The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
‘He believed in everybody’
Atlanta producer Rico Wade’s impact was profound.
Friends remember the hip-hop legend, foodie, sports fanatic and coach who changed their lives forever.
Before he died at the age of 52, Atlanta music pioneer Rico Wade had his sights set on a new venture: food truck owner.
Yep, the man credited with guiding the careers of Outkast, Goodie Mob, TLC, Future and too many others to fit into print was focused on realizing a culinary dream. Since his passing this month, Wade has been aptly remembered as a “visionary” and “Godfather of modern Atlanta rap.” This is not hyperbole.
It’s also not the full story. In addition to being a legend, he was a foodie. Wade liked to talk with his hands; long digits helping amplify the passion behind whatever subject he was discussing. The topic could be what to wear to an Atlanta Hawks game, being a dedicated Georgia football fan or maybe his newfound love for grilling lamb lollipops. He was always smiling. He was a big fan of Nirvana. He loved his family and the families his friends were building.
Wade died April 13. He was survived by his mother, two sons, his wife and a host of brothers and sisters. His life was celebrated Friday in a service at Ebenezer Baptist Church.
As the co-founder and voice of the Dungeon Family, Atlanta’s storied hip-hop collective, Wade was one of the most prominent figures in Atlanta’s history. He was hailed as an ambassador for Black creatives as he pushed to bring them more visibility, pride and confidence. Andre 3000 made his clarion call at the 1995 Source Awards that “the South got something to say,” but it was Wade who instilled a sense of red clay fearlessness and moxie that fueled the now legendary proclamation.
As part of the production trio Organized Noize, with Ray Murray and Pat “Sleepy” Brown, Wade helped give the city its own sound, identity and sense of self-worth. Yet, according to friends and family who spoke with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Wade was a local kid who wanted to see Atlanta win and its Black have-nots get a fair shake at success.
“A part of Atlanta died when he died,” said Ramon Campbell, Wade’s best friend. “He was that connection, that energetic soul of Atlanta that gave people hope.”
Two dope boys
Rico Renard Wade was born Feb. 26, 1972, the son of Beatrice Wade and Augustus Griggs Jr.
Campbell and Wade met when they were teens in East Point. As the story goes, Wade, an East Point native, took a liking to Campbell’s twin sister. After Wade’s failed attempts to woo her, the two boys started to click over their love of music despite differences at the surface — Campbell having a fairer skin tone and a quiet, orderly demeanor, while Wade was chatty and less structured by nature, with a darker, richer complexion.
Originally from New York, Campbell would travel north for the summer to visit his father and grandmother, returning with mixtapes he’d share with his friend. Wade admired Campbell’s music collection, while the latter remembers being impressed by a young Black man making his own way to help his family. “He was always a hustler. He was working at a very young age to support his mom and his two sisters,” Campbell recalls.
Wade got Campbell a job at a video store next to Lamonte’s Beauty Supply, the very location at Headland and Delowe where Outkast would later audition for Wade. The two spent time at the Atlanta University Center and Jellybeans skating rink, befriending Dallas Austin and Tionne “T-Boz” Watkins.
“We were the first two that
were hanging with each other, and then it seems like everybody in the family kind of started to migrate toward us,” Campbell said.
The pair eventually formed an R&B group, along with Sleepy Brown and their friend Marqueze Etheridge, known as U-Boyz. The group had a failed audition for executive Pebbles Reid, who had a label partnership with LaFace Records. But Pebbles took a liking to Wade and introduced him to her then-husband, LaFace Records co-founder L.A. Reid. Reid offered Wade an executive role.
“He was like, ‘I got other plans, I got other dreams, I got a whole crew,’” Campbell recalls. Instead, Rico recommended Kawan Prather, aka “KP the Great,” a member of the Dungeon Family’s first group, Parental Advisory, who had an eye for talent. “He’s always had a vision, even if that vision didn’t involve him directly; he would make sure he had people around him that can execute that vision,” Campbell said.
