Can't Crunk This!
You won't see them on MTV or "106 & Park," and you won't hear their music on V-103. But for the first time ever, they'll be gathered this weekend at the Loft for a historic summit featuring dozens of artists from throughout the Southeast. And you better take a good look, because you aren't likely to see this kind of event again anytime soon.
At the center of this quickly emerging underground scene is ArcTheFinger Records. ARC founders and lifelong hip-hop enthusiasts Brian Knott and Kevin Elphick moved to Atlanta from Philadelphia in the late '90s and were instantly impressed by the city's burgeoning independent scene. "They called it true school - not old school or new school, but true school. And it's a subset that builds on hip-hop's fundamentals," Elphick says. "The energy of the scene was amazing. It was great how loyal and intimate everyone was. Everyone is really supportive and we really saw an opportunity for the scene to grow."
Small business entrepreneurs by trade, the two decided over brunch in 2002 to form ATF. The pair began pounding pavement and taking stock of the scene's movers and players. Within a year, they had reached out to various acts around the city and released a compilation LP featuring ATL artists such as Collective Efforts and Minamina Goodsong.
Among the artists on that first compilation were scene upstarts Psyche Origami, which would go on to become Arc's flagship group. Consisting of DJs Dainja and Synthesis as well as MC Wyzsztyk (pronounced WIZ-stick), Psyche Origami exemplify the kind of hip-hop that Elphick and many others feel so passionate about. Over a base of organic, jazz-inflected production, Wyzsztyk delivers rhymes that are heavy on clever wordplay and positive socio-conscious themes. It's a style that lies in direct opposition to the grunting-at-strippers approach that most people expect from ATL MCs.
"We go out on the road, and people associate us with Ludacris and Lil Jon," says Wyzsztyk. "But we have to make that differentiation between them and us. There are two Atlantas. You do have a mainstream ATL sound, and then you have everyone else, the independent cats, the ones out on the scene, hustling."
This idea of two Atlantas is popular among the scene's artists. "Lil Jon would tell you he's not a lyricist," says Jax, producer and MC for popular independent group Binkis Recs, which will also be performing at A3C. "[Lil Jon] makes his beats for the clubs. But we make music for people who appreciate rhymes. The guys on the lyrical side need some equal look."
Like Wyzsztyk and so many others in Atlanta's indie scene, Jax is a transplant. He moved here from New York in the mid-'90s and considers his outsider status as pivotal to the sound. "Atlanta is weird because it's two scenes: It's the natives and the transplants. And the scene that most people know - the OutKast and Ludacris - are all from here. A lot of us on the underground level are from somewhere else," Jax says.
But like the old hip-hop adage goes, it ain't where you're from, it's where you're at. And over the past half-decade, the true-school movement in Atlanta has grown exponentially. Acts such as Mass Influence and the Micronauts have garnered national exposure, and Mars Ill, one of the headlining performers for A3C, recently signed a major-label deal with EMI Records. But despite increased exposure, the scene still lacked cohesion and central identity. So late last year, Elphick came up with an idea that would gather all these various acts in one spot to present a unified picture of not only Atlanta hip-hop but Southeastern independent hip-hop.
He began to reach out to acts from Jacksonville, Gainesville and Orlando; Chapel Hill, Durham, Asheville and Wilmington, N.C.; Nashville and Chattanooga; as well as Columbus and Athens. Within a few weeks, he had gathered nearly three dozen acts to perform at A3C.
"It's a great building and networking opportunity," Wyzsztyk says about the concert's diversity. "We can talk about Atlanta all day, but [we need] the other people in the Southeast to come together and make this more of a regional thing instead of just a city thing. There's power in numbers."
Elphick and company also realize that hip-hop culture goes beyond mere music, and thus have included an assortment of painters, B-boy crews and beatboxers. With this geographically and culturally inclusive approach, Elphick hopes to cement the idea that this is more than just a few disparate acts bucking the mainstream. In Elphick's words, "This is a movement."
