Strippers still launch hits in Atlanta, NPR reports with a snicker
Elizabeth, Zoe and Sara find the p-poppin' hits at Magic City
- JOHN POOLE FOR NPR
- Do you really need a caption for this pic?
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It's mostly an old phenomenon as far as the Atlanta music industry is concerned — especially since strip club DJs spoiled the game with payola, according to Jermaine Dupri.
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Even if NPR's a little late to the shake-dance, banging beats still make booties pop. And any song is hard to resist with that kind of visual, Atlanta's DJ Scream confesses to contributor Elizabeth Blair:
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What attracted us to this story was that the strippers seemed to have a lot of power in the hip-hop hit-making process. Obviously they are the focal point when a new song is being played. As DJ Scream told me, "There's nothing like seeing a woman dance to a record. There's records that I hate and when I see a woman dancing I think, 'It's not that bad.'"
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Indeed. For some reason Atlanta's guilty pleasure rap (from Waka to Travis Porter to Gucci) provides the perfect soundtrack for ass-naked fun. Not even Mos Def wants to hear some Mos Def in the strip club, shawty.
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The funniest thing about this story: the names of the contributors. Just imagine three milquetoast girls named Elizabeth, Sara and Zoe following some dude named LuQman of Purple Pain Records around in Magic City on a Monday night. Hilarity. Can't wait to hear the audio when it goes live on the web at 7 p.m.
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The NPR story also notes CL editor Mara Shalhoup's award-winning BMF series before mentioning how much the forecast has changed in Atlanta strip clubs since the drug syndicate's demise:
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When the BMF was busted and its key players went to jail, strip club dancers and DJs missed a lot of heavy rain.
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Guess that brings new meaning to the phrase "saving it for a rainy day," huh?
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UPDATE: The cleavage in the the photo above belongs to Monica Mays, aka Brook Lynne Carter, a 29-year-old former Magic City stripper who currently tends bar at Kamal's 21. She's also a blogger, author and Atlanta personality whose verified Twitter account has over 16K followers. You can keep up with her at twitter.com/brookandthecity and on her blog AbsoluteBrook.com. Her book, "With Brook Lynne in Mind," features her musings on life, relationships, and "the secret underbelly of dance" in Atlanta, according to the press release.