Scene: Atlanta Hip Hop, 1990s

Atlanta hosts at least one rap show or open mic each week, at cozy locales like Apache Cafe and dives like the Five Spot. The artists at these gigs, however, aren’t interested in becoming the next Soulja Boy, much less sipping on some codeine. They’re begging for the “good ol’ days” of hip-hop to return. When LaFace Records was still in town, a small and close-knit community — mainly, members of Goodie Mob and the Dungeon Family — once hit up local radio stations regularly; Ying Yang Cafe and Earwax Records as it dominated the city. But now that Atlanta’s biggest players have the nation’s full attention, they’re under incredible pressure — and Andre 3000′s near-radio silence proves it. Still, Atlanta’s best-known rappers and producers have thrived amid some of the nation’s worst suburban sprawl and staggering unemployment rates. They start at a young age; Andre and Big Boi were just high-schoolers when they formed OutKast, and the boys behind Travis Porter aren’t much older. They work largely from home, on their own desktops. The Dungeon, for example, was a dirt-floor basement with air so humid that it would trigger the drum machine. Soulja Boy proved via MySpace and YouTube that dance crazes don’t require expert production, just a confident ringleader and FruityLoops. And, best of all, their fans will dance anywhere to the music. Teens rent out office parks so they can gyrate to Waka Flocka Flame. Popular nightclub Esso shares the same strip mall space as a Family Dollar. Once obsessed with its own heritage and preconceived notions of hip-hop, this scene is now bustling eager and proud tastemakers. It gets lost in either aggressive anthems that shake up terrible cars or genre-bending suites that defy gravity and expectations for music, period — focuses on the present or looks toward the future.