Jermaine Dupri

And I feel like Atlanta, when I first started making music with Criss Cross, and even earlier, in 91, 92, the whole city was building at this time.

The music scene prior to me was here.

We had like S.O.S.

Band, Brick, Peebo Bryson.

Y'all know who I'm talking about?

OK, make sure, OK.

So we had a cool music scene here, but it still was, you know, in the birth.

And I just feel like my success came with the growth of this city.

That's why I feel like I'm the mayor.

I am the man, but yeah.

But yeah, I feel like people watch me grow, and they watch the city grow, and they came to the city, and that's why I created Welcome to Atlanta, because I felt like I saw people taking other cities more seriously than this city.

They used to have this shirt, and they had hats and all of this.

They would have Detroit, LA, Tokyo and London.

Y'all remember these shirts?

But y'all don't.

Okay, maybe I'm older than all of y'all.

Damn.

Okay, well, anyway, they had these shirts that they used to sell at the airport, and they used to say this.

And I used to go through the airport and I'd see these shirts all the time, like, damn, why they don't have, like, why they don't put Atlanta on these shirts?

And it felt like, it just felt like the city wasn't doing what it needed to do.