THE ATLANTA EFFECT: A RARE INTERVIEW WITH CHAKA ZULU

Try googling Chaka Zulu and information about a 19th century South African king named Shaka Zulu will flood the page. There’s very little background available online on Ahmed “Chaka Zulu” Obafemi, Ludacris’ manager since the mid-’90s (he also represents Muni Long, among others). So when he unexpectedly agreed to a rare interview, we were delighted and a little confused by his willingness to subject himself to our interrogation.

After relocating from New York to Atlanta for college, Zulu became a local radio legend at WRFG and Hot 97. He later held positions at Sony Music, Def Jam Recordings and Jive, where he interned in the BMG mailroom early in his career.

Zulu has demonstrated a fierce, independent spirit since the beginning. When he struggled to find a major-label deal for Ludacris, he started his own record company, Disturbing tha Peace, with his brother Jeff Dixon and Luda in 2000. The label’s second compilation album of the same name was certified gold in 2006, just months after its release.

More than 30 years since Zulu began working with his most famous client, Ludacris has sold millions of albums, won three Grammys, is a staple of the billion-dollar Fast and Furious franchise and, more recently, performed alongside USHER in the Apple Music Super Bowl Halftime Show.

Looking back, it seems Zulu was destined for the music business; his mother sang backup for Miriam Makeba and Nina Simone and his father played sax for Gil Scott-Heron. Speaking to HITS, Zulu further discussed his origins, radio past, the evolution of Atlanta hip-hop and what makes the city such a rich cultural hub.

Tell me about your upbringing.

I grew up in music. One of the first tours I was on was with Kool & the Gang when I was six or seven years old.

Did you always want to be in the music industry?

I didn’t want to be in the music industry per se, but it was a passion. I would have done it for free. Once I figured out how to make money doing it, I was, like, “Might as well enjoy going to work every day.”

When did hip-hop first enter your world?

I’m from New York, where hip-hop was birthed. I had older brothers and sisters and every now and then they’d bring me to a block party or something like that. When The Sugarhill Gang record first played on radio, around ’79, I had family members that were also in music; Grand Puba from Brand Nubian is my first cousin. His first group was in ’83. It was called Masters of Ceremony. Both the MCs in that group were my cousins. Gil Scott-Heron is considered to be one of The Last Poets, some of the original hip-hop artists. They used to be at my house. My parents loved throwing a good jam session with that type of legends.

When did you relocate to Atlanta?

I have family here and had been coming here since the ’70s. I’ve actually lived a lot of places. I graduated high school in New Orleans—I went to high school with Mannie Fresh and Mystikal; we came up together. I went through different places and spaces, but I was always around the music scene no matter where I went. I lived in Los Angeles, Boston, D.C. and Mississippi.

My mother and the HBCUs are what brought me to Atlanta. Graduating in New Orleans, you either went to Southern [University at New Orleans] or Grambling [State University], but my mother had moved to Atlanta, so I followed her and ended up going to Clark Atlanta University.

You were in a fraternity there, right? How did that benefit you?

Yep! Joining a fraternity brings guidance, brotherhood and an opportunity to network. You get people that teach you, move you around and show you the inner workings of university life going into adult life. Obviously, you have fun, but you also create lifelong relationships, not just within your organization but other organizations. Plus, you get to travel a lot.

It also teaches you structure and some level of business, depending on the organization and whoever brings you in. It fosters a real respect and deference for those who came before you, your elders and your big brothers, those who bring you through the process. It’s one of the things I embody, even in the music industry, because we’re somewhat of a fraternity and sorority as well.

How did you get into the music business?

I was an accounting major in college, but after class, I’m at whatever block party, rap battle, DJ battle or breakdancing event. Eventually, I started two internships. In my era, you could go from intern to president like Puff Daddy did and Kevin Liles did. I started at WRFG 89.3, a community radio station here in Atlanta. Simultaneously, I was interning in the mailroom at Jive at the BMG distribution office here. I was 19 or 20. This was 1989, 1990.

I did that for four or five years, and then Radio One started a station called Hot 97. And being from New York, I thought it was the Hot 97 in New York, so I knew I had to get that job. I ended up getting a job at the station and became the music director. I was also an on-air personality; I was like the Funkmaster Flex of Atlanta. Then I programmed the station during the daytime. I lived at that station. I was there from ’95 to ’98. That’s where I met Luda—at the radio station.

