Atlanta’s finest came out in mass last Friday to recreate Art Kane’s 1958 photo, A Great Day in Harlem.
For those unfamiliar with the original, Kane assembled 57 jazz artists, including Count Basie, Thelonius Monk and Dizzy Gillespie for one historic photo shoot. The recreated shoot, dubbed A Great Day in Atlanta will be part of the upcoming My Block: Atlanta special on MTV.
“It’s a positive thing,”Rico Wade of Organized Noize told MTV.com. “It’s a blessing that MTV’s showing Atlanta love. And it’s a blessing that we got the people, we got the talent. It’s so many cats that’s been holding it down — T-Boz is out here, who I’ve known since ’93 — and then you have guys like T.I. and Jeezy out here, a lot of cats that’s keeping it going, too.”
Over the last decade, Atlanta has become one of hip hop’s premiere cities. From musical pioneers like Jermaine Dupri to industry new comers like Young Jeezy and Crime Mob, ATL showcased their short but proud hip hop history.
AD LOADING...
“It’s beautiful,” said Jermaine Dupri of the event. “I think it’s way overdue [for this kind of shoot], but I think it’s great that we as a city did everything we could possibly do to get to this point. I look around and I say you can’t look at this picture, you gonna have to listen to this picture today.”
Ludacris, who recently made headlines for sporting a Confederate flag at this year’s Vibe awards was shocked at the turn out.
“I can’t believe they actually got all these people together in one spot,” he said with a smile.
