SoundClash was further proof the South has all of the items to say and every strategy to say all of it.
