Macon Magazine

the love for Macon; we're putting Macon in the spotlight – all while we're giving voice to the voiceless, which is what this is all about." Snap Hughes, also known as Snap Wordlaw, is the hard- working, fast-talking "captain" on the ground at Guap, doing everything from A&R (Artists & Repertoire, also known as talent scouting) to posting flyers around town for events. He grew up with Dupree in Wilkinson County. "We hung out together at a juke joint called Chocolate City. Anybody who partied back in the day remembers Chocolate City because that was the biggest party going," says Hughes, who describes himself as a "music geek from way on back." Like 2win, he served in the Army. He was injured in Iraq before retiring and devoting himself to music full time. "My influences were always local artists such as Ferrari B, Trouble Ga slum, J Hugh, Black flame, Suspect Hardboi, B Jizzle, and Yung R," he says. "Mainstream artists Gucci Mane, Pastor Troy, Yo Gotti, and Plies played an important role to my love for music." His first mixtape, Wordlaw Vol. 1, featured the hit "Wet Flo FROM LEFT TO RIGHT: 2WIN, BABY JUNGLE, BUD DUPREE, T ROYAL, RAY WILSON. SNAP HUGHES IN GUAP RECORDS RECORDING STUDIO. Sign," which was streamed more than 100,000 times. "My love for writing music came after witnessing my grandmother pass away," Hughes says. "That unlocked a gift of writing." To date, he has written more than 60 songs and hooks for artists all across Central Georgia, and he does not plan on stopping any time soon. A SENSE OF PLACE As music goes, hip-hop is still relatively young at only fi y years old. To put it in perspective for older Maconites, when Duane Allman was bending notes on his guitar, the deejays in the Bronx were just starting to drop beats by putting a needle in the groove. Guap Records represents a trend in grassroots music production, says Toby S. Jenkins, author of "The Hip-Hop Mindset: Success Strategies for Educators and Other Professionals." "Several companies have opened up striking distance from Atlanta, which is the mecca," she says. "But Southerners, who can see cultural and geographic differences, know that there is a differ- ent 'feel' from town to town, that what is hot in Macon is different from what is popular in Memphis. There is a lot of value put on the unique way you express yourself in your neck of the woods." A sense of place is important in hip-hop. Hughes explained, "They come to us from everywhere from Sparta and Roberta to Milledgeville and Dublin. Then in Macon we have the neighbor- hoods with different identities, like the East Side and Pleasant Hill." But there are no beefs or turf wars in the hip-hop crowd, he noted, just bone-deep community pride. Guap Records is headquartered at 325 Edgewood Lane in Macon's Greenwood Bottom district, and more specifically in an area once known as Tybee; these place names alone are a legacy that affect the feel of the music made there. Greenwood Bottom's name is an homage to Greenwood in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the site of the 1921 Black Wall Street massacre during which hundreds of people were killed when a white mob attacked the thriving Black business district and burned it to the ground. The now-demol- ished Tybee community was named for Tybee Island, Georgia, which was a post-Middle-Passage waypoint where enslaved Africans were held before being taken to further inland slave markets, such as the one in Macon on Cotton Avenue. Historic Macon Foundation recently published an article called "Tybee: The Consequences of Urban Renewal on a Macon Community," detailing how "the 31 acres of Tybee that were condemned and appropriated for "urban renewal" are now peppered with vacant lots, blighted structures, and industrial buildings," though they once housed a thriving Black community. Greenwood Bottom houses structures like The Roxy Theater, which opened on Hazel Street in 1949 as a venue for Black patrons during the Jim Crow era. It sits just four blocks away from where Guap now stands. The Roxy Theater is currently listed on Historic Macon's Fading Five, a collection of endangered places, and has been nominated for inclusion on the National Register of Historic Places. The coal tower near the studio was once surrounded by Tybee Homes. When Guap executives chose the studio's location, they weren't yet aware of this history, but as they've embraced their connection to Middle Georgia's cultural and music legacy, they believe it was all meant to be. Hughes shared, "I believe in the power of the universe, like God has everything in place for a reason, so for us to be located JUNE/JULY 2023 | maconmagazine.com 57

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