♪♪♪ Escobar: Atlanta has been the place where things that probably shouldn't work and probably wouldn't work anywhere else do anyway.

♪♪♪ We understand that, in numbers, you can get more done.

♪♪♪ It's a town of hustlers, and -- and hustlers who do it in style.

♪♪♪ And, you know, when in any movement that you've seen work in time, it's based on being able to get a bunch of like-minded people together.

♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ "You have to always be drunk.

That's all there is to it.

It's the only way.

So as not to feel the horrible burden of time that breaks your back and bends you to the earth."

Atlanta is a place of originators, innovators, and rebels.

We understand that we're up against, like adversaries and oppressive forces that don't necessarily want this to be the front.

"You have to be continually drunk.

But on what?

Wine, poetry, or virtue?

As you wish.

But be drunk."

Escobar: Atlanta has been the place where things that probably shouldn't work and probably wouldn't work anywhere else do anyway.

♪♪♪ When I moved to Atlanta, there was nothing going on late at night.

It drove me nuts.

I'd get off work, and no one -- I couldn't eat anywhere, you know?

[ Camera shutter clicking ] So we decided -- my business partner, Angus, and I decided to build something great for the chef, for the working class.

♪♪♪ Octopus Bar is weird.

It's like, it grew -- it grew -- It's very organic, you know?

It's grew by word of mouth.

People, good restaurant people.

Like, it's service-industry-driven, and that's what we built it for.

You know, like, we're not here -- you know, we're not here to make money.

We're here to deliver a product.

♪♪♪ Oh, it's always a party.

We don't judge people here.

♪♪♪ Come here, you let loose.

♪♪♪ It's going to be a madhouse tonight.

That's what it's about.

It's what we do.

I heard you're doing fireworks?

Oh, fireworks, midnight.

Fireworks, bonfire, bunch of naked girls on dunk tank.

It's gonna be awesome.

♪♪♪ Engelbrecht: Nhan is, uh...

He's like the type of guy that would, like, bury a body for you.

[ Laughs ] You know what I mean?

Like, he's like your best friend.

He's almost like mafioso friendship.

You know, he dreams spaces and menus and restaurants.

You know, it's something that is always active.

And I met Skip one day.

He bought me to Pairs on Ponce, showed me this beautiful building.

And people laughed at us, like, "You can't do anything in this building."

We're like -- no, we had this beautiful vision, and then we made it happen.

♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ People ask me all the time how Paris on Ponce functions and what is -- what it is specifically, and it's really hard to describe.

♪♪♪ You can't describe it.

It's eclectic.

A lot of local artists, a lot of local art.

That's what drives people, you know?

It's the last of its kind.

♪♪♪ Escobar: Yeah.

Paris on Ponce ends up being -- the things at Paris on Ponce become a really good metaphor for the city because you find a lot of these old things that have been reimagined in a new way and reused in it.

And so it's this collision of the old and new.

♪♪♪ Valdespino: Remember the first time I came in here?

And you were standing behind the desk, and it was a disaster area?

Yes.

And you look shellshocked.

I had bought a business from hoarders, and it was filled with all their junk.

And it took a year and a half to clear out.

And she's looking at this pla-- I'm like, "I'm gonna do all this," and she was like, "How?"

and I was like, "I don't know."

♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ What it is now and what it's become in the last eight years since Skip took over and I joined him is the heart -- it's the heart of Midtown.

♪♪♪ And we have 83 separate vendors.

We try to keep it as local as possible.

We try to keep it as handmade as possible.

We bring in vendors that start off with a booth that is a 5x7.

We have incredible artists here in Atlanta who a gallery doesn't suit them.

It doesn't give them enough foot traffic.

They're a little younger.

They're a little bit -- They're a little bit flashier, They're a little bit brighter.

They're a little bit...

They're new.

♪♪♪ I learned so much from Paris on Ponce evolving through the years and changing it and constantly creating and having to overdo myself and all these things and changing.

And now we're doing the same thing here, you know?

♪♪♪ The concept behind 8ARM started with Nhan and Angus's vision of having a restaurant that was focused on farm-fresh foods.

Very small menu.

We only have eight items.

[ Camera shutter clicking ] We started in the dining room, and we built this shipping-container bar.

