Janice Headley revisits 1992 with the track “Tennessee” by Arrested Development, a Grammy-Award-winning single inspired by grief on an immediate and intergenerational level.
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Janice Headley revisits 1992 with the track “Tennessee” by Arrested Development. It's a Grammy-Award-winning single inspired by grief on an immediate level — as well as an intergenerational level.
Written and produced by Janice Headley.
Mixed and mastered by Roddy Nikpour.
Support the podcast: kexp.org/50hiphop
In 1992, the landscape of hip-hop was evolving, paving the way for a new group from Atlanta, Georgia to emerge… a group that prioritized peace, love, and positivity… a group called Arrested Development.
One big goal for them was to stand out from other hip-hop groups at the time — both in their sound and in their lyrics. Here’s frontman Todd Thomas, better known as Speech, speaking on the podcast Life of the Record.
And go deep they did. Formed in 1988, Arrested Development brought a newfound earnestness to the hip-hop scene. Their debut album came out in March 1992, titled 3 Years, 5 Months and 2 Days in the Life Of…, a cheeky reference to the length of time it took for the band to land a record contract.
Songs spoke passionately about social causes, like the housing crisis, on the single “Mr. Wendall”:
Here, have a dollar
In fact, no brotherman here, have two
Two dollars means a snack for me
But it means a big deal to you
Be strong, serve God only
Know that if you do, beautiful heaven awaits
That's the poem I wrote for the first time
I saw a man with no clothes, no money, no plate
And they spoke against violence on their top ten single “People Everyday":
The moral of the story is
You better look very hard at who you step into
'Cause you might get killed, or shot, and it's not worth it
Africans need to be loving each other, and unite
Arrested Development were a breath of fresh air in contrast to the style of “gangsta rap” that was dominating the hip-hop charts at the time. Speech spoke to this in an interview with Vlad TV:
This refreshing perspective truly shines on the band’s breakout hit, “Tennessee.”
This song was inspired by two losses in Speech’s family — first, his grandmother, who died of a heart attack, and just a week later, his brother, who died of an asthma attack. “Tennessee” is both a celebration of ancestry and a search for answers amid two tragic deaths. Here’s Speech again on the podcast Life of the Record.
As “Tennessee” pays tribute to Speech’s grandmother, it also honors Black women throughout generations, as he explains in the 1994 hip-hop documentary, Looking for the Perfect Beat.
The song also gives space for Speech to reflect on the history of slavery in his own family — as recently as his great grandmother. This reality makes him see the world differently, where something as harmless as a tree becomes a symbol of death.
Where the ghost of childhood haunts me
Walk the roads my forefathers walked
Climb the trees my forefathers hung from
Ask those trees for all their wisdom
They tell me my ears are so young (Home)
Go back, from whence you came (Home)
My family tree, my family name (Home)
For some strange reason it had to be (Home)
He guided me to Tennessee (Home)
Here’s Speech again in the documentary Looking for the Perfect Beat.
At the end of our 'Tennessee' video, there’s a picture of two men that were hung from a tree. And I wanted to do that because I wanted people to understand just where we're coming from here in America. What type of past did we come from? Why are we these beasts that we are today, why are we this animal that we are today? Why are some people so angry? Well, that’s maybe why, you know.
The album was both a critical and commercial success. It was named Album of the Year in the Village Voice's Pazz & Jop critics' poll. Rolling Stone magazine named them Band of the Year. And, Arrested Development became the first hip-hop group in history to win the Best New Artist award at the Grammys.
But for Speech and Arrested Development, the biggest prize of all was the success they achieved in using their voice to empower and uplift the Black community, and in bringing Black history and perspectives to a white audience. In Looking for the Perfect Beat, he speaks to the power of hip-hop.
Hip hop has changed the world by infiltrating into white society as being something that gives a view and a look into the sentiments of Black people, the feelings of Black people, and the lifestyles of Black people. And whereas before, it was kept away, now it can't be kept away. It's sort of like soaked in. And to me, communication and the truth can always bring people together. But, you know, people fear what they don't know anything about. And once they start to discover that, you know we’re people, too, that's how it's changed the world.
