The Come Up
It takes 10,000 hours to make a 3 minute hit. When we hear about new talent that is breaking, it’s usually framed as a ‘viral hit’ or an ‘overnight success’. The implication is that they got lucky. A fluke. The part they usually leave out is the grind that leads up to that moment: recording sessions in makeshift studios, hustling to promote a new record in half empty venues (or strip clubs in Pote Baby’s case), trying to cut through the noise on social. There is a lot of hard work to get to the top that goes unseen.
So when we started The Come Up, a program devoted to discovering and featuring new emerging talent in Hip Hop, the story had to go beyond the usual tropes of ‘making it’. We wanted to shine a light on the long journey and absolute dedication these creators have for their craft and artistry.
Since we had a huge Hip Hop fan base in the app, we activated our community together with four prominent Atlanta tastemakers (who also became Amp show hosts) and Cam Kirk Studios, to identify three names that we were willing to bet are going to blow up in Hip Hop soon: Pote Baby, CEO Trayle, and Ken Carson.
To launch the project we partnered with the editorial team at Billboard + Vibe Magazine, and together we created an immersive editorial page featuring stories, photos, and short films about each artist. We also had the pleasure of working with Hook on our digital ads.
Role: Creative Director, Art Direction, Content Production
Featured in:
Episode 1:
Pote Baby
Pote's come up started when his family moved from Savannah, GA to Cobb County, GA where he found his voice by rapping with friends in the high school cafeteria. Since then, he’s found a way to blend his laid back Savannah style with Atlanta’s hustle culture to not only make a name for himself as a rapper, but as an overall creative. Also, my personal favorite out of the three, but don’t tell anyone 🤫
Episode 2:
CEO Trayle
Trayle’s story goes from tragedy to triumph, but the lessons he’s learned along the way have made him a new force in the rap game. His strategy to drop a lot of music to gain new fans is working. CEO Trayle is on the rise and his story is one you won’t want to miss.
Episode 3:
Ken Carson
If hip-hop has rules, Ken Carson doesn’t follow them. He’s catapulting himself to the top by mixing grunge rock vibes with a melodic hip-hop flow. Ken Carson was by far the biggest name we featured in this project, and his fan base went wild for the story about his meteoric rise.
Meet the Tastemakers
Our ‘Come Up’ Tastemakers go beyond the typical social media influencers, and have become a central part in our campaign and content programming. We partnered with 4 prominent hip hop insiders in Atlanta and worked with them to create their own radio shows all about emerging rap artists.
After their shows went live, together with their listeners and wider community, we identified the three hip hop names we wanted to feature in our docu-series.
Kenny Burns
With over 20 years in the entertainment and music industries, Kenny has developed an expert ear for who’s hot in hip-hop.
Paige Shari’
Paige is an East Atlanta native, who spends most of her time curating R&B concerts, and hosting live events.
Su Solo
She’s got an inside scoop on the industry as a radio host at one of Atlanta’s hottest hip-hop radio stations.
Big Bank
Big Bank has big connections across hip-hop. He’s in with record labels, artists, and even the motion picture industry.
Editorial:
VIBE + Billboard Magazine
To house all of the content, we created an immersive editorial website together with the editorial team over at Billboard and Vibe magazines. It became our storytelling hub for films, photography, and articles about our project.
Social Content
On both organic and paid social we created content that leaned into what are community does best: give their hot takes on music and culture. We prompted our social followers to give us controversial hot takes about the hip hop scenes, and then filmed our artists response to those opinions, which we then used as content to promote the overall program.
OOH
Partnering with Atlanta based artist Tommy Bronx we created a bespoke mural that featured the cultural icons of Atlanta, and our tastemakers. On top of that, we created wild postings with hottakes from our community throughout the city in high foot traffic areas.
Design
As we started exploring the art direction for this project, we looked at ways to bring to life the hustle and grind that hip hop artists go through to reach the top. We liked the idea of using a ‘filmstrip’ design element, which would allow us to show the many aspects and dimensions of each artist, and include shots that would otherwise be considered ‘outtakes’.
Throughout the campaign we put a big emphasis on our primary brand colors (yellow and black) while introducing bold type, and gritty photography.
