- Talk to me about what made you want
to become a hip hop artist.
- Why I wanted to become a hip hop artist?
'Cause they could say anything they wanted,
and nobody could say anything back.
(techno drum track)
In Atlanta 70 to 80% of all high schools
are named for black educators and emancipators.
- Yes.
- So we'd say I went to Doug or Mayes
and our teachers would correct us.
We went to Fredrick Douglass
and Benjamin E. Mayes.
And the significance of that was
we weren't rivals like, we hate you we want to kill you
it was rivals like they're getting better grades than you
at Douglas.
[laughter]
Or they're getting better grades,
what are you suckers gonna do?
- And we both had the magnet program for math and science.
- Yeah, we both had the magnet program
and it made us better.
Everything about my high school experience
was better because I competed with some other smart kids
not three or four miles away.
What I learned in music is that
I don't blame other people for a lot of the stuff
because you've got a choice.
It's like being a young tech kid.
You can go work for a Fortune 500 company
or you can starve and sleep on your homie's sofa
and you can figure out your own thing you know?
- Right, exactly.
- I thought I was trying to play nice.
It was very hard to be who I am
in the midst of the crunk era.
When parents tell me now how ignorant music
has gotten and all that, I was thinking to myself
you used to be into Bounce and listening to Li'l Jon.
You can't get mad
[laughter]
You can't really get angry your kid likes Young Thug.
I learned my most important lessons, though
from Columbia.
I learned that if you believe in something,
stand up for it because
often times for people and I know you know you're being nice
but when you tell me you like Adidas
it really just shows me you haven't listened to
anything I've done since.
It wasn't me, it was an Outkast record that was left over.
- [Shanti] Good song, but just not really you.
- Yeah, it was more of Lisa Ellis' and Donny Iner's
favorite record, which really should have let me know
don't do the video.
[laughter]
That's no diss to them,
but that's saying if executives like something
it's probably already lame.
[laughter]
And I learned then, stick by your guns.
But I wouldn't have learned that lesson
had I not been through what I'd been through.
So everything, they say the only difference
between a master and a student is the master
has failed more times than the student has ever tried.
So I embrace my failures as willingly
as I've embraced my successes.
- Absolutely.
- For me, man I think that the hustle in hip hop
is kind of like the tech hustle.
When you first tell someone about your idea
or your invention, or your app or your thing,
all of you have gotten this look.
[laughter]
And it's somewhere between who is this kid
and why is he talking to me.
And hip hop is the same way.
I can remember 1996 going into Big's house.
The first time he started playing ATLiens for me,
I had never heard anything like that in my life.
I had never heard it.
When you hear Kendrick now,
you're hearing someone influenced by that.
But imagine being there at the time,
Bone Thugs and Harmony was the biggest group
in the world at that time,
It just blossomed, and it blossomed not only because
the music was good, it blossomed because
the executives were behind the project, they believed in it
because were made to.
LA had to believe in it, because
he had kids from Atlanta telling him
hey man this is what's up,
I know what Biggie's doing, but trust me
this is what's up.
It shows me that even though you have
a fierce hustle and belief in what you do,
put together a team of people
who also have that belief and who also have that hustle.
Well I was an activist before I was an artist.
You know I've been actively involved in political campaigns
my grandmother's from Tuckaseegee Alabama
she was raised by sharecroppers that saved their money
got their own land.
I'm from a family that helped me understand early
politics on a local level affects your life.
So at my crux I am an organizer, I happen to rap.
I have a very good job and I love rapping.
It pays me an absurd amount of money,
I'm able to live a cool middle class lifestyle
with my wife and children.
And because of that, I have the freedom to say no
this is not right.
Because of that, I have an opportunity to be a voice
for people that are voiceless.
I think that everyone who can be civically engaged
and involved should be.
And I think that this country is better with it.
I am not afraid to be fully me.
And I will tell anybody.
I have seen past the piousness of
I'm better than people because I'm an activist.
I really am about who has fought for the rights
of humans and Americans.
And those are the people I follow.
So for me it's been pretty easy to do
because I enjoy the profane as much as I enjoy the sightly.
There are groups in this country, I am a man
I accept a certain position in this country
that I know is wrong.
I know women are not paid the same as me.
And because of that, if I'm not an advocate for them
then I participate in their oppression.
