He’s created the songs that helped sculpt the sound of the south, becoming an anthem for our city and heard all around the world.
But now producer Jermaine Dupri is putting Atlanta on the map in a different way, an Atlanta-based lineup for Atlanta’s first-ever super bowl live concert series representing all that the city has to offer.
"At times people forget about the history of music that’s come from there before me and this is a great back try to reiterate how much Music has come out of the city,” Dupri said.
It was a time that even, as a child, Dupri appreciated.
Especially as the son of Tina and Michael Mauldin, the Columbia records executive
Music was in his blood. Check out a much younger Jermaine in one his first big breaks in the industry.
That would only be the beginning, as he quickly identified what role he wanted to play in Atlanta’s music industry in his teenage years.
“I want to get Grammys. I just want to keep creating and be the biggest star ever,” Dupri said. “If you want to be a rapper or singer you can’t let no one tell you can’t do it. you just go to keep doing it and keep doing.”
Words that have taken the Grammy award-winning producer to new heights, writing songs like Ushers 'You Make Me Wanna' in 1997, Mariah Carey's 'We Belong Together' in 2005, and even developing his own show, “The Rap Game,” which fosters the talent of young rappers.
Now Dupri has made the decision to put on one of the biggest week-long concerts the Superbowl has ever seen, and he's doing so with very little backlash.
“There are more people that expect me to do what I’m doing and I am full of people who expect me to say no and a whole bunch of people who expect me to say I’m taking over and doing what I’m doing,” Dupri said. “I’m having artist from Athens, country artist performing and then I’m taking people back to the days before Jermaine to Paris like the SOS Band, Kilo Ali, Raheem the Dream, Tagteam."
Dupri is also mentoring along for students for the journey.
“I think it’s important to plant the seed. People tell me that’s what I did in the city. Killer Mike told me that I made so many people want to be in the music business and made so many people want to make business moves in music. With that being said, it’s just best that I replant that same seed,” Dupri said.