Hey there.. so... In the past, I concluded an English class with good grades at that time and I was just proud of myself about that and started working in a company where I needed to interact by video conference with Texans and New Yorkers workmates once a month for results follow-ups.
In the first video conference I couldn't understand at all the Texans workmates of my company (see I'm not talking here about all Texans in Texas, just about those Texans ex-workmates of mine)... they spoke too fast and with too many slangs for me to catch up... as for the new yorkers I could understand better.. so .. a told a friend about the situation and she gave me a precious tip for the TEXAS challenge :p ... she told me to hear the music of bands from the south of US.. like Alabama, Lynyrd Skynyrd, and stuff.... I remember to think "what a crazy idea, I don't even like this kind of music", but I did it a try.. and after reading the lyrics and hearing the music for a while I really started to understand the Texans guys better and talking with another friend about the improvement that I had by hearing south rock he gave me the challenge of trying to learn RAP music from east and west coast artists... I accepted and by trying to sing along (like a crazy uncoordinated fool I admit :p ) I think that I had a huge improvement in speaking and listening...
So this is why I vote Texas as a hard accent state in my opinion ... (I just managed it by hearing not exactly local but south music)
What state do you guys vote?
Here is another one, although the whole state of Virginia is not this extreme.