SPEECH SPEAKS

Despite not being a native Southerner, Arrested Development’s de facto leader, Todd “Speech” Thomas, spent sweltering summers at his grandmother’s home in Ripley, Tennessee, formative experiences that ultimately birthed the group’s Grammy-winning hit, “Tennessee,” in 1992. As he continued making his annual treks to the South, the Milwaukee-born MC felt the magnetic pull of Atlanta. In 1987, he packed up his belongings and headed to the Art Institute of Atlanta, where he met the future members of Arrested Development.

The group officially formed that same year and quickly caught the attention of local hip-hop fans. Widely considered the antidote to the often violent, misogynistic gangsta rap dominating the West Coast, they made music with a strong, wholesome message. Weaving rich, Afrocentric rhythms into a kaleidoscopic sonic fabric, Arrested Development seamlessly blended their activist spirits into reflective rhymes that centered on spirituality and unity.

After the group won a series of talent shows, former Columbia Records president (and Jermaine Dupri’s father) Michael Maudlin took the newcomers under his proverbial wing and shopped them to several record labels. All of them passed—with one exception.

In 1991, Arrested Development signed a deal with Chrysalis Records, which released their debut album, 3 Years, 5 Months and 2 Days in the Life Of..., the following year, referencing the precise amount of time it took them to land a deal. The album—which included “Tennessee,” “Mr. Wendal” and “People Everyday”—sold more than 500,000 copies within four months of its release (it has since been certified quadruple-platinum by the RIAA). It also earned the group two Grammys, including Best New Artist, the first time a hip-hop group had won the prestigious award. More importantly, the LP helped usher in a new era of “alternative” hip-hop that gave other Atlanta artists—including Outkast, Goodie Mob and Nappy Roots—the runway to take off themselves. Despite his better judgment, Thomas agreed to speak to HITS about Arrested Development’s impact on Atlanta—and the impact the city had on them.

What was the Atlanta music scene like in the early ’90s?

There was a lot of really up-tempo music, like Luke Skywalker [of 2 Live Crew], Miami-bass type of styles that were very much the most prevalent thing, and lyrically talking about pretty much nothing. It was about having a good time, stuff like that. Kilo Ali had a reflective song called “Cocaine (America Has a Problem)” about what was going on in the hood, and that was dope. But other than that, it was pretty much just booty-shaking anthems. I came from Milwaukee, while Eshe and Headliner were from Georgia, so we had real Georgians in the group, and I became a down-South aficionado because I loved being down there spending summers with my grandmother in Tennessee. When I started Arrested Development back in ’87, it was a chance to see the history and warmth of the South, the traditional values and religious values. The South is very influenced by church and gospel, things like that. It’s very important. Those were the things we were trying to bring to the forefront, this mixture of activism and hip-hop, and mixing that with African tunes.

I knew of The Dungeon Family indirectly because one of the brothers who really helped our trajectory helped us get a deal. His name was Ian Burke. He was connected to The Dungeon Family, and he’s the one that created the group TLC. I was also very good friends with Dallas Austin, who’s an Atlanta native. I am very close with Jermaine Dupri too. Jermaine Dupri’s father managed us and got us a record deal. That’s how close these entities were. The way I saw it in the beginning, it was Dallas Austin, myself and my group and Jermaine Dupri. We were the ones who were first jumping off that we knew about.

Was it easier to stand out because your group was so different? As I understand it, your music unintentionally became the antithesis of ’90s gangsta rap.

To be honest, we were hitting the pavement. We were going to record stores and playing our records for the people at the stores, trying to tell them who we were. And we would give them two or three records and see if they could sell any. Back in those days, people at the record stores would also talk to the customers who walked through the door and try to convince them to check this out, check that out, so it was that strategy. Then we were doing a lot of shows, even talent shows. Once we won a few talent shows, we became the hottest band at an Atlanta club called Celebs.

We became known to some of the fans there. We also hit the pavement hard in an area called the West End and Little Five Points. These are two very instrumental areas for Arrested Development’s trajectory. They’re very big cultural touch points for Atlanta. Little Five Points is basically like the Village in New York but smaller, but it’s that same kind of energy. The West End is sort of like Brooklyn; it’s very cultural. We were hitting all the Black colleges, including Spelman, Morehouse, Clark Atlanta University and Temple University. Those are literally within blocks of each other, and they’re all in the West End. You can imagine how much energy there was in a college town.

Who was the first to give Arrested Development a shot?

There were numerous people who wanted to, but the person that we allowed to actually give us that shot was Michael Mauldin, Jermaine Dupri’s father. It wasn’t because Jermaine Dupri was so huge yet; he was just a peer and younger than all of us. His father was basically a businessman. He hadn’t had any successful acts yet, but he did have something to do with the Fresh Fest and bringing hip-hop to Atlanta. He was a connector and knew some things about business that us young kids didn’t know about. We were excited to get with him. He had a few connections in the music industry and shopped us to every label across New York, and none of them accepted us except for Chrysalis. We signed with them in 1991.

