There is no doubt about hip hop and its culture and the importance of Atlanta. For many years, the sound of the south has been an overlooked appendage force, and has had to look up to the massive exposure and success achieved by New York and Los Angeles.
On September 12th, a huge crowd of people arrived on site in search of inspiration and guidance to help navigate through the storm of the music industry. The Summit brought out the likes of P Diddy (obviously) with the whole Combs Cartel, Young Jeezy, T.I., Timbaland, Swizz Beatz and many more.
Working alongside award-winning Dallas Austin, I arrived in Atlanta few days before the event to work on a series of short videos aimed to inspire and hype up to the following days.
Whilst the event started on Thursday, our interview-style videos was uploading on a daily basis.
The challenge when working on my own is always to try to come out with creative ideas, direct the shoot in the right way, make sure the filming run smooth and deliver a solid and successful edit. The long relationship with Dallas facilitate the workflow a lot and we often bounce ideas at each other and overall he is always ready to make things different and push the boundaries.
After a very interactive first two days at the Summit, we arrived in the final Saturday which saw the Pioneers of Atlanta Jermaine Dupri, Dallas Austin and Rico Wade discussing their storied careers, shaping the sound of Southern rap and how their imprint has influenced modern music. Later on the same day, T.I. and Mayor Lance Bottoms along with Eboni K. Williams took part in Trap The Vote: Hip Hop & Politics, a piece that went viral on the internet!
And whilst Diddy, Dallas, Jermaine Dupri and DJ Khaled went to the afterparty to celebrate the Summit finale, I went straight into the edit to make sure to deliver the piece of content the same day! The video went online few hours later shared by the various Dallas Austin, Jermaine Dupri, Diddy and the Revolt Team.
Sharing of information, and truly building together as a culture was the essence, and purpose of the #REVOLTSummit.