Atmosphere rapper Slug didn’t harbor any aspirations that he and producer Ant would have a long career when they started releasing music 39 years ago.
After all, Minneapolis, their hometown, wasn’t exactly a hip-hop hotbed, like L.A. or New York. And, in the 1980s and ’90s, rap ate its young—a sensation today, gone tomorrow.
“I never could have told you that I would have been doing this for a living for this long because none of my heroes, the artists that I grew up listening to and enjoying, were able to,” said Slug, the rapper whose real name is Sean Daley, in an October interview. “Rap music used to be a young person’s game. It’s only over the last 10 years that rap music has even allowed old people like me to participate.”
The pioneering independent underground duo of Atmosphere has stayed in the hip-hop game for more than two decades via a rigorous musical output, releasing more than two dozen studio albums, EPs and collaborative side projects, the latest of which is the 2023 album So Many Other Realities Exist Simultaneously—and by relentlessly touring.
But that wouldn’t have been enough to sustain a career, if not for the fact that hip-hop, now in its forties, finally grew up along with its audience.
“I do think the culture has changed, because it’s not just us,” Slug said. “Some of my colleagues and peers have continued to perform, continue to tour and put out records well into their 40s and 50s. That’s not something you could do in the ’80s. You couldn’t be a 50-year-old rapper.
“I think also the fan base has grown with us. So, now, when I perform a show, I’m not looking at a crowd of 19-year-olds,” he added. “I’m looking at a crowd of 40-year-olds. There are some 19-year-olds in that crowd and some 9-year-olds that came with their parents. But mostly I look out and I see this audience that, you know, kind of followed us for years.”
Coming out of Minneapolis set Atmosphere apart from their rap contemporaries (most of whom were rooted in New York and Los Angeles) both in terms of the subject matter of Slug’s raps and the production of Anthony Davis, aka Ant.
“I think there was something about what we were doing that was a little bit different from everybody else in that we weren’t polished,” Slug said. “We didn’t know what we were doing. So instead of trying to polish this and figure it out how to do it. We just really stuck to speaking from where we are from, rather than trying to fit a niche or trying to fit a mold.”
Speaking from where he was from meant that Slug “rapped about being a dude in Minneapolis” rather than adopting the themes of urban street life that pervaded ’90s rap. It’s another reason, Slug said, that Atmosphere has endured. “You can’t sell drugs on a corner for 20 years—for real or in your raps,” he said.
Those tales of suburban Midwestern life also connected Slug and Ant with fans who were much like them, especially those from small cities and rural locales across the Midwest region.
“Growing up in Minneapolis, I was 20 minutes from the farms,” Slug said. “I had family on the farms. I had family in the woods, had family in the streets. So I had an experience that was definitely different than somebody who might have grown up in the Bronx…We always would joke about one foot in the forest, one foot in the gutter. That is kind of how I grew up and I was able to apply all of these types of thoughts and experiences to what I write about.”
Those thoughts are largely introspective explorations of failed romances and emotional challenges that eschew the larger-than-life characterizations and destructive tendencies that pervades much of hip-hip, earning Slug the reputation for being unflinchingly honest and authentic as he delivers his truths.
“It’s hard for me to point at myself and say I make honest music, because that’s just a weird thing to claim or proclaim yourself,” he said. “But anybody else that wants to say that, of course, I’ll accept it because it rings true to me…I think that I’ve always tried to present who I am through the music. I grew up in an era where the words keep it real (and) were very meaningful. They still meant a lot, and what it meant was don’t lie to the kids.”
The final element contributing to Atmosphere’s longevity, Slug said, is the duo’s independence.
Forged out to the Rhymesayers collective, Atmosphere made their music outside of the commercial, major label system, a stance and sound that allowed them to connect with, shall we say, an alternative hip-hop audience across the country.
“Being independent or underground or whatever term is something that did align me with a certain mindstate of an audience,” Slug said. “There’s an audience that wanted that, and first and foremost, attached themselves to that before they even understood what the music was that we were making. So we were in a genre. They were fans of the genre.
“It’s almost like if you like football, but you don’t really have a team. For instance, Nebraska doesn’t have a pro team, but you might still like NFL football,” he said. “So you attach yourself to the sport and you root for that quarterback over there, you root for that running back over there, and you might root for the Broncos or a team that’s nearby, but you kind of enjoy the sport overall.”
That said, Slug admitted to making some concessions to age on the live stage, increasingly emphasizing song storytelling to connect with the audience rather than tongue-twisting raps and wild stagework.
“I’ve developed to being more of a showmanship thing than just rap,” he said. “In the early rapping, it was like people wanted to hear you twist words and make things rhyme that they’d never heard anybody make rhyme before, you know, gastro infections, rhymes with astral projections. People wanted all that kind of stuff.
“Through my storytelling, I’ve been able to establish a little bit more of this kind of storyteller vibe on stage. I’m 52. I can’t jump up and down on stage like I used to,” Slug said. “I have to be a little bit more controlled with my physical stuff. I used to be able to climb a rafter and hang upside down from the scaffolding above the DJ table, all the punk rock stuff. … Now I put more emphasis and focus on how do you captivate a crowd without having to jump up and down like a clown?”
Atmosphere plays Jan. 18 at the Catalyst, 1011 Pacific Ave., Santa Cruz. Sold out.
‘I’ve always tried to present who I am through the music. I grew up in an era where the words keep it real.’ —Slug
