In Atlanta, Everybody Influences Everything For Better And Worse

ATLANTA — Getting stuck in traffic on Interstate 85 provided plenty of time to contemplate all I'd learned about why so many people — like Chicago rapper Lil Durk — migrate to A-Town.

"Almost everybody is from somewhere else" was a common refrain I heard from Atlantans on my stop there as part of a post-pandemic meandering across the country to reacquaint myself with America.

One Atlanta transplant who grew up in "Terrortown" on Chicago's South Side challenged me to survey strangers rather than take his word for it that he had moved to a melting pot.

"Just ask, 'Where ya'll from?'" he said. So, I did just that.

My unscientific survey matched with national demographics that mark Atlanta as a favored relocation destination for folks from almost every corner of the country.

A painter at Piedmont Park claimed Philly as her hometown. A deli owner relocated from New Jersey to hawk bagels. A custom clothier I met at The Gathering Spot — a private club of mostly Black entrepreneurs, professionals and young creatives — moved to the Buckhead neighborhood from rural southern Georgia to launch a clothing line.

Atlantans whom I met on the street said they came from Washington, D.C., and Nashville. Detroit and Miami. St. Louis and New York City.

And, of course, my hometown — Chicago.

Denzel Orr, 29, moved to Mechanicsville – down the street from the Mercedes Benz Stadium, home of the Atlanta Falcons — from Chicago's South Side in November, a few weeks after he heard gunshots that resulted in a neighbor's murder.

What Orr says he found in Atlanta was everyday life that not so starkly divided by race — a welcome contrast from the "Black and white" in America's most segregated city.

Down here, Orr told me, white neighbors would say hello to him on the street without fear in their eyes. And everyday errands were no longer anxiety-producing events.

"Everyone here says, 'Good morning, how are you?' Up [in Chicago], I'd have to worry about someone jumping out of a bush when I walked to the mailbox," Orr said. "Honestly, it's taken some getting used to. But I like it."

During my visit, a collection of Atlanta locals explained the "Black Mecca of the South" feeds off the energy of outsiders like no other city.

Independent journalist George Chidi probably said it best: "You'll see it on T-shirts, and it's true: 'Atlanta influences everything.' … but Atlanta is also influenced by everything."

And right now, elements of Chicago culture — for better and worse — are having their moment in Atlanta's spotlight and shadows.

"Atlanta seems to be the center of the rap universe right now after a lot of work to steal that title from New York and L.A., but ultimately Atlanta is a hashtag, an image and a Chicago rapper showing up here is about extending a brand. … And not just the music, but the gang scene, too," Chidi told me in between bites of a grilled cheese sandwich at the Majestic Diner in Midtown.

"If you've got a seriously organized criminal enterprise, street gang or music group from another area, you can establish some influence here. I think some of what we're seeing [from Chicago] is just that."

Top Of The Charts In ATL, Tragedy In Chicago 'Burbs

In the Atlanta melting pot, Chicago-bred rapper Lil Durk has straddled the darkness and the light.

In this city that locals told me embraces hustle above all else, he found musical contemporaries that rocketed him to a level of success that eluded him back home.

On June 4, the same day I left Chicago on my cross-country journey, Lil Durk's bluesy and emotional drill-rap collaboration with Atlanta artist Lil Baby, "Voice of the Heroes," rocketed up the charts.

I had planned to meet Lil Durk in Atlanta after some folks said they could schedule a sit-down to talk with him about his life there — a rollercoaster of music industry success, the shooting death of his lifelong friend and rap collaborator King Von, and attempted murder charges.

Lil Durk, also known as Durk Derrick Banks, grew up navigating our hometown's most notorious gang turfs — "O-Block" and "Lamron," home to factions of the Black Disciples street gang.

In a YouTube interview with DJ Vlad, Lil Durk said he moved to Atlanta to further his music career.

"Had to [move out of Chicago]. I stay in Atlanta now. … I'm comfortable there," said Lil Durk, 28.

In Chicago, the "whole violence thing going on," a frequent topic of Lil Durk's lyrics, stood as a roadblock to stardom.

Under former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel's administration — as shootings and murders spiked to historic levels — police routinely would shut down the live rap shows of Lil Durk and his contemporaries, including Chief Keef, Lil Reese and the late King Von, whose songs drip with authentic tales of life in the streets that has been both inspired by and inspiration for bloodshed.

Lil Durk told DJ Vlad he moved to Atlanta "to take that next step to elevate my music and my sound and my way, ya feel me."

It worked. The first single on his collaboration with Lil Baby replaced Taylor Swift at the top of the Billboard album charts.

In Atlanta, Lil Durk started a trucking company with a fleet of 18-wheelers and launched a real estate company in hopes of diversifying his net worth, which was estimated at $3 million even before he had a No. 1 record.

On June 5, the day after "Voice of the Heroes" was released, Lil Durk's older brother, Dontay Banks Jr. — known in rap circles as OTF DThang — was shot dead outside a strip club in the Chicago suburbs.

Two weeks later, from a parking spot across from where authorities say surveillance video captured Lil Durk firing shots from a car two years ago, I called the rapper's cell phone hoping to talk.

When he answered, his voice was soft and sullen.

"My brother died," he said. "My brother died."

The line went dead. I put Lil Durk's new album on repeat.

Tucked in each track are lyrics expressing a personal pain and desperation connected to an uncertain future that torments the lives of young men in Chicago and Atlanta — and other big cities plagued with violence and starkly divided by class.

"Police caught me in the cut, I had to walk out with my arms up," Durk raps on "Voice of the Heroes" recorded by Atlanta producers getting rave reviews from critics. "Ain't to big to pray, last minute, I put my palms up."

