Speech still chokes up when he talks about it, more than 30 years after his older brother and grandmother died within days of each other, inspiring what would become Arrested Development’s biggest hit, “Tennessee.” The pain of losing them hasn’t subsided. Twenty-two at the time, he was forced to grapple with his grief. It took an hour to write the lyrics to “Tennessee,” the lead single from Arrested Development’s 1992 debut album, 3 Years, 5 Months and 2 Days in the Life Of…
Speech, born Todd Thomas, couldn’t have imagined the song would have such a seismic impact on not only his life but also Southern hip-hop. At
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