The reason why Killer Mike is proud to come from Atlanta
Killer Mike was born and raised in Atlanta, Georgia, and he is proud of that fact. Even with all the success he’s experienced throughout his career, and despite all of the places he’s been to, Atlanta is still where his heart is.
Mike once spoke about Atlanta with the online magazine self-titled, explaining why, exactly, it was that he felt so good to come from there. It was about the people, fundamentally. It was about their attitude.
“It’s a Southern city that never stopped being truly a Southern town,” the Run The Jewels rapper said of his hometown.
What he meant by that is that, despite being one of the most populous cities in the southeastern region of the United States, the world-famous hip-hop hub of Atlanta nonetheless feels like a smaller place. He believes this to be the case because of the way its people interact with others. They’re polite.
Mike was in New York at the time of the interview, a place he described as “almost like a second home.” He is happy in New York, but he feels that the people there can be a bit too rushed. It’s not that they’re being “rude,” as such, but they’ve “got things to do.”
They don’t, therefore, “make a lot of time to say ‘excuse me,’ ‘please,’ or ‘thank you.’” That was Mike’s appraisal of the situation, at least.
He compared that to how people are in Atlanta, and the differences, to his mind, are stark. He argued that people there are “just as busy” as their counterparts in New York, but they still make an effort to be nice.
Atlanta’s residents, Mike insisted, are “some of the most gracious and courteous people in this Earth. They’re particularly nice folks.” That’s why he was so proud to be one of them.
He went on to recount how, whenever he’s out and about on foot through the city, he receives a lot of positivity from those he encounters. “I cannot tell you how many times I hear, ‘GO KILLER MIKE!’ “WHAT’S UP BIG DADDY?’ ‘GO!’” he claimed. “It’s like being Rocky on that run.”