Veteran Minneapolis duo Atmosphere returns to Lincoln (2024)

L. Kent Wolgamott

Slug and Ant didn’t think they’d still be in the rap game in 2024 when they started releasing music as Atmosphere in their hometown of Minneapolis 29 years ago.

“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. “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 who will return to the Bourbon Theatre on Friday has stayed in the game via a rigorous musical output, releasing more than two dozen studio albums, EPs and collaborative side projects and by relentlessly touring for more than two decades.

But that wouldn’t have been enough to sustain a long career, if not for the fact that hip-hop, now 40 years old, finally grew up along with its audience.

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“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. 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 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 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 meant that Slug “rapped about being a dude in Minneapolis” rather than adopting the themes of urban street life that pervaded ’90s rap —another reason, Slug says, that Atmosphere has endured: "You can’t sell drugs on a corner for 20 years, for real or in your raps.”

Those tales of suburban Midwestern life also connected Slug and Ant with fans who were much like them, especially those in places like Lincoln, Omaha and Des Moines and rural locales across the region.

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“Growing up in Minneapolis, I was 20 minutes from the farms,” he 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, because I grew up with, 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 pervade much of hip-hop, earning Slug the reputation of being unflinchingly honest as he delivers his truths.

The final element contributing to Atmosphere’s longevity, Slug concurs, is the duo’s independence.

Forged out of the Rhymesayers collective, Atmosphere has made its music outside 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 mind state 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. 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 admits to making some concessions to his stage presence, increasingly emphasizing between-song storytelling to connect with the audience rather than tongue-twisting rap 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."

Atmosphere has made multiple stops in Lincoln over the decades but hasn’t been in the city since 2019 — a date that Slug remembered, right down to the acts that joined them at the Bourbon Theatre on that night.

Friday, they’ll be joined by genre-mixing L.A. collective NOFUN! and rapper Reverie on their aptly titled “Traveling Forever” tour.

“I look forward to coming to Lincoln,” Slug said. “We've got a great show. I do urge people to come early. You might even catch me out front before doors. I like to hang out and greet the early birds that show up. Just talk a little bit with them and take some photos. We call it kissing hands and shaking babies.”

Reach the writer at 402-473-7244 or kwolgamott@journalstar.com. On Twitter @KentWolgamott

If you go

What: Atmosphere with NOFUN!, Reverie.

Where: Bourbon Theatre, 1415 O St.

When: 8 p.m. Friday.

Tickets: $35 advance, $40 day of show. Advance tickets available at ticketweb.com.

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L. Kent Wolgamott

Entertainment reporter/columnist

Veteran Minneapolis duo Atmosphere returns to Lincoln (2024)

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