Crib Notes

CHAOS BY DESIGN

Sweaty strangers in flannel are grabbing my ass in a warehouse off Dekalb Avenue. Half a pint of Wild Turkey convinced me it’d be a good idea to free fall from the rafters into a sea of hipsters. Maybe I just couldn’t hear him correctly over the blaring amps of the Black Lips, but a wild turkey has never steered me wrong before. Fuck it. It’s chaos by design, and it’s a beautiful thing.

It’s a Saturday night and we’re in superstar hip-hop photographer Zach Wolfe’s studio. He’s quite possibly the coolest person, other than Chad Radford, to hail from the home of Captain James Tiberion Kirk. A pasty white boy from Iowa and he has the Dirty South in the palm of his hand. The guy has his adopted city railed out on a table and it’s yelling, Snort This.

Problem: Zach’s grandiose studio has an equally substantial August power bill.

Solution: Let’s party.

A couple hours of preparation, a couple of runs to Green’s, and a couple hundred kids turn up for a guerilla-style Black Lips show. A benefit fit for scoundrels.
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Spotted at Lavish Life Social Club.

Looks like the rapper formerly known as B.o.B. is serious about taking his music to the next level.

Last Wednesday, Bobby Ray performed an acoustic set in celebration of his newly released mixtape B.o.B. vs. Bobby Ray. Zach Wolfe shot footage at Striver’s Row, the new men’s fashion boutique co-owned by Jason Geter of Grand Hustle (T.I.’s record label).

Whether you dig where Bobby Ray’s headed or not, it’s cool to see an MC signed to a major label (Rebel Rock/Grand Hustle/Atlantic) put his artistic evolution out on front street for all to critique. If anything, it proves the state of the industry is in total flux right now. Usually this is the kind of experimentation that goes on behind closed doors, and the end result is either shipped (yay) or shelved (nay) by the record label. Guess they’re taking a wait-and-see approach, too.

Either that, or they’re already sold on the end result and want to make sure the public is, so they’re spoon-feeding us. Experiment away I say, as long as there are no instructional dance songs in the works.

DOWNLOAD B.o.B vs. Bobby Ray

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Spotted at MauriceGarland.com.

I’ve become infatuated with still photographer Zach Wolfe’s videography. Basically, the dude is ill. Like a hybrid of documentary photographer Gordon Parks and hip-hop video director Hype Williams, he combines a sense of realism and intimacy with some slick ass imagery and editing. I imagine it’s partly due to his technical know-how, his cutting-edge camera and his familiarity with his subjects. Because he’s established a rapport with such celebrities as Big Boi from past photo shoots, there’s no display of pretense — definitely no mugging for the camera, with just a minimal amount of shooter-subject interaction.

Peep his fly-on-the-wall footage of the recent Atlanta stop on the Sneaker Pimps tour featuring Big Boi’s sons Bamboo and Cross backstage with dad and his musical cohorts, including Khujo (Goodie Mob) and C-Bone.

Near the middle of the video, you get a vivid sense of what must be going through Big Boi’s mind in the moments before he steps on stage.

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Spotted at MauriceGarland.com:

I’m posting this video because I found it interesting to see how Big Boi is attempting to bridge a gap of sorts by enlisting Gucci on his album. Only other time I can remember a DF member doing something like this was when, hell, Gucci featured Khujo on “Corner Cuttin’” on his first album.

Big Boi’s been doing this for a while now though. Him hopping on remixes to Gorilla Zoe’s “Hood Nigga” and DJ Unk’s “Walk It Out” are proof. I’m also posting it because it shows that as much as Atlanta Hip Hop seems to be segregated at times, there’s still some sort of unity.

The video comes courtesy Atlanta-based photographer/videographer Zach Wolfe, who holds down a guest column of sorts on SnortThis.com and has been posting fresh flicks (we’re talking moving images) on his own site for the past few months. Wolfe’s videos shine an imaginative light on the random nature of Atlanta’s music scene — due in part to his technical mastery of the Canon Mark 11 5D — but mostly because of his editorial choices, i.e. the shit he shoots.

His extended footage of Ricky Powell’s El Bar gig from earlier this year is classic.

But my personal favorite features Wheel Chair Matt peeling donuts in the ’68 GTO he rented to the Shop Boyz for their “Party Like a Rock Star” video. Apparently, there’s a big difference between rap and reality, according to Dax:

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Video shot by photographer Zach Wolfe, during D.C.-based rapper Wale’s Atlanta tour stop last Friday.

Spotted at Okayplayer.com, where you can see more vids featuring performances from Colin Munroe, B.o.B., and T.I. at the Loft.

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