Andrew Shearer
| Athens Banner-Herald
Without Cedric Huff, the Athens hip-hop scene would look vastly different than it does today.
Huff, who performs under the name Amun-Ra, is considered ‘one of the architects’ of the local scene, according to Montu Miller, chief operating officer at ATHFactor Entertainment Group.
“Amun-Ra is pure hip-hop, uncut, no dilution, unapologetically original,” said Miller.
Born on the west side of Athens in 1972, Huff came from a family of entrepreneurs that owned local restaurants, clothing stores, and barber shops. Growing up around self-made business people inspired and encouraged Huff to become an independent artist at a young age, which mirrored the work ethic that was the foundation of hip-hop music and culture.
Photo gallery: Athens Hip-Hop History: Cedric “Amun-Ra” Huff
Huff’s father was the family DJ, and played R&B records from such artists as George Clinton, Tina Turner, and James Brown. His mother, whose eclectic taste included contemporary pop artists, introduced him to the vocal stylings of Cyndi Lauper. Huff’s first exposure to hip-hop was in the late 1970s, when his dad brought home the 12-inch of Sugar Hill Gang’s “Rapper’s Delight.”
“Mind you, we were in Athens, so music from New York took a couple months to get here,” recalled Huff. “I had family in Atlanta, so I was always going back and forth, getting everything first and bringing it back (to Athens).”
The first hip-hop song that really stuck with Huff was Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five’s 1982 classic, “The Message,” and his parents bought him a set of turntables and a mixer at age 14. It was then that Huff went from breakdancing, beatboxing, and graffiti to deejaying, but he credits seeing a performance by Bruce Chambers and Willy Wester at a local skating rink as the incentive to begin writing his own lyrics.
Huff submitted his first track, a parody of the RUN-DMC hit, “My Adidas” called “My Cat Heads,” to WUOG FM when he was still only 14. A family member who worked at the station played it, and the song remained in rotation every Thursday night for nearly a year as part of WUOG’s weekly hip-hop and soul program.
“Everybody listened to it,” said Huff. “I became like a celebrity in middle school.”
Huff described the Athens hip-hop scene as “bubbling” at that time, with most of the crews performing at talent shows, house parties, or school assemblies rather than downtown venues, where the feeling was one of being unwanted, according to Huff. His parents told him not to go there, citing an underlying racism that was still present despite Athens being a college town.
Referring to the situation as “a small matter to a giant,” Huff was introduced to Atlanta-based recording industry mogul Jermaine Dupri in 1988 at age 16, who ended up producing Huff’s first demo. As artists like Kris Kross emerged and gained popularity, Huff found his underground, socially-conscious style of hip-hop at odds with his management’s understanding at the time.
“I create metaphysical melanated music designed to re-awaken or enlighten people of all colors, but specifically people of color,” said Huff, who compared his “frequency” to that of Gil Scott-Heron, KRS-One, and Public Enemy, artists that were often looked upon by the American music industry as difficult to classify or market.
An independent artist ever since, Huff shopped his sound while living in Atlanta and Detroit before returning to Athens, where he currently resides. Though he initially found the back and forth to his hometown frustrating, Huff has a distinct sense of purpose today, and is raising his two daughters here while continuing to make music under the name Amun-Ra.
“He’s a good twist on the ‘dirty south’ impression that people have of southern hip-hop,” said music producer and composer Djehwti Aswar El, one of the artists featured on Amun-Ra’s latest single, “Children of the Most High.”
Though Huff is quick to salute all the young artists coming up in Athens scene, he points to local mainstays like Miller and Ishmael “Ishues” Cuthbertson for understanding and appreciating his conscious style of music, which never quite found its way to prominence as hip-hop began to make greater strides here in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
“I get better reception in other places and other countries,” said Huff, who traveled to the Giza plateau in Khemet/Egypt in 2018 to film the video for his song “Back To Pyramids.”
Shown interacting with people and places in the region, including rapping in front of the Great Pyramid of Giza, Huff’s connection to his ancestry and desire to communicate with a worldwide audience are evident.
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Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, Amun-Ra shows were rare, with venues like Tasty World and the 40 Watt Club as the most receptive to his sound. To date, Huff’s last public performance was at the 2018 Athens Hip Hop Awards. He calls today’s Athens hip-hop scene “a beautiful thing.”
“It’s like a melting pot, a gumbo. You can get everything here,” said Huff. “What Athens needs right now is what America needs. The political structure needs to be broken down and rebuilt. The mentality of the people would have to change.”
Visit Amun-Ra.bandcamp.com to hear more of Amun-Ra’s music.
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