And now we're going to build another bar upstairs and keep evolving sort of what we do.

And we're constantly changing, and we're not scared to do that.

We love that.

Keeps it fresh, you know?

♪♪♪ Everyone here's a family.

I'm sure that George and Nhan and Jeff and Matt would all tell you the same thing.

It's very, like -- we created a family.

Artists of different genres, different processes, love to work with each other.

Nhan: So we all have our role in it.

My job is to do food, Skip's job is to design the place, and George just pays the bill.

♪♪♪ You have this group of people that want the same things.

We all want to provide these opportunities and reflect our community.

Nicolette is like -- like, our -- like our mom.

[ Laughs ] Yeah, she makes sure we're on track, we show up at our meetings, you know?

Yeah, we make sure we get our goodies.

She's our house mom.

Reflected Atlanta as what it is, which is, it's a town of hustlers, and -- and hustlers who do it in style.

♪♪♪ As we're watching everything develop around us, we're watching big-box stores come in and buy everything out.

Skip and I have planted our feet very firmly, and we are trying to preserve this little bit of history.

It's moving so fast on the Beltline, and rent is going up and up, and everything else is just being eaten up in this area.

And I think holding on to it for as long as we can is, like, duty for the city.

It's really important for me.

I agree.

♪♪♪ "And if sometimes, on the steps of a palace or the green grass of a ditch in the mournful solitude of your room, you wake again, drunkenness already diminishing or gone, ask the wind, ask the wave, the star, the bird, the clock, everything that is flying, everything that is groaning, everything that is rolling, everything that is singing, everything that is speaking, ask what time it is, and the wind, the wave, the star, the bird, the clock will answer you."

♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ This mural is one of five murals that I'm doing for Atlanta United, and this one is the first one.

[ Camera shutter clicking ] All these train lines have become -- now it's the Beltline, and it's lays on what is now the Beltline, which actually used to be railroad tracks that carried the rolling stock that helped build the city and also delivered all these goods that our city made at one time from all these factories to the rest of the world, which built this city to be what it is now.

♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ We are on the West Side Trail of the Atlanta Beltline -- actually 3 miles of the 22-mile Beltline that will be created where many institutions were created, dating back to Reconstruction, that actually helped to shape the Civil Rights Movement.

And so I imagine photographs being stretched across several miles in Atlanta.

And I had this wonderful opportunity to partner with the Atlanta Beltline Inc. in order to make this museum that's not bound by walls.

And we decided to stretch it all across the city in a very fabulous way in order to tell this story about Atlanta's contributions to the Civil Rights Movement.

♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ Anderson: You know, Tiny Doors ATL and also the Beltline are ways that Atlanta has embraced an unusual idea and really made it part of its own culture.

♪♪♪ I grew up loving miniatures in Atlanta, that embraced the miniature and also embraced the street art and public art.

It is.

It's a little rebellious in its nature.

I mean, Atlanta is full of big, gorgeous artwork, and I'm making very small artwork.

♪♪♪ So I want it to be interactive.

And they're all interactive in different ways, but you can touch every single one.

So the Krog Tunnel door has augmented reality.

The Krog Tunnel, the interesting thing about this place is that it's always changing.

There's always something new getting painted over.

And so in the spirit of the Krog Tunnel, I wanted to do something where I brought in some awesome collaborators, someone I'd never worked with before.

And Lotus Eaters Club does amazing things around Atlanta.

♪♪♪ Okay.

Lotus Eaters Club is a collective of artists from all walks of life.

♪♪♪ We paint over here a lot, and we hang out in this side of town a lot.

And when she hit us up, we'd kind of always been kind of wanting to work with her.

So when she hit us up, we're like, "Yeah, let's do it," and I wanted to do something that felt really local and kind of, like, indigenous to this area of Atlanta.

And we do a lot of, like, creatures and characters and stuff like that, so we knew we were going to do something like that hidden within the house.

And you can look at it through your phone and see it, but you can also just go up and touch it.

And they really respected my creative process, which is to create a blank canvas for the imagination.

I'm really trying to create a space where you look at it and then you feel free to decide what it's about.

♪♪♪ The creative mentality of Atlanta, to me, reads like a sculptor's mentality.

