Sadness Hides The Sun: Noz’s darkest rap videos
With the Academy over and the post-mortem depression sinking in, it seems only right that the resident rap scholar Andrew Noz would pick 13 of the saddest southern rap songs ever put to wax
Though the act of slitting your wrists and letting them bleed into a rhyme book can probably be best traced back to Tupac, it's been the Southern states of America that have been holding down the sadness rap in his absence. While their scene rose to prominence on the back of its party music, the best rappers below the Mason Dixon line know when to dip their toes in the cold end of the emotional pond. So here are some choice depressed and depressing Southern rap songs, from dudes who miss their lost loved ones and a few who would rather just be left the fuck alone.
Trae f/ Z-Ro - "No Help" (Rap-A-Lot, 2006)
Houstonian cousins Ro and Trae kick the ever illusive double loner rap routine. Even when they're rapping together they wish they were alone.
Fiend - "Take My Pain" (No Limit, 1998)
DJ Screw f/ Mafio, Big Moe, Lil 3rd, ESG, Hawk & Big Baby - "Feel My Pain" (Mixtape, 1998)
As if New Orlenian Fiend's "Take My Pain" wasn't downerish enough, Houston pioneer DJ Screw stretches the instrumental so the Screwed Up Click could mourn the passing of their partner Fat Pat for twenty plus minutes. In recent years Screw's slow aesthetic has become chic across genres but very few of those interlopters have even tried to translate his pain.
T.I. - "Still Ain't Forgave Myself" (Arista, 2001)
Regret has long been an emotion that T.I. has struggled with as a person and mastered as an artist. Where another rapper would save the "Still Ain't Forgave Myself" slot on their album for blind nostalgia, Tip takes a guilt trip instead.
Playa Fly - "Nobody Needs Nobody" (Super Sigg, 1998)
Setting a high precedent for loner rap, OG Memphis eccentric Playa Fly raps about how he doesn't need you or your help.
Lil Wayne - "Trouble" (Mixtape, 2006)
In his mixtape dominant mid-'00ts prime, Wayne was leaping so rapidly through so many emotional hoops that it was hard to keep pace. This lesser known cut from that era puts him in straight pain-mode, giving an on the ground panorama of post-Katrina New Orleans.
Geto Boys - "I Just Wanna Die" (Rap-A-Lot, 1996)
The Geto Boys were always death-obsessed, but usually in the name of shock value violence. By the mid-point of their career they began to turn that impulse inward and on this Bushwick solo cut he addresses the very real life assisted suicide attempt that left him blind in one eye. ("I Just Wanna Die" wasn't the first time Bushwick told of the incident on record but the weirdly happy production of his own "Ever So Clear" might disqualify it from this list.)
Master P f/ Pimp C - "I Miss My Homies" (No Limit, 1997)
The quintessential dead homies rap song, P's borderline inept bluntness as a rapper only helps to make its sentiment feels more real.
Lil Boosie - "Mind Of Maniac" (Trill Ent, 2009)
Baton Rouge legend Boosie Boo channels his many life frustrations into hard ass rap and the greatest rap video performance in recent memory. He can't be much happier now that he's presently serving a life-sentence on a murder charge.
Scarface - "Suicide Note" (Rap-A-Lot, 2007)
While Mr. Face had never been afraid to delve into dark subject matter, this late period solo track cuts especially deep, even by his standards.
Z-Ro - "Pain" (Straight Profit, 1999)
It was difficult to resist the temptation to take the path of least resistance and just make this an all Z-Ro playlist. The composite sadness in his catalog alone is probably greater than all other rapper's combined.
UGK - "One Day" (Jive, 1996)
Goodie Mob - "I Didn't Ask To Come" (LaFace, 1995)
The dead homies rap song is so common because young black men still become dead homies at an alarmingly high rate. So it's frustratingly inevitable that something so heartfelt has come to be so often burdened by its cliches (cue ironic hipster pour of malt liquor). "One Day" and "I Didn't Ask To Come" sidestep these problems through the chilling imagery of their authors. Pimp C's indignant conversations with God cover more of the why than the what of the problem while Goodie gives death a place, with Cee-Lo freezing in place at his friend's funeral.
