Pierre Thomas, known as Pee, the chief executive of Quality Control, holds up his chain in Atlanta.Credit...Johnathon Kelso for The New York Times

Atlanta Rap Keeps Evolving. Quality Control Is Taking It Global.

The nimble record label in the world’s de facto hip-hop capital is working to build sustainable careers, not viral moments, in the streaming era.

ATLANTA — Unless you catch a glimpse of the eggplant Mercedes-Maybach S600 or the various young men with clusters of diamonds on choker-short chains coming and going at all hours, there is nothing too flashy about the headquarters of Quality Control Music, a record label here in the world’s de facto hip-hop capital.

As the birthplace of the chart-topping, trendsetting careers of Migos and Lil Yachty, this studio and office compound, northwest of downtown, is the latest nondescript landmark to help alter the course of rap music, a near-constant occurrence in Atlanta over the last two decades. But despite its pedigree as a center of luxury and innovation, the space — tucked behind a Goodwill and a full-service dog care facility — is light on bacchanalia and heavy on rules and expectations.

“DO NOT come to the studio UNLESS you are working,” reads a weathered printout taped to a bare wall amid four recording studios. “BE RESPONSIBLE for the company you bring … DO NOT have anyone dropping off or picking up drugs at the studio … This is not your home, this is not a hangout, this is a place of business. PLEASE conduct yourself accordingly and in a professional manner.” (Also: “ANY gambling, all parties involved must pay the house 30%!”)

The artists tend to listen. On a recent weekday afternoon, the promising, singsong street rapper Lil Baby, 21 years old and newly into music after two years in prison, diligently wiped his Chick-fil-A sauce and crumbs from a studio countertop as he played tracks from his next mixtape, “Too Hard.” Expected in early December, the project will be his fourth release of the year despite the fact that he started rapping in February.

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Quality Control’s Kevin Lee, known as Coach K, and Pee mentor the up-and-coming hip-hop artists that record for their label.Credit...Johnathon Kelso for The New York Times

Taking in the songs were the stewards of Lil Baby’s fledgling career: Quality Control’s chief executive Pierre Thomas, or Pee to everyone in his orbit, who typed notes on his phone; and its chief operating officer Kevin Lee, known as Coach K or Coach, who vibed with his eyes closed.

Both men, veterans of the nexus where Atlanta’s street culture meets its music scene, have known Lil Baby since he was a charismatic teenager who was respected around town for his gambling prowess, and they had long encouraged him to pursue a career in music.

Hardheaded and fast-living, Lil Baby resisted until his sentence for gun and drug charges limited his options. As he raps on one new song: “Last year I was sittin’ in a cage/this year I’m goin’ all the way/takin’ drugs, trying to ease the pain.”

Pee, visibly energized by Lil Baby’s progress as an introspective songwriter, announced that the track would serve as the intro for the mixtape, only to receive a vehement protest from the rapper.

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Lil Baby, a 21-year-old who started rapping in February, at the Quality Control recording studio in Atlanta.Credit...Johnathon Kelso for The New York Times

“Listen, you’re getting overruled on this one,” Pee shot back, ending the discussion. “Have I told you anything wrong yet?”

It’s this hands-on engagement with homegrown talent that Quality Control hopes will set it apart. Founded by Pee and Coach in 2013 around the flamboyant, fast-rapping local trio Migos, the company went from a start-up with the growing pains typically associated with a new independent label — exacerbated by their artists’ run-ins with the law — to a joint venture with Capitol Music Group and Motown Records in 2015.

Though prospects like OG Maco, Young Greatness and Rich the Kid didn’t truly take off, Quality Control has avoided the temptations of today’s viral-rap gold rush — in which a meme or one-off video by a rookie can lead to a major-label deal — preferring to stick with its system of developing talent gradually and at home.

This year brought an extended breakthrough amid hip-hop’s domination on streaming services: “Bad and Boujee” by Migos hit No. 1 and led to a smash album, “Culture”; while the human meme Lil Yachty established himself as a ubiquitous brand partner with a loyal youth following.

