Long Live Nando: Remembering a hip-hop legend
Atlanta’s hip-hop community gathers to celebrate a fallen legend.
It’s been two years since William Fernando Barnes was shot in front of his Morrow home. Two things remain: Clayton County Police and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation are no closer to discovering who killed him; and DJ Nando, as he was known to most, remains one of the most respected and influential members of Atlanta’s hip-hop community. “It definitely surprises me that no one’s come forward,” former music executive Nick Love says. “Because I woulda thought that with all the attention that it got, who he was, who we were and the influence that we had, that somebody … we heard a lot of rumors.” Unfortunately to date, none of those rumors — even those tied to another high-profile murder case involving a local DJ — has lead to a concrete lead or an arrest.
At the height of the infamous Black Mafia Family Era, when Atlanta’s urban nightlife scene was at its most successful (thanks in no small part to the notorious gang’s lavish spending), DJ Nando held court at Magic City on Mondays — the night to see and be seen at the legendary gentlemen’s club. His style redefined Atlanta’s sound. “Nando was the supreme shit-talking DJ,” Love says. “Jamie Foxx’s character from The Players Club” was inspired by Nando.” Nando had discovered the most effective, albeit unorthodox way, to stimulate the strip club’s tip-driven financial ecosystem.
“Anytime you go to Onyx or Magic City and you hear the DJ insulting the people that ain’t spending no money, Nando was the king of that,” Love says. “At first people were kinda insulted, but then they came to realize that’s just part of the schtick.”
For six years, Love worked closely with Nando as the manager of the Coalition DJs, a collective of mostly Atlanta-based strip club DJs. Bringing over five years of experience from his stint as VP of Marketing at Jeezy’s CTE imprint, Love guided the crew to become the city’s preeminent lifestyle and music marketing firm, even drawing the attention from The Wall Street Journal. But it was Nando’s vision for the Coalition that made the organization so unique and keeps his legacy alive.
When the DJs Big X, X-Rated, and Funky decided to come together as The Coalition, Atlanta was home to no less than five local DJ crews. Many other local DJs, though, belonged to larger, sometimes corporate national organizations. When Coalition recruited DJ Nando, he had one simple request.
“He said, ‘I wanna be part of a crew where, if one of us can’t work or gets fired or whatever the case may be, the crew will take care of him,’” Love says. “It was strange that this would be his demand because at that time, Nando was in no danger of losing a job. He was never hurting for money. So for him to care what happened to the other guys was super significant to me and told me what kind of person he was.”
Two years after his death, a quick Instagram search shows close to 6,000 posts tagged “LLNando,” or Long Live Nando, the social media tribute created by the Coalition DJs to keep their fallen brother’s name alive. And they’re not alone. When Love invited local DJs to celebrate Nando’s memory last January at Spin Wednesdays — a weekly event organized by DJ DiBiase of the Coalition DJs and his business partner, artist Sean Falyon — hundreds showed up to pay their respects, including local artists like Jermaine Dupri and K-Camp.
The event dubbed #2Turntables1Love returns to SPIN on Peters Street tonight in what Love hopes to make an annual celebration — not only of Nando’s life and legacy, but of DJs across the city. No longer attached to a record label or even a DJ crew (he left his position with the Coalition in December), Love wants it to be clear that he would do the same for any of the DJs he has worked with over the years.
Still, those who loved DJ Nando seek closure. In retrospect, Love says the shooting was the culmination of a strange year in which Nando thwarted an attempted robbery and fell victim to another, which he kept a secret for months. In the weeks leading up to his death, friends noticed a shift in Nando. He suddenly became attached to gun which he brought everywhere, even into meetings with the band of brothers he worked so closely with. “We all knew something was going on,” Love says before trailing off.
But when friends and fans gather at Spin this week, it will be to celebrate a legacy unlikely to ever be matched. “They’re gonna do movies one day about Atlanta during that BMF era,” Love says. “Cuz nobody’s ever seen the money, the music, the drugs, the street shit that came around during that time. And Nando was the soundtrack of all for all of that. And he was still thriving after it all ended. Nando was that guy.”
#2Turntables1Love: DJ Appreciation Night Honoring DJ Nando. Free. 8 p.m. Wed., Jan. 13. Spin, 259 Peters St. SW. 404-880-0703. Instagram flier.