How did it happen?

I was programming local, unsigned music and breaking a lot of records, so he brought his music in for me to listen to. I didn’t end up playing it, but he ended up coming back and getting an internship on the morning show with Ryan Cameron. That’s how he worked his way into the station.

He would come to my office to get music and do promos and freestyle. He’d ask me questions and I’d give him the benefit of my knowledge. One day he was just, like, “Yo, man, you always give me good information and you never really asked me for anything. I want you to be my manager.” So I said yes. I don’t know what made me say yes, but I said yes. That was around 1996.

Was this the first time someone had asked you to be their manager?

No. I had people asking me because I was at the radio station. People were, like, “Oh, we need you to be our manager” because they figured I’d play their music. And to be honest, I never wanted to be a manager. I had seen the headaches of the music industry. My brother Jeff Dixon, who’s my business partner, started with Heavy D. I’d seen a lot of the good—and the bad—about being a manager.

Did you foresee the kind of success you’ve had with Ludacris?

I didn’t foresee it per se. I knew it was possible because we had examples—we had the LL COOL Js, we had the Ice-Ts, we had the Ice Cubes and the Queen Latifahs, people who started out as pure hip-hop artists who shifted the culture, did legendary things and then transitioned into other spaces. LL COOL J was a huge supporter early on and always gave Luda great advice every time he saw him.

What do you think people saw in Luda?

He had something. They saw he was talented, that he was going to be somebody. What was undeniable was that he could rap his ass off. He also had a very comedic perspective with lyricism, his flows and things like that. He was animated and had a lot of energy. That’s what I think made people buy into him; that’s what drew people to him.

What did it feel like as a young person to suddenly have so much success, fame and money pouring in?

We had a taste of it working at the radio station because we both became, like, local celebrities. Then, because I’d lived so many places—plus, I was on a more national scale with my position—you create a lot of relationships and notoriety outside Atlanta. It took about four years for us to get off the ground. We had early success when Jermaine Dupri put Ludacris on the Madden 2000 video game. We also had a single that was on Timbaland’s album. We had a few people put deals in front of us, but the deals weren’t that amazing, so we ended up just not taking them. After a while, we got tired of waiting and went independent. All the relationships we had served us well when it came to working that record, “What’s Your Fantasy?”

Right, you already had the plugs.

When I got fired from radio…

Wait—what? You got fired?

Yeah, they broke my heart.

Why?

I don’t know; I still don’t know why. I think it was a power dynamic. I think the general manager didn’t like how powerful I’d gotten. We were the hottest radio station in the country. We were breaking records before Hot 97 [in New York], before Power 106 and The Beat in L.A., so we were killing everybody.

From there, I went to work at Def Jam on the Survival of the Illest Tour. I ended up doing all that and working those Roc-a-Fella, Ruff Ryders and Murder Inc. records. Then I did [JAY-Z’s] Hard Knock Life Tour before going over to Sony as national mix show street promotions coordinator. I worked for [production duo] Trackmasters, where I worked 50 Cent, Nas, Destiny’s Child, Fugees…

What makes a good manager?

Management is almost like an outfit—you have to try different things until you get your style. You have managers who are protectors, right? The artist is so big that all the manager does is stand next to him and sift through the bullshit, says what we’re not going to do. Then you have managers who have to go out and create, who have to pitch and figure it out. You got aggressive managers who are creative, and you got managers that couldn’t hear a hit record from anything. So it’s hard to say what makes a good manager, but obviously, communication is a very strong point. Organization is another strong point and then connection with a person. A good manager has that connection not only with the artist but also with potential partners.

Rewinding a bit, did you know you had a hit with “What’s Your Fantasy?”

Because of my radio ear, I knew we had something. When we finished recording, we went through the records, and me and Luda picked that record and said, “This is the record we’re gonna lead with.” At the time, the music landscape was so different, so we didn’t know it was gonna resonate as big as it did.

