Let Your Voice Be Heard

The growth of hip-hop culture has a substantial impact on the financial development of communities and cities throughout the nation. One of the most recent areas to flourish and become nationally and internationally accepted as a place of relevance in the hip-hop community is Atlanta, Georgia. Atlanta was the first widely recognized city to give the South a voice in the world of hip-hop. 

On September 2nd of this year, VH1 aired the documentary ‘ATL: The Untold Story of Atlanta’s Rise in the Rap Game’. This documentary begins by establishing the link between Civil Rights movements of the South and how that era and experience developed the mentality and views of the people of Atlanta. A story is told of the tragic serial killing of youth in Atlanta during the early 1980’s; youth who performed outside a well-known, local jewelry store were being targeted and killed. After the capture of the man responsible for the heinous crimes, Atlanta’s first rap artist, Mojo, emerged. The documentary goes on to mention the rapid production of music artists after L. A. Reid and Kenneth “Babyface” Edmonds established the first major recording label in Atlanta, LaFace Records. Although many successful and talented music artist, the likes of TLC, Usher Raymond, Arrested Development, Kriss Kross, and countless others were bringing awareness to Atlanta, it’s identity and voice was still not being recognized within the hip-hop community. The pivotal point for the city commonly known now as The “A”, came from an award acceptance speech from, then, new hip-hop group member Andre 3000 of Outkast. The simple sentence of Andre’s speech, “…the South got something to say,” created a swelling of pride for citizens of Atlanta and the rest, as they say, was history. 

Outkast gave the South a valid presence and identity that was recognized, accepted, and respected by people in other key regions within the hip-hop community. That acceptance and respect brought already established and aspiring rappers to Atlanta. With those in pursuit of making music in Atlanta also came the businesses, business owners, workers, and those who just wanted to be in the mix of the “next big thing”; Atlanta began to grow during the decade hip-hop was introduced. In 1980 Atlanta was ranked 16th in the nation based on population, by 1990 it was at number 12, and 11th by year 2000. Atlanta’s popularity and population has been growing ever since and with this form of growth comes financial growth. This is the type of growth I want to see and aid in for my second home state, North Carolina. North Carolina stand up and be heard!