A Conversation With KodakK6000
What up y’all. Sky Bento here on the check-in. Big Bento Energy is most definitely in total effect. Hope you’ve been taking good care of yourself and every avenue of your health, especially your mental. But let’s get into why you’re really here.
I recently got to chop it up with Atlanta’s own Hood Historian, Kodakk6000. He first popped up on my radar a few years ago, but it wasn’t until he dropped the first part of his Atlanta Dance Documentary focused on the era we all affectionately refer to as the era of snap music. Personally, as an East Coaster, I fell in love with Atlanta at a young age due to seeing the birth of trap on Rap City through artists like T.I. & Jeezy, while simultaneously learning all the new dances on 106 & Park as songs like “Laffy Taffy” & “Lean Wit It Rock Wit It” tore up speaker systems everywhere. So when I seen the real story behind this era of music, I started following the man a lot more closely. Recently, his Twitter account has gone viral almost daily as its become an archive for Atlanta history, so I had to tap in with the man and get the full story as he sees and as it is. Below is how our conversation went.
[Editor’s note: this interview is explicit and the has been amended to be more digestible for your reading pleasure. Bento will speak in italics while Kodak will speak in bold.]
First of all, how you doing today brother?
I’m good bruh. Really just getting up and really making sh*t shake, but I’m good bruh. How about you?
I’m good as well man, can’t complain. Just left the spa honestly so I’m really feelin’ myself right now.
I feel you bruh, God damn bringing sexy back and sh*t [laughs].
[Laughs] You already know. So my first question… for those who don’t know, who are you and what is it you do? How would you describe it?
I am THEE CREATIVE. T-H-E-E on that motherfucker namsayin? One of the pioneers of Atlanta dance. A living OG of Atlanta dance. Everything that the kids on, all these dances stem from us, from me. And I didn’t realize that shit like, nigga really wrote the rule books to like, what it take to be an Atlanta dancer. I’m me, I’m you, I’m part of the community. I’m here to really tell a lot of people’s stories. Like beyond the dancing tip, I’m really just one of the speakers of the community. A voice of the people.
So what inspired you to be that voice? Like when did you realize like “Oh shit, we got something special right here.” What was that moment?
I wanna say it was the snap movement. I had seen this group called the Flomastaz who made up like all the snap dances and the motorcycle. When I seen how they got played by like the outside world and [Soulja Boy, Lil Jon, Yung Joc] would like pick and choose and they got like culturally just taken from. On a whole nother level they ain’t have a outlet to tell their story.
Yeah as an East Coaster, I knew about Soulja Boy & Lil Jon & Yung Joc. But like I started to hear about the Flomastaz as an adult, and seeing them in your documentary and what had ACTUALLY happened… like we got it from y’all STARS not y’all SOURCE basically. So that was like the motivation to shine light on your history it seems like, correct?
Yeah man just going to the clubs like religiously, seven days a week… like at one time in life I was homeless so all I had was the clubs. The club really the internet before the internet existed. The one place you can go into for 4 hours and be whoever you want. Nobody would know if you worked at the damn grocery store. So that’s how I picked up dancing.
So that was my next question actually. I feel like in general, most people start by rapping or getting involved with the music itself. Was it always dance specifically for you?
I came through swinging on the dancing shit bruh. Atlanta’s really the trap. The producers are the product, the rappers take the product and give it to the dancers who are like the fiends. Dancers hear it in the clubs and go crazy like [eating noises] “Mmm, that dope good!”. And artists like Future knew that shit. It’s like, “I’m making music for the strip clubs but I’m really making music for the city of Atlanta”. That’s why he’s been relevant so long. And I knew branding, like I was on Youtube before a lot of niggas. A lot of people knew that “Oh if I give this to Kodak, he gon blow it up in my community.” That’s where a lot of people really fuck with me the most as.
Was you looking at it as branding and marketing, like this a product we could sell? Or was it like “I’ma just have fun and make it look good”.
A little bit of both. I wanted to have fun but I wanted the world to get a insight to what was going on and respect that shit. Because a lot of folks may not have no money, but they’re very talented. So for me it was moreso, I was like nah let’s make a whole movement and kick the door down so they GOTTA fuck with it. This GOTTA work.
That’s the craziest thing too. This GOTTA work. But I don’t think even in Atlanta anybody could’ve even predicted the level of the impact. It started with snap music but rap is literally the biggest genre in the world because of trap. Did you ever see it getting big like number one in the world?
HELL NAH! [Laughs] At one point, Atlanta didn’t play music from other parts of the country. All we knew was Atlanta shit. Even in the clubs, neighborhood folk were bringing their CDs to the DJ and they were just playing it so we were kinda sheltered. So it was always like if Atlanta catch on to it that’s good. So I never expected like with the trap movement, how it’s a staple thing? I feel like one of the reasons why is because everywhere across the country is a fucking trap. So we’re speaking to an audience that hasn’t really been highlighted, and in Atlanta, we got more traps than anything! If you know where to get it, you can really get it everywhere.
