Time and Place: Martel Homes

A communal representation of the desire to be in control and gain power.


? I went to Martel Homes this past week to shoot a photo related to “Dirty South,” the song from the 1995 Goodie Mob album Soul Food, on which Cool Breeze references the East Point housing project and says, essentially, that’s where he learned to cut and sell cocaine. I walked around looking for a scene that related to the lyric which, to me, was about the cultivation of power or control during one’s idle adolescence in the projects. What I found was a group of young men playing some gnarly after-school tackle football — running hard and talking shit when a ball was dropped. This struck me as a healthier and more communal representation of that same desire to be in control and gain power. The photo captures the peak of the action, with the players’ Section 8 stadium rising behind them.