整个 1990 年代，一种新型嘻哈音乐开始在美国南部兴起。与其在纽约和加利福尼亚的采样驱动表亲不同，南方嘻哈在传统鼓机编程之上放弃了由现场音乐家演奏的深情的键、布鲁斯贝斯和时髦的休息。尽管休斯顿和新奥尔良帮助奠定了基础，但“肮脏的南方”的震中位于亚特兰大东点社区中心的海德兰和德洛的拐角处。
Throughout the 1990s, a new type of hip hop started bubbling up across the American South. Unlike its sample-driven cousins in New York and California, Southern hip hop dropped soulful keys, bluesy bass lines, and funky breaks played by live musicians on top of traditional drum machine programming. And although Houston and New Orleans helped lay the groundwork, the epicenter of the “Dirty South” was at the corner of Headland and Delowe, in the heart of Atlanta’s East Point neighborhood.