Here are my shots from Saturday's OutKast show. Part of a three-day, open-air festival in Atlanta's Centennial Park, #ATLast celebrated 20 years of Andre Benjamin and Antwan Patton's hip-hop service to the south, right in the heart of downtown. Shout out to the junior publicist who thought I was going to stay in the media cage and not get into the crowd. Ha! FOH.

ONE Musicfest 2014 went down Saturday, Sept. 13 at Aaron's Amphitheater in Atlanta. Here's a big cache of photos taken by yours truly from all sides of the stage.

The Jordans finally made it to Pemberton Place near downtown ATL to see the recently opened National Center for Civil and Human Rights, where we have a commemorative plaque, and where you can experience things like the sit-in counter (surreal), actual handwritten works from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and much more interactive and eye-opening history of Atlanta's part in the struggle for freedom and equality in America. Check the photos after the jump.

Last night I finally got a chance to attend the 38th-annual Atlanta Film Festival, a week-long event where  buzzy independent films, shorts and movie projects are screened at Atlanta's oldest operating cinema, the Plaza Theatre. I missed quite a few showings I really wanted to see (potty training a toddler makes your social life crappy in more ways than one), but catching the photo-documentary Through A Lens Darkly: Black Photographers and the Emergence of a People made up for everything I didn't get to see. Here's why you too should see this really cool project when it comes to your town.

Did you see the eerie slideshow Gawker promoted this week of dead American mall White Flint's food court? The original post came from a blog called Duck Pie, and the author points out that back in the late '70s when it was new and pretty, this now-doomed shopping center in North Bethesda, MD, was a glamorous consumer paradise hosting black tie events that were attended by the likes of Donna Karan and Elizabeth Taylor. Right. That was the '70s.

"The system's broken -- the school's closed; the prison's open."

You'd never believe this shit, but there is a such thing as journalistic integrity. When you're credited or recognized for having it, you've usually shown that you are careful to only report facts, able to remain as objective as possible, and those kinds of things. One major no-no is taking money for your content without stating to your reader that you're doing exactly that.

Hey, bills. They've gotta be paid and all; I get it--I get it. But there is a long-standing model for how you do this. Major newspapers, magazines and websites have been doing this for much longer than blogs have existed. All you basically do is have some way of alerting your reader that what they're laying eyes on has been purchased.

Why does it matter? Simple, really. When you buy something, you own it. If you own something, you control it. If you control the message, you usually don't follow anyone else's rules, although there's no rule saying that you couldn't follow them if you wanted to do such a thing--it'd be weird and strangely altruistic, but pretty awesome as well. Of course this doesn't happen often.

So when a hip-hop blog, which was once the premier source for quality underground and mainstream music, decides to just all of a sudden start dick-riding Moet & CHandon, well, it's kind of depressing. Not just because it's written in a very lame manner by the well-respected founder of the website, but mostly because never once does he come on out and say he's being paid. And really, is this bottle really that nice? Not that I'm an authority on Champagne bottles, but really. It's pretty loudly out of place, and by linking to Moet's Instagram account--twice--Eskay is damn near pulling a hamstring bending over to touch his toes for the brand that's quietly backing him up on this (I mean financially, of course).

Now, have I ever written about new alcohol products or packaging designs? Maybe. Hell, I'm drinking wine now, so I'm not exactly of sound-enough mind to recall, thanks. But have I ever been paid for doing so? Nope. As someone who  attended media tastings and knows what these folks ask "journalists"(bloggers) to do in return for their invitation to the free food-n-drank event (and future invites, ahem...), I can tell you that Eskay is doing exactly what a publicist or marketing rep wants him to do just by the language and links. NahRight is too big of a brand (or at least I thought it was) to be doing this kind of stuff for free. Eskay may be reckless by drunkenly putting overpriced bubbly ads, cloaked as content, in between posts about rap artists Hopsin and Roc Marciano (I know..., "Who?," right?), but yeah, I guess I'm hating or something...

Anyway, read the post here; tell me if you think I'm just tripping. Better yet, tell Eskay in the comments of his blog. He could use the feedback (not as many comments these days), and I wouldn't count on my comment passing approval...

Here's a rumor that would certainly be sucktastic if it turns out to be true. Art, Beats & Lyrics, the annual traveling show that started in Atlanta and now includes several other major U.S. cities (NY, LA, DC, … St. Louis?), will end after this 2013 show. Without having spoken to my friend Jabari Graham, a promoter who started the show six years ago with Atlanta artist Dubelyoo, I can't confirm it, but I hope that it's either a wickedly clever promotional play or a vicious lie. Either way, at least it looks like we'll have something new from the same team. Yae-yaeeee!

Anyway, here are some pics of amazing art created by ATL residents, throngs of people enjoying free Gentleman Jack cocktails, and two music legends--DJ Quik and Teddy Riley--performing live.

Elder R&B statesmen Maze featuring Frankie Beverly, The Isley Brothers, and Kem came through Chastain Park in ATL on Labor Day Sunday and turned up. Where were you? Probably recovering from a moscato hangover after some 2 Chainz party Saturday night. But your family (yes, yours) was in attendance, and boy did they do it big. Proof is in the slideshow.

My own take on what it takes to make the easiest difficult-looking shellfish pasta dish at home on a stay-in dinner date with that special somebody, some moderately decent (read: TJ's) wine, and of course, Pandora's Jodeci channel. Strictly for my stay-at-home-dinner-budget '90's babies and their significant others, and dig this: it's quite delicious. Learn from that.

Get my whole recipe, including song suggestions for certain appointed times during cooking/prep, from SweetJack.com's blog. And big shout-out to Lisa Michelle Image for making this dish look better than I've ever seen it with the photos she took.

Sexy R&B Shrimp Scampi (originally posted April 26, 2013 at Blog.SweetJack.com)