When I decided to go see OutKast in Atlanta six months ago, #ATLast didn’t even exist. The greatest duo in American history announced that they were getting back on stage together after a Ph.D.’s worth of years, and my only wish was to see them at their home. I copped a ticket as soon as they announced their own hometown concert, and three months later I was on a chain email of 14 people, all Atlanta natives, discussing plans for the most amazing weekend of our lives.
I am from Brooklyn. In ’94 OutKast mattered to me about as much as cold brew. My hometown hero was one Christopher Wallace, hip-hop belonged to my city, and the South didn’t even exist to me. By the time I became a real OutKast fan, Stankonia was the next album up. I knew their singles, I had seen them on Martin and at the Source Awards, but I always remember the exact moment I knew Andre Benjamin and Antwon Patton were for me. They arrived at the MTV Awards, and when asked what he was wearing, a relaxed Big Boi put one foot out and said, “Well, you know, we got the Pink Fox dungarees.” Never mind both these men had edges laid like fresh silk; what I felt in that moment was the strongest showing of IDGAF I had ever witnessed.
My relationship with Atlanta is much like my relationship with OutKast. I had been there once as a teen on a family vacation and went 10 years before I ever stepped foot in the city again. My best friends from high school had relocated down South, and my newest group of friends in New York had arrived straight from the A. Atlanta is a place that reminds me of home, a place where everyone reps their hood to the fullest, where you will get checked, and no city can ever be argued as better. The pride and love that I have always experienced when talking to ATLiens is the exact reason why seeing OutKast anywhere other than in their home was not even an option. If I didn’t see them there then I would gladly never see them in this lifetime because I was certainly not about to stand next to a bunch of folks impatiently waiting for "Hey Ya!". I wanted to be with the people who were reppin’ College Park, East Atlanta, the West, and South Side.
Atlanta is a place that reminds me of home, a place where everyone reps their hood to the fullest, where you will get checked, and no city can ever be argued as better.
From the minute I arrived in Atlanta for the show, New York didn’t matter. I didn’t need to pretend to be from the A; the fact that I had traveled was enough of a show of respect to the natives who were hosting me. We prepared ourselves for an emotional evening of yelling and crying in equal parts, and by beer four, my accent was drawling, and I was ready to ride. To explain what happened at that show would require words I have yet to learn. Dre and Twan are Atlanta. As they performed and bantered back and forth on stage, I screamed and wept openly. I danced in circles holding my friends’ hands. I went to “church” with my family.
Atlanta is the dearest place in America to me because the music and culture that shape it speak to a very huge part of me: the black me. In New York, I am not simply black, I am West Indian, specifically Haitian. I am foreign yet familiar, but in Atlanta I am most purely a black woman. Nobody knows what the fuck a Haitian is. You either from here or you ain’t, but every part of me that makes me proud is celebrated. When I hear Big Boi and Three Stacks rapping their catalog I think of what rap has done for us all. A telling of truth so vivid that I can feel the wheels under my feet, my spine laid back in the car seat, and the smoke filling the space until the windows come down. I can feel the beat straighten my spine, lock my knees, and add fluidity to my asscheeks. I don’t cringe when I hear the word twerk. I put bass in my voice when I say “Aye,” and most importantly, I feel a respect for a bunch of kids who never knew me growing up, but understand me better than my own family.
I would later change my flight twice and go two nights in a row, not so much because I had to see the set twice, but because I needed more time with my people. The tears that were shed, the blunts that were smoked, and the lyrics that were yelled reminded me that this music is every part of us. We were all a bunch of kids growing up in a country that never listened to us, that never gave us a chance, and we fought back. I like to call them Dre and Twan because the way the two speak of each other goes beyond their music. This is friendship and family of which we have never seen and may never see again. Dre’s jokes let us know that he was in no way happy to be performing again, but when they spoke of their high school friend “Stealin' Lamar,” you are reminded of their history together. Big Boi loves us, but it doesn’t even compare to how much he loves Andre 3000. You don’t share that much of your life with someone without making them a part of your very being. They let us into something that was very real for them, as my Atlanta friends shared with me. I think they state it best themselves: “Nothin’ is for sure, nothin’ is for certain, and nothing lasts forever, but until they close the curtain, it’s him and I—Aquemini.”
I know that I will probably never see them again, but this could never be duplicated in a million performances. The story that they and every other Southern rapper on that stage told, was one that I knew without knowing. It was the truth about everything I stand for, and when OutKast declared that the South had something to say, what they declared was that we were more powerful than our minds could imagine. We had more truth in us than we could even access, and our culture wasn’t just in our heads and on our blocks, but everywhere we exist. I was an NYC girl in ATL (HEAUX), but I have never felt more rooted in my life.
Nikki Mayard is a writer living in New York. Follow her @Judnikki
