I posed this question on twitter. “What song reps a city/area the hardest?” It’s a great question. People always ask what area goes the hardest. That’s not even the question. We’ll never know who reps the most. But a better question is what song best represents an area? Find out after the jump.

New York

We’ll start with New York just because it’s so obvious what song most people are going to think of first. New York offers up a few contenders for Song that Reps the Hardest. Of course we have:

“Empire State of Mind” by Jay-Z ft. Alicia Keys.

You can’t deny that when you hear this song you feel that New York pride. I’m not even from NY and I can definitely feel the New York spirit! “Empire State of Mind” is going to be a top contender for sure.

Next, also repping NY we have Diddy’s verse in “Welcome to Atlanta (Remix)”

Yes, we’re taking it back with this one but still. From proudly claiming the proverbial New York bravado and unique New York talk and behavior, “You can spot us out of town by the way that we walk, the way that we talk, cocky, the state of New York” to repping the boroughs, “Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan, Staten, Uptown, what now, let’s make it happen.” Diddy reps NY hard in this song.

DMV (DC, Maryland, and Virginia)

There aren’t too many songs in my opinion that thoroughly rep the District but anybody from here will probably think of two songs.

The first is “Welcome to DC” by Mambo Sauce.

So the song is obviously a gogo song which is one of the reasons it is a DC anthem because gogo music is a DC thing. Mambo Sauce reps everything in this song. From the slang, “Where lunchin’ and jo is the lingo” to our history “Even the mayor had a run-in with crack. But we all kept it real and we voted him back.”

And from our sports and politics, “So football? Yep. Cowboys and Indians. Politics? Cowboys and idiots.” to our name that nobody knows, “And much love to VA and MD. That’s why the new DC is the DMV”. This is easily a DC anthem.

The second song for the DMV is “Nike Boots” by Wale.

This song is great for the DMV because we are so overlooked and we finally got a shout out, “PG, Riverdale, Largo, Temple Hills, Cap Heights, 124, Landover, everywhere.”

California

“California Love” by Dr. Dre and Tupac

What other introduction can I give this song other than when you hear it your face automatically transforms into a mean mug and your hands start molding themselves into the shape of a W.

Atlanta

“Georgia” by Ludacris and Field Mob

Ludacris and Field Mob rep their area in this song with Jamie Foxx channeling Ray Charles on this track.

Philly

Eve and Beanie Siegel put Philly on with this track.

Areas that just didn’t cut it.

North Carolina has that song “Raise Up” by Petey Pablo. J. Cole reps NC hard in all his songs but I’ve yet to hear a really good anthem song for NC. St. Louis has Nelly but he hasn’t been putting out anything recently. (You could say the same for Cali but “California Love” is a classic.)

Remember that this is about what songs rep an area, not what people rep it the hardest. Philly have great people like the Roots, Eve, and Beans for example but they may not have the best song. So great people of the Dr Jays nation, cast your votes. Which song reps a city/area the hardest? Which songs should be on the list that I left out?

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