“An emo-rapper is kind of an oxymoron. To me, it means the singer is skinny and whiny, and the music caters to it, but rap is like, ‘I’m gonna go over there and push down this tree.’ They shorten that word to make it easier to say, which is, like, so unemotional,” says Atmosphere’s main man, Slug.
Atmosphere’s lyrics are harsh, crude, artful, and eloquent. They quote life, love, politics, with both certainty and uncertainty, as they are all laced with strands of hope. He takes you on visual and metaphorical journeys through his memories and his minds eye with his songs and the intensity of his eyes.
His entire stance is intense; he came out on stage during the show at the Middle East with this hard, yet calm swagger and held it for the entire show. NOT a man I would like to fuck with. By the middle of the show he dripped sweat. His charismatic energy would intimidate anyone and his jarring honesty is thought provoking.
Though courted by major labels, from Interscope to Atlantic, Atmosphere and Rhymesayers Entertainments have chosen to continue the independent approach and partner with Epitaph, a characteristically punk label, which fits. Although Rhymsayers are hip-hop, many of their artists share attributes normally attributed to punk.
Atmosphere consists of the guy with the rhymes, Slug, the beats come from Ant, who usually releases an instrumental album along side the regular album, and the resident DJ, Mr. Dibbs, who also does projects of his own such as The 30th Song released in 2002, and Sucker Punch Breaks V. 1 in the same year. Atmosphere’s history includes their latest released early this year, Headshots: Se7en, a two disc compilations of 22 rare tracks recorded between 1997-1999, Seven’s Travels in ’03, God Loves Ugly in ’02, and @Overcast in ’98, to name a few. All of these albums can be found on vinyl and CD formats.
They are currently on their @ It Again Tour with P.O.S. who can be described as angsty, punk, bass, wit, and lyricism all rolled into one very friendly and kind.
Atmosphere gets your attention with their impeccable beats, making it worth your while with their velocity, bluntness, and truth mixed in with the images of their rhymes. He’s speaking to everyone, experiences and situations that anyone can immediately conjure up as a memory of their own; a winning recipe for becoming a legend in the underground. Slug takes the everyday and the mundane and gives another view, another perspective. He says everything everyone thinks and sees, but in a more interesting way. Because of that they’ve played to sold out shows on both coasts from New York to California, and many states in between-Montana, Minnesota, and Wisconsin, to name a few, and not neglecting our own city of Boston for their show on May 12.
Slug’s one of us. One of us who asked the audience to buy P.O.S.’s merchandise before his own because they need it more. One of us who asked people to donate to a fund for a sick friend-someone who hates pushing and shoving in front of his stage, and who advocates having babies. At the end of their show in Boston, Slug gave the whole audience a lecture about having babies, and he hopes who all do, if not immediately that night he hoped that every member of that audience would eventually, hopefully soon, jump each others or someone else’s bones and make babies. Not sure about that, but…interesting? “To put my name behind my ideals,” he says in a song.