New York Times arrives to 'black entertainment mecca' unfashionably late
Meat performs at the 529 this Thursday with Pyramid Club and Bamby.
- Rich Addicks for The New York Times
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I'm rarely surprised when mainstream media sleeps on cultural shifts among black and other ethnic communities. But the online title of the New York Times recent piece, "Atlanta Emerges as a Black Entertainment Mecca," struck me as a serious case of the Rip Van Winkles.
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So BET shuts down Peachtree St. for last week's taping of the Soul Train Awards at the Fox, and all of a sudden Atlanta's deemed the new Black Hollywood?
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Welcome, old Gray Lady, to the current millennium.
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In case y'all didn't know, writes Kim Severson:
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Tyler Perry and his movie and television empire are based here. Sean Combs has a house in a suburb north of the city. The musicians Cee Lo Green, Ludacris and members of OutKast call it home. So does the music producer and rapper Jermaine Dupri.
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The worst offense is not just that all of the above was true five years ago (back when Perry established Tyler Perry Studios), or that most of it was documented ad infinitum during the last decade and a half (when Jermaine Dupri was still relevant); but that it was written in that clueless carpet-bagger tone New York transplant Severson's been guilty of before.
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FYI: Last week was not the first time BET closed down Peachtree Street to roll out the red carpet (see: 2006's BET Hip Hop Awards). Maybe my head is swirling with too much hometown pride, but the Nene Leakes in me feels the need to clarify a few things: Sorry boo boo, but for better or worse Atlanta's long been the home of bougie, Black Hollywood. Welcome to the party. And for the record, you're way late — unfashionably so.