Slug, vocalist of the legendary hip-hop group Atmosphere, understands the power of words. Throughout his decades-long career, he’s wrapped his listeners in words, draping them over their hearts so that they can be warm and safe in the knowledge that they are not alone. The stories he tells are deeply human, bleak and sad and angry at times, joyful and funny at others, but ultimately filled with hope and empathy. It’s music that tattoos itself on the bones of those who hear it so that they may carry it within in order to make a bit more sense of this life.
Famously vocal about representing his hometown of Minneapolis, Slug has nevertheless built a dedicated following in Colorado. Atmosphere is returning to Red Rocks for the twelfth time on August 16th alongside fellow legends Method Man and Redman, Deltron 3030 and more. 303 Magazine recently spoke with Slug about the subtle beginnings of his long career, the idea of legacy, why his music has connected with audiences in the way that it has and much more.
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Slug, born Sean Daley, came into music gradually with his first true passion being breakdancing. He said, “Sometime around 11, my father noticed I’d started to take an interest in breakdancing due to all the cardboard that was all over the yard.” This led Slug’s father to “pressure” his son into a breakdancing contest at a mall somewhere near the city, something Slug said he initially “resented.” However, this led to a realization that Slug loved performing and the validation and attention that came with it.
Over time, Slug’s breakdancing dreams transitioned to a deeper interest in becoming a DJ which would then lead him to rapping. He said, “I didn’t grow up wanting to be a rapper. I wanted to be a DJ. I saw early that breakdancing was too difficult and that DJing must be easier. When that became apparent, it wasn’t going anywhere.” When he was around 20 or 21, he started rapping, realizing that he had some talent for it. He made a few songs for fun and slowly noticed that people were responding to it.
Slug described this period of his life as filled with “subtle changes” from “being the guy that did this for the free drink tickets and attention from ladies to doing it as a full-time job.” He was initially influenced to pursue rapping by his weed dealer, a rapper named Beyond who, it bears mentioning, “always had the fattest bags.” When Slug would make purchases, the two would “freestyle and kick it” which led to Beyond inviting Slug to make a song with him, eventually inviting him over to Beyond’s producer’s house. This is how Slug met Anthony “Ant” Davis, the other half and beatmaker of Atmosphere.
Slug said that Ant taught him how to take music seriously. Previously, he’d make songs with his friend but said, “We sucked. We would take like six months to make one song because we didn’t take it seriously.” After meeting Ant and hitting it off, the two started to hang out more often. As they got to know one another better, Slug noticed the sheer amount of music that Ant would make in a short period of time. “He would make more songs in one night than we would make in a year,” Slug said. “I was like, “‘Okay, sign me up.'”
Here, Slug made an interesting point that could benefit a lot of creative people. He said, “We were so slow because no one had ever shown us how to do it. We didn’t know that you could just do it.” A lot of creative people are held back by these self-imposed conditions and feel as if they need permission to create something. In order to pursue a creative life, one needs to just sit down and create.
Slug and Ant began “churning out music,” going for “quantity over quality.” He described this as a learning period, saying “It was practicing making songs. The more songs you made, the better you got at making songs. We knew we were woodshedding. But it wasn’t really important how good the songs were. What was important was just learning the basics. Anthony taught me the basics of how to do it.”
Slug would go over to Ant’s house every Sunday and leave with about “three or four songs.” This habit has carried him throughout his career, saying he still makes around the same amount of songs per week, the only difference being that he doesn’t go over to Ant’s house every Sunday, instead recording verses in the home studio he built for himself.
Nearly 20 albums later, including the beloved God Loves Ugly (2002) and When Life Gives You Lemons (2008), Slug said he still approaches the “fundamentals of music” in the same way he did in those early days. “I write about what I think about. I write about what I see. I don’t often reach for things that I don’t understand. It’s because I want to understand,” he said. “I feel my calling is to write about the human condition as I see it. I’ve been doing that for so long that that can come in so many different shapes and forms, that’s where I can find the different flavors on the palate.”
In 1995, after Atmosphere had begun to make a name for themselves, Slug and Ant expanded their influence by starting the record label Rhymesayers Entertainment with Musab “Sab the Artist” Saad and Brent “Siddiq” Sayers. After Atmosphere released their first album, Overcast!, in 1997, the label began to grow into a hub for hip-hop artists who existed somewhere outside the mainstream, with artists such as Eyedea and Abilities, Brother Ali, MF Doom, and many more all calling the label home.
