Room: Music Hall
Support Acts: Shy Glizzy, Lil Keed
You can't talk about modern Atlanta rap without talking about Gunna - one of the city's brightest rising stars. Born Sergio Kitchens in College Park (home of many an OutKast shout-out), the rapper was introduced to fellow trap warbler Young Thug at a video shoot, and ultimately signed to his Young Slime Life label. The connection made sense: Gunna's voice often evokes Thug's, and the two share a knack for melody; but where Thug tends toward the weird and wild, Gunna's delivery is subtler, occasionally even meditative, with a sharp ear for beats from the likes of producers Metro Boomin and Wheezy. Since 2016, he's dropped three installments of his Drip Season mixtape series. And he's an intensely prolific collaborator - in 2018 alone, he shared tracks with Future, Juice WRLD, Travis Scott, Playboi Carti, Tory Lanez, and none other than Mariah Carey on her latest album, Caution. But the Gunna's most buzzed-about release has been Drip Harder, his full-length 2018 collaboration with fellow Atlanta upstart Lil Baby, featuring guest spots from Drake and Young Thug. Its lead single, "Drip Too Hard," has even peaked at No. 4 on the Hot 100 charts, marking Gunna's official arrival - a rapper on the vanguard of what Atlanta sounds like right now.