Killer Mike Concert Experience
These are just my casual thoughts about my experience. We been pretty vocal in the past on our broadcasts about how we disagree with Killer Mike's political moves from partnering with Bernie Sanders (who has been publicly against reparations for black people), to standing next to Keisha Lance-Bottoms during the BLM riots, to helping create a bank that "brings together black and brown people", and using odd wording like "Latinx community". smh. But musically, it's been interesting seeing how he survived the music industry for 20+ years from his co-sign with Outkast, solo career, Run the Jewels albums, and back to solo. It's quite a feat considering artists these days usually burn out within a season. He has always been a good artist, but never placed among my top 10 favorite rappers. But he's solid. He has released plenty of songs I liked over the years. So it's very surprising to me in 2023, a year where it took a half a year for a hiphop album to be #1, Killer Mike released "Michael", a self-proclaimed generational album and to me, arguably the best album of the year so far. Even though he has very little competition in terms of quality hip hop albums this year, he has set a VERY high bar to match him. With that said, it was definitely an album I wanted to see live and I knew it would be well worth the money.
Instead of discussing the concert itself, I want to share my evening as a whole and how it all came together at his concert.
So last night, Equis, myself, and another friend of ours met up to see Killer Mike live in concert. ATL traffic is horrible, parking prices are ridiculous, and car break-ins are rampant these days, so we decided to take MARTA, the local train service, downtown to meet up to eat and go to the venue. It's been a long time since I've taken the train downtown to Five Points which is central to the downtown area, and historically used to be a place where slave auctions used to be held in the heart of Atlanta.
But growing up, I knew it to be a place of bustling retail spaces, filled with interesting people, food, and more. Home of the infamous Underground Atlanta and the original World of Coca-Cola. It was always a lively spot for native ATLiens heading to and from work and for tourists. But not today. These days, the streets were sadly empty at 6pm on a hot, humid Thursday evening. When exiting the train station, I didn't hear any music, I couldn't hear the water from the fountains. There were only a few people on the street. They were either waiting on a bus to get home or a random junkie wandering aimlessly on the sidewalk. The air smelled of car fumes and piss. The fountains that I used to hear were dry. No water in sight.
Downtown Atlanta is dead.
It was so disappointing to see. My friends insisted that we visit the Underground to see what it's like. I reluctantly went because if it was this dead on the street, I knew going underground would be worse. And when we got there, it was worse than I imagined. No more kiosks, all the shops were gone. Just a tattoo parlor and a lone restaurant in there called Dolo's pizza. And there was only one person in there. He was dolo. lol
I suggested if we wanted to find food, it was best to walk towards Centennial Olympic Park and the CNN Center (which they recently moved out to relocate to New York). And it happens to be in the direction of the venue. So we walked and continued to see how dead this place has become. Reminiscing on "old Atlanta", if anyone told us 20 years ago that the city would turn into this wasteland, we wouldn't have believed it. It really had us wondering why so many people continue to move here. There's nothing appealing about this place anymore.
To me, it's a true representation of what's going on in our country right now. Equis and I did a broadcast about a year ago explaining how Yah is pulling his creativity from this place..America, the daughter of Babylon. Everything's mid.. the culture, music, movies, all of it. Now, we physically see it. On top of that, writers and actors both in Hollywood are on strike. We're living in some interesting times.
So after eating and mourning the death of "old Atlanta", we finally walked to the Killer Mike concert which was held at a huge old church called the Tabernacle, which was the perfect venue for his concert, but I'll explain that later.
As we entered the "church", we were immediately welcomed to the sounds of classic ATL bass music and classic ATL songs provided by the dj on stage. Just as we were discussing the death of "old Atlanta", we found it here, in the Tabernacle, revived from the dead.
It was a crowded, mixed multitude of people here. Great vibes. Everyone's chillin. The stage was simply decorated with christian-like podium in the center and real white roses lining the stage. It was set up similar to a traveling pentecostal revival. The tour is called "The High & Holy Tour" so the setup was fitting. With no opening acts, Killer Mike arrived on stage with his small choir called "Midnight Revival". He immediately went into the intro song of the album, Down by Law keeping the energy up.
Overall, the concert was great. Nonstop energy. Killer Mike showcased his experienced stage presence, and treated us to an "old Atlanta" experience by not only performing records from the current album, but some classics as well and brought out surprise guests, Cee-lo, Big Boi, T.I. and Fabo (of D4L) to solidify the old Atlanta experience.
It was an interesting night to see the city as it is now, and experiencing the energy of how the city of Atlanta used to be. Oh how the times have changed.
