[ Suspenseful music plays ] ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ [ Hip-hop instrumental plays ] ♪♪♪ Camille: Art can be an invisible force in a city.

Fahamu: Art is that soul.

It's the part of the city that makes the heart beat.

People don't realize art is there, but it's coloring everything that they do.

The city has a personality that's open to all these creative things.

Fahamu: Art really is that thing that gels a city or a community.

The diversity here is wild.

And I think we found that we can do better as a unit than separate.

♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ Camille: You know, when you put art out in the public domain, it becomes something that everyone has access to.

♪ When you want to breath fire ♪ ♪ You hold on to no one else ♪ It's evident in the offerings that a city has available for people to enjoy -- the architecture, theater, ballet, music festivals, all of that.

That all creates an atmosphere in a city that really supplies its soul.

Piedmont Park is like Atlanta's Central Park.

In fact, it was designed by the same family, the Olmsteds.

You can walk your dog there, you can ride your bike.

But it's also the place where there are a lot of festivals that happen.

There's Music Midtown, the Atlanta Dogwood Festival, and there's the Atlanta Jazz Festival.

[ Uptempo Jazz music plays ] ♪♪♪ We're up on our 40th year of the free Atlanta Jazz Festival.

Every music festival has an art component.

Hip-hop artists will credit being at the Atlanta Jazz Festival as basically getting them interested in live music.

Outkast actually put lyrics in one of their their songs that they were, you know, sitting in Piedmont Park at the Jazz festival.

♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ [ Children chatter gleefully ] In my journey through life, I have always sought out culture as a way to understand other cultures.

I try to just be a catalyst for creativity.

I want to make sure that Atlanta stays interesting.

Not long after I moved to Atlanta, the Noguchi was dedicated.

And it was just a perfect place for Atlantans to take their children and enjoy.

Isamu Noguchi was commissioned to do this by the High Museum of Art, and it was made a gift to the city.

And it is an iconic piece of art in Atlanta's most favorite place.

But over the years, it was neglected, and it really saddened me to see the deterioration, and it really inspired me to do something about it.

And so when I had the unique opportunity to become the person whose job it was to manage the cultural resources in Atlanta, the Noguchi was first on my plate of things that I wanted to save.

I'm proud of that.

I have had the unique opportunity to meet some outstanding artists.

One of the artists that I'm aware of and respect very much is Fahamu Pecou.

DJ Kemit: Fahamu Pecou.

First of all, he makes you work harder at what you do.

He's able to crank out almost like a good DJ in the moment.

You're looking at the crowd and you're able to address what's happening, right?

He can do that with his art.

Camille: You know, he uses himself in his artwork.

DJ Kemit: If there's something going on in the world or in the community, he's going to put that in his artwork.

The dude is -- He's -- He's really a genius, but it flows out of him.

Fahamu: My style is inspired by my background in creating for hip-hop culture.

I started out working as a graphic designer in a boutique agency in New York where I got to, like, sit next to, you know, hip-hop artists like Sean Combs and, you know, Busta Rhymes and, you know, all these guys in the late '90s and design collateral for them.

And it was a really great experience because I got to meet the person rather than the persona.

Fast forward to the time I moved back to Atlanta and I started my own agency here.

Chuck Close, who's one of my favorite artists, has this quote that I'm going to butcher completely.

Basically, it says that there's no such thing as an artist being inspired and then painting.

You have to work.

You just work.

And then you'll find that inspiration in the working.

I make it a goal to constantly be making, to constantly be doing, to constantly be painting or drawing, sketching, doing something.

And that's where the ideas actually come from.

♪♪♪ [ Air brakes hiss ] "Rise Above" is the piece that was created for the King Memorial Marta Station.

And it was inspired by a quote from Dr. Martin Luther King.

I wanted to do something that would speak to the people who -- who lived here and not necessarily be a reflection of another image of an -- of an icon.

So what I did, instead of painting, you know, Dr. King, was to take his words and apply it in a way that, you know, anyone walking by could kind of see themselves reflected in the piece.

And, you know, it represents a figure who's jumping.

You see his figure breaking the plane as if to suggest that his rise is infinite.