When Organized Noize signed a $20 million contract with Interscope, Wade brought Campbell on as an A&R rep for the label. Campbell also managed Dungeon Family artist Cool Breeze and served as Sleepy Brown’s road manager. He was also an executive producer for the documentary “The Art of Organized Noize.”
One of his favorite memories of Wade comes from a time when Campbell saved up money to buy a BMW station wagon but was denied because of his credit. He shared his disappointment with Wade. “A couple days later, the BMW was sitting in the driveway,” he said. “He bought it for me.”
Campbell doesn’t have the car anymore, but he has been replaying that story a lot since Wade died.
‘Humble guy from southwest Atlanta’
Former music executive Shanti Das was hired by LaFace Records four months after finishing college. In addition to promoting the label’s R&B acts, she worked with rap groups, including Outkast.
She remembers when the guys offered to take her “down into the Dungeon” during one of her first meetings.
“To the what?!,” she recalls asking before descending the steps into the crawlspace at Wade’s mother’s Lakewood Heights house. Seeing the music equipment, dirt, Black kids working together for a dollar and a dream, it clicked. “I understood the red clay and the symbolism of growing up in the weeds, from the streets of Atlanta,” she thought.
“When I met Rico, he was this humble guy from southwest Atlanta, before they had received the notoriety, the success and the accolades, and he was still the same person to this day,” she said.
As they grew older, the two friends kept in contact because Wade loved telephone conversations. “Rico would talk to you on the phone like y’all were in high school; you might be on the phone with Rico for an hour or two and just get lost in the conversation,” she said.
One of those conversations came a few weeks before Wade died, and Das hasn’t stopped thinking about it. “We were just talking about life and we were talking about health challenges we had both experienced, and the importance of eating healthy and taking care of ourselves at our age,” said Das, who is one year older than Wade at 53. “I can’t believe that he’s not here.”
Picture me rolling
Next to the image of Wade holding his forearms stacked to show off corresponding “DUNGEON” and “FAMILY” tattoos, there is probably no visual more synonymous with his legend than one captured by longtime Atlanta music photographer Shannon McCollum. The photograph shows Wade sitting atop his Range Rover in Piedmont Park, wearing a University of Michigan basketball jersey, his long hands and fingers stretched outward.
In the early ’90s, McCollum was a sophomore at Clark Atlanta University when he was hired by a Black-owned entertainment magazine to photograph the Dungeon Family. After meeting the crew at Wade’s house on Adams Drive in southwest Atlanta, McCollum spent the next five years documenting their rise. Wade paid him $500 a week starting out. Thanks to connections he made through Wade and lessons learned on navigating the industry, McCollum was later able to branch out on his own, shooting Atlanta events and eventually growing to become one of music’s most
accomplished photographers.
“I owe that dude so much because he just was there for me, man,” he remembered. “He just trusted me. I knew how to handle myself and conduct myself because I had been around Rico Wade.”
Coach Wade
That Wade’s voice is the first one listeners hear on Killer Mike’s Grammy-sweeping album, “Michael,” is no accident. The rapper and entrepreneur calls Wade the costar of “Michael,” serving as narrator because, as Killer Mike puts it, “No other voice could speak for Atlanta” the way Wade could.
On the album opener, “Down by Law,” Wade gives one of his legendary pep talks:
“I just think timin’ is everything/ Like (expletive), this it, this, this one right here/ That ain’t easy/ Stay motivated, stay inspired/ I owe it to myself, stay down on it/ And it ain’t been hard throughout the journey/ It’s been a journey.”
Wade’s comments stem from an argument the two men had years ago over the name “Killer Mike.” The latter set out as a solo artist, and when a meeting with label execs headed south, Wade pulled Killer Mike into a hallway. “They don’t want to support ‘Killer Mike.’ And that’s (expletive) up and that’s wrong. So we’ve got to figure something else out. Maybe we’ve got to say ‘Kill a mic,’” Wade said at the time.