The community here of artists help each other.

There is such a collaborative melting pot going on here.

It's almost like people are looking for other artists to collaborate with, and that's an exciting environment to work in.

The other the other thing that happens in Atlanta a good bit is artists of different genres, different processes love to work with each other.

And I think if you're born here or you've chosen to make Atlanta your home, everyone feels that even if they're not actively aware of it, that anyone, no matter who you are or no matter what space you're in, you could be anything you want.

♪♪♪ The Plaza Theatre opened in 1939 as a vaudeville cinema.

It's home to a number of special events like the Atlanta Film Festival.

It is the oldest operating cinema in the city.

It's one of the oldest continuously operating businesses in the city of any kind, considering it's 80 years old.

[ Camera shutter clicking ] The Plaza, much like Atlanta, has had a lot of different shapes.

When it opened, it was much more of a family cinema.

By the '60s, it became more older-oriented, and in the '70s, it had a brief period as an adult theater.

And then, in the '80s, it was sort of reborn.

To get out of my comfort zone, you know, at the Atlanta Film Society and even here at the Plaza Theatre, we're presenters.

We're not generally creators.

And Dad's Garage is creating several times a day and several times a week, all the time, fresh new things.

Dad's Garage was founded in 1995, and it's the home of comedy in the southeastern states.

I mean, we are the biggest comedy institution in this section of the country.

At the end of the day, Dad's Garage is about comedy, be it improvised or be it scripted.

So this project is something that Chris Escobar and I have been cooking on for a while.

And answer to the question "What would a collaboration between Dad's Garage and the Atlanta Film Festival look like?"

Escobar: I really admire what Dad's Garage does and how they create so much, and so I was thinking it could be a really interesting component to take a setting like the Plaza, where normally what you watch is straightforward and done, and take a movie that is already created and made, but have that clash with having to make up half of the movie, which is the sound, on the spot.

And we came up with this idea of using improvization to redub live classic film clips.

♪♪♪ For this very first one, let's do the kind of, like, raw organic improv thing where we start from zero.

So today we're here workshopping at the Plaza Theatre, which is a beautiful, historic movie theater here in the heart of Atlanta.

And this is the perfect spot for us to be kicking off our collaboration because this is kind of ground zero for the Atlanta Film Festival.

[ Whistles ] Now, if you're feeling uncomfortable, you just let me know, and you can go outside.

Gillese: Today with me, I brought a handful of performers, improvisers from Dad's Garage.

Keep this in mind -- this is where we'll all be buried.

Okay, let's call it there.

Good work, you guys.

[ Laughter ] Good work.

Okay.

I actually felt, like, with...

This is our first workshop, and we're just trying to really dig into what works and what doesn't and how can we get this on its feet in front of people, because that's when things really start to pick up and you see how it's going to evolve.

And so the idea here today was to start experimenting with, "What if we were creating a new thing where it's not just either this or this in this place, but a new thing of kind of putting these two things happening and colliding at the same time?"

All right.

This is very expensive.

[ Offbeat music plays ] ♪♪♪ Oh, man.

Hey, this song that's playing, it's a good song, but I'll turn it off.

Rew-rew-rew-rew!

[ Laughter ] But the beauty about stuff like this is, you just throw stuff at the wall and you see what works, and then you try to do more of the stuff that works and less of the stuff that isn't.

You know, my standards, and I expect you to live by them.

Sam!

I refuse.

We need a barbecue pit.

I don't eat meat!

Gillese: I love working with Chris Escobar because he gets things done at a really high level.

I really admire what Dad's Garage does and how they create so much.

There is such a collaborative melting pot going on here.

It's almost like people are looking for other artists to collaborate with, and that's an exciting environment to work in.

♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ Prather: My name is Kawan Prather.

Most people call me K.P.

I'm a member of the Dungeon Family, first generation.

I'm a member of the group Parental Advisory.

We were the first group to get signed out of the Dungeon Family, and we were signed to LaFace Records.

What hip hop was was an expression of who you are and where you're from, so it made us kind of -- it opened us up to let us know that we could do it, as well, and put our spin on it.

I think every artist I've worked on pretty much has worked out of this studio at some point.

