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Teenage Rap Collective 3L$ Wants to Make Cobb County, Georgia a Household Name

Many rappers pretend to hail from Atlanta, but 3L$ has no desire to represent the ATL as their home base. When I spoke to Xavier Lee, one of 3L$'s ringleaders, about the group, he remained true to the group's mission to make Cobb County as famous as...

Photo by Phaneron Films. 

For this week's Mahal, I spoke to 3L$, a 12-member art and rap collective based in Cobb County, Georgia. Many rappers pretend to hail from Atlanta, but this group has no desire to represent the ATL as their home base. When I spoke to Xavier Lee, one of 3L$'s ringleaders, about the collective, he remained true to the group's mission to make Cobb County as famous as the ATL.

VICE: What is 3L$?
Xavier Lee: The group in total has ten key artists, and the rest just do track listing and all that. We're from Cobb County—Austell, Smyrna, Marietta, and Mableton. However, we have group members located in Chicago, Charlotte, and even Iceland. We changed the s in suburban to a 3, because we are not your regular rappers from the burbs—we actually have real life stories to tell. Some kids we know didn't even make it to senior year in high school; you can hear it in our songs. We don't rap about the same shit.

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How young is the youngest rap collective in Austell, Georgia? 
We're actually the only rap group in Austell, I think. Everyone else is on their solo wave. We range in age from 16 to 20. Most of us are still in high school—middle fingers to homework by the way. Shout out to South Cobb High School! Eagle nation!

Have you guys been hit with any of the recent snow out there? 
Hell yeah, man. I don't know why we made such a big deal about the snow. It was only two inches, but [we had] no school. So we were cool with it.

Were there any other effects, besides missing school?  
We were just coolin' in the crib honestly. Nobody we know really was trippin' about it. Only the parents [cared] honestly. They blamed the mayor and all the politicians.

What do you want people to know about Cobb County?
North Cobb and East Cobb are lame as hell. All the rich people live up there, though. Our side of Cobb is really the livest part of the county—mainly because we're closest to the city. We actually got a lot of talent out here. We want to be the ones that finally showcase that.

@RedAlurk