999, 915: Raise up (All Cities Remix) - Petey Pablo

I'm a sucker for songs about places - cities, states, countries. Maybe because I've moved around a lot in the last few years, but something seems really appealing about living in a place your whole life and feeling really proud of it. For example, in Petey Pablo's original version of "Raise Up," he brags about being from North Carolina in every chorus. The dirty, vaguely eastern european sounding violin samples and Petey's enthusiastic shouting get my head bobbing, and I really like the idea of taking my shirt off and waiving it around my head like a helicopter, something Mr. Pablo encourages me to do as a way of showing how proud I am of North Carolina.

Still, my enjoyment of this song was originally tinged with sadness. I'm not proud of North Carolina, a place I had previously only associated with college basketball and the Wright brothers. I never really thought of it as a cool state, or even anywhere I would ever want to visit. Pablo's vision was exclusionary, an us against them cry for the heretofore un-repped cities of the state between Virginia and South Carolina. All this has been rectified by Raise Up (All Cities Remix). Thanks to Petey, you're now free to take your shirt off and waive it around your head like a helicopter if you're from any of the following: Atlanta, Virginia, New York City, New Jersey, Philadelphia, Washington D.C., Maryland, Houston, Dallas, New Orleans, St. Louis, Miami, L.A., Chicago, Las Vegas and the entire San Francisco Bay Area.

Where are Boise, Salt Lake City, Kalamazoo and Ypsilanti on this list? They certainly weren't left off because Petey Pablo was afraid the list was getting too long. My only theory is that by limiting his shirt waiving to only the cities containing 70% of the country's population, he was able to preserve some of the us-versus-them attitude of his original North Carolina rallying cry. Take that, Providence, Eugene and Des Moines! Us residents of the eastern seabord, California, the southwest and parts of the midwest finally have a song to call our own!