Offbeat artist finds no attraction to usual trappings of rap
Published: August 31, 2006
Last Modified: August 31, 2006 at 06:50 AM
MC Sean "Slug" Daley rejects the holy trinity of rap -- guns, money and hos.
Don't kid yourself: It's not because he's a saint. He speaks in a jaunty, self-assured tone, dropping f-bombs like he's on the set of "Scarface" and making eyebrow-raising jokes about masturbation.
But like Eminem or Kanye West, Daley has more to say musically than just repeating "ridin' dirty" 30 times in three minutes.
In the single "Watch Out," for instance, Slug name drops Jack the Ripper and Jack Tripper, mentions the moonwalk and eating kitty litter. At first listen, it seems, well, silly. At its core, the song simultaneously damns and mocks those who are elitist about their music, and those who take themselves too seriously.
Slug maintains that artists who rap about guns usually get shot and those who rap about money often go broke.
"So just on the level of being superstitious I'm gonna stay away from rapping about guns and money. It's only going to bring me trouble," he said, laughing. "I'd rather rap about alcohol and women and take my chances getting both."
Atmosphere -- the duo of Slug and producer Anthony "Ant" Davis -- performs an all-ages show at 8 p.m. today in Wendy Williamson Auditorium. A 21-and-up gig is set for 9 p.m. Saturday at the Alyeska Resort Daylodge in Girdwood. Opening acts include Rhymesayers labelmate Brother Ali.
Slug spoke by phone from his home in Minneapolis' Uptown neighborhood, the sort of urban area where a store that sells dominatrix apparel can share space with a high-end Asian fusion restaurant.
While Slug and Ant were growing up there in the 1980s, Minneapolis was Prince's town. Slug said living in the rap-starved Upper Midwest meant he and Ant had to teach themselves. "There was no mentorship. There's a flaw to our sound that comes strictly from the fact we never read the manual ... That flaw is part of what makes us stand out."
The duo recorded five albums in eight years, slowly gaining national momentum. They've been able to hook fans who don't regularly listen to rap or hip-hop because of their old- school sound, which is rooted in a sampling style inspired by early Beastie Boys and Public Enemy.
In the past few years, Atmosphere has secured stage time at major festivals such as South by Southwest, Coachella, Bonnaroo and Warped Tour. Most of those gigs were directly tied to the success of Atmosphere's last album, 2005's "You Can't Imagine How Much Fun We're Having."
Being isolated from rap hubs helped Slug develop lyrics beyond the rap cliches, including self-glorification. In his lyrics, he's not afraid to express self-doubt, even self-loathing.
Because of that, critics often describe Slug as self-deprecating. He hates that.
"I don't feel like that's what I'm doing. I just feel I'm confident in who I am enough to present who I am," he said. "It's like the guy who sits in the bleachers every day talks about how much (sex) he's getting. He's insecure; he isn't getting any (sex). I don't want to be that guy."
Instead, Slug tackles topics such as what it means to be a man ("Little Man"), letting go of a lover ("Pour Me Another") and America's pill-popping, self-improvement-obsessed society ("Panic Attack").
Atmosphere's music is often described as neural rap or emo rap. "These are people who've never met me," Slug said. "I'm not really the most intelligent rapper out there. It's interesting to me because I really don't use multisyllable words that often. I will rhyme 'can' with 'man' no problem."
Yet listen to songs such as "That Night" and a thinking man is unveiled.
The true-to-life song is about a 16-year-old girl who was murdered while trying to meet Slug at a 2003 show. A janitor at the Albuquerque, N.M., club -- convicted sex offender Dominic Akers -- convinced Marissa Mathy-Zvaifler he could get her backstage. Akers then sexually assaulted her, strangled her and hid her behind a soda machine.
Slug felt compelled to write about the murder. "That Night" features tortured, guilt-wracked lyrics: "Paranoid of exploiting the verdict. But in the same breath/ I got thoughts that I wanna express and let surface/ This ain't for props or the pop culture/ It's about a balloon that got punctured."
Slug has never performed "That Night" live. He refuses to turn Mathy-Zvaifler's death into background music for club dancing and boozy crowd hookups.
"That song had a purpose, and it fulfilled that purpose," Slug said. "There's a thin line between satisfying your fans and totally pandering to fans. I'll never perform that live. Ever."
Slug said he has found some peace but only through distraction.
Atmosphere has sold more than 1 million records and been featured in national magazines such as Rolling Stone: "One can feel Atmosphere loosening modern hip-hop from its moorings and yanking it into some weirder and far more interesting place."
But the duo is still searching for its place in the rap/hip-hop worlds. Slug said among other slights, hip-hop mag The Source won't write them up.
Slug's a hip-hop misfit. And he made peace with that a long time ago. As the son of a black and Native American father and a white mother, Slug said a middle-class, Midwestern high school taught him that fitting in isn't all it's cracked up to be.
"There were a bunch of black kids who had no reason not to see me as another cracker," he said, "and all these white kids who wanna play hockey and I got nothing to do with that (expletive), so I ended up in a clique of misfit(s) ... I'm so comfortable where I sit in hip-hop nation due to that past."
Slug said he'll have achieved his career goals when he's gotten validation from all of his rap heroes. "Once that occurs, it's all about making money," he said, laughing.
He's already received props from the majority of the rappers on his list, including Brother J of X-Clan and Chuck D of Public Enemy. Slug said: "When you see me suddenly on 'TRL' or hosting some stupid version of 'Pimp Your Laptop' or some (expletive) that means Big Daddy Kane finally shook my hand."
• Daily News reporter Sarah Henning can be reached at shenning@adn.com or 257-4450.
Atmosphere
With opening act Brother Ali
When/Where: 8 p.m. today at Wendy Williamson Auditorium, all-ages; 9 p.m. Saturday at Alyeska Resort Daylodge, 21-and-up.
How much: $22 in advance, available at groovetickets.com; $25 at the door
Web: www.rhymesayers.com, www.myspace.com/atmosphere