So -- and it's because it's central to everything, because around the corner you have Stankonia, which is OutKast's studio.

Around the -- like, up the street you have Darp, which is Dallas Austin's Studio.

And next to that was Silent Sound, which was Daryl Simmons studio, who was partners with L.A. and Babyface.

So this kind of became the area where the -- you know, all the artists were.

♪♪♪ A lot of plaques here that I had some work on.

Jagged Edge, Goodie Mob, OutKast.

Okay.

So this is -- this is cool, because it's like a bunch of firsts in one space.

This actually is the first OutKast record that I got A&R credit for.

And this was the first record I did on Usher, "My Way," as an A&R person.

And I guess the -- We have John Legend here, which is -- I A&R'd this project, as well.

But that one, "Evolver," if you look up -- up the wall, there's a John Legend plaque up there that's -- that's actually... Is it the first?

No, it's not the first.

But I definitely -- we produced "Green Light" on that record, and we did that here.

It's so many different cultures here in Atlanta, which is the part that makes it a lot easier to thrive in a entertainment business because there's so much to pull from.

Because at the high school I graduated from, Tri-Cities High School, which is the same high school that OutKast both went to, that, you know, Kenan from "Saturday Night Live," he graduated from this school, Poo Bear, who's an amazing writer who writes for Justin Bieber, all went to this high school, Tri-Cities.

But the latest person I signed is also from that high school, a kid named Kap G. ♪♪♪ ♪ This money came in, now your bitch want at me ♪ And he looks different, he sounds different, because when I talked to him the first time on the phone, I didn't know I was talking to Kap.

♪♪♪ ♪ Whoo, hoppin' in the jet ♪ ♪ Yeah, yeah ♪ ♪ I'll retweet, but you know I got to keep it blue check ♪ ♪ Yeah, oh ♪ ♪ Model bitch key ass ring gonna fly to Quebec, yeah ♪ And Kap G I met through another friend of mine who saw him on the Internet just because he had a video that he shot with a bunch of his friends.

But where he shot the video was an apartment complex called Charlestown.

♪ Where we played, yeah ♪ ♪ I want my M's ♪ ♪ I want my M's ♪ ♪ I want my M's ♪ ♪ I want my M's ♪ And I used to hang out in Charlestown in high school.

So when I saw the surroundings, I recognized the surroundings, but I didn't recognize this little Mexican kid in it.

I like being different.

You know, I like adding my culture, which is being Mexican from adding being from the A.

You know, just mixing it with a lot of stuff.

I always like standing out, you know, without doing too much.

That's my -- That's my style.

♪♪♪ ♪ Gram after gram, yeah ♪ ♪ Icing on my rings, yeah ♪ ♪ How much you spending, yeah ♪ ♪ Hey, look at my neck, that Fiji ♪ K.P.

One of the -- one of the A&R's found me, and they signed me to Atlantic Records.

Definitely a legend in the game.

Great guy to know.

You know what I mean?

He's good at what he do.

Great at what he do.

He is a young Mexican kid growing up in a -- in a Black neighborhood, as the minority in that.

So he's getting picked on.

So the kind of skin that he's building is super thick, as well.

So now you have that, but you have a kid with perspective who can write it.

♪ Turn myself to a big dog ♪ ♪ I ain't got time to waste, though ♪ ♪ To bust down, go tick tock ♪ ♪ I want my M's ♪ ♪ I want my M's ♪ ♪ I want my M's ♪ ♪ I want my M's ♪ Prather: It's just like, you know, he's a special kid.

And it just so happens that he comes from the high school I graduated from, so I get some pride in that.

And it's cool that he grew up in College Park.

I get -- I get pride out of that.

But, also, I get the pride of being able to introduce someone that may not have gotten that introduction.

You know, so that's the -- that's the win for me.

♪ I want my M's ♪ ♪ I want my M's ♪ ♪ I want my M's ♪ ♪ I want my M's ♪ ♪ I want my M's ♪ ♪ I want my M's ♪ ♪ I want my M's ♪ ♪ I want my M's ♪ ♪ I want my M's ♪ ♪ I want my M's ♪ ♪ I want my M's ♪ ♪ I want my M's ♪ ♪ I want my M's ♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