Photograph courtesy of AUC Robert W. Woodruff Library
Atlanta hip-hop would not be what it is today without the Atlanta University Center.
It’s a bold statement, but one that rings true—the roster of artists, DJs, and music executives who’ve graced the AUC campuses is a veritable who’s who of the music industry, and the AUC has been instrumental in molding the fabric of Atlanta’s hip-hop culture.
While the hip-hop scene in Atlanta began its growth in the ’80s through pioneers like Velvetone Records, MC Shy D, and Kilo Ali, it wasn’t until the presence of the Dungeon Family, So So Def Recordings, Ghetto Mafia, and Big Oomp Records that hip-hop spread far and wide—weaving its way through Atlanta’s landscape like kudzu.
Though often overlooked, the AUC played an integral role in Atlanta’s hip-hop rise for one huge reason—for years, the AUC was where you went to break records.
“In the ’90s, the marketing plan for all record labels was the AUC,” DJ Mars, Usher’s official DJ for his Las Vegas residency, confirms. “This was the period when the only time you heard hip-hop on the radio was on college radio. V-103 at the time was not playing hip-hop at all, and Hot 107.9 didn’t exist. I literally saw labels drop marketing plans based on the interest that they got from the AUC.”
The AUC was the perfect focus group—its campus was a melting pot of young Black kids from around the country. When music was brought to campus, it filtered out nationwide as students went back home and introduced it to their friends during school breaks. Mars, who played a big role in shaping the late-’90s and early-2000s Atlanta club scene, got his start DJing sets in Clark Atlanta University’s cafeteria during Friday night dinners. He specifically remembers OutKast’s 1994 LaFace Records debut, Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik, being marketed ‘heavily’ at the AUC. Carlton “Big CAC” Green remembers a…
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