Typically I have music going.

I'm, like, a big music person.

I've been able to see him in the studio.

DJ Kemit: When he works, He likes to have music on.

Fahamu: I'm often dancing and painting or singing and painting.

And that music, it sparks something in his brain.

And, you know, just try to get into the zone.

You know, growing up, I went to a Baptist church and I used to see people catch the spirit, you know, start doing the things falling out and fainting and all that kind of stuff.

And I would always be like, What is that about?

Like, that's -- I don't understand that.

Until one night in the Yin Yang Cafe, DJ Kemit, on the ones and twos, he played a song.

And I found myself on my knees in the middle of the floor.

It was like the first time I ever had, like, a really, like, religious experience, you know?

Dr. Dax: It was at the forefront of the house music scene at its peak, which I'd say the '90s House music ruled that.

DJ Kemit: Yeah, whenever I play music or when I'm producing music, it's about making people feel better.

Different DJs have different reasons for why they spin.

But myself, I play to heal.

[ House music playing ] Fahamu: He used to be the DJ for Arrested Development.

He is one of the godfathers of Atlanta's house music.

Atlanta's house music scene, Coming from Detroit and Chicago, had a -- somehow or another had a big place here.

A lot of those guys even lived here.

Kemit, all those guys, they're just -- they're DJs at heart.

And I think music just pumps through the veins of Atlanta.

♪♪♪ DJ Kemit: Atlanta's been blessed with some really great venues, and one of them is a venue called Sound Table.

♪♪♪ It has the best sound system in there.

It's a warm analog sound system where I play nothing but seven-inch vinyl records.

I love playing to just different walks of life, right?

Just the the way everybody interacts and feels and has a good time.

By the end of the night, I'm uplifted and it's just an awesome party.

♪♪♪ [ Birds chirping ] Sounds at Atlanta is really caught my attention because it's a project that allowed me to take my field recorder out into Atlanta.

It was really just going there and capturing sounds that exist that I may have missed, but taking the time and really closing my eyes and listening to a lot of sounds... [ Chain clinking ] from the chains of the dogs that were going by... [ Uptempo synth sound plays, bicycle wheels clack ] ...or the individual on the bicycle... [ Synth sound and clacking harmonize ] [ Sighs ] ...The sound of the train.

[ Train engine roars, synth sound playing ] One of the stops today was the Auburn Municipal market.

[ Lettuce leaves rustle ] [ Lettuce crunches, knife thuds ] [ Crowd murmurs ] [ Synthesizer music plays ] And one of the first sounds that really stuck out was the sound of the saw blade going through the bone.

[ Music fades to background ] [ Saw whirring ] [ Buttons clicking ] Being able to isolate the individual sounds and chop them up and turn it into programmable instruments.

[ Sythesizer music plays ] We started walking around more and I found these other women that were cutting vegetables.

Right.

[ Lettuce crunching ] [ Knife thuds ] Now my brain is really clicking.

But beautiful thing is, as this is happening, there's a sister at the register and she tore this receipt off.

[ Paper tears ] And it just popped through everything.

[ Buttons click ] [ Register whirs, paper tears ] [ Register whirs, lettuce crunches ] [ Train engine roars, paper tears ] [ Sythesizer music plays ] [ Saw whirs ] [ Lettuce crunches ] [ Paper tears ] And what I hope to do is basically create a tune that people can enjoy listening to.

It represents Atlanta.

Like, they'll hear it in the vibe that's coming out through it, and that's soul food.

It's soul music.

It's the souls that pass by with good energy is the essence of Atlanta that I was able to capture on this day.

[ Ambient sounds and sythesized music plays ] ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ [ Equipment whirring ] [ Drill whirs ] [ Drill whirring ] Michael: I think it's important that every city, if it is to be a healthy city, that it have a healthy arts community.

DJ Kemit: Community -- that's what's pushed here.

More than any other city that I've been in, It has a very collaborative vibration.

Michael: Because that arts community is what provides the transfer of ideas, the transfer of identities, and so that people know one another and can be known and feel safe.

My name is Michael Haverty and I'm the co-artistic director of 7 Stages Theater.