Everywhere. Whole country.
Right, I think that that catapulted Atlanta culture to the forefront. Not only were we speaking on shit, it was in a creative way. We were having fun with it, it had a certain swag to it. We made it fun.
It was the reality of the trap but it was about making it fun. So how did it feel watching the most popping shit in Atlanta going from the snap music the dancing to the realism of the streets? How was the transition for you?
It’s crazy you say that because the snap movement and the trap movement happened at the same time. So the outside world kinda had to pick and choose what they was gonna fuck with. But we had both. You had a dope boy he got a strap, he selling drugs, but next thing you know he busting out the snap dance.
So basically it was always a balance, it was just like what got the spotlight.
Exactly. We came out the gate with two genres. [Trap] went to the older generation, and snap went to the younger generations. So we was killing two markets at one time and got to the point where like, you got to pick and choose because there was too many people! It was a overload.
Yeah, like y’all basically had two separate blowups between trap music and snap music. It’s crazy to hear it brought together like it has in this past generation where music is really just like, fun first. We got Tik Tok and the little kids doing whatever dances they can think of, which is basically following y’all blueprint from 2006.
That’s what I be trying to tell folks, Tik Tok is the most regurgitated… Psh… Like we literally did that shit. Like people be telling me Kodak put up a Tik Tok you gon go up! Like bruh I been did this shit. That’s really the formula we been using for like damn near 15 years. But you gotta be careful what you putting up on that platform, because you can’t copyright no dance. But yeah I think D4L was the perfect transition because they’re shoot yo ass and then turn around and be like “oh, I bet you can’t do it like me” (laughs). It was a good transition to the people because it was like you ain’t got to be hard to get your point across. If you live over here, you a part of that environment so you could speak on that shit and still just do your own thing. We were real good of not erasing the humanity part. Like yea we here but we still can do other shit too. So it felt like probably the most perfect balance that we had out here in a long time.
That’s a great way to put it. It’s the humanity of it that makes both of those styles… like catapults them to where with the Tik Tok era, the definition of mainstream is what Atlanta’s been doing for the past 10-15, I’d say even 20 years.
To me it never really seemed like we were doing anything all that different. Was a time where Black folks wasn’t even having like that. So everybody tap in with our local producers in the area or homeboy house who got the studio in his basement. Lot of these songs ain’t even mixed and mastered. Straight from the bedroom, this is Closet LLC music! But we bring it to the club and they eat this shit up. So then the radio like they gotta play that shit. It was like one of the best formulas at the time. Shit ain’t really like the same no more because I feel like Atlanta done got too damn money hungry. They ain’t listening to the streets right now. That’s kinda why I wanna step out and do what I’m doing because I’m like “y’all niggas ain’t paying attention to what’s going on in the streets. They locked in on like, if you ain’t got the bag like that, you ain’t getting no movement. That’s why certain folks can come to the city and lock in with all the right people like that. We open like that, we still got Southern hospitality, so when somebody new come here and they got the bag? Everybody fucking with them. Default. So they ride the Atlanta bandwagon and soon as they get on they ain’t from here no more and we looking stupid.
So my next and final question is, where do you see Atlanta going in the next 5-10-15 years? Do you think another city will ever even like Atlanta
Well to me that shit can go either way. At the same, if they keep gentrifying the city what’s gon be Atlanta? It’s not gon have that same Atlanta sound. Like Young Thug went back and said these my people and created basically like a base to preserve that Atlanta sound. I feel as if to go in the future, the next generation gotta get into that bag and now where they at and the power that they have and the people they around. People enjoy the people of Atlanta more than the city. Because the people are what’s gonna put you on. But to get the people you gotta have that talent. So we gotta get back to that. And with the internet if you ain’t got no huge base, people don’t even want to put you on that platform. And it’s fucked up because the people that’s going viral they’re not already rich. They’re using their talent to get on the platform to be able to get money off it. So it’s killing the connection of that pure music shit. People are forgetting that whole thing of cashing in on their energy because that’s the most important thing on this planet, is our energy.
Well with you on ground zero directly tapped in to the pulse, is there anybody you’d like to use this moment to shoutout to on the come up?
Shout out to the whole Atlanta! Metro, West Georgia, Jackson, Middle Georgia, Macon, Stone Mountain where the KKK from and we took that shit over it’s hella black folks out here now. Shoutout to the West side, the North side, the South side. Shout out to rappers on the comeup, Young Sin, he got some eyeballs on him. All the promoters, the drug dealers, the J’s, the homies came out the hood and jumped into politics to try and make the city better. Shoutout to everybody except the police. Everybody putting they best foot forward in Atlanta. Every little piece of this shit make it great man. The mom and pop stores with 42 flavors of chicken wings. The strip clubs, the hole in the walls, the gentlemen’s clubs. All the sports. Everybody bruh. That’s what I wanna do, just be the voice they can look at man. I’m a tell y’all stories. I got y’all. Y’all Black History, at least to me.
You can follow Kodak on Twitter and Instagram @kodakk6000