Thirty years In the Lab, a debut album that reads like a family tree, and a first Old Skool Sundays at Spaceman built to honor the DJs who made Old Atlanta — beginning August 16.
August 11, 2026 – The date August 11 has always belonged to the culture. It’s the day, in 1973, that a back-to-school party in the Bronx lit the fuse on hip-hop. What fewer people outside Atlanta know is that the date belongs to somebody else too: Chris “Mac Daddy” Kelly of Kris Kross, born August 11, 1978. For DJ NABS, those two birthdays were never a coincidence to explain away. They are the reason to keep showing up.
NABS spent twenty-one years as Music Director and DJ for Kris Kross, from the backward-jeans phenomenon of “Jump” to the group’s final bow at So So Def’s 20th Anniversary concert at Atlanta’s Fox Theatre in February 2013. But the tour history doesn’t capture what many in the city may have forgotten. NABS was the big brother. Kelly was his little brother. Not a phrase they would put in front of the cameras. It was a fact they lived, until Kelly’s untimely passing at 34. NABS has never let the world forget his legacy.
You can hear the bond if you know where to listen. On NABS’s 1998 Columbia debut, In the Lab with DJ Nabs: The Live Album, Kelly and NABS co-produced the song “Party” — that featured the late MC Breed. And when the spotlight moved on from Kris Kross in the late ’90s, NABS kept his brothers in rotation: phone-ins to his In the Lab radio show to keep the group on the air, appearances and onstage at Old Skool Sundays at Club Kaya. Most memorable was the performance by the original C-Connection, Chris Kelly, Chris Smith and their childhood friend Chris Terry, who tragically passed shortly after that show in April of 1999. When the industry stopped calling, NABS made sure Atlanta kept clapping.
NABS never let his brothers become past tense. At the 2026 Old Skool Sunday Club Kaya tribute at City Winery, NABS built a Young, Rich & Dangerous moment into the night: Corey Diligent, a friend of Kris Kross, performed the album’s lead single “Tonite’s tha Night” while footage of the C-Connection onstage at Club Kaya rolled on screen.
That’s the through-line of everything happening this year. In the Lab turns 30, and NABS is doing what he’s always done: making sure Kris Kross is remembered, least of all by the DJ who circled the globe with the teen phenomenon.
DJ NABS Old Skool Sundays at Club Kaya is a story on its own and the album he recorded has several threads that demonstrate the bridge in hip-hop NABS represents. When recording began for album in 1997, he made it a point to include all his little bros on the project. One track in particular “Is It You,” by Jagged Edge featured a then-unknown Ludacris, produced by NABS years before his intern Chris Lova Lova became Luda. That was the company he kept: a production credit on So So Def’s Bass All-Stars (Gold-certified) on the track “Koochie Kuterz,” co-produced with Decatur, Georgia native, Playa Poncho – this album is celebrating 30 years.
The legacy NABS built in Atlanta with his Old Skool Sundays night was transformative for the city’s nightlife which having a lasting impact for the past three decades. So moving Old Skool Sundays to the rooftop at Spaceman this month is more than a change of address. It’s the legacy institution, a different viewpoint, and its inaugural service honors the founders. Overlooking the city they help to build, crate by crate.
The Architects of Old Atlanta.
The August 16 launch celebrates the DJs who moved the needle while Atlanta rap was still finding its voice.
Jerry Smokin’ B — radio personality, DJ, producer, and one of NABS’s earliest mentors. His fingerprints are on In the Lab itself; the credits don’t lie. The duo produced remixes together under the moniker, 2 Light Bros, one notable being Omarion’s “Icebox (Remix).” The two brothers still work together on projects today.
Talib Shabazz — longtime friend, radio colleague, turntablist, and vinyl historian, whose run with NABS goes back to the early days of the Shabazz’s radio show on Georgia State University’s Album 88, where NABS was a guest DJ – also back to the early So So Def days, with Shabazz making cameos in the “Jump” and Ghost Town DJs “My Boo” videos.
Wis Major — DJ, producer, and a NABS collaborator across decades. Wis and his partner DJ Rip are Vintaj Tunes, the production duo whose remix of NABS’ “Is It You” amongst many projects over the decades. Wis was on the decks alongside NABS for that Club Kaya tribute at City Winery.
NABS calls each month Old Skool Sundays at Spaceman his way of paying homage to a culture he and so many others built, planting the seeds Atlanta is now harvesting. August gave hip-hop and his little brother the same birthday, so it’s fitting that he opens the series where any honest history of Atlanta rap begins: with The Architects.
Old Skool Sundays at Spaceman — The Architects of Old Atlanta. Sunday, August 16, 2026. Tickets at www.djnabs.com.