Culture Wars

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That might be a cold-blooded accusation to level at a town dripping with so much black cultural currency. But the hip-hop capital has gained more than it’s ever contributed to its greatest export.

Welcome to the city too player to hate. Where a handful of Dungeon dragons gave birth to an extended Family — from Goodie Mob and OutKast to Killer Mike and Future — that permanently shifted hip-hop’s center of gravity. Where the trap transformed from literal dead-end to hypothetical escape route for the discarded and forgotten. Where a generation left to its own digital devices created a content craze by teaching the world to Dab, Whip, Drop that Nae Nae, Hit Them Folks and Whoop Rico.

Like music to capitalism’s ears, these are the signs of a sonic identity 20 years in the making. Meanwhile, the city continues to reinvent itself for the sake of outward appearances. Now it’s the Hollywood of the South. Next it’s the Silicon Valley of the South. But the one thing Atlanta has consistently been, the hip-hop pedigree that’s kept its international flame perennially lit, still gets the shaft on the low.

In the last two months alone, a steady stream of mainstream dominance has kept all eyes on the ATL: Migos popped the top of the Billboard Hot 100 with “Bad and Boujee” and the group’s album, C U L T U R E, debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 album chart. Future became the first solo artist in history to release two albums that debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 in back-to-back weeks. Lil Yachty added a major Target endorsement — and the longest commercial aired during the Grammy Awards’ February broadcast — to his portfolio. 21 Savage signed a deal with Epic Records, where CEO L.A. Reid continues to corral talent fresh from the southern city where he co-founded the now-defunct LaFace Records a quarter century ago. And the latest virtual unknown to continue Atlanta’s streak of seemingly overnight phenoms is newcomer SahBabii, who spits melodies so tender they belie the explicit reality he represents.

His seductive street anthem “Pull Up Wit Ah Stick” — slang for a semi-automatic weapon — serves as a subtle reminder of Atlanta’s national ranking as the city with the highest gap between the rich and poor. Like the rose that grew from concrete, it’s the shameful little secret buried in Georgia’s red clay. And the resulting divide is the basis of a culture war being waged over the city’s most fetishized and stigmatized commodity.

The rise of Traplanta is the untold story of a city split in half by historic income inequality, shifting racial demographics, and an equally enigmatic identity crisis. The irony, of course, is how that inequity has helped to cultivate a trap-rap innovation economy from which Atlanta perpetually feeds.
Consider this irony: Donald Glover’s celebrated FX show Atlanta, which earned record ratings and Golden Globe statues following its debut season, received Georgia film tax incentives legislated within the last decade to lure film and TV production to the Peach State. Yet the twice-as-old, homegrown music industry, on which the show’s plot is centered, still runs off an ecosystem largely unsupported by state funding or investment from the city’s civic and corporate communities. The resulting failure to leverage this global cultural cachet suggests too many people in high places don’t fully understand, appreciate or respect the value of hip-hop as an economic growth engine. While local politicos and power brokers look outside the city for world-class inspiration, they often overlook the one thing the rest of the world looks to Atlanta for.