Hip-hop pioneer Fab 5 Freddy comes to Atlanta for ‘Everybody’s Fly’ book talk

During his time hosting “Yo! MTV Raps,” Hip Hop luminary Fred Brathwaite aka Fab 5 Freddy made a name for himself by filming most of his interviews out in the field, pulling up on artists where they lived, worked and played. He introduced pioneering gangsta rap group NWA to the world, interviewing them in the Compton Swap Meet parking lot. He talked to Sean (then “Puffy”) Combs, The Notorious B.I.G. and Craig Mack at the Bad Boy Entertainment offices, exposing viewers to the business side of the music.

But one of his most iconic interviews came in 1995 when he took cameras into the “little room” that inspired Andre 3000 of Outkast’s 2025 Rock & Roll Hall Fame induction speech — the basement of 1907 Lakewood Terrace in Southeast Atlanta aka “The Dungeon.”

“We were filming a segment and Rico Wade’s mother came down and offered me a plate of food and something to drink,” remembers Freddy about the dusty crawlspace where ‘Kast, Goodie Mob, Organized Noize and countless other members of the Dungeon Family would record classic moments. “I’ve been in other people’s basements where they were making music, but there was something particularly warm and embracing and very Southern that I felt there. You could feel the rawness of it.”

On March 12, Fab 5 Freddy will return to Atlanta for a conversation in support of his long-awaited memoir, “Everybody’s Fly” at the Tara Theater.

The book’s comes from Freddy’s shoutout on Blondie’s seminal 1981 hit “Rapture.” The narrative focuses on the first chapters of Freddy’s journey starting with his exploits as a man about town and visual artist in New York City as hip-hop was in its infancy. The books digs into his time as the original host of groundbreaking show “Yo! MTV Raps” where the culture was on the cusp of global phenomenon.

“I wanted to do it going way back, seeing the culture blow up, and talk about things that I’ve had my hands in become way bigger than I could have imagined,” says Freddy about the process of collaborating with writer Mark Rizzo to write the book. “I lean into those things heavily in the book, because these things turned out to be so fundamental as foundations for this culture.”

“Everybody’s Fly” highlights Freddy’s role co-leading a movement that saw street art from himself and friends like Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring enter art galleries. The text also points out Freddy’s impact on documenting the culture with what’s widely dubbed as hip-hop’s first film, “Wild Style,” in which he is an actor and co-producer.

Perhaps hip-hop’s first Renaissance man, book author is a title that eluded Freddy for decades because he was too busy making things worth writing about. Through the late 1980s and early 1990s he directed landmark music videos including Queen Latifah’s “Ladies First,” Boogie Down Productions’ “My Philosophy,” and Snoop Dogg’s solo debut music video for “What’s My Name.”

Freddy then had a brief stint as a music industry executive when he co-founded Pallas Records, through which he discovered Chicago rap group Crucial Conflict. From 2004 to 2009 he co-produced the first six iterations of VH1’s “Hip Hop Honors” award show.

A longtime marijuana advocate, Freddy released a 2019 Netflix documentary, “The Grass Is Greener” that chronicled how Black artists from the 1920s jazz age to the current hip-hop era were vilified for smoking weed when their white counterparts were not. He followed that with founding B Noble, a cause-based cannabis brand that raises awareness and creates funding to defend people from cannabis-related criminalization.

Freddy admits friends and literary agents had been hounding him for at least 25 years to pen a recollection of his life and contributions, but he finally decided to commit to it when he had time to sit and think during COVID, eventually starting the process in 2023. He knew he had stories to tell, but was mostly inspired by stories his elders like his godfather and jazz legend Max Roach never got to share.