Atlanta's global reputation as the capital of trap music and Southern hip-hop is well-deserved — the city has produced more significant hip-hop artists in the past thirty years than any other American city, with T.I., Outkast, Lil Wayne, Cardi B, and dozens of others defining the genre's evolution. But Atlanta's musical life extends far beyond the trap houses and recording studios that have made it the hip-hop capital: the city is home to one of the South's finest public radio stations in WABE, a serious jazz community that has nurtured significant artists, a country radio market that serves the large white Southern population of metro Atlanta's suburbs, an alternative rock scene that produced R.E.M. and the B-52s in Athens an hour away, and a gospel tradition rooted in Atlanta's historically Black colleges and churches. These eight stations cover Atlanta's music beyond the hip-hop headlines — the public radio, jazz, alternative, R&B, and country that make Atlanta a complete musical city rather than a single-genre phenomenon.
Atlanta Public Radio
WABE FM 90.1 — Atlanta, GA
WABE FM 90.1 is Atlanta's NPR affiliate and the primary public radio voice of the South's largest city — covering the full complexity of a city that is simultaneously the capital of hip-hop culture, the headquarters of the civil rights movement's legacy, the center of Black middle-class America, and a rapidly growing tech hub. WABE's arts journalism addresses Atlanta's music scene with the depth it deserves: the hip-hop industry's economic impact on the city, the gospel tradition rooted in the city's historically Black colleges, the jazz and R&B scene that operates below the hip-hop spotlight, and the country and rock that serve metro Atlanta's suburbs. For Atlanta listeners who want to understand their city as a complete cultural entity rather than just as a hip-hop capital, WABE provides the essential journalism.
GPB Radio — Atlanta, GA
GPB Radio is Georgia Public Broadcasting's radio network — the statewide public radio operation that serves both Atlanta and the wider Georgia audience with news, classical music, and cultural programming that reflects Georgia's full geographic and cultural diversity. GPB's Atlanta programming addresses the city's role as Georgia's cultural capital alongside its connection to the state's rural and small-town identity — the country music and gospel traditions of rural Georgia that are as central to the state's musical identity as Atlanta's hip-hop. The station's classical music programming serves Atlanta's growing arts community, which includes the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and the performing arts venues that have developed as the city has grown into a cultural metropolis. For the Atlanta listener who wants public radio that places the city in the context of its state and region, GPB provides the broader perspective.
Atlanta Jazz and Soul
JazzBeats Radio — Atlanta, GA
JazzBeats Radio programs jazz for Atlanta — the genre that occupies a specific and important place in the city's Black cultural life, connecting the Atlanta University Center's historically Black colleges to the national jazz tradition. Atlanta's jazz scene has historically been centered in the HBCU community: Morehouse College, Spelman College, and Clark Atlanta University have maintained jazz programs and presented jazz performances for decades, and the Atlanta jazz community that has grown from those institutions is one of the South's most significant. JazzBeats Radio programs the full jazz tradition for Atlanta's sophisticated African American audience — the bebop and hard bop that developed from the tradition that HBCU music programs preserved and transmitted, alongside the contemporary jazz and neo-soul that Atlanta's Black professional community embraces as the current expression of a long musical lineage.
The BET — Atlanta, GA
The BET programs R&B and urban soul for Atlanta's Black community — the music that carries the tradition from the classic soul of Otis Redding and Aretha Franklin through the quiet storm of the 1980s into the contemporary neo-soul and R&B that Atlanta's music industry continues to produce alongside its more famous hip-hop output. Atlanta has always been a significant R&B city: the city's recording industry infrastructure — the studios, the labels, the session musicians — that supports the hip-hop industry also produces significant R&B, and artists like Usher, TLC, and Ciara have made Atlanta as important to R&B as it is to hip-hop. The BET programs the soul and R&B tradition for Atlanta's audience that wants the music's emotional depth rather than the hip-hop's energy — the slower, more intimate side of Black popular music.
Atlanta Alternative and Rock
99X — Atlanta, GA
99X is Atlanta's alternative rock station — the format that reflects the city's strong connection to the Georgia alternative music tradition that produced R.E.M. and the B-52s in Athens and has continued through the decades in Atlanta's own independent music scene. Georgia's alternative music tradition is one of the most significant in American rock history: R.E.M. pioneered the college rock format that became alternative rock in the 1990s, and their success created the infrastructure — the independent labels, the college radio network, the concert venues — that made the Southeast a significant alternative music center. 99X programs within this tradition for Atlanta's rock audience: the alternative rock from Georgia's own musical history alongside the contemporary alternative that carries the format into the present.
Edge FM — Atlanta, GA
Edge FM programs modern rock and alternative for Atlanta's rock audience — the harder-edged contemporary rock that serves the city's diverse rock listening community with the active rock and modern rock that bridges classic alternative into the current mainstream. Atlanta's rock audience is large and geographically diverse: the city's suburbs, stretching from Alpharetta to Marietta to Decatur, contain large populations of rock listeners who want something harder and more guitar-driven than the pop mainstream. Edge FM serves these listeners with the modern rock format that fills the space between the classic rock that older Atlanta listeners prefer and the cutting-edge alternative that 99X programs for the younger, more indie-oriented audience.
Atlanta Pop and Country
B98.5 — Atlanta, GA
B98.5 programs adult contemporary for Atlanta's mainstream commercial audience — the format that serves the broad professional demographic with familiar pop hits across multiple decades. Atlanta's business community — the Fortune 500 headquarters, the film and television industry, the tech sector that has made the city a major technology hub — creates a large professional audience that wants accessible mainstream radio as the soundtrack to their working day. B98.5 programs for these listeners: the pop, soft rock, and AC hits that provide the comfortable background music for Atlanta's offices and commutes, serving the mainstream that exists alongside the city's more famous and distinctive musical cultures. In a city as musically diverse as Atlanta, the AC format provides the neutral common ground where the various musical cultures can find familiar territory.
94.7 The Link — Atlanta, GA
94.7 The Link provides Atlanta's mainstream commercial format — the contemporary hits and mixed programming that connects the city's diverse musical cultures into a single accessible stream. Atlanta's demographic complexity — the African American majority, the large Latino community, the white suburban population, the international business community — means that mainstream commercial radio must serve multiple musical taste profiles simultaneously. The Link programs for the Atlanta listener who moves between musical worlds: the office worker who wants hip-hop in the morning and country in the afternoon, the young professional who follows both the pop chart and the R&B chart. This format reflects Atlanta's nature as a city where musical cultures intersect and cross-pollinate, producing the hybrid sounds that have defined Southern popular music throughout the 20th and 21st centuries.
For more Atlanta and Southern music radio content, see our posts on Atlanta radio stations, hip-hop radio online, and soul radio online.
