Bankhead
Bankhead is a neighborhood on the west side of Atlanta. It's surrounded by Grove Park on the west, West End on the south, Vine City on the east with Berkeley Park and Home Park on the north. At its center is Marta Bankhead station and Maddox Park. The schools that serve the neighborhood are Grove Park Elementary, A.D. Williams Elementary School, Carter G. Woodson Elementary School, Alfred Blalock Elementary School, and Frederick Douglass High School.
It is also home to rappers T.I. and Shawty Lo.
It is also home to rappers T.I. and Shawty Lo.
The Bankhead Bounce is a dance that originated in a neighborhood on the west side of Atlanta known as Bankhead. The dance was popularized by a song of the same name, released in 1995 by rapper L. (Diamond) Atkins, featuring D-Roc and by the video for the song, "Benz or Beamer" by Outkast from the New Jersey Drive soundtrack in 1995. The dance was introduced to mainstream culture when it was performed by Michael Jackson at the 1995 MTV Music Video Awards.
The dance is performed by moving one's shoulders up and down with arms bent toward the chest. Then one rocks the upper body back and forth. It includes many variations such as: "The Forrest Gump" where you make a running motion using your arms, (similar to “ the running man "), "Gone fishin" you simulate casting a fishing reel, "The touchdown" you simulate throwing a football for a touchdown followed by a victory dance.
Rapper T.I. was born Clifford Joseph Harris Jr. on Sept. 25, 1980, in Bankhead. He was raised by his grandparents and was a drug dealer as a teenager. T.I. explained the origin of his nickname Rubber Band Man, saying “We used to wear rubber bands to signify how much money, how much blow we had.” He was nicknamed “Tip” after his paternal great grandfather, Kawan “KP” Prather, a record executive, discovered and signed T.I. when he was a teenager. Upon signing with Arista Records subsidiary LaFace Records in 2001, he shortened his name to T.I. He is a rapper, songwriter, actor and record producer. “What You Know” won a Grammy Award for the Best Rap Solo Performance and was nominated for Best Rap Song at the 49th Grammy Awards. Also that year, won a Grammy Award for Best Rap/Sung Collaboration with Justin Timberlake.
Shawty Lo was born Carlos Walker March 22,1980 at Grady Hospital. He was raised in the notorious Bowen Homes housing project, located in Bankhead.
Walker had a tough upbringing, with his mother a drug-user and an absent father. His grandmother was left to provide for Walker and his sister. In his teens, Walker became a drug dealer, making a reputation for himself on the west side of Atlanta. It is this lifestyle that garnered him the reputation as being the King of Bankhead.
By the age of 17, Walker had fathered his first child. He now has a total of nine children; seven girls and two boys. After over a decade of hustling and drug dealing, Walker decided to turn his attention to music. Other than being a rapper, he is a songwriter and producer, and is CEO of D4L Records Inc.
Maddox Park is a 51.5-acre community park located in the west side of Atlanta (in the Bankhead neighborhood), across Donald Lee Hollowell Parkway from Bankhead Marta station It is approximately 1.5 miles west of Georgia Tech. The park has an existing rail line running through it, which is part of the proposed route of the Belt Line. The park is named in honor of former Governor Lester G. Maddox, a "Dixiecrat" Democrat known for his resistance to desegregation, who was the only Governor of Georgia to have been born in the city of Atlanta.
