The new age of Atmosphere and its ‘sad face rap’

For a few moments, rapper Sean (Slug) Daley of Atmosphere searched for a better self description than “founder.”

“We’re definitely one of the Indiana Jones’ of ‘sad face rap,’” Daley decided during a recent Zoom call.

“I don’t think Drake’s ever heard of Atmosphere, so please take what I’m going to say with a grain of salt. But I do think that, when he first came into the scene and started making these kinds of sad boy songs, I’m a part of that. I was one of the ones that was kind of carving that out.”

Together with DJ/producer Anthony (Ant) Davis, Minneapolis’ Atmosphere has been pumping out a steady stream of underground emo rap since the ’90s, building a formidable and influential repertoire of projects along the way.

Throughout Atmosphere’s hip-hop tenure, fans have beheld the duo’s various ages.

“Emo rap, sad-face rap, dad rap,” Daley listed. “F—- it. Put it down, it’s on record.

“But now I think we’re ‘dad joke rap.’ Because when Jay-Z stole ‘dad rap,’ I had to go somewhere. I’m wearing cargo shorts right now.”

Along with Atmosphere’s sound, the duo’s structure has evolved since the early days. In the group’s infancy, and under the name “Urban Atmosphere,” Slug was the DJ, backing up rapper and high school friend Derek (D-Spawn) Turner.

“I never got super good at it, but I was good enough to back up a decent rapper,” Daley said. “It made sense for me to do that while still trying to get better, but at least trying to get better as part of a group.

“And in that group, I used to see that word ‘woodshedding’ thrown around, and I don’t know if I’ve ever said it, but I was woodshedding as a DJ and he was woodshedding as a rapper, and we were kind of doing it together.”

But when it came time to hit the stage, Spawn, who was used to performing in rap groups, called on Daley to pick up the mic. And once he did, he hit the ground running.

“That was when he tapped me to be more than just a DJ,” Daley said.

“I basically went from being a hype man with some bars to being half of the group, to eventually kind of becoming more than half of the group because, once I turned the switch on, I couldn’t stop. I started writing songs, and writing songs, and writing songs, and never stopped.

“And at that point, I think we all knew that I was going to eventually become a solo rapper.”

Daley’s prophecy would soon come to fruition. After enlisting Davis as producer and DJ, and releasing their 1997 breakout album “Overcast!” Turner left the group, and Daley and Davis became the dynamic duo that would make up Atmosphere for the next handful of decades.

The two flip through the ’80s songbook for their trademark sound. Slug “stole swagger” from emcees like Big Daddy Kane, Biz Markie, KRS-One, and LL Cool J, but is equally influenced by Prince, John Carpenter and the DJs of the time. One of the rapper’s biggest inspirations, though, is his own producer.

“It all starts with Anthony, because he’s making those beats without me looking over his shoulder,” Daley said.

“And then he invites me to come look at what he’s been working on, and I start to go ‘Oh that’s interesting, what can we do here?

“The inception tends to happen without me in the room, just like the inception of the words happens without him in the room. I usually take the music he gives me, and I bring it here by myself, and then spend time staring at it trying to make something out of it.”

But Davis’ influence on Daley’s songwriting transcends the beats he brings to the rapper, and, as a result of their close friendship, the latter has begun to represent the both of them through his lyrics.

“When I write, I’ve unintentionally started to try to put some of his perspective in the writing, in a weird way,” Daley said.

“Not even adapting his perspective and making it my own, but trying to make sure to either acknowledge, reference or contextualize some of his perspective through some of the bars I write.

“I enjoy talking to this man, he’s one of my favorite people in the world. So, when he says things, whether or not I agree with them, I appreciate his perspective. So that’s something I’ve learned over the last few projects.”

Daley’s newfound art of perspective-taking reaches its peak on Atmosphere’s most recent effort, 2023’s “So Many Other Realities Exist Simultaneously.” On the record, the rapper spins a narrative that, according to Daley, is “super nonlinear and fun and interesting, but also really dark.

“It’s not so much that it’s this straight through narrative, but more that it’s a story of the summer of 2020 through the winter of 2021,” Daley said.

“So, the story I hear on this album is what we were going through together, as a group that couldn’t tour at the time, but also as individuals, our own individual trajectories.”

From track one, Daley knew the album would be a period of experimentation for the group. According to the rapper, Atmosphere’s records always begin on a dark, melancholic note, so when Davis brought him a sanguine beat, and asked him to write something optimistic, he was shocked.

“It was during the lockdown, and the furthest thing from my mind was to be optimistic, because we were all doing bad,” Daley said.

“But he was like, ‘What if we started this project with something that might be lighter, like a yellow or a bright orange.’ So I wrote this optimistic thing because of the beat, and it became the song ‘Okay.’”

But Davis’ exercise in innovation didn’t end there, and when Daley returned with the finished track, the producer gave him the instructions that would transform Atmosphere’s entire songwriting process.

“He was like, ‘I like it, and I want this to be the first song. Here’s song two.’ So, I wrote it and gave it back, and he was like ‘here’s three.’ He literally chose the sequence of the album by what order he gave me the beats in.

“It ended up being this amazing process, which was such a simple way to change it up. We didn’t reinvent the wheel or anything, we just approached the way we make a project a little differently.”

The result: a deeply personal and revealing 20-track time capsule of the precarious times of its production, though, at times, Daley said he feels as though he might have “said too much” on the record, and that he could have held back some of his thoughts.

“You can always look back on your painting once you’ve sold it to somebody, like ‘Ah, if only I’d made the house purple,’ and you can’t change it.

“But I do believe that this project was the best thing we could’ve possibly made in this time, with who we are as people and where we are as people, et cetera. This was super fun to do, super enjoyable, one of my favorites, for now.

“But I’m always supposed to say that,” Daley admitted. “New album, it’s my favorite!”

Atmosphere w/HEBL + ZooDeVille
WHEN: 8 p.m. Tuesday, July 18
WHERE: Rialto Theatre, 318 E. Congress Street, Tucson
COST: Tickets start at $27, all ages INFO: atmospheresucks.com, rialtotheatre.com

This article appears in Jul 13-19, 2023.