These are just my casual thoughts about my experience. We been pretty vocal in the past on our broadcasts about how we disagree with Killer Mike's political moves from partnering with Bernie Sanders (who has been publicly against reparations for black people), to standing next to Keisha Lance-Bottoms during the BLM riots, to helping create a bank that "brings together black and brown people", and using odd wording like "Latinx community". smh. But musically, it's been interesting seeing how he survived the music industry for 20+ years from his co-sign with Outkast, solo career, Run the Jewels albums, and back to solo. It's quite a feat considering artists these days usually burn out within a season. He has always been a good artist, but never placed among my top 10 favorite rappers. But he's solid. He has released plenty of songs I liked over the years. So it's very surprising to me in 2023, a year where it took a half a year for a hiphop album to be #1, Killer Mike released "Michael", a self-proclaimed generational album and to me, arguably the best album of the year so far. Even though he has very little competition in terms of quality hip hop albums this year, he has set a VERY high bar to match him. With that said, it was definitely an album I wanted to see live and I knew it would be well worth the money.
Instead of discussing the concert itself, I want to share my evening as a whole and how it all came together at his concert.
So last night, Equis, myself, and another friend of ours met up to see Killer Mike live in concert. ATL traffic is horrible, parking prices are ridiculous, and car break-ins are rampant these days, so we decided to take MARTA, the local train service, downtown to meet up to eat and go to the venue. It's been a long time since I've taken the train downtown to Five Points which is central to the downtown area, and historically used to be a place where slave auctions used to be held in the heart of Atlanta.
But growing up, I knew it to be a place of bustling retail spaces, filled with interesting people, food, and more. Home of the infamous Underground Atlanta and the original World of Coca-Cola. It was always a lively spot for native ATLiens heading to and from work and for tourists. But not today. These days, the streets were sadly empty at 6pm on a hot, humid Thursday evening. When exiting the train station, I didn't hear any music, I couldn't hear the water from the fountains. There were only a few people on the street. They were either waiting on a bus to get home or a random junkie wandering aimlessly on the sidewalk. The air smelled of car fumes and piss. The fountains that I used to hear were dry. No water in sight.
Downtown Atlanta is dead.
It was so disappointing to see. My friends insisted that we visit the Underground to see what it's like. I reluctantly went because if it was this dead on the street, I knew going underground would be worse. And when we got there, it was worse than I imagined. No more kiosks, all the shops were gone. Just a tattoo parlor and a lone restaurant in there called Dolo's pizza. And there was only one person in there. He was dolo. lol
I suggested if we wanted to find food, it was best to walk towards Centennial Olympic Park and the CNN Center (which they recently moved out to relocate to New York). And it happens to be in the direction of the venue. So we walked and continued to see how dead this place has become. Reminiscing on "old Atlanta", if anyone told us 20 years ago that the city would turn into this wasteland, we wouldn't have believed it. It really had us wondering why so many people continue to move here. There's nothing appealing about this place anymore.
To me, it's a true representation of what's going on in our country right now. Equis and I did a broadcast about a year ago explaining how Yah is pulling his creativity from this place..America, the daughter of Babylon. Everything's mid.. the culture, music, movies, all of it. Now, we physically see it. On top of that, writers and actors both in Hollywood are on strike. We're living in some interesting times.
So after eating and mourning the death of "old Atlanta", we finally walked to the Killer Mike concert which was held at a huge old church called the Tabernacle, which was the perfect venue for his concert, but I'll explain that later.
As we entered the "church", we were immediately welcomed to the sounds of classic ATL bass music and classic ATL songs provided by the dj on stage. Just as we were discussing the death of "old Atlanta", we found it here, in the Tabernacle, revived from the dead.
It was a crowded, mixed multitude of people here. Great vibes. Everyone's chillin. The stage was simply decorated with christian-like podium in the center and real white roses lining the stage. It was set up similar to a traveling pentecostal revival. The tour is called "The High & Holy Tour" so the setup was fitting. With no opening acts, Killer Mike arrived on stage with his small choir called "Midnight Revival". He immediately went into the intro song of the album, Down by Law keeping the energy up.
Overall, the concert was great. Nonstop energy. Killer Mike showcased his experienced stage presence, and treated us to an "old Atlanta" experience by not only performing records from the current album, but some classics as well and brought out surprise guests, Cee-lo, Big Boi, T.I. and Fabo (of D4L) to solidify the old Atlanta experience.
It was an interesting night to see the city as it is now, and experiencing the energy of how the city of Atlanta used to be. Oh how the times have changed.