You gotta remember, Outkast was before us, Goodie Mob, and there was a cultural shift on the Southern side. There was also a gap; when Luda came out, there was a gap in the music industry in the South. Outkast had basically broken up. Goodie Mob had put out a bad album, and then everything else was, like, one-hit wonders. We were getting music from Florida like the 69 Boyz and all that. Three 6 Mafia was doing consistent stuff out of Memphis, Tennessee. No Limit was on the downswing, Cash Money was building. Suave House wasn’t putting out as much music as it needed to. Rap-a-Lot, all that. The Texas movement was coming through. It was very open.

Around that time, West Coast had its stronghold and obviously New York had a good stronghold; they had Bad Boy Records, Ma$e, and Roc-a-Fella was a big thing. When we came through with that college-frat-boy fun, we had a youthful, exuberant and wild energy.

I’m glad you brought up Outkast. How did Outkast change the hip-hop space in Atlanta?

Outkast was just locally identifiable. I say that respectfully to everybody who had been in Atlanta before that. Jermaine Dupri had Kriss Kross and Another Bad Creation, local acts. But their music and rhyme style… If you heard it outside Atlanta, you couldn’t say it was Atlanta. You could say Kriss Kross was, like, a young version of Naughty by Nature or something like that. It didn’t have a distinguishable local sound. That’s what Outkast brought. It wasn’t that they were really any more Atlanta than anybody else; it was just the sound.

What about Arrested Development? How did they impact the Atlanta scene?

What Arrested Development did—because I know them very well because I went to college with two of them—they brought in African spirituality. Now, they weren’t the first to do it, because you had the Jungle Brothers, you had A Tribe Called Quest. But you never had that from the South, and they took it a step further. We have [spiritual elder] Baba Oje, and the imagery went with the lyrics and the musicology. The musicology was extreme. They were a super departure and a super-disruptor for hip-hop in general.

How did Atlanta evolve into such a culturally rich musical hub?

The excitement and newness and opportunity for expression. Well, the lack of expression first and foremost—we used to be a city that didn’t have a voice. But Georgia has always played a pivotal role in culture and community, specifically civil rights. We did a documentary years ago called ATL Rise, which I produced, 30 years of untold hip-hop history in Atlanta. When you walk through it and look at everything and how it’s intertwined, Atlanta needed a voice, found its voice and amplified its voice.

One thing I know about the South is that everybody had to either have band or take some type of music course in high school, so the music is paramount to everybody’s development. All the high schools have bands, marching bands, battle of the bands and all that. Music is everywhere. When you get that type of interaction, the music culture along with the culture culture—whether it’s street culture, civil rights or political culture—the freedom of expression is incredible. We’re in the Bible Belt, but we have a lot of strip clubs. All of these holy people in some of the most unholy places is an oxymoron. But the juxtaposition creates a nice gumbo stew.

Any artist who wanted to break in the music industry—even if they were from somewhere else—came to Atlanta. Nicki Minaj came to Atlanta to break through. Nelly came to Atlanta when he was looking for a record deal. My artist Muni Long had a breakthrough record two years ago, but now she comes back to Atlanta to work with Jermaine Dupri and Brian Michael Cox. That’s the Atlanta effect.

The Atlanta effect is creating moments, having access to these legendary people and then, in some aspects, just getting out of the way and doing something that frees you. The pressure of trying to make a hit record, the pressure of wanting to be successful, the pressure of wanting to be seen, it gets released here because everybody is their own person here. Nobody would expect CeeLo from Goodie Mob to do a song like “Crazy” and have it blow the fuck up, but the freedom of Atlanta allowed him to do that. The same freedom allowed André 3000 to make “Hey Ya” and put on blonde wigs and be himself.

What’s the most important thing you’ve learned thus far?

The importance of consistency, hard work and being willing to learn and relearn. This game is ever-evolving, so you have to be willing to learn during times of change and be prepared.

What have you been most excited about lately in terms of your work?

I’m coming off a full-circle moment with USHER and Luda at the Super Bowl [where USHER performed “YEAH!” with Ludacris and Lil Jon]. It’s also the 20th anniversary of “YEAH!” We got ridiculous endorsement deals—from State Farm to Jif Peanut Butter.

And Luda is working on new music. But, obviously, we’re in a billion-dollar franchise, Fast and Furious. He’s limitless. We got deals with Netflix and all of these different companies. We actually just sold a TV series about me and Luda’s life in radio. That’s gonna be on BET. Then next year is the 25-year anniversary of Disturbing Tha Peace.

You have a lot of work to do.

Yeah, I do!