PRINTSlugged in the face
Q&A with Atmosphere's Slug
Courtesy of RhymeSayers Entertainment
On his album, Lucy Ford, Slug said, "We're gonna be the biggest thing to hit these little kids." Well, come Saturday at 8 p.m. he'll be the biggest musical thing in Columbia.
November 13, 2008 | 12:00 a.m. CST
It takes a special kind of talent to headline Bluebird music festival without having any of your songs play on any clear channel station or have consistent rotation on MTV. Atmosphere is exactly that. The Minneapolis-based hip-hop duo consisting of emcee Slug and producer Ant have dominated the underground hip-hop scene over the last decade, with their last two LP’s hitting number two and one on Billboard’s “Top Independent Album” chart. Before Slug hits the stage on Saturday, he took some time to talk with Vox.
Vox: One of your recent songs “Little Math You” is sort of a testament to young rappers. Who did you write it for?
Related ArticlesSlug: I wrote “Little Math You” for the kids that I meet at my shows who deal with the identity crisis of the fact that they are from the ’burbs. They do feel ostracized by certain genres of rap or certain identities in rap, but they feel comfortable coming to the Atmosphere show. I wrote that song to say; “You know what? I’m glad you feel comfortable coming to this show.” The song kind of champions that kid saying, “Look man if you feel what’s going on, then that’s all you gotta worry about. You ain’t gotta worry about who’s accepting you or who feels like you’re not real. You know, you’re here, and you’re feeling it, and that’s as real as it gets.”
You’ve collaborated with a ton of underground artists but never really with mainstream people. Is there any reason for that?
S: For the most part I try to stick to a basic rule of collaboration and that is: I gotta be friends with the person I’m making music with. And I really just haven’t been able to strike up a friendship with Lloyd Banks yet. It’s like our paths haven’t crossed like that, and that’s pretty much all it is: a matter of path and nature.
So, is there love between mainstream and underground?
S: I think that there is a peaceful co-existence. I think only the fans separate it. But I do know that I think all of us are like: “Yo, we’re rappers. Some of us are blue collar. Some of us are white collar. Some of us don’t even got a collar.”
When you hear an emcee separate himself from mainstream underground, I always saw that as an identity crisis. I myself had that identity crisis. I went through that in my first couple of records where it was like, “Underground til death,” and that’s how you make your claim. But once you hit a certain age you gotta be like: “You know what man? It’s music.” I’m not gonna sit out here and say your music sucks or mine is better because to me that’s a sign of insecurity.
If you were to listen to an older album like Lucy Ford and your newest album When Life Gives You Lemons, back-to-back, how would you describe the difference between Slug then and Slug now?
S: Slug on Lucy Ford was an amateur. The voice was thin and there wasn’t a whole lot of confidence in there. I was still trying to prove to myself that this is what I’m supposed to be doing, and I can hear that. There’s a lot of off-beat stuff in there that I wish wasn’t on there like that. It’s very amateurish, but at the same time the words still meant a lot to me when I wrote them. Even though I might be embarrassed by a lot of the technical aspects of that record, I still stand next to those lyrics.
You’ve heard Kanye West’s song “Drive Slow,” (from the album Late Registration) and while it’s a sample for the song “Wildflower,” you used that sample over 10 years ago. What’s your reaction to that?
S: Kanye’s song was hotter because it was time for that. Maybe if Ant saved that sample and put it on You Can’t Imagine How Much Fun We’re Having it might have fit the times better. But there’s really no way to tell how that’s going to work out. You find a thing that you think is a hot sample, but it’s all subjective to the listener. To us its nature but to the listener is subjective: They like it or they don’t. And if you’re at the right time that’s just the way it is.
Who continues to impress you in hip-hop?
S: Brother Ali always impresses me. I’m usually always impressed with Jay-Z and Nas. I’m usually impressed with any cameo that Busta Rhymes makes. I’m a fan of Redman and always will be and I’m a fan of Prodigy and always will be.
Ok, so you’re at the Pearly Gates and St. Peter says that before he lets you in he needs a mix of your best shit. What are some of the tracks you give him?
S: I don’t even know, man. I’d probably just hand him Strictly Leakage and be like, “Here man, sniff this.”
Over the years some people have called you “emo rap,” what is your reaction to that?
S: Honestly my reaction has changed over the years. The funny thing is we made that up. We did it as a joke, Urb magazine did an interview with me way back in the day and I dropped the e-bomb then. I dropped it as a joke and people had never heard that phrase before. Emo rock was starting to get bigger because of bands like Sunny Day Real Estate and they were starting to get that genre of punk more attention. So as a joke I called us “emo rap.” Actually I called us “cynical, minimalistic emo rap.” After that it started getting thrown around a lot. Honestly, I don’t care what people call me because I know where I sit, I know who I am, I know what I’m making and I know what I’m doing.
When you finally pen your last lyric, what are you going to take away from all of this?
S: Honestly man I’m just trying to make KRS-One proud, I’m just trying to make sure that I did for somebody what them cats did for me when I was 17 years old. If I can pass it on to a 17-year-old so that when he grows up and he’s doing it, he’s looking at it like, “Yo, I gotta do what Slug did for me,” then that’s all I look for.
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