How Atlanta became the center of the rap universe

As it celebrates its 50th birthday, we are mapping hip-hop's story on a local level, with more than a dozen city-specific histories of the music and culture. Click here to see the entire list.

For evidence of Atlanta's continued ability to produce music that feeds both the underground and the mainstream, look no further than 's single "Peaches & Eggplants," with his cousin, the stoic cutthroat . The song, with its wordless hook ("Boaw, boaw, boaw, boaw") and hypersexual lyrics nodding to raunchy Atlanta jams of the past, is insanely catchy, but there is also an Easter egg within: 21's verse strikingly reimagines the local 2006 hit "" by and . Nudy and Savage, who is currently on tour with Drake, have risen because their music feels both ways at once: authentic and hyperlocal, and yet deceptively accessible and ubiquitous. This, too, is the story of Atlanta. Its Black culture feels singular, yet mirrors other Black. Amid these opposing truths, Atlanta teeters but never falls from its pedestal.