Mara Shalhoup, editor-in-chief of Creative Loafing Atlanta, will give a Willson Center Lecture on Sept. 14 at 4 p.m. in Room 101 of the Miller Learning Center. Co-sponsored by the department of journalism, Shalhoup’s lecture is entitled “Black Mafia Family: Politics, Crime, Celebrity, Hip-Hop and Journalism.”
Shalhoup will discuss her book, BMF: The Rise and Fall of Big Meech and the Black Mafia Family, published earlier this year. The book details how two brothers built a $270 million cocaine empire that helped launch some of the most successful names in hip-hop music.
“The Black Mafia Family, ostensibly a hip-hop record label, was actually an urban mid-level drug-distribution network. Originally based in Detroit, the operation expanded through the genius of the Flenory brothers. . . . Before their fall, the Flenory brothers managed to spread their taint of violence and drugs to reach several prominent people,” writes Vernon Ford in a review for Booklist, the review journal of the American Library Association. “Shalhoup. . . offers an insightful look at the street-drug industry, which casts a wide net of beneficiaries as well as victims.”
Shalhoup, who graduated from the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication in 1998 with a bachelor’s degree in newspapers, has received numerous professional honors including being named Journalist of the Year in 2007 by the Atlanta Press Club.
Shalhoup joined Creative Loafing Atlanta in 2000 and has been a staff writer, news editor and senior writer for the alternative newspaper. She was promoted to editor in chief in January. Before coming to Creative Loafing Atlanta, Shalhoup was a crime writer for the Macon Telegraph.
