Inside
Atlanta’s
Trap Music
Boom
T
HE LOUD, SLEEK HIP-HOP sound
known as trap music burst into the
pop mainstream in the 2000s thanks
to newly minted Atlanta stars like T.I.,
Young Jeezy, and Gucci Mane. It’s grown vastly
more popular in the years since, and today,
elements of trap — especially the booming-
but-unhurried bass lines and the skittering,
rapid-fire drum programming — pervade
nearly every kind of music, from R&B to EDM to
country to gospel to Top 40 pop. “Trap music
has become this international phenomenon,”
says photographer Raymond McCrea Jones.
“Everybody knows Migos, knows 21 Savage,
and knows they’re from Atlanta.”
Jones moved from New York to Atlanta at
the end of 2011 and quickly became enamored
with the city’s music scene. Trap reminded
him of the punk he loved years earlier as a
teen in North Carolina — both genres were
adamant about “not playing by the rules, being
loud, trying to raise a little hell all the time.”
A few years later, Jones started documenting
the scene through the photos in this essay.
“There’s a huge machine churning out hits —
the producers, the guys in the studio all the
time, the strip clubs,” he says. “Where did that
come from? My goal wasn’t just to go to shows
and photograph performances — it’s more
[to explore] the culture that has developed
around the music. I want to tell the story
of trap music as this thriving organism. How
often does a new subgenre erupt like this?”
PHOTOGRAPHS BY
RAYMOND MCCREA JONES68 Rolling Stone February 2020
Rappers like 21 Savage and
Young Thug have made their city
one of the world’s most-exciting
places to hear new music