A native of New Jersey, he moved to Atlanta and sold toner cartridges over the phone. In 1978, Michael Barney graduated with a history degree from Duke University. We asked Dupri, along with Barney and his DJs and his dancers-oh, and of course Big Boi-what made Magic City so, well, magical. Heck, when Atlanta United won the city its first major league sports championship in a generation, it was to Magic City where the team took the trophy to celebrate. Somehow, Magic City has survived arson, the arrest of its founder, and the unstoppable march of time. Your browser does not support the audio element. Over the past 35 years, the strip club that was the brainchild of a toner salesman named Michael Barney has become a full-fledged cultural phenomenon, a place where, as Jermaine Dupri puts it in our oral history, “you can go on Monday night and stand beside a millionaire, the biggest thief in Atlanta, the biggest drug dealer in Atlanta, the police, and one of the biggest rappers or R&B artists in the world-all in the same room.” 🔊 So why no love for Magic City, sitting like a solitary neon beacon on a lonely street in south downtown? The recorded announcement on the MARTA train when it approaches Garnett station namedrops all kinds of nearby points of interest, from City Hall to the gloomy Greyhound terminal just down the stairs.
