Starting at 9 p.m. every Monday, a diverse, mostly Black crowd of counterculture cool kids gathers at Monday Night Brewing.
Getting there early means decent parking, but even those who have to park a bit away aren’t deterred. Instead, they congregate with others in line, heading into the brewery. The energy thrives before anyone’s make it inside.
Once through the doors, attendees see rows of people sitting at long tables, sharing conversation while using crayons to add color to printed black and white cartoon and anime characters.
Some grab food and drinks; others meet friends on the dance floor near a couch serving as a DJ booth, where the event’s soundtrack is created live. A number of curious customers stroll near vendor booths to see if handmade jewelry, vinyl records or crystals catch their eyes.
A few people sit in front of a wall of gaming consoles and monitors, preparing to challenge themselves and each other at football, fighting and first-person shooter video games, while laughing and strengthening bonds. Board and card games such as giant Uno are also provided.
Movies are streamed, and attendees have access to headphones in case they’d rather plug in and zone out of everything else happening around them.
At Controllerise, attendees can choose the type of vibe they want to experience. And it has become a weekly retreat for many.
Credit: Fulani Jabri
Credit: Fulani Jabri
“It’s just provided a really safe space for us to know that we can come as we are,” said Dedren Snead, the founder of comic book collective Subsume Studios. “You don’t have to come as anything else.”
Controllerise photographer Fulani Jabri said the “refugee space” is especially important for Black adults looking to reclaim their youth.
“We don’t have the luxury to really enjoy imagination in our childhoods and a lot of things that most people have the luxury of doing when they’re young,” Jabri said.
“So when we get older, of course we love escapism. Of course we love video games and we love creativity, and we love spaces where we can pretend and cosplay because we really missed out.
Credit: Fulani Jabri
Credit: Fulani Jabri
“A lot of us missed out on that because you have to be prepared to deal with growing up Black at an early age. That’s why a lot of folks come here.”
Controllerise began in 2017, thanks to people who just wanted a place to hang out and vibe to music, videographer Maurice Arrington explained. Eventually, the hangout expanded, incorporating gaming after someone voluntarily introduced gaming by bringing their own PlayStation to the party.
The creative hangout has grown to see hundreds of people attend each week.
Credit: Fulani Jabri
Credit: Fulani Jabri
Jabri explained that the event, which he called an “oasis,” isn’t just for Black nerds, but does include them as part of its culture.
“We’re grateful for the opportunity to … serve our community and the folks who need it when we need it,” he said. “More important, we’re grateful to be able to all contribute to a culture that already existed and a solution that we didn’t know we needed.”
Cofounder Chris Wilkes, who is also a musician, said the weekly culmination has become close-knit but also a widespread “incubator” for creativity, allowing musicians to venture into public performance. The hangout space features two stages — one indoors and the other outside on the back deck — for producers and DJs to test their musical chops with the audience.
Wilkes launched Controllerise with cofounder Mike Harris, with the idea of creating a platform for producers to showcase their music. Along with Rah Arrington, Wilkes manages and curates the event, providing creative and daily direction.
“You see versions of this thing in North Carolina and New York, all over the place. It’s become bit of a Chitlin’ Circuit for producers,” Wilkes explained.
Occasionally, there are attendees who go without an agenda and vibe until serendipity leads them to others with commonalities.
Credit: Fulani Jabri
Credit: Fulani Jabri
Dii, who also assists with art supplies from Color ATL, said the event is helping liberate Atlanta’s Black community.
“For so long, there’s been a stigma on just our culture, especially in music and media — a certain lifestyle that perpetuates negative stereotypes. … That’s just not what you find, especially in this community,” she said.
“These (people) are therapists and doctors and lawyers and social workers. … We’re all normal people, and we get to come here and just kind of do the things that are nostalgic to us, growing up as millennials.”
Meanwhile, Snead, who brought a generous supply of his hand-drawn comics, has made a point of immersing images of Black people in imaginative situations.
“I’ll draw a book about kids at an HBCU who build a time machine, and go back and change and remix Black history,” he described. “I’ll make a manga series about a young African merchant that has to escape imperial Japan with the shogun’s daughter.
“And then, so, I’ll remake Black Panther as anime. I just make the stuff I want to see.”
Credit: Fulani Jabri
Credit: Fulani Jabri
There’s a sense among participants who attend the weekly event that it’s like a recurring family reunion, a way to maintain connection with a chosen family.
“What’s really dope about Controllerise is almost like it’s a part of that Venn diagram of culture that Atlanta is,” Jabri asserted.
“People all converge here … It’s a breath of fresh air.”
This story has been corrected to reflect that Controllerise was started in 2017. An earlier version stated that the event began in 2015.
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