Credit: Rodney Ho
Credit: Rodney Ho
VH1's love for Atlanta is already deep, thanks to the incredible popularity of "Love and Hip Hop Atlanta." But tonight, the network takes a much more respectful look at Atlanta hip hop with its new documentary "ATL: The Untold Story of Atlanta's Rise in the Rap Game."
It's a well-produced 90-minute documentary which covers a lot of ground, from the context of the civil rights movement through the nascent 1980s to the groundbreaking 1990s to the ubiquity of Atlanta hip-hop today.
The producers talked to a range of academics, insiders, musicians and politicians, including former Atlanta mayor Andrew Young, Hawks star Dominique Wilkins, early rap star Raheem the Dream, So So Def producer Jermaine Dupri and key Atlanta stars such as Lil Jon, Usher, T.I. and Ludacris, who was an executive producer. Current stars such as Future and Rich Homie Quan are included as well.
Many of the participants provided wonderful vintage video of performances from the early days. For much of the first half of the documentary, the theme was how Atlanta struggled to find a voice amid the deafening influence of New York and Los Angeles hip hop. Outkast helped break that duopoly in the mid-1990s and bring Atlanta to the fore.
"Atlanta is now where records get broken in addition to New York and Los Angeles," said executive producer Brad Bernstein.
The documentary, which was produced over five months earlier this year, debuts Tuesday, Sept. 2 at 10 p.m.
Some of the notable touchstones:
- The civil rights era is not ignored, with vintage video of Martin Luther King Jr. and Maynard Jackson.
- The Wayne Williams child murders of the early 1980s are given airtime because he pretended to be a talent agent and targeted young kids that performed for Shryan Blakely's weekly showcase.
- Killer Mike gets a lot of airtime as the resident historian who provides some of the doc's most intelligent commentary.
- Mojo was considered the first Atlanta rapper and it's delightful to see him 32 years later singing a bit of his hit 1982 single "Let Mojo Handle It." MC Shy D also talks about his early role in the germination of Atlanta hip hop in the late 1980s. "We got a lot of the old school cats," said Brad Bernstein, executive producer.
- Mayor Kasim Reed can rap! He does a bit of "Rapper's Delight" early in the documentary and then jokes that political enemies will use that against him for the next 20 years.
Credit: Rodney Ho
Credit: Rodney Ho
- Kris Kross and Arrested Development are early national stars from Atlanta and both given their due, with an interview with Speech included.
- Although the producers weren't able to procure Outkast members Big Boi and Andre 3000 for the program ("It almost came to fruition but we ran out of time," Bernstein said), enough Dungeon Family members were available to fill in the blanks. Outkast was effectively the groundbreaking act that helped place Atlanta on the rap map when New York and Los Angeles were the only real players to that point. "It finally cut the umbilical cord" of "New York wannabeism," Killer Mike said in the documentary. "We don't have to impress you. We don't have to be influenced by you in a creative way. We're going to show you." T.I. added: "That's when people began to take Southern rap seriously."
- Magic City and strip clubs in general get some love since they often helped break singles.
- Freaknik is conveyed as an important marker showing how hot Atlanta was becoming as a youth magnet in the 1990s.
- Hot 97.5 (now Hot 107.9) gets props for being the first hip-hop station in town and besides Ludacris (Chris Luva Luva when he was a DJ at Hot), the documentary namedrops La La Anthony, Ramona DeBreaux (now on V-103), Jerry Smokin' B and Ryan Cameron (also on V-103).
- The "crunk" movement is given much love, featuring mini-bios of Bone Crusher and Lil Jon.
- T.I., already with VH1 with his reality show, provides some amusing commentary, noting wryly, "I brought the controversy with cocaine distribution, otherwise known as the Trap." Killer Mike noted that he and DJ Toomp created a whole different genre for the 2000s. "They are our Snoop and Dre in terms of defining our sound post 2000," he said.
- The final segment features "Welcome to Atlanta" as a backdrop, a 2002 hit single that really defined the city as the home to the Dirty South movement. "Yeah" is also included as a breakthrough single. And today, Atlanta dominates the charts.
Credit: Rodney Ho
Credit: Rodney Ho
TV preview
"ATL: The Untold Story of Atlanta's Rise in the Hip Hop Game," 10 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 2, VH1
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