Any history of rap music that doesn't at least mention the Atlanta strip club Magic City would be an incomplete one. Opened in 1985, the venue became a hub for the who's who of Atlanta's burgeoning rap scene and, eventually, organized crime. This thorny and essential history is ripe for the documentary treatment, and on August 15, Starz will premiere a five-part series called Magic City: An American Fantasy. You can watch the first trailer above.
The trailer features a host of legendary Atlanta musicians discussing the City, including Quavo, Big Boi, 2 Chainz, and T.I. It also features Drake, a Canadian rapper who tied himself closely to Atlanta rap music ever since remixing Migos' "Versace" in 2013. This began a long streak of commercially and critically successful projects influenced by Atlanta, but there were those who accused him of cynically latching on to the scene (these criticisms were summarized by Kendrick Lamar in "Not Like Us," where he called Drake a "fuckin' colonizer" of Atlanta rap).
Whether or not Drake's participation will yield more viewers as intended remains to be, well, seen. His company DreamCrew Entertainment are executive producing along with Jermaine Dupri. The show also includes interviews with Shaquille O'Neal and Magic City founder Michael “Mr. Magic” Barney, who spent seven years in federal prison on drug charges related to his time at the club.