But none of Lil Durk's verses seemed to capture an alarming trend that hints at how some worry some Chicago transplants might be influencing Atlanta more than this one: "Have a real shootout on that E-way, you can't miss yo exit."

Atlanta's Chicago-like "Dark Place"

In 2020, the Atlanta murder rate brought the city of Atlanta into a "dark place," penned Journal-Constitution columnist Bill Torpy, a native of Chicago's Irish Democrat-controlled 19th Ward who migrated south for what he planned to be a three-year reporting stint 31 years ago.

Atlanta, Torpy wrote, "now has virtually the same murder rate as Chicago. Let me repeat, Atlanta has virtually the same murder rate as Chicago. You know, the city where they seemingly pile up bodies like cordwood, allowing other municipalities to say, 'Well, at least we’re not Chicago.'”

With just over 500,000 residents, Atlanta is a small town compared to Chicago. The murder count within the Southern city's limits amounts to a homicide rate that tops the per capita killings in my city, sometimes known as "Chi-raq."

So far this year, Atlanta police have "had their hands full" investigating 15 shootings on the city's highways. The latest highway shootout happened on Interstate 20 on Friday. A man who was shot and wounded told police he had been at Magic City, an Atlanta nightclub, when a fight broke out.

Atlanta police told a local TV station in May that only three of those shootings were road rage-related, and only two arrests had been made.

That's a very Chicago-like trend.

In 2020, there were 128 shootings on Chicago expressways — or the "E-way," as Lil Durk calls 'em. And during the first five months of this year, there have been 90 expressway shootings in Chicago, a 130 percent increase compared with the same period in 2020.

At an Atlanta City Council public safety committee meeting last week, Councilwoman Cleta Winslow asked a police official if there might be a Chicago connection to spikes in shootings in their town.

“We’re all concerned about the guns and the violence happening, not only in the City of Atlanta, but metro wide. I come from the Midwest, about 90 miles from Chicago. I’m very concerned there may be more violent people moving down here, and that’s why it’s been a step up in things I’ve seen, we’ve all seen, with respect for violence," she said.

“We’re all seeing something different that’s a little more frightening, where these people are trying to take over our city, and send a message they are taking over."

Atlanta Assistant Police Chief Todd Coyt said he wished he had an answer for Winslow.

"At this point, we don't," he said.

"Just Tell 'Em To Free Larry Hoover."

Let's face it, though — it's not a secret that Chicago-based gangs have tried to set up shop in Atlanta.

Last year, law enforcement sources told my pal, Chicago Sun-Times crime reporter Frank Main, that members of the Black Disciples are suspected of gun and marijuana trafficking in Atlanta.

And court records show the Black Disciples have done business in Atlanta for years, the Sun-Times reported.

In 2016, leaders of the Gangster Disciples — a "ruthless" street gang founded in Chicago by Larry Hoover, who authorities say still calls shots for the gang from federal prison — were convicted of a racketeering conspiracy involving murder in Atlanta.

Chidi, the independent journalist, told me his suburban neighborhood near Stone Mountain still hasn't fully recovered since the Gangster Disciples took over former Bloods street gang territory at Central Drive and North Hairston.

"The Gangster Disciples threw around a lot of money and they threw around a lot of bullets. And they bought a cop," Chidi said.

"They were a group called the H.A.T.E. Committee that would even scores, and shoot people. One thing led to another and everybody got busted. Fifty people indicted. Those guys were all taking all their orders from Chicago, guys in jail in Illinois."

The rap collaboration between Lil Durk and Lil Baby at the top of the music charts is packed with references to the Black Disciples and Gangster Disciples street gangs.

In the song "Hats Off," Lil Durk shouts out slain members from the O-Block faction of Black Disciples he grew up with, and lyrically advocates for the "King" of the GDs' release from prison.

"Someone tell Kanye and Kim to just stick to the script," Lil Durk says, "and just tell 'em to free Larry Hoover."

But you can't blame the Atlanta police assistant chief for being unsure about Chicago's influence on his city's shooting problem.

Atlanta street gangs have shown they're perfectly capable of producing rap music stars and conspiring to commit murder without anybody's help.

Last month, Atlanta rapper YFN Lucci was among a dozen defendants named in a wide-ranging criminal indictment alleging racketeering, armed robbery, murder and other felonious activities.

ATL Feels A Lot Like Home

There's a thin line between rap lyrics and real life.

But the stories people tell — about their own lives and the cities they hail from — never truly capture the essence of a person or place.

Before Lil Durk turned himself in to police on felony charges in 2019, he told an Atlanta TV reporter that he was innocent — an artist, not a gang banger.

A judge will decide if Lil Durk, a musician with a No. 1 record, also fired shots from a car.

Atlanta's authorities will sort out the connection between its local rap stars and criminal enterprises.

What's certain to me is that not a a single transplant, where ever they hailed from, can go unchanged by Atlanta — this city that influences everything.

After my few days in here, dozens of conversations with locals and hours spent stuck in traffic — and parking lots waiting for traffic to subside — I became convinced that folks who flock here searching for something better will find what they're looking for.

The same goes for opportunists, con artists and criminals.

For that, the biggest city in the South seemed a lot like home.

Only hotter — and without a beach.

Mark Konkol, recipient of the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for local reporting, wrote and produced the Peabody Award-winning series, "Time: The Kalief Browder Story." He was a producer, writer and narrator for the "Chicagoland" docu-series on CNN, and a consulting producer on the Showtime documentary, "16 Shots."

This summer, follow KONKOL ON THE ROAD:

• It's 'Insane' Chicago Isn't The Sweet Home Of A Blues Museum
• Time To Drive — Out Of The Land Of Fakequity and Faux Reforms