By Rea Melissa Davis and Ashley Marietta
Sunday night Atlanta music legends, media, music executives and tastemakers packed out the Rialto Theater in Atlanta , Georgia to attend the advance screening of “ATL: The Untold Story of Atlanta’s Rise in the Rap Game”. Also referred to as ATL Rise, the special is a 90-minute documentary for VH1 that explores how Atlanta earned the mantle of hip-hop dominance, a fascinating ride to the top of the rap game that pioneered a seismic shift in American music as well as well as allowed Atlanta to command the reputation as hip-hop’s center of gravity. Ludacris, Usher, T.I., Future, Lil Jon, Jermaine Dupri, and Jeezy are among the Atlanta based music stars that will appear in the doc. Pioneers of the Atlanta rap game Kilo Ali, Raheem the Dream, MoJo, MC Shy D and the producers of Organized Noize also appear in the documentary. For a while now, Atlanta has emerged as one of the south’s trendiest and most influential entertainment hubs so it was only right for VH1 to pay a visit to the Dirty South. The documentary will air tonight on VH1 at 10 p.m.
AllHipHop caught up with Ludacris, Pastor Troy, Shanti Das, Killer Mike, Chaka Zulu, Kawan Prather, DJ Nabs and more to discuss Atlanta’s contribution to Hip Hop over the years, their favorite classic Atlanta rap moment, and whether or not Atlanta is accurately represented in the documentary. Check out the red carpet recap below.