EARTHGANG's 'Ghetto Gods' looks for divinity in Atlanta's dichotomies
"Got a $20 bill? Get your hands up / You survived last year? Get your hands up." This lyric, from EARTHGANG's new sophomore album Ghetto Gods, is conceivably how the Atlanta hip-hop duo can hype up crowds on its upcoming tour. But it also highlights a central theme of the new record: how committed EARTHGANG is to representing and celebrating its greater community, especially given how challenging the past few years have been.
Members Olu and WowGr8 realize how privileged their lives may seem, since the duo signed to J. Cole's Dreamville imprint in 2017, toured with Billie Eilish and Mac Miller, and released its lofty fantasia of a major label debut, 2019's Mirrorland. Last year, when New Zealand was thought to have eradicated coronavirus, EARTHGANG was the only U.S. act billed on a music festival there attended by 20,000 people. Yet on Ghetto Gods, as ever, EARTHGANG's mind is on how resilient their parents, cousins and childhood friends have had to be, with the pandemic being just one factor.
The primary setting in the duo's music remains its native Atlanta. out on Feb. 25, features three affiliates of the generations-spanning Dungeon Family was the collective's first, before OutKast and Goodie Mob. The hunger to transcend their city's (the nation's highest) and become a shining example of how Atlanta functions as a Black mecca still looms large. Olu opens the album with "Got so many memories that I made on Cascade Road," as in the corridor at the heart of Atlanta's historically Black neighborhood West End. He compares those memories to .
