Don’t Agree That Atlanta Is The Pop Culture Capital of America? READ THIS
By Andre White
For as long as I can remember, New York City has been the cultural capital of America and an influence around the world. From fashion, music, movies and more, New York has monopolized the country’ s pop culture through news, radio and film. With such iconic names as Teddy Roosevelt, Lucky Luciano, Babe Ruth, Robert De Niro, Woody Allen, Spike Lee, The NYSE, Punk Music, Disco, Studio 54, The Village People, The New York Yankees and more – these are the names, brands and movements that hail from the Empire State. New York has certainly made an enduring imprint on America and it’s consciousness.
Now to the disbelief of every football fan outside of Atlanta, the Atlanta Falcons are headed back to their first Super Bowl since the Dirty Bird Falcons of 1998. At the same time, The Golden Globes have given Best Television series to Atlanta, a show about a slacker from Decatur, Georgia. If that wasn’t enough, the Migos – three guys from Lawrenceville – just hit No. 1 on the Billboard charts.
But this didn’t happen overnight. In the last 50 years, the little big city in the Bible Belt had begun to assert itself as a tastemaker and entertainment industry center in its own right. But to fully understand how Atlanta’s Metro area begin to influence America’s pop culture, we have to give context to how, why and when this actually began.
Let’s start with the unexpected win by Jimmy Carter as our nation’s 39th President, no one saw that coming. Atlanta has been a center for business with such global brands as The Coca-Cola Company, Delta, UPS, and Home Depot leading the way.
Atlanta has also been the launching pad for such music legends as Little Richard, James Brown (from Augusta, Ga.), Gladys Knight and the Pips, Peabo Bryson and more, its was clear that Atlanta was a real player and growing in its influence in every way.
But for Generation X, Millennials and all under age 55, it was the early 1990s that really helped to put Atlanta on the map. Nicknamed the city among the forest during the 1996 Summer Olympic Games, Atlanta was about to clear another major hurdle. Hip hop began to dominate the airwaves and Madison Avenue advertising agencies in New York, when two Atlanta groups threw their hats in the ring to be a part of this cultural phenomena . Another Bad Creation (ABC) of College Park and Kris Kross, stepped up to help,put Atlanta on the map. Bringing global attention to Atlanta’s hip hop scene, ABC’s national hit Iesha charted at number nine on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1990 and number six on Billboard’s R&B charts in the same year. Not to be out done, two years later, it was the “pants-to-the-back wearing” Kris Kross and their smash single Jump, produced by Jermaine Dupri, that topped out at the number two position of Billboard’s Hot 100.
From there on, Atlanta would follow with a string of chart-topping global hits from the 90s through the new millennia with such groups as 112, Xscape, Jagged Edge, TLC, OUTKAST, CeeLo Green, Toni Braxton and Usher. In addition, during the 1990s Atlanta was booming as the place where even established artist like Cameo and others would move to and establish as their new base of operation. Atlanta continued its music expansion during this period of time that witnessed a boom of record label presence in the market. Labels like Ichiban Records, LaFace Records, FreeWorld and SoSo Def Records gave tremendous opportunity for countless numbers of artists, and new producers.
It was this scene that also helped to expose many Black artist, movers and shakers from around the nation to what Atlanta had to offer in not only affordable housing, but Big Baller style housing for far cheaper than any celebrate could ever find in N.Y. or LA.. Atlanta was also home to a booming Black middle class and Black political representation unlike anywhere else in America. This rippled throughout Black America and Atlanta had an undeniable buzz going on.
The quality of life for Blacks that was beginning to make this big buzz from coast to coast also has its roots and beginnings in decades of a solid Black Infrastructure. Since the time before reconstruction after the civil war, Blacks had significant numbers. People that not only began to organize and form a societal network that would serve to house, employ and culturally grow in and of itself. It also had a higher educational structure in the Atlanta University System that helped to educate Blacks from the region and from all around the United States. Schools like Spellman College, Morehouse, Clark College, Morris Brown College, and Atlanta University gave Atlanta and America the strongest network of educated Blacks to be found anywhere.
With the inclusion of Black employment in all levels of government jobs in the Metro area, Blacks began to experience a vibrant and exceedingly robust Black middle class that was bursting with professionals, as well as homes to rival the suburbs of any around the nation and they were Black owned.