While Atmosphere and other Rhymesayers artists have gained some mainstream recognition, Slug said that this existence outside the mainstream was both intentional and a result of them just “making shit they thought was cool.” He elaborated, saying, “There’s also this fear of success. Just like any artist, you’re afraid of actually accomplishing what it is you set out to accomplish and that’s just some human bullshit. I’m not here to subvert attention. I definitely love attention. I wasn’t avoiding the mainstream because I was avoiding attention. I just wanted to have full agency over my shit.”
He described this agency as something to celebrate but also tinged with some regret. He said, “In hindsight, I kind of wish I would have broken through. Not because I wanted more money or more fucking affection but just because I now see that the strength in what we do is connectivity. I feel I limited how much connectivity that I was able to create. But also, I feel blessed, man. I feel fortunate that I was even able to accomplish what I did accomplish because this wasn’t a realistic goal when I was a kid.”
Despite this feeling of not being able to reach as many people as they could have, Atmosphere and the larger Rhymesayers family have still cemented themselves in the hearts of a generation of broken kids with no interest in the mainstream. Atmosphere and Rhymesayers put poetry and stories to music and taught a lot of people how to speak up.
Slug thinks that he’s been able to resonate with so many because he puts so much of himself into his art, his fears and hopes, and what pisses him off. He’s never been one to shy away from his own flaws and people relate to that. He said, “I think [the listeners] hear some something in it that they can apply to whatever they’re going through.” He elaborated, saying, “This tool was always a way to ground me and to work through my shit. That’s what my relationship is with music. It just kind of translates into what I do when I make music as well. I think that’s why I make that kind of music, not because I’m trying to prescribe anything for the listener, but because I’m going to make this music that I would listen to if I was trying to find something to get me through. If anybody else can see it and find it beautiful and if not, whatever. But that’s what I’ve committed myself to, making the type of music that I would need if I was 17 looking for that, or 27 looking for that, or now 37, 47, and so on and so forth.”
As Slug’s looked back over his long career, he’s been forced at times to reckon with the concept of legacy, longevity, what people will think about him when he’s gone. He said these thoughts used to concern him a lot more but that he’s now more interested in the present. He said, “I used to give [legacy] thought and attention. Then over the last few years, it has been exposed to me that legacy is merely another toxic part of the ego. Now, I’m more focused on just living in the moment and trying to really be present right now and not be too concerned with how I’ll be viewed later, or how I was viewed in the past, but more so just just commit myself and apply myself to intentionally be the best person I can be right here, right now.” He said that this mindset has allowed him to do two things: stop taking his art and compartmentalizing it as a different piece of himself and to stop compartmentalizing himself outside of what he creates. He said, “There used to be Sean and Slug. Now, there’s both. And sometimes, I’m an asshole. And that’s what it is. And sometimes I’m not. And that’s what it is.”
These personal realizations have now led Atmosphere to put out some of their most interesting and experimental projects yet, namely So Many Realities Exist Simultaneously and the Talk Talk EP, both released last year. Different projects in tone, they both nevertheless see Ant truly pushing the production boundaries with many songs on So Many Realities feeling so bright like sunshine peering through clouds. The Talk Talk EP is a bit darker, a bit more sonically overwhelming. It feels something like a response to the overwhelming times that people live in these days. Both serve as examples of how much Atmosphere has grown over the years and testaments that they are still willing to push themselves in a great many different creative directions.
Atmosphere will be bringing these new projects as well as all their older favorites and some deeper cuts to Red Rocks for the twelve time on August 16th. Slug said he prepares for big shows such as this one the same as he would at any other smaller venue, preferring to “play for 5,000 or even 50,000 people like [he’s] playing to 50.” He said those are the shows that have always meant the most to him both as a fan and as an artist, still relishing intimacy no matter how big the crowd.
Finally, Atmosphere means a lot to a lot of people. Their music has the ability to become an almost physical thing, a friend to hold you when things get dark, words to carry on your bones as you age and live and love and experience all that it means to be alive. It teaches those who hear it who might be struggling or finding it difficult to keep going that the world is a better place with them in it. The sound and the music are alive in all of us. You are not alone.
Get tickets to Atmosphere at Red Rocks on August 16th here!