Is the South the Epicenter of Coonery?

Hip hop has its origins in Bronx, NY during the early 1980's, where it was birthed by a generation of African-American youth who were rebelling against the musical status quo. The fever of the disco culture held no relevance to Black youth, who were alienated by music which failed to recognize the realities of the Black experience. Primary amongst the many elements that fueled this movement were the spirit of independent expression and social consciousness that were principle to this new thing called "rap music". How, then, has this movement shifted its centrality to the South and (de)evolved into music predominantly characterized by the absence of creativity, lack of social commentary, and downright coonery?

The urban dictionary defines coonery as: antics and behavior displayed by certain underclass individuals in the Black culture, the end result being the embarrassment of the rest of the upstanding Black community. For clarification, some common examples of this are readily displayed daily on the BET network via reality shows, music videos, and sometimes even Bobby Jones' gospel. Contrary to the sentiment shared by most sympathizers of the new era of hip-hop, I do not reject it because I am "hating" (the perennial scapegoat for good criticism), but because it is misogynistic, morally vacant, and depictive of hyper sexuality that borders the perverse. This indictment surely doesn't apply to all Southern rappers, but sadly I could list the exceptions with less than ten fingers.

Is this negative evaluation of the state of hip-hop simply the product of rap's first generational shift? After all, we all have personal experience of the rift between parents and their children regarding the quality of music. Is this minstrel-like music endemic to the South or is this criticism the result of jealousy over the region's current commercial domination of the genre? The biggest tragedy, perhaps, is that with the knowledge that commercial success in rap now depends on the Southern model, most Northern rappers have capitulated to these pressures and are abandoning their own creativity; see Fabolous and Fat Joe. Even Jay-Z conceded in the prelude on the Kingdom Come album that he "would write it" if people "would buy it".

While it's true that you can't argue one's tastes, there is nothing to argue concerning the dance-crazed, lyrically impoverished music that seems to have its stronghold in the South (Atlanta*clearing my throat). With the exception of Jerry Springer, White people don't give their White trash a stage to perpetuate negative stereotypes, so why do we Black people insist on giving the niggers the strongest voice among us?