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Lil Yachty, left, and Migos, two Quality Control artists who enjoyed breakthroughs this year.Credit...Clement Pascal for The New York Times; Chad Batka for The New York Times

Now, with two well-oiled moneymakers who have refused to fizzle — Lil Yachty’s “Lil Boat 2” mixtape is scheduled for late December and Migos’s “Culture 2,” featuring the single “MotorSport,” is due out in January — Pee and Coach can shift focus to building sustainable careers for its “farm team” of young Atlanta rappers, including Lil Baby, Marlo and Mak Sauce, while simultaneously expanding its brand into television, film and more. (“Quality Control Presents: Control the Streets, Volume 1,” a compilation album featuring the label’s roster and guests like Nicki Minaj, Kodak Black and Cardi B, is scheduled for release on Dec. 8.)

Coach K and Pee are not your standard record industry players, but more akin to No Limit’s Master P and Cash Money’s Baby and Slim: savvy businessmen who shaped their labels with grass-roots hustling — updated for the internet age.

“Other labels have these A & Rs and C.E.O.s and chairmen, sitting in an office looking on the internet at numbers on SoundCloud and Spotify — they’re just into the analytics,” Pee, 38, said. “That’s part of it. But if I’m being honest — and it might sound ignorant — I don’t own a computer. I’m really out here in it.”

During the controlled chaos of 48 hours earlier this month, the men each wielded two iPhones, speaking shoulder to shoulder with artists, major-label suits, managers, marketers and lawyers, sometimes passing the other a call midsentence — and mid-negotiation — to field another inquiry.

Never in one place for long — and certainly never behind a desk — the duo zipped from the studio to a street-side video shoot, radio station to radio station, strip club to nightclub, treated along the way with the reverence bestowed upon local celebrities and kingmakers.

“QC is in the building!” a D.J. shouted toward Pee and Offset, a member of Migos, at a late-night party. Each time he played the label’s music, most notably Lil Baby’s regional hit, “My Dawg,” he encouraged the group to throw more dollar bills in the air and buy more sparkler-topped bottles. “Where them ones at, Pee?” Even T.I., the Atlanta rap legend, came by to pay his respects to the next generation of local stars.

Coach and Pee also played babysitter and disciplinarian. “Did you get my text messages the other day?” Pee asked Trippie Redd, a rambunctious teen up-and-comer he and Coach are helping manage outside of Quality Control. “You didn’t hit me back.” The rapper stammered on the other end like a high schooler without his homework. “Uh … I got a new phone,” Trippie offered, before receiving a lesson in teamwork and communication.

An imposing presence, reserved until he isn’t, Pee represents the born-and-raised Atlanta backbone of Quality Control, as well as its most direct line to the illicit ecosystems that led to trap music’s sound. Though he declined to say how exactly he first funded his label and studio, his favored euphemism, “before music” — as in, “I had money before music” — nods to his arrests and jail time on gun possession and drug-dealing charges, a history he shares with the artists he is nurturing.

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From left: Twin, Pee, Coach K, Simone Mitchell and Tamika Howard of Quality Control outside their studio complex.Credit...Johnathon Kelso for The New York Times

“I know what it’s like trying to get out the hood, trying not to make the same mistakes and put yourself in the position to go back to prison,” said Pee, whose parents battled drug addiction, from the front of his Maybach. “It’s hard getting money out here, especially for young black men with no education, coming from low-income areas.”

Marlo, a local rapper recently brought into the fold, called Pee “a real battery pack in me — he’s going to give you that push.” Kollision, another artist in development, recalled Pee encouraging him to stop carrying a gun until he could get a license for it, and referred to the executive as “police-dad, but in a good way.”

Coach, 46 years old and a refined industry veteran with a mostly salt-and-some-pepper beard, said that up to 85 percent of the pair’s job is mentorship. Raised in Indianapolis, he moved to Atlanta after the 1996 Olympics and helped bring the booming drug tales of trap music world wide through his past work with Pastor Troy, Jeezy and Gucci Mane. Coach is also known for his continued connection to the local internet-based youth scenes, especially the weirdo-hipster contingent that completes the city’s duality, dating from Goodie Mob and Outkast to Young Thug and ILoveMakonnen.

“They’re like ‘Bad Boys’ — Pee is Martin Lawrence and Coach is Will Smith,” said Simone Mitchell, one of two women who keep the Quality Control trains running on time with a single-digit staff. Tamika Howard, the label’s general manager, added: “Pee is the street one, Coach is the suave one. Yin and yang, but it’s the perfect match.”