[ House music plays ] ♪♪♪ This theater has really been the experimental theater hub in Atlanta since its founding in '78.

This is the place that will do plays that no one else will because they're pushing the limits.

Little 5 Points has always been a theater's home.

It's one of the few walkable neighborhoods in Atlanta.

And so we are lucky to have a sidewalk on which to perform.

And it's the sort of neighborhood where folks that live here and folks that visit here are interested to see something different.

Artistic people like to hang out here.

It's full of great bars, great restaurants to hang out after the show.

So we really operate on that model.

We also we bring in a lot of international work.

Pop!

Pop.

Pop.

Pop!

[ Wind whistles ] Pop!

[ Ethereal music plays ] We're bringing Ofir Nahari back.

This will be the second time he's performed in Atlanta.

He is one of the consummate masters of physical performance.

The things he can do with his body and with his voice.

[ Vocalizing movements ] It's beyond mime.

It's beyond.

You can't even call it clowning, really.

[ Vocalizing movements ] But this is physical theater and dance.

He's on pointe shoes, the whole show.

♪♪♪ The show is called "NO(SE)ONENOWHERE," and it's the solitary figure who appears in a tiny beam of light and creates an entire world around himself.

It's like an existential comedy.

I mean, it's hilarious, like slapstick comedy.

It's like some of the best physical comedy I've ever seen.

[ Vocalizing speech ] [ Audience laughs ] It's like we've seen a whole life and seen all the joy and all the humor and and all the sadness of it as well.

It's a truly unique experience.

♪♪♪ This is the Cabbagetown Cotton Mill Lofts.

You can sort of see it over the train there.

Just a gorgeous, gorgeous building.

And that's been a real economic engine that's been improving neighborhoods.

You'll see it in the West End, too, around The Goat Farm.

[ Uptempo orchestral music plays ] ♪♪♪ Talk about magical.

The Goat Farm is a former munitions factory believed built in the Victorian era.

If you've never been to The Goat Farm, I have no idea how to describe that.

I mean, it actually is a goat farm.

There's goats over there.

♪♪♪ It's been bought and redeveloped and made into this amazing space for artists.

Mark: Currently we have about 250 artists who rent space and about 450 total artists who occupy space here.

Robert: There's -- There's this multi-layered, multi-textured aspect to The Goat Farm that defies description, at least my ability to describe it.

But what it results in is this vibrant space.

Camille: But it has really become an unusual space for art because it's not pristine, you know, it's kind of grungy.

But we also attract the film industry.

Obviously, it's a beautiful, hard to find kind of esthetic in the city of Atlanta.

So we've we've attracted TV shows like "The Walking Dead" and "The Hunger Games."

Camille: You know, Atlanta has one of the fastest growing movie industries.

Mike: Castleberry Hill, Downtown Atlanta, you know, we have this kind of really cool district that, you know, is open to the movies And all the arts in town.

You gotta check this out.

Man: You must have been listening from the ride.

These are my boys.

We just got through with that conversation.

♪♪♪ Elliot Street Pub is what it is because of who comes here, not because of what me and my brother did here.

It's just, you know, how it was created from those people.

My name is Mike Jakob.

Me and my brother came here 13 years ago, bought a kind of a crack house of a building where nobody lived in Atlanta.

And we built a pub with a live music venue downstairs called the 51.

[ Uptempo jazz music plays ] ♪♪♪ We do a ton of things here.

We're open to all art, from metal sculpting to a 5,000 degree iron furnace that we have on the side of the building to a full on jazz night that we have downstairs going on right now.

♪♪♪ We're an artist venue at night, but during the day we sell.

We serve lunch.

We make great sandwiches.

What we become is this little spot, you know, for all the riggers and gaffers and, you know, stagehands for the first and second unit teams, you know, there could be a rigging truck and they'll be, you know, 15 guys to get out of it.

You know, it's a -- it's a pretty cool city to shoot in.

You know, we could -- we could be anywhere.

So Castleberry Hill is an artist community.

So we have, you know, a bunch of galleries.

And the second Friday of the month, we call it Art Stroll.