It was this scene of Black affluence in the 80s and 90s that saw many Blacks from New York, Chicago and the West reverse the great migration of the 1930s and ‘40s back to the South East region. During this time, Atlanta was also home to a multi-layered Black political leadership that was not present anywhere else in the nation, building on the legacy of America’s most celebrated civil rights leader, Dr. Martin Luther King, many civil right leaders and organizers stepped into political roles within government.
Maynard Jackson, its first Black mayor in 1973.
Electing Maynard Jackson, its first Black mayor in 1973. Atlanta began to boast a majority Black city council, county commission and the highest number of Blacks in the state House of Representatives than any state in America. Atlanta truly had an unmatched infrastructure and network for Blacks to succeed.
The great renaissance period of business, politics and culture for Atlanta from the ‘70s to the ‘90s laid the foundation for what has continued in the new millennia. Because the Atlanta of the Royal Peacock, Hosea Williams, Mr.V’s, The Lime Light, Maynard Jackson, Sharon’s Showcase, Frozen Paradise, Andrew Young, The Blue Flame, Majic City, Old National Highway in College Park and Sweet Auburn, Kilo Ali, Arrested Development, Goodie Mob, Tag Team, The original 112 by the disco Kroger, were national pop cultural influences in their own right. Not to mention groups of the city’s recent past like Freak Nasty ( the you dip I dip song), Young Jock, Shawty Low, Crime Mob, Purple Ribbon All Stars, Unk (Walk It Out), D4L, Dem Franchize Boyz.
In recent years, Atlanta’s Hip Hop music influence is more solid than it’s ever been. Artists like T.I., 2Chainz, Future, Childish Gambino, Rich Homie Quan, Lil John, Jeezy, Ray Strummer “Black Beatles”, Gucci Mane, Luda, Usher, Migos, Quavo, Takeoff and others have held high the ATL banner as what some have called the “Hip Hop capital of America”. Atlanta continues to maintain a presence on top of the music charts and Millennials throughout America and all over the world sing the songs that continue to come out Atlanta to this day.
But it’s Atlanta’s vibrant movie and television industries that furthers Atlanta’s claim as major influence on American pop culture. Tastemakers in the region have already begun to call Atlanta: Hollywood East or Black Hollywood. From music, to movies and television, there no longer any question that Atlanta is a major player.
This is where it gets tricky, because while Atlanta celebrates its growing influence, it fights to be recognized amongst the ranks of New York and Los Angeles as a major entertainment and cultural hub. Some might still believe that it was shows like “The Real Housewives of Atlanta,” and ” Love and Hip Hop” that gave Atlanta its national prominence. They could not be more wrong. By all accounts, Atlanta was well on its way long before these shows that embarrassed many in the Metro area.
“These shows were embarrassing to some or at the very least did not represent what Atlanta culture really was for most of Atlanta’s educated, Black middle or upper class and nor did it truly represent Atlanta’s celebrated culture,” says Georgia Sentinel Entertainment Editor Willie Hunter.
However, the industry is growing and changing in Atlanta. Big hit films like “The Blind Side,” ” The Hunger Games,” “Captain America: Civil War,” and the 2017 hit ” Hidden Figures” were filmed in the city. Atlanta TV presence was at the top with shows like Vampire Diaries, The Walking Dead and Greenleaf all shot in Atlanta. These series and movies have hordes of transplants moving to the Atlanta metro area, with industry officials saying that Atlanta is projected to double its population over the next two decades. The Georgia Travel Guide has themed this year’s travel guide, “2017: Year of Georgia Film” with the cover shot taken at Mystic Grill in Covington, the filming location of the fictional town of Mystic Falls depicted in the film series.
The industry generated an economic impact of more than $7 billion in the Peach State during the last fiscal year. Just more than $2 billion of that represented direct spending from 245 feature film and TV productions shot in Georgia during fiscal 2016.
Kevin Langston, Georgia Department of Economic Development deputy commissioner for tourism, shared that, “Georgia has become one of the most sought-after filming locations in the world,” he said. In fact, Deal stated that Georgia is the third-busiest location for filming behind California and New York.
“Visitors come from all over the world to follow in the footsteps of their favorite movie and TV personalities,” Langston said. The fact is, through Atlanta’s home grown and transplant populations of the last two decades, Atlanta’s competitive entertainment growth has become more of a force than it ever has as America’s leading pop culture influence of a market.
