Everybody’s getting Stoned on Marta

Will’s new album comes with built-in street cred

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Ever since suburbanites stuck MARTA with that Jim Crow acronym “Moving Africans Rapidly Through Atlanta” back in the day, the homegrown transit authority has been trying to shake its bad rap. But with Soulja Girl spazzing out on Rosa Parks and the Southwest Dekalb High School drum majors making a diss anthem out of “Bitch U Ride the Marta Bus,” it’s been one hell of an uphill battle in recent years.

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Now here comes a rapper named Will with a new album Stoned on Marta available on Bandcamp for free. (That’s 2 dollars cheaper than a one-way fare, FYI.) As far as I can tell, Will — who hails from Zone 4 according to Maurice Garland who discovered him on Twitter — is not out to clown Atlanta’s alternative mode of transportation. He’s merely chronicling his story as a hustling-class brother with a BREEZE card whose preferred pastimes include smoking-out, drinking-out and riding-out — often at the same time, hence such titles as “Toast to the Occasion,” “Twisted on the Highway,” and his between-stops mack-down “Sex on the Ceiling.”

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The 16-track LP ain’t bad, in fact it could be the best PR boost MARTA’s had in the ’hood since that whole “Take marta, itsmarta” campaign. The title alone lends instant street cred. It’s probably not on MARTA CEO Beverly Scott’s iPod, but Will should get as much mileage out of the project as he can: Shoot a viral video while stoned on the train. Call up Soulja Girl for a cameo. Get the SWD drum majors to do the Dougie on it. Then drop that sequel, Stoned on Delta. TSA will have a fit.

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