ATL’s Over the Hill-Hop

Nas was right. Hip-hop is dead. Want proof? They’ve turned it into a friggin’ museum relic. After years spent twiddling their thumbs about whether there was a place for rap in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the nominating committee finally decided this year to select Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five as the Hall’s first hip-hop inductees. Not sure who should feel more honored, hip-hop or the Hall of Fame itself? Least we can look forward to the day, in 2018, when OutKast will surely be inducted. But who’s going to honor those pioneering ATLiens who’ll likely never make the cut? We gotcha, shawty!

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1) MC Shy D: The godfather of Atlanta hip-hop must have been clairvoyant back in ‘85 when he told us “Rapp Will Never Die.”

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2) Kilo Ali: When bass wasn’t just a subwoofer but a subgenre, Kilo paved the way for acts such as Ying Yang Twins with salacious stripper-pole classics such as “Nasty Dancer.”

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3) Hitman Sammy Sam: He might not be the most articulate MC, but you can’t hate on a guy who empathized with the plight of single men dating women with unruly children in his ode to the “Stepdaddy.”

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4) Raheem: He went from “Raheem the Dream” in ‘86 to Raheem the CEO with his 2000 Tight IV Life label compilation, which introduced us to future Atlanta chart toppers such as Young Dro and Fabo of D4L.

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5) D4L/Dem Franchize Boyz: By the time we reach the age where our hips are too fragile to hop, we’ll have a whole new appreciation for rap that made us lean and snap. And who knows, maybe the Hall of Fame will, too.