I'm a black man, my audience is mostly white.
Those kids know that my life
is dramatically different from them.
So when I see those kids fighting on behalf of
say a Sanders campaign, they don't have
a vested interest, honestly in stopping police brutality.
In fact, if a cop is kicking my ass,
they can walk by with weed in their pocket.
[laughter]
But the fact that they value, at least enough
to fight the good fights shows me
that what I believe about humans is true.
Human beings are inherently good.
We inherently want to see the best for one another,
but we are stuck in systems that tell us we have to choose.
We have to choose the lesser of two evils, no.
We can choose what's right.
And the most beautiful thing I learned
from the Civil Rights movement and Dr. King
and all through the Gandhi years,
you can simply refuse to.
You can simply say no.
- All right so our last question of the afternoon
we're here kicking off ChooseATL at South by Southwest
let's give it up for that.
[applause]
We're trying to open up new eyes to our city
what makes you choose ATL?
And I just want to shout out Mayor Kasim Reed,
all that the city is doing from
an entrepreneurship perspective,
tech, obviously our film business is a $6 billion business
everything's being shot there,
we're about to really have I think some new energy
in the music space, so why do you choose Atlanta still?
- Well I choose to stay in Atlanta.
And I think it used to be a thing in the music industry
why won't people from Atlanta leave?
They used to wonder why, if you're in music
why wouldn't Monica move to LA?
Why didn't Jagged Edge move to New York?
'Cause you can't get this much house in LA!
- Hello!
All the space, I lived in New York for two years,
trust me I get it.
- I just paid $90,000 for a ranch on two acres
you know what I'm saying?
It's old, my wife's gonna dump
another quarter million in architecture,
but it's still like, you can't get this in New York.
So from a very practical sense,
Atlanta made sense money-wise.
Your dollar really will stretch farther there.
On racial divides, I've been in other cities
where the racial divides,
now Atlanta's a segregated city racially
in terms of where people live, that's just normal.
But people interact in a much kinder way.
It's not utopia, but it's nice to be able
to walk in an elevator and the people speak to each other
that don't look alike.
I tell people all the time, Atlanta's a small town
masquerading as a big city.
People put an imperative on being kind.
It doesn't mean they do for you,
it means they'll help you do.
And a lot of it is that.
I think that the South is a much more
of a progressive place than it's getting credit for.
I know Atlanta is a lot more progressive place
and I think that all we need to become
an even bigger small-town act
masquerading as a big city
is more people of good will.
And I don't just need you to come with good will,
I need you to come with skill.
We want you to come with tech skill,
we want you to come with business skill,
we want you to come with dreams of
small business and entrepreneurship.
Because if that happens,
our city's infrastructure is smarter,
I mean the people who are creating the infrastructure
are smarter.
I would like for my children,
who've grown up in a predominantly black city
to know not only is this world black and white,
it's filled with other people of all shades too
that can get along, cooperate,
and that can create a new type of American city.
I love New York, I love LA and I love Chicago,
and I always can't wait to get home.
They are nice cities, but I don't like
the disconnect that people have.
I don't like the fact that people don't find ways
to connect.
In Atlanta becaude I don't know you
doesn't mean I don't wanna know you.
It means I need to get to know you.
And what could we figure out to do together.
So in Atlanta, I think you can buy a cheap house
I think you can meet nice people
I think you can find seed money to start businesses
I think you can grow a family there.
And we need you.
You know the weather's pretty nice,
we get four full seasons but only two days of snow.
[laughter]
Traffic is bad but our train system is clean,
and I would like to encourage young people
who are thinking about starting a life to start in Atlanta.
I think it's an absolutely amazing city
I think the people and the leadership
of the city are wonderful.
Our music and film has continued to grow.
Our Fortune 500 companies are solid
and they're going to be there,
they're bedrocks of the community.
It's a place where you really can come and build.
You don't wanna live in Tampa, it's hot.
[laughter]
So y'all please come to Atlanta.
Please consider just visit, have a weekend there
do more than just go to Magic City and the Aquarium
get out and see the King Center.
- The restaurants or something, the City Market.
- But please please come.
Life is good there.
- I just want to say, Austin ChooseATL's top finalists,
give it up for Killer Mike.
[applause]
- Thank you guys so much.