![]() ![]() Lil Mark, of the Bankhead rap group Yung Money, has called Toe Jam “the first distribution deal any rapper from Bankhead had.”Īs Toe Jam was getting off the ground, Omaha transplant Tyrone Young was searching for work in the music industry. At this combination music store and studio, Toe Jam sold mix CDs featuring local artists and charged just $25 an hour for Bankhead residents to record there. For soon-to-be famous residents like late D4L star Shawty Lo, Toe Jam was yet another important site. With nearly 4,000 residents, this 74-acre family housing project off Donald Lee Hollowell Parkway near the Perimeter was large enough to have its own daycare, elementary school, and library. Six months after their bread truck first hit the road, the founders of Toe Jam Music set up shop across the street from Bowen Homes. “Taking the Master P route is where you have inner-city youth able to set up a business plan around the music scene, selling your own CDs and just making the industry aware that you do exist,” Travis Denson says. ![]() Richardson and the Densons saw a blueprint for their own success in the career trajectory of No Limit founder and New Orleans native Master P. Before the label, though, No Limit Records was a Bay Area music store. ![]() No Limit Records-whose roster included Silkk the Shocker, C-Murder, Mia X, and Mystikal-was on its way to selling 15 million records and earning over $100 million. It was the real Atlanta in ’98.”Īt the same time, Southern hip-hop was achieving mainstream success. “Freaknik had Bankhead jammed from Northside Drive, down there by the Dome, all the way to Mableton. “Freaknik wasn’t just downtown,” Richardson says. ![]() Atlanta bass hits like Playa Poncho’s “Whatz Up, Whatz Up” and Bankhead’s own contribution, A-Town Players’ “Wassup, Wassup,” were in heavy rotation. But this mobile operation-the humble beginnings of Toe Jam Music-made a lot of business sense in spring 1998.Īt the time, it was the trio’s entry point into Freaknik, the Atlanta spring-break festival–turned–infamous street-dance party. How they got the bread truck, or why they chose that specific mode of transportation, only Kevin knows. More than 75 Bankhead community members helped choose and produce the stories for CA ’s Bankhead Issue, including this one.īefore Vincent “Pudgy” Richardson and brothers Kevin and Travis Denson helped turn Bankhead into a hip-hop landmark, they sold CDs and white tees out of a bread truck outfitted with 15-inch rims. This story was produced by Canopy Atlanta, a community-led journalism nonprofit that collaborates with Atlantans-from assigning stories to reporting and presenting them. Research by Nile Kendall, Canopy Atlanta Fellow Vincent Richardson, Kevin Denson, and Travis Denson-founders of Toe Jam ![]()
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