Check out Kodakk’s FULL podcast interview with Solomon Hillfleet HERE
Each year, more and more of America’s major cities become gentrified. As the restaurants and parks increase, the history that existed there fades away. If it’s lucky, someone’s there to keep its memory alive, building a monument or creating content that can share it with its inhabitants. Kodakk 6000 is doing that in his own way with his weekly digital content. Part of an influential dance group, Motion Sickness, he witnessed and took part in Atlanta’s most influential music and cultural movements. During Atlanta’s next major shift, Kodak is here to preserve a major era of its history and present it to new and old Atlantans.
Born and raised in Stone Mountain, GA, Kodakk got his education in Atlanta’s rich nightlife as a teenager, club-hopping all over the city’s teenage clubs. “You know, in Atlanta, you start young! I was like 15 going out. It was fun. It was like going into the Gulag in Call of Duty at times, but fun!”. The teenage clubs in Atlanta rose to prominence in the early 2000s, with spots like the Atrium and Prime Time serving as the inspiration for rappers like Baby D. In a 2020 interview, Baby D and DJ Montay stated they visited the teen clubs often and used the chants and energy they got from there to create their most popular songs such as “Eastside vs Westside” and “Back Up.”
Teenage clubs and skating rings served as the perfect playground for teenagers to party with spots like Skate Towne, Decatur Family Skate and Golden Glide being the most notable. The party atmosphere created a unique dance culture that grew from its origins of Yeek into a more relaxed and palatable style coined as “Snap”. Birthed on the Westside in the Atlanta neighborhood of Bankhead, it became the dominant dance style for kids in Atlanta in their teenage years.
Perfect Storm (2005- 2007)
The snap movement rose to prominence in 2005, created by dance crews like Flo-Mastas and the Show Stoppers, and popularized by groups like Dem Franchize Boyz and D4L. The movement was growing in popularity across the city but eventually became a nationwide success because of a perfect combination of timing and technology. Social media sites like Myspace and YouTube helped the movement grow from its local roots to nationwide, peaking with Soulja Boy and his 2007 song, “Crank Dat”.
Kodakk found himself amid the movement around that time as a member of a popular dance crew known as Motion Sickness. Through his experiences as a dancer, he met and worked with several influential leaders, from K-Rab to Soulja Boy. The Pool Palace served as the meeting place for crews like Kodakk, who performed at the open mic nights. It was here that Kodakk witnessed the creation and spread of several dances and later songs from the “Pool Palace”, “Walk it Out” to “Whoop Rico’’, all of which helped spawn the second wave of Atlanta’s dance generation.
What started out as a form of relaxation for kids grew into a full-fledged movement. Soon dance crews sprang up around the city and then later the nation. Years later, artists and dancers created dances like the Roosevelt, Yank, Batman, and then later the Motorcycle, Stanky Leg and Beef it Up.
Kodakk and his crew created the Whoop Rico dance and lent their talents to Soulja Boy and 2 Chainz, dancing in their videos while they built their buzz. They knew that what they were doing was special, but they didn’t know how much their work would shape Atlanta in the years to come. In just a short amount of time, Atlanta laid the foundation for a new musical wave that began with snap and would peak with the futuristic swag era.