Music History

Black churches played a crucial role in community building, social justice, and the civil rights movement in the Black community. Beyond being spiritual havens, Black churches were also pivotal in nurturing the growth of gospel music.

From 1949 when it opened until the late 1960s, the Royal Peacock was Atlanta’s premier nightclub. Located at 186 Auburn Avenue, people dressed to the nines would line up in lines that wrapped around the block just to see the best entertainers in the country including James Brown, Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, and Marvin Gaye. The club helped create the fertile soil that allowed Atlanta to become the hip-hop and rhythm and blues capital of the South.

Celebrate Atlanta’s rich musicality with this tour of places with ties to hip-hop history.

The Cocktail Girls perform on stage at 688 Club on Spring Street in Midtown in 1987.

In 2009, an article in the New York Times referred to Atlanta as “hip-hop’s center of gravity.” Although Atlanta’s music scene is diverse, it is perhaps the city’s hip-hop scene that has garnered the most national attention and commercial success.