Is Rap Really Going Regional Again?

Jordan W. Carter, a musician and teacher, grew up in Atlanta, where his tastes began to crystalize around middle school. Like many kids his age, he was drawn to the “futuristic” sound taking over the city—bright, playful, and forward-looking, sparked by the success of Travis Porter’s “Black Boy White Boy,” a track that managed to make dressing in American Eagle and Polo feel like peak cool.

“It was very very trendy, and the music made it so cool because the music was so ahead of his time,” Carter says. “All the songs that we listen to now that the world is saying this is such good shit, this is stuff that people was doing literally 15 years ago.”

The “good shit” Carter is talking about today comes in the form of Metro Boomin Presents: A Futuristic Summa (Hosted by DJ Spinz). The mixtape is both a time capsule and a celebration, brimming with Atlanta slang, chunky major chords, and raps about buying out half the mall in one trip. With features from Gucci Mane, Young Dro, Rocko, 21 Savage, Roscoe Dash, Waka Flocka Flame, Travis Porter, and more, the tape pays homage to the post-snap, pre-trap age of Atlanta, an era when humor and style often mattered more than anything else.

“What was so distinctive about that era it was rarely ever about violence,” Carter says. “We was more so concerned with robbing the mall for some True Religion. I was honestly floored [listening to the album]. It struck every chord in my body that’s Atlanta.”

Atlanta fans like Carter have reveled in the nostalgia, posting TikToks about the thrill of making it into the club before 11 p.m. and dubbing the rest of the season a “futuristic summa.” Outside of Atlanta, though, the project was met with confusion. Critics questioned who the mixtape was for and why Metro would pivot so abruptly after his blockbuster run with Future.

“Metro, I’m taking you off of my instant purchase list,” Joe Budden said on his podcast after the mixtape’s release. “You’ve been on a run, and I clicked this shit…I didn’t know nothing about no 2000s shit he was doing…I cut it off immediately—never to return to it.”

Metro defended his choice, tweeting that it was “time for music to get back regional.”

He added, “Social media got everybody tryna do the same thing. Let’s get back to actual culture and regional identity.”

But did rap every really stop being regional? Megan Thee Stallion recently doubled down on her Houston roots, Kendrick Lamar’s GNX bled California, and sexy drill has shape-shifted several times in NYC, while Griselda clings to its Buffalo grit. Even Tyler, the Creator threaded elements of Cali into his dance-leaning Don’t Tap the Glass. Rap, by its very nature, has always been tethered to geography. So why is this debate popping up now?

"Music has always been regional, but there's also always been artists being influenced by other regions,” Carter said. “When Chicago came along with the drill stuff, it seemed like the whole world gravitated towards that.”

Alphonse Pierre, a critic at Pitchfork, agreed. “I don't think a comeback is a thing,” he said. “I think it's always been there. Rap is about where you're from. I don’t agree with what Metro said because it’s always been that to me.”

To Pierre, if this feels new at all, it’s only to listeners who weren’t paying close attention in the first place.

“If you are digging and looking, especially below the top of the surface, everything is regional," he said. "A year or two ago, I went to Milwaukee just to do a deep dive on the Milwaukee rap scene. L.A. rappers always sound like L.A. rappers. Texas rap always sounds like Texas rap."

DeMicia Inman, a staff writer at Vibe, echoed that sentiment.

“When I listen to artists from Milwaukee, I know they're from Milwaukee," she said. "When I listen to rappers from Detroit, I know they're from Detroit. When I listen to rappers from Atlanta, even before Metro dropped, it will sound like Atlanta, for the most part.”

“In New York, we’re a headphone culture. We take the train; we're going places, so we go for lyrical, hip-hop,” says Sickamore, the founder of Three Times Louder, a Brooklyn-based label focused on building the next wave New York artists. “Atlanta loves clubs, so they like the bass, the 808. In California, they like to drive, so they like riding music. When you really break it down, it's always been regional.”

“There’s less pressure to chart and stay on top and more freedom and more creative drive to look within and say, ‘Let’s not chase those charts. Let’s do something that sounds like us.’”

DeMicia Inman

Part of why Metro’s argument resonates now is less about a true “return” and more about context. Rap has loosened its grip on the Billboard singles charts, creating room for experimentation, Imman hypothesized.

“There’s less pressure to chart and stay on top and more freedom and more creative drive to look within and say, ‘Let’s not chase those charts. Let’s do something that sounds like us, that represents who we are and what we have to say,’” Inman explained.

Technology has also blurred lines. Pre-streaming, what you listened to was shaped by geography—your local radio station, the tapes you could get your hands on, the CD your cousin burned. Spotify and TikTok flattened those boundaries.

“If I'm 21 years old, I don't really know a world without Spotify and Apple Music,” Sickamore said. “Now, people can listen to everything at the same time with no real investment. A lot of it has to [do] with the technology of the time and how people consume music."

At the same time, there’s a mounting craving for authenticity in an era when music, like so much else, risks being overpowered by algorithms. With streaming services dictating playlists through recommendation systems, songs, albums, and artists almost become interchangeable. People’s seeming desire to listen to music grounded in local slang, textures, and cadences becomes a way to cut through the noise with something that feels irreplaceable.

“Especially as people start to think about things like AI and things that are manufactured and things like that, I think people are searching for things that feel real, whether it's music or movies or writing or whatever,” Pierre said. “People want to hear things that are real. And when you feel connected to a place, it feels real.”

Carter saw this first hand on his socials.

“I recently made a TikTok that went viral about Metro's album, and people from that are outside of Atlanta were commenting, ‘I wish there was something like this for Texas,’ he recalls. “What is people from Mississippi on? What people from Memphis on? People are looking for ways to express themselves through the music. Even when it's with this album coming out, I feel like strangers will be able to understand me a little bit more because there's something to call back to that’s from my homeland.”

“People want to hear things that are real. And when you feel connected to a place, it feels real.”

Alphonse Pierre

That hunger for the local could very well shape rap’s trajectory. Memphis rapper Duke Deuce, who has carved out a reputation by doubling down on his city’s crunk and club rap heritage, views the renewed emphasis on regionalism not as a step backward but as something positive.

“I honestly want to hear more different music from different places. That makes it more fun," he says. "It brings the fun back into the industry, the music. You get a lot of different flavors of different things, so it won't be as boring. It'll always be interesting.”

For Deuce and others, the point isn’t that one regional style should dominate but that the diversity itself is what ensures rap is exciting and keeps the risk of it being streamlined into sameness at bay.

“That's kind of how it was back in the day,” he says. “You going to get all type of shit: the crunk shit, the reggae, the go-go music from D.C. It was fun back then.”

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