What was that feeling like, to finally get signed to a label?

Without question, it was literally amazing. What people have to imagine nowadays and to put themselves into our shoes is that back then there was no Internet, so there was no way you put out your record by yourself and have a chance to reach a large number of people. You might have a regional or local hit, but it was huge to get signed by a label, because it didn’t happen to just anybody back then. Hip-hop was still burgeoning. It wasn’t just this exceptional art form; it was so new that people still weren’t exactly sure how to deal with samples. To get a record deal was life-changing as far as what the possibilities could be. It wasn’t life-changing moneywise. It’s not like you made a lot of money. Our first deal, I forget exactly how much, but it might have been for like $15,000 or something. That was a single deal. Our single was supposed to be “Mr. Wendal” on side A and “Matthew” on side B. And during that time period, my grandmother passed away, and then my brother passed away that same week.

The same week?

Yeah, I talk about it in the first verse of “Tennessee,” where I say, “My grandma passed, my brother’s gone/ I never at once felt so alone.”

Ah, I always knew the grandmother connection, but I didn’t catch the brother reference. I was watching the “Hip Hop Saves Lives” video with you, Chuck D and Grandmaster Caz. You are still so steadfast in your message. I hate that people say hip-hop is a young man’s game.

I don’t like that. In fact, it’s super-destructive, because no other genre gets that kind of treatment. In other words, if you’re a great rock artist, you’re allowed to age. How old are the members of The Rolling Stones? 80?

Yes, and Paul McCartney turned 81 in June.

Exactly, and everyone’s still deeply respected. If Paul was to release a record today, everyone’s gonna at least give it a listen and pay attention. Hip-hop gets treated differently. I think The Roots said that it’s unfortunately a disposable thing. I think they say it on their Things Fall Apart album.

One of the songs on our new album is called “Arrogance.” When I say, “30 years plus and rare,” it’s security for us. Financially, I’m just learning about 401ks—and this is 30 years in. But we’re still trying, like so many of us—it’s not just Arrested Development—we are still trying to make sure we have some security. We do better than probably 90% of artists from our era.

How would you describe the impact Arrested Development’s music had on the Atlanta scene, and how it changed hip-hop overall?

For me, living in my body, I saw a huge source of inspiration. When we were “making it,” it was only us and Kriss Kross at that time. The noise we were making was national and international. Kriss Kross was touring with Michael Jackson, for God’s sake, and we were doing Lollapalooza with rock bands like Primus, Fishbone and Alice in Chains. We were crossing boundaries in ways that had never been done with hip-hop, so it was inspirational for people around the world, and especially around the United States, to move to Atlanta. We saw this huge influx of artists and people who love the arts coming to Atlanta to see if they could take part in this cultural revolution. It was Arrested Development that stimulated all that.

On the local level, we were very known, respected and celebrated amongst people, because they knew our struggle. People knew who we were before we blew up in Atlanta. They knew we’d been out here for quite a while trying to make it happen.

Is it frustrating not to get that same kind of attention in 2024?

I think there have been a lot of things that have sort of made people overlook our contribution nowadays, even though they didn’t when we were just coming out. A few things changed that. In 1996, there was a telecommunications act that Bill Clinton had signed into law that allowed for corporations to buy up all these small, local radio stations and make them one big conglomerate. We’ve all seen this happen. It used to be a landscape of record labels, now we’re down to three.

You got this trend where corporations were buying all these independent voices and making them a conglomerate, and it’s like one voice for the entire nation. That changed what playlists were going to be relevant at radio stations. Program directors at radio stations became almost irrelevant; they were just figureheads. They weren’t actually deciding what was going to be played. Those decisions were going to be made in a central office somewhere in Texas and, unfortunately, by someone who doesn’t even love music.

Spots could be bought from the labels too. It was the beginning of this minimal amount of people making decisions for the maximum amount of people throughout the nation as far as what they’re going to hear. And, of course, the content changed, so Public Enemy became less relevant. X-Clan, Arrested Development, Poor Righteous Teachers, Brand Nubian—all of us became less relevant. What became more relevant was the bling style.

The shiny suit era that Diddy helped usher in.

Diddy, Biggie, Ma$e, the Mike Williams sort of look. That became more relevant, and the consciousness became less relevant. That was by design because there’s products to sell and people’s consciousness need to be soothed, but music by Public Enemy or Arrested Development doesn’t soothe your conscience. If indeed you’ve had racist viewpoints in your life, it doesn’t soothe your conscience. Whereas Dipset—no disrespect to any of these guys—but those types of groups did soothe your conscience. Unfortunately, it goes along with what people maybe thought about the Black community anyway. It’s like, “OK, they are a bunch of drug dealers, a bunch of criminals.” But that wasn’t true; still isn’t.