It’s mid-afternoon in the A-T-L and the temperature is nearing 80 degrees, which is the norm for the  month of May in this city.

Welcome to Hotlanta, home to the largest consortium of black colleges, a few dozen Waffle Houses and a style that is particular to XXL T-shirts and Baby Phat. Of course, it’s also a place ripe with history, serving as the birthland of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the backdrop of  the civil rights movement. Today, the metropolis of urban sprawl also boasts a thriving music industry. Hip-hop stars like OutKast and Ludacris got their start here, putting Southern rap on the map, and the headquarters of LaFace Records, the label that produces Usher, Ciara and Pink, calls the Peach State home.

What Atlanta is not, is a city where you’d imagine the American success of a Korean pop star would begin. And yet it is here where Rain will announce his 2007 North American tour, projected as the vehicle that will put him in an entirely different class of pop stars. Because while he has sold out concerts across Asia and filled up Madison Square Garden and Caesar’s Palace, he’s now attempting a full-blown, unprecedented U.S. crossover.

The tour doesn’t kick-off until June 15, but he is scheduled to arrive later today for a press conference. Atlanta, a mainstay of the Dirty South, feels like a hard sell, but perhaps it is the proper litmus test to determine if Rain can shine in America.

 

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The gold-toned Savannah Hall on the second floor of the lavish Four Seasons has been appropriately decorated with Rain’s posters, and by 6 p.m., start time for the publicized press conference, more than 25 journalists — primarily Asian media — have filled the room. But he’s a no show.

After 20 minutes, the group grows restless, trading questions and flipping through notepads. The only Rain on the horizon is his likeness imprinted on the side of a model airplane (a replica of the private jet the pop star was given by Korean Air to tool around in) on a table next to a lonely mic. Ten more minutes go by until the publicists begin handing out writing tablets with photos of the performer and messages written in Korean, Chinese, Japanese, Thai and English. Having flown in from Spain and fought through rush hour traffic, Rain, we are assured, is in the building.

Shortly afterward, a blond public relations rep walks to the front of the room and begins awkwardly reading aloud a bio that has clearly been written for a different audience. No one here needs to know that Rain is the leading star of the Korean wave known as hallyu or that he’s considered the Asian equivalent of Justin Timberlake. (It is overheard afterward that the PR firm was hired to deal with mainstream news outlets, but the handlers were dismayed by the lack of such representation in the crowd.)