AMG SXSW ’10 Q & A with Brian Knott, founder of The A3C Hip Hop Festival

Brian Knott, founder of the A3C Hip Hop Festival , officially announced today that the three-day festival would be held October 7-10, 2010 at multiple venues in the East Atlanta Village.  With over 100 A3C performers heading to Austin for SXSW, we decided to ask Brian a couple questions.

You’re soon to be on the road to SXSW! According to google maps, the trip from ATL to Austin = approx. 16 hours driving. What are your three essential road trip albums?

For the first time ever I am flying to Austin (yes, flying, aren’t I so very big time finally). I am lucky enough this year while I am out there pushing the A3C hip Hop Festival to also be doing some work blogging about the hip-hop showcases for a company called LP33.tv who is the official blog partner of SXSW. So I am actually getting to fly, have a badge, and sleep some place other than the floor while I am out there. Life is good. As far as a music mix goes, I set up this killer mix of hip-hop stars gone movie/TVactors for the flight, it has Ice T, Ice Cube, Method Man, Redman, Will Smith, Tone Loc, Mos Def, LL Cool J, Ludacris, and Queen Latifa. I know there are more but I only picked artists who’s movies/TV shows didn’t suck.

Fast food, gas station snacks, local diners – where are you most likely to stop for grub on this trip?

Since we started the A3C Festival I have weighed 330lbs, 220lbs, and damn near everywhere in between. I don’t screw around anymore. I parcel out a small section of my carry on bag and pack it with power bars, nuts, dried fruit, and Swedish fish. If I am left to figure out what I am going to eat on the fly it would leave me eating about 600 Taco Bell 7 Layer Burritos over the course of the week.

There is a band playing at every venue, bar and BBQ joint in Austin – who are you most excited to see?

There are over 100 artists that have performed at A3C that will be on stage this week in Austin. A3C is kind of like a fraternity so I feel strongly about checking out A3C veterans like Solillaquists of Sound, Marco Polo and Torae, Kidz in the Hall, Blue Scholars, etc. I also have been dying to see Random Axe (The Black Milk, Guilty Simpson, Sean Price collabo) who is playing the Duck Down anniversary showcase. I want to make sure that I can catch most of the “We Put The A in Austin Showcase” that Fadia and the SMKA crew are pulling together, it will surreal to see all those hometown cats rocking Texas.

Brian will be at SXSW trying to rope-in artists for A3C 2010 and to make the official announcement about A3C dates being October 7, 8, 9 2010. Brian will also be blogging for LP33.tv and A3CFestival.com, people can follow him on twitter all week as well - twitter.com/a3c.