{"id":169857,"date":"2025-09-26T04:42:08","date_gmt":"2025-09-26T04:42:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/169857\/"},"modified":"2025-09-26T04:42:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-26T04:42:08","slug":"an-impromptu-interview-with-mr-collipark-the-atlanta-producer-who-helped-shape-southern-party-rap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/169857\/","title":{"rendered":"An Impromptu Interview With Mr. Collipark, the Atlanta Producer Who Helped Shape Southern Party Rap"},"content":{"rendered":"

And what\u2019s the point of having a column on Pitchfork.com<\/a> if you can\u2019t impulsively hit up Mr. Collipark and ask him about it? It\u2019s not everyday you get to talk to someone who was there before the widespread commercialization of Atlanta rap, and also there when it officially became the hip-hop capital of the 21st century. I rang him a few weeks ago, and he answered my video call while on his way home from the barber. We chatted, for this interview that\u2019s been edited for length and clarity, about his more-than-three-decade mission to get the clubs poppin\u2019.<\/p>\n

Pitchfork: What do you think it is that keeps giving your \u201cWhistle While You Twurk\u201d beat new life?<\/p>\n

Mr. Collipark: For me, everything I ever did started with the culture. And, for \u201cWhistle While You Twurk,\u201d we just wanted to make music for the strip clubs of Atlanta. And when you have your boots on the ground music just lasts. Look, tomorrow I\u2019m headed to L.A. to accept an award for Sexyy Red sampling Hurricane Chris, who was signed to me. When you\u2019re really in it, it\u2019s all connected. That\u2019s why people still listen to the Temptations; that\u2019s why people still listen to Motown; it was part of the culture.<\/p>\n

Is that why you\u2019ve always wanted to make music for the clubs?<\/p>\n

Nah, that just comes from me being a DJ; it\u2019s what I know. Down in the South, that\u2019s all we wanted to hear. This was pre-Outkast, pre\u2013Organized Noize. In Atlanta, MC Shy D was it, and 2 Live Crew, too, so when I started DJing that was what was making people move.<\/p>\n

When did you start DJing?<\/p>\n

In the early \u201990s when I went to Alabama A&M in Huntsville. It was my first time really being around people who weren\u2019t from Atlanta, my whole floor was from New York, Chicago, and Detroit, so I had to force the party music on them.<\/p>\n

Back then, how important were the colleges, especially the HBCUs, in passing music between cities?<\/p>\n

It was important, especially the spring breaks. Whoever had the song of spring break, that became the song of the summer. I remember when \u201cWhoomp! (There It Is)\u201d and the 69 Boyz\u2019s \u201cTootsee Roll\u201d took over because of that. If you didn\u2019t promote your music at spring break it wasn\u2019t going to be a hit.<\/p>\n

How did you go from college DJ to the DJ for MC Shy D?<\/p>\n

I was in a DJ crew, the J-Team<\/a>, that was very popular on the east side of Atlanta. Shy D wasn\u2019t an official member, but he was always around out there, and, when DJ Toomp left him, he was looking for a new one and the crew turned him on to me. So I became his DJ and that\u2019s how I started producing, too. The first record I ever produced was for him called \u201cTrue to the Game,\u201d on Ichiban Records.<\/p>\n

Was there anything that you noticed that distinguished Shy D\u2019s bass music from the scene in Miami?<\/p>\n

Well, first we didn\u2019t call it bass, we called it booty shake [laughs]. But Shy D was born in the Bronx, and the way he wanted the records mixed and mastered came from the way they did it in the New York boom-bap scene. The kick and snare had to hit like they did in New York, and that\u2019s why when you listen to something like \u201cWhistle While You Twurk\u201d it still sounds good today, because I took that sound into all the music I made with the Ying Yang Twins.<\/p>\n

What music did you grow up on?<\/p>\n

That first 2 Live Crew record changed my life. \u201cThrow the D\u201d was my shit. Before that, only a couple records from up North made their way down here\u2014we had the first Run-D.M.C. album and Sugarhill Gang\u2014but it wasn\u2019t until Krush Groove came out did I feel that everybody in the South was trying to rap. That\u2019s when we started getting our own thing, because there wouldn\u2019t be Freaknik<\/a> without that. C\u2019mon, man, imagine if everyone was listening to Eric B. & Rakim at Freaknik?<\/p>\n

What\u2019s the greatest Freaknik song ever?<\/p>\n

Both \u201cWhoomp! (There It Is)\u201d and \u201cWhoot, There It Is,\u201d the 95 South version. The 95 South version was grimier, but, together, they both reflected two sides of the booty shake. They were so massive; I think that\u2019s when it all started getting commercialized.<\/p>\n

Was that a good or bad thing?<\/p>\n

Both. It opened the door for the genre to be exploited, which was a bad thing. Once \u201cMy Boo\u201d happened, which was one of the greatest songs of that era and was inspired by the Edward J and J-Team mixtapes, mixing R&B records with stuff like \u201cPlanet Rock,\u201d everyone started mimicking that sound. Now, all of a sudden, we had R&B booty shake, like \u201cSwing My Way,\u201d and now you got \u201cC\u2019mon N\u2019 Ride It (The Train),\u201d and the sound got watered down fast. All the hardcore shit got phased out because all the softer stuff took over the radio. I think it made Atlanta have to find a more nationally appealing sound. I\u2019m glad it happened, though, or else I would have never found the Ying Yang Twins.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"And what\u2019s the point of having a column on Pitchfork.com if you can\u2019t impulsively hit up Mr. Collipark…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":169858,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[49,48,361,75,87435],"class_list":{"0":"post-169857","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-celebrities","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-off-the-dome"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169857","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=169857"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169857\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/169858"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=169857"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=169857"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=169857"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}