Galleries open up and a bunch of restaurants and bars, you know, participate.

They asked me years ago like, hey, you know, "What are you guys going to do for Art Stroll?"

When we opened up, I was like, "I don't know."

They were like, "Do you want to make art?"

And I was like, "Yeah, that sounds cool."

So we started the iron pour.

[ Rock music plays ] ♪♪♪ When me and my brother did this, we built an environment that was just kind of open to things.

And, you know, it happened to where that people just started coming and these things started getting created here.

We pour probably two tons of iron a year.

We used to have a couple events every year.

One called Dashuhua.

Dashuhua was a Chinese tradition during the new year and they take a furnace like ours, they pour molten iron in a cauldron, they scoop it out with ladles, and they throw it at a castle wall.

So we built a 40-foot wood wall and we melted iron.

A couple thousand people showed up, and we made a spectacle, an experience for people.

Iron is 5,000 degrees.

When it's hitting the wood, it acts like an iron skillet just kind of dissipates off.

So it creates this huge firework effect.

So Fire Station One's next door, We had our own fire truck here, so nobody got burned.

[ Indistinct chatter ] Mike: I'm going to take over this far corner.

Do you want to hear a story?

Man: Yeah.

One year, You know, the pub did a Halloween thing of pirates, and we did the front of the building as a pirate ship.

And I have a mermaid out front.

One day, a truck ran into the mermaid and took it down, And the only person I could ever think of recreating something that cool was was Ashley Zeltzer.

[ Whimsical music plays ] She's done a bunch of stuff for Cartoon Network, and she came here a bunch, and when she redid it, it came back even better.

Now it's got hair, it's got makeup, you know, and it's got a full tattooed, you know, chest on it.

Mike and Pete, from Elliot Street Pub, are my family.

They are so eager to promote artists and promote creativity and to support it.

Mike: Ashley, just makes these things that are better and creates things, you know, in the movie business and, you know, throughout our city.

When I moved here, I didn't know how to paint anything.

And a friend said, "Well, Ashley could paint murals at Adult Swim.

I said, "Okay, I'll paint murals at Adult Swim."

I can totally do that.

And I went to Borders, when we still had bookstores, And I bought the Klutz version, "How to Paint with Acrylics."

Ashley's that person that if you just -- if you gave her something, she would do whatever it takes to get it done and make it happen.

Ashley: Adult Swim gave me an opportunity to to grow and flourish and expand.

And I learned how to do everything.

♪♪♪ Basically it was a petri dish for my creativity.

♪♪♪ Mike: Everybody, you know, that comes here for some reason, you know, is in, you know, either the arts or music or film or television.

Elliott Street Pub is the meeting place of artists in the Castleberry neighborhood.

And Masooud owns this gorgeous gallery in the neighborhood.

And he'll come there and visit with us.

And in turn, we're able to go and visit his incredible, incredible space.

[ Classical music plays ] ♪♪♪ Masooud: I have collected all my life.

I had lots of art in different places.

I decided to start Art Gallery.

Really and truly, I'm a stonecutter.

I have granite quarries.

And this is my passion, my love.

I never bought a piece of art in my life.

To think that one day I will sell it for more money.

Ashley: He takes a tremendous amount of joy in watching people view artwork, and that is a very special gift.

Masooud: Art is a visual pleasure.

Either you like it or you do not like it.

Nobody should explain to you what you see in this piece or the other piece.

Ashley: Everybody is welcome to his studio, and you're allowed to speak your mind freely because it challenges him because he's a dynamic character.

I never ask anybody to explain to me what you see in Jackson Pollock's work because I can't see nothing.

♪♪♪ The major support an artist needs that his piece of art to be purchased.

Many artists, when they need money, we buy their art.

He just wants to give artists an opportunity to shine.

We have this world of possibilities.

The city gets to be what we make of it.

Man: It's got this history.

It's -- it's southern and conservative, but it's got a progressive element.

There's a sense of openness to Atlanta.

You can't help but draw from the people around you.

And everyone seems to be growing in several directions all at once.

There are so many dynamic and amazing artists who live and work here.

There's something about Atlanta's energy that always feels like it's just starting.

♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