Can white men get crunk?

It's a little ironic, really. Here in Atlanta, one of urban music's most prolific markets — home and breeding ground for some of the biggest names in R&B and hip-hop — it took a group of white hard-rock guys to develop a large-scale outlet for members of the city's black music elite to come together to talk about their industry. That seems to be the case with this week's Atlantis Music Conference and its Urban Symposium. The fledgling rock conference had barely gotten its legs when, according to conference co-owner Mark Willis, organizers were beseeched by black music aficionados to add urban showcases and panels to the itinerary. "We stepped into the urban realm last year," he said. "We did it very lightly, more by demand because a lot of people in the urban community were like, 'We really want to get involved,' and so we said we would just do it very small and see what happens. The response was incredible so we are adding urban venues, urban panels, urban showcases and urban parties which we're very excited about."

This year's conference, the third, features six hip-hop and R&B-oriented panels (including one featuring this writer) and three nights of showcases at clubs Karma and Studio Central. By calling the block of events the Urban Symposium (urban, as in the industry's current euphemism for black), Atlantis aims to either set it apart from — or else make it stand out among — all the conference's rock stuff. If you will, a sort of benign, presumably well-intentioned, musical version of "separate but equal." Atlantis is even offering a special $90 registration for those who want to attend only the Urban Symposium (full admission is $165; $25 for a showcase wristband only).

According to conference manager Kathy Gates, to help construct the symposium Atlantis tapped a group of local experts — including entertainment attorneys, label and publishing executives and members of the media — which it dubbed the Urban Advisory Board. Gates, the driving force behind the move to increase urban representation, says the sub-conference responds to a need that she saw in the black music community.

"I see such a need in Atlanta and the Southeast for a successful business conference," she says. "It just seems from my perspective that the conferences that come and go from the urban side have become more of a huge party and I don't think people walk away feeling like they took care of business."

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?It's not that there aren't other urban music-focused conferences held in Atlanta, but, granted, there aren't any as large or as focused on artist development. For instance, L.A.-based trade magazine Black Radio Exclusive's annual conference has been held here for the past three years and, while it tends to 'take care of business,' it doesn't draw huge crowds. And while Atlanta's Jack the Rapper gathering was once a wildly popular event in the '80s and early '90s, it died off a few years back after label executives became disenchanted with the large number of non-industry attendees.

Though the BRE convention, more of a trade meeting that doesn't focus on showcasing or signing artists, is very different from Atlantis, BRE's Atlanta-based vice president Carol Ozemhoya takes offense at Gates' comments. "I think it's kind of a slap in the face for them to say conferences like ours are nothing but a party. It's insulting. If you would see the comments we got this year you would know BRE is not known as a party. Look at the mere fact that we've survived and thrived for 25 years. I think that really speaks for something, and now the Johnny-come-latelys are looking at the charts and saying, 'Wow! Black music is the bomb. Let's get on that.' So now they're gonna do black music better than these conferences that have been around for years?"

Like Ozemhoya, Atlanta Entertainment Association head Moses Dailey finds Atlantis' inclusion of black acts suspicious, stressing that Atlanta was already known for urban music when Atlantis launched three years ago. "It just seems like racism that they didn't include black artists when they first started but now they're reaching out to the black artists out of desperation," he says.

Dailey's organization hosts an annual showcase of unsigned R&B, rap, pop and alternative acts, but his two-day events have managed to draw crowds of only about 500 and, as yet, no one has been signed as a result of his efforts.

Owners of Atlantis, who claim last year they drew a cumulative total of 40,000 people to all of their showcases and about 2,000 to panels, say their urban outreach is a way to complement the efforts of folks like BRE and AEA and to satisfy those who feel there's a void to fill. It's a big responsibility to assume, particularly for an organization whose founding mission was to cultivate the city's under-recognized rock music scene.

Willis, who admits Atlantis turned away urban submissions its first year, says, "All Atlanta was really known for in the eyes of the industry [at the time of Atlantis' inception] was the incredible urban acts that were coming out of here and the development in the label area was all urban. There was nothing coming out of this area of the country that was deemed quality in rock music, so in year one we said, 'We want to be different, we want to set ourselves apart. We are going to be a rock conference with all races and religions involved in these groups.'"

But then, he says, the urban community sent up its resounding plea. "All we heard after year one from the urban community was, 'Please, we want to be involved. We don't want Jack the Rapper. We don't want all these other conferences that bring all these difficulties with them.'"

Based on demand, not dollars, Willis says Atlantis introduced its Urban Symposium last year. "We did not in any way want to present a platform that would show people we were being greedy. We were not going to take people's money under the pretense that there was going to be tons of urban acts and panelists. We were very careful to say, 'We're just sticking our finger in the water to see if the urban community really wants to embrace what we're doing. Not if we want to embrace them, if they want to embrace us. I do not want people telling me we jumped on for the money, because that is the furthest thing from the truth."

Motivations aside, Gates says what's important is to make Atlantis accessible to everyone. "I want anyone who's attending the Urban Symposium to know that everything is open. I'm really hoping there will be some crossover," she says.

Think of it: Urban folks attending rock events? Rockers checking out urban shows? Only in Atlanta.

The Atlantis Music Conference is held August 9-12. For information, call 770-499-8600 or visit atlantismusic.com