My first exposure to Atmosphere was through Eyedea and his association and Rhymesayers. After Blaze Battle, I wanted to explore as much of the rap coming from the Rhymesayers conglomerate and that included Atmosphere. I’ll be the first to admit, I didn’t find their music appealing at all – not sure what it was, I just didn’t like it. So through high school, I always had friends who would rave about Atmosphere but I’d just downplay it and wasn’t interested in listening to them. That all changed last year with the release of When Life Gives You Lemons, You Paint That Shit Gold.
I started seeing promos on MTV with Slug backed by a live band performing tracks off the CD and surprisingly found myself enjoying them. Slug took on a much more melodic – almost singing – stance on the tracks, and their style changed completely.
Atmosphere – “Wild Wild Horses”
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The live instrumentation and production value on the cd is incredible, without understanding any of the lyrics its still possible to just enjoy listening to the disc in its entirety. However, its best to pay attention to the lyrics, because Slug paints vivid stories throughout the disc. I’ve heard it classified as “Emo Rap” – which is a semi-accurate depiction of the subject matter; I just don’t like to classify them like that, simply because most rap is a portrayal of the harder parts of life. It is definitely not cd I could listen to everyday, but it takes me places that the rest of my hip-hop library simply can’t.
Atmosphere – “Can’t Break”
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Atmosphere – “Shoulda Know”
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Posted by The Groove
