The best rapper from all 50 states

South Dakota

Artist – Various

Years Active – 2012?

Notable Track – “WTF!?? South Dakota Rappers (cypher)”

Sample Rhyme (from Frank Villon):

“I’m Charles Bronson bitch, with blood soaked pajamas on

You get in the tranq while I’m getting my cannon on

To many Mickeys all night and you think you can pick a fight

Y’all watching me till I’m outside of your window like, ‘Hello'”

—

Underground rap communities are a fairly unique thing in music. The infrastructure and logistics to, say, start a garage band aren’t always practical. Even the world’s many aspiring DJs need to be able to afford a semi-decent laptop.

Rap, in contrast, doesn’t need all that much to begin to sprout. A community center, an open mike night, a closed-for-the-day bookstore … these are all venues where communities can gather and experiment or dazzle or just practice.

South Dakota — and so many other states in the union — seems particularly ripe for this kind of development. It’s not as if there’s a market in Sioux Falls for rappers to regularly perform on stage. So instead they gather in loose groups and battle, record and support each other. It’s a comforting and encouraging thing to see rap emerge out of even the most sparsely populated places.

Next: Tennessee