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Stefflon Don, left, and Mak Sauce, two artists Quality Control is hoping to help break to larger audiences.

They also keep each other in check. Pee admitted that, though out of character, he’d been enticed by the idea of signing the white teenage rapper Bhad Bhabie (better known as the “Cash Me Ousside” girl), only for Coach to object in an effort to protect Quality Control’s brand identity. “Big hype and then crickets,” Coach said of chasing viral moments.

Pee ultimately agreed: “There’s some artists we could’ve signed if we were trying to get some right-now money, but we’re trying to build something for the long run.”

Ethiopia Habtemariam, the president of Motown who brokered the deal with Quality Control, stressed the importance of maintaining a “boutique label” with a major partner and distributor. “It gives them an opportunity to find things early, develop them, get things bubbling and then we can sign it when it’s ready for prime time,” she said. “They really know how to build things from the ground up.”

Coach, more of a known quantity in the boardrooms of New York and Los Angeles, tends to politick upward, forging commercial partnerships for his artists and eyeing growth and diversification.

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The Quality Control artist Marlo, right, and the rapper Loso Loaded during a video shoot for the song “PFK (Play For Keeps).”Credit...Johnathon Kelso for The New York Times

In a quick succession of calls between radio station visits with Stefflon Don, a British female rapper/singer the label is hoping to help break in the United States, he discussed a potential documentary on Quality Control; a feature film he and Pee are set to produce with Queen Latifah; an extension of Lil Yachty’s deal with Nautica; and the possibility of airing a wedding special featuring Offset and Cardi B, the hip-hop Cinderella, on a major broadcast network.

“Everybody’s calling me about this,” he said. “Ev-er-y-body.”

Pee seemed more comfortable with the ground troops. At a video shoot downtown, he beamed at his protégés while Lil Baby took the shimmering chains from his own neck and put them on Marlo, that afternoon’s star.

Later, in the parking lot of Magic City, the storied strip club that remains a proving ground for rap hits (and reliable source of dinner; it was before 6 p.m. on a Wednesday), Pee palmed stacks of $20s, $50s and $100s that had been bulging from Lil Baby’s pockets.

“This is why it’s so hard for us to stay on track,” Pee said, gesturing with the cash. “He’s so used to fast money that I’m trying to get him to understand: It’s fast money — but there’s a lot that comes with it.

“The streets are going to always be there,” he continued. “But it’s got consequences. I try to show them: Hey, there’s money over here, if you apply yourself. It’s safer money. No consequences. You don’t have to be the best rapper, but guess what? If you keep working hard …

“I know it’s not what you’re used to,” he said, “but the reward will be greater at the end.”

I asked Lil Baby, tucked into a bright yellow hoodie, if he found that logic convincing.

“I ain’t going to lie — I be like 15 percent knowing,” he said. “Some days I get frustrated.” But he knows the stakes. “I’ve been through all the bad parts of the streets. I’ve been to prison — 17 years old, level-five prison, the worst kind you can go to. Shootouts — I done watched my bros die. I’ve been through all that. I ain’t never had nothing good in life.”

With some success in music, though, he’s seen a glimmer of long-term hope. “It sounds like, ‘O.K., duh, go do that.’ But it’s hard to transition. I’ve been rapping for six months, but I’ve been in the streets heavy for like 12 years straight.” He pulled out his phone and scrolled through the missed calls — old friends luring him back.

“I’m transforming,” he went on, as if convincing himself. And yet, “right now, I’d rather be in the hood.” Prison, he said, helped some with those impulses. “I’m starting to build this patience. God’s got something else for me. I need to be with Pee, because ain’t no telling what’s going on in the hood right now, what I could be going into. I look at Pee as a savior.

“Twelve” — the police — “could be about to hit my little spot right now,” Lil Baby said. “And if I’m at Magic with Pee? I’m gonna be so happy.”

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Pee and Coach K at the video shoot for “PFK (Play For Keeps).”Credit...Johnathon Kelso for The New York Times
A version of this article appears in print on  , Section AR, Page 20 of the New York edition with the headline: Hands-On Help for Homegrown Talent. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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