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Hip-Hop

Songs of Sorrow

Collective Grieving in Southern Hip-Hop

by Natrice Miller

If I hadn’t know better, I would have assumed that the crowd of Black people walking toward State Farm Arena on November 11, 2022, were headed to a concert. Instead, they stood in line to pay their final respects at the memorial service for Atlanta rapper Takeoff, a member of rap supergroup Migos, who had been fatally shot days earlier. With a camera on each arm, I stood in the rain to capture the moment, on assignment for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Media wasn’t allowed inside, so I was tasked with documenting the fans and the scene from the outside.

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