Killer Mike refused, citing that the label had a group of four white rockers known as The Killers. Rather than keep fighting, Wade told Killer Mike he believed in him and supported his vision, even if they saw it differently. “He never let me forget that you made the decision, and now that you made the decision, you’re going to see this (expletive) all the way through.”
“Rico helped me understand that their fear was going to inhibit me,” he says. “So even when the struggle came, it was just a part of the journey.”
Nearly two decades later, when Killer Mike won three Grammys this year, Wade called to congratulate him. The journey had come full circle.
“He was truly a man that wanted to see you be your absolute best. That’s a coach,” Mike says. “We lost an amazing coach.”
‘We love you, Rico’
The scene was so thick. On a chilly Sunday evening in downtown Atlanta, over a week after Wade’s passing, a few hundred people are gathering for a tribute. It’s a 420-themed music festival called The Sesh. Embracing each other in front of the stage at Forsyth and Garnett streets are Sleepy Brown, members of Goodie Mob, Dungeon Family artist Slimm Calhoun, Das and others. Wade’s family is in attendance. A haze of smoke rests over the crowd that’s staring up at the stage, toward KP the Great.
KP takes the audience on a journey through the soundtrack of Wade’s life, opening with “You May Die,” the intro from Outkast’s sophomore album, “ATLiens.” KP’s set is an homage to Wade and Dungeon Family’s catalog, but also songs like Nirvana’s “Come As You Are,” “Smells Like Teen Spirit” and the “Golden Girls” theme song, which he loved.
Dungeon Family members join KP on stage. With KP as their guide, they cycle through “SpottieOttieDopaliscious,” “Black Ice,” “Cell Therapy” and “Crumblin’ Erb.” The set then transitions to Mista’s “Blackberry Molasses,” the R&B group’s biggest hit, which Organized Noize produced.
At this point, the stage is teeming with artists, former executives, friends and family. They’re clutching white balloons, laughing, crying, singing along.
It’s at this point that Sleepy Brown addresses his fallen friend and the crowd gathered to honor him.
“We want to thank you for everything,” he says, his eyes hidden behind shades. “We want to thank you for the love, the understanding and always looking out for people.”
He tells the story about Wade introducing him to Future, how he always had the foresight to see what others couldn’t.
“It just goes to show you he had a big heart. He believed in everybody,” Sleepy Brown says. “... He gave everybody a chance. And right now we can let these balloons fly for his family, for his lovely wife, Debbie, for his sisters, for his whole family, for the Dungeon family, for all of us. For all of y’all, man.”
As Sleepy Brown counts up to three, the white balloons start ascending. The crowd saying in unison, “We love you, Rico!”
East Point’s greatest hit
Campbell said his best friend took the journey as far as it could go. The two men spoke on the phone every day. A week before Wade passed, they were watching the Final Four. Wade was winning his March Madness pool. That someone would go up against Wade betting on winners defies logic, if you know his track record.
As he grew older, wins and losses took a back seat to Wade’s love for family. Campbell and Wade built a friendship through music, but their relationship outlasted the beats.
“I’m having parties with my kids, he’s the first one there. He’s doing something with his kids, I’m the first one there,” Campbell said. “So I think our bond became stronger because of family.”
In the last conversation they had, Wade was explaining how excited he was to get his food truck business off the ground. They also discussed an upcoming visit to Las Vegas, where he planned on rooting for Campbell’s daughter at a cheerleading competition next month. Sadly, neither will happen.
Campbell says he finds comfort seeing tributes pour in for Wade. There’s talk of renaming a street in East Point to honor him. The City of Atlanta also has plans in the works. Das, Killer Mike and McCollum have all said they’d like to see creative arts programs established in his honor.
“Georgia has been known for red clay, so it was like Rico in a sense was the first one to mold a brick and said, ‘It starts from here,’” Campbell said. “Now you got a whole house that’s been built starting with the first brick that Rico laid.”