Nickerson Gardens residents crown TDEXMAS as ‘Watts Day,’ a day of peace
- The Majority
- Dec 28, 2024
- 5 min read
Top Dawg Entertainment fosters a cultural change in the founders’ hometown, which takes root yearly during the holidays.
The 11th Annual TDEXMAS Concert and Toy Drive served more than 11,000 people earlier this month, and long-time residents say that year after year, its influence repairs fractures between subgroups in Los Angeles, eliciting only positive feedback.
The benefit is one of several resource-centered programs organized by the independent record label Top Daw Entertainment (TDE), which is based in Carson, California. On day one, crowds enjoyed the “drama-free” festival-like concert, but lingering tensions kept at least one person away from the celebration inside Nickerson Gardens housing projects.
This unfolds in a struggling community in the country's most expensive state—in a city that has grappled with a lack of peace since the late 1980s.
“You in the heart of Watts,” said 59-year old Big Hitman, surrounded by yellow brick buildings in the courtyard near 114th Street. “Everybody is welcome as long as they don’t come with no drama, no funk.”
He wore a black hoodie under a red t-shirt that read “TDE Christmas Nickerson Gardens” and a plain Black beanie atop his head. He said his style represents Watts, California.
Nickerson Gardens natives, such as Big Hitman, whose roots date back to 1964, protect the event. The success of TDEXMAS is vital to him because it shifts mentalities, fostering a space for people to feel embraced during the holidays.
“This is basically a Watts day,” Big Hitman said. “This event alone has made a lot of people come closer. People on the other side of the tracks sneak up in here, too. But they don’t have to.”
Current and former long-time residents said that on an average day, anyone not from the neighborhood would “get checked” or confronted based on the community's long history. Big Hitman noted that with each year, that changes as youth dive deeper into music-making and slowly withdraw from having “a one-track mind,” pointing to TDE as the catalyst.
“A lot of kids from here know how to rap,” Big Hitman said. “We didn't know nothing about that when we were growing up.”
The unifying event was not free of cops. The “ghetto bird” or police helicopter loudly hovered over the area as people hailing from Compton, Long Beach, and Inglewood walked up Compton Avenue in a line wrapped around the corner. TDE artists such as SZA, Kendrick Lamar, Ab-Soul, Jay Rock, Doechii, and Schoolboy Q performed after Los Angeles City Councilman Tim McOsker awarded TDE founder Anthony “Top Dawg” Tiffith a key to the city of Watts on stage, where it all began.
The event, which included a surprise performance by Glorilla, reportedly raised more than $750,000 in gifts. On day two, the Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles held a job fair, and children played with sleds in snow-covered areas as they received toys.
Many attendees sang the praises of the music group and celebrated the success of Tiffith, who grew up in Nickerson Gardens and founded TDE in 2004. By 2017, Billboard named TDE one of the decade's most important independent music labels.
The label’s story inspires Watts natives, with some saying Tiffith’s rise in the music industry was unsurprising despite the odds. According to 2023 Census data, South Central Los Angeles, where Watts is, has a per capita income, or average income per person in the area, of less than $20,000 annually. That’s two-fifths of the state of California’s $48,000 average income per person and half the US’s $43,000. The region is majority-minority, with 80 percent Latino and 16 percent Black residents.
The stark economic disparity exists amid California’s decades-long housing crunch, which has worsened in the last 30 years. The circumstances drive individuals to seek refuge away from the poverty-stricken environment.
“He was smart in the projects,” said Bernadette Thomas, 43, about Tiffith. “When he left, we knew his eyes was set on something else.”
TDE ‘brings peace’ to South Central
In an interview with News, From The Margin, Thomas discussed her deep-rooted connection to Nickerson Gardens, which she has known since birth. She said she lived next door to Tiffith as a child and comes back to the neighborhood for gatherings.
Thomas sat in a tiny patio hair along the crowd's edge after hugging at least 100 people she knew. Charlesetta Rice, 54, who has lived in Nickerson Gardens for over fifty years, sat nearby. She lives in the same unit she grew up in because it has brought her family safety and stability.
Rice was with her sister-in-law Susie King, 64, who waited 10 years to secure a unit in Nickerson Gardens with her husband, Rice’s brother.
“It brings peace,” Rice said of TDEXMAS.
Rice and King said natives understand that the day calls for people to exchange hostility with hospitality. King said the temporary change takes further root each year.
Despite the daily friction between neighbors, King, a 15-year resident of Nickerson Gardens, said it’s best to stay put, primarily for those with children, or risk endangering them.
“You can’t really…move them in what they call a different hood because it's a different [subgroup],” she said. “They might get shot. So it’s best to just stay right here…where they’re safe and born and raised.”
‘Turn the TV off’
Despite the holiday cheer and expectations of peace, old wounds kept a neighbor excluded from the festivities and barred from the “historic” moment. This reality painted a different picture of the day.
Daylyt grew up in the nearby Jordan Downs housing projects— marked for redevelopment and demolition — and spent the last several years transitioning from battle rap to attaining commercial success. He avoids TDEXMAS each year to reduce conflict.
“It hurts knowing that 40 or 50 years of something I didn't have nothing to do with has prevented me from being a part of history,” said Daylyt, a TDE artist.
Lit Papi, who arranged the phone interview with Daylyt, said the politics of South Central remain intact no matter the day, but he thinks the barriers between “direct rivals” are already beginning to dissolve. The Los Angeles-based artist pointed to TDE’s “evolution and vision” to work with Daylyt and the reverse as the culprits.
“People say nothing’s bigger than the program,” Lit Papi said. “Some things are bigger than the program. Turn the TV off.”
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