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Strip clubs are where hits are born, reports NPR

Struggling musicians, take note — a banknote, preferably — and head to your local strip club, where your years of playing shitty bars will quickly become history. It took none other than an NPR investigation to discover that national musical tastes are being made at regional strip clubs.

According to their beat-laden report,

Hip-hop producers have been breaking records in Atlanta strip clubs for a long time now — at least as far back as 2003, when Lil Jon was doing it with songs like, "Get Low." He's been quoted as saying "the butts don't lie," meaning if the strippers can dance to it, the song has potential. In Tamara Palmer's book, Country Fried Soul: Adventures in Dirty South Hip Hop, Lil Jon says "Get Low" had a slow start: the dancers "didn't feel it at first." But eventually it grew on them and several dancers at different strip clubs asked the DJs to play it during their stage sets. "Get Low" took off — in mainstream clubs and on radio and TV across the country.

But the beauty of NPR is that you don't have to read journalism — you can simply listen to it, snap music and all, in the story below.

Commentarium (2 Comments)

Dec 28 10 - 5:18pm
Twolane

Yeah, when I get tired of mainstream radio's constant airplay of fugly music I venture down to the peeler bar to acquaint myself with the latest tunz. The wife doesn't mind in the least, since she's confident that I know when to quit and come home.

Dec 29 10 - 5:06pm
Gazbo

An awful lot of really great jazz and jazz players started out in whorehouses, so this isn't really surprising. Music is primal pleasure.