MR. TEN-A-KEY: Memphis' Prodigal Son
Young Buck... Starlito... Charles Huff, all three of these characters play a part in today's tale.
Water wit' the work, Patron on my shirt, And a zip ain't shit; I need a quarter P of Purp
- Young Buck, musician
GET BUCK. It’s one of the great southern hip hop songs of the 2000s, arriving in concert with a fresh emergence of influence on the genre stemming south of the Mason Dixon Line.
A resident of Tennessee, Buck often referred to himself as Mr. “Ten-A-Key” in his lyrics, a play on words, and likely a reference to his alleged drug peddling days in the Volunteer state.
If the topic of today’s article was a focus on which southern states were most prolific in their production of future hip hop stars—much like football players—the states of Georgia and Florida would run away with the title. But through artists like Mr. “Ten-A-Key” Young Buck, Three-Six Mafia, including the likes of Project Pat and Juicy J, Starlito, NLE Choppa, among others, Tennessee more than throws its weight around in this denomination.
Curious to me then, in the early days of my college football fandom, why the state of Tennessee—a decidedly Southern and heavily populated area—was not better at producing great football players like their neighbours.
Having a curiosity about geography and culture, I later learned that there is a distinction between southern Tennessee—an area that borders Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi—and northern Tennessee, with some residents that consider themselves closer in character to those in the Midwest.
Memphis, one of Tennessee’s most prominent football hubs, is on the southern border of the state with Mississippi. As a Canadian, I did not grow up spending much time thinking about this area of the world. In fact, it might have been the movie “The Blindside” that was the first time in my life spending more than five minutes thinking about this area.
The next was in 2018 through UGA’s recruitment of five-star and Mississippi Gatorade Player of the Year Nakobe Dean. Following this recruitment was an educational masterclass for me as someone new to this subculture of college football, and more specifically—high school football recruiting in the south.
Officially, Dean is listed as a former Mississippi prospect from Horn Lake, but unofficially he is from Memphis.
As is the topic of today’s article