Interview: Slug (Atmosphere)

Hip-hop excellence, thy name is Atmosphere.

For the past quarter century, the Minneapolis-based duo of lyricist Slug and producer Ant have built one of the genre’s most impressive catalogs. And with their sharp 2023 release, So Many Other Realities Exist Simultaneously, they thankfully show no signs of slowing down.

Prior to the group’s Orange Peel return on Tuesday, Aug. 1, Slug spoke with Asheville Stages about a range of musical and social topics, addressing each with his distinct blend of humor and wisdom — and further solidified his status as one of the best interviews in music.

…on returning to touring after COVID-19 shutdowns

The first tour out was two summers ago — we went out with Cypress Hill in 2021. And we lived in a bubble and everything was weird. But the performance were not…you know, people wanted it, we wanted it. It was fun. 

Now, there’s still little nuances — little remnants of COVID that you come across on the road but not too much. If anything, it's just my own shit. Like, I might have an off night, go to a restaurant or a bar and be like, “Wow, there's way too many people in there and I'm not gonna fuck with that right now.” I'll go to one across the street, you know? I still act, but I think I might have had that problem before this, actually.

You still see masks, especially in California. You're still seeing a lot of people who are being cautious. People suffered a trauma and there’s going to be little personal, internal effects that last forever. But as far as on the job, you don't see a whole lot. You might come across a union crew who have some extra rules, but even that is not too often.

…on staying productive during the pandemic

in 2017, I had finally built a home studio, so I started recording myself at home constantly — daily. And that was kind of what culminated into having all of these projects released in the last five years. So when COVID happened, it was almost like the timing was perfect because I had really gotten comfortable with recording myself. I was already in swing and so suddenly I was like, “Oh, so I have more time. Cool.” And I just put a lot of that into writing and recording and now you see the fruits of that over the last couple years — and we still have some unreleased stuff. It's going to make its way out. 

There was only one album that was specifically recorded during the lockdown, and that's the one that was just released in May: So Many Other Realities Exist Simultaneously. We recorded that from September of 2020 through December in 2021.

And when I say “my studio” and “my home studio,” it wasn't actually in my home. It was in a building that was two blocks away from my home. I got in on this amazing opportunity to get this little building that was walking distance from my house. And so I got that and I turned that to a studio. And so when lockdown happened and they told the kids they had to learn from home, I just would walk my kids to the studio every day to get them out of their house away from their screens and their toys and shit. And I set up a little schoolhouse at the studio.

The fact that these kids had the opportunity to have me around was super cool. My wife was able to work straight through all of it, and so I kind of became the stay-at-home dad for that time. So it was dope, man. Not touring was dope that year. My whole life, ever since I started this job, I've never had that much time that I was allowed to spend with my children, so that was priceless. 10 out of 10, I would do it again. Let's go, COVID round two!

…on whether So Many Other Realities Exist Simultaneously is a multiverse reference

It's intentionally open to you to think that, especially since we're kind of being pounced upon with the concept of the multiverse in pop culture. So, it's not that it's not informed by that, but that wasn't where my head was at. 

I'm old, so instead of the multiverse, I was thinking Venn diagram. So right now, you and I are both having a similar experience — we’re on [Zoom] together, doing this interview. But our experiences are not similar. For all I know, you could you be surrounded by dead people that I can't see down by your feet. And for all you you know, I could be naked from the waist down. Our experiences are different and we don't really know what the other one experiences.

And so, that's kind of the concept of this because, you know, I kind of enjoyed COVID. That's not the same experience that my neighbor had. And when we speak about COVID, there has to be space for those two experiences to exist at the same time. So that's kind of what the album is about: it’s about perspective. It's about the lens that you're using. It's about your experience. But it’s also about making sure that you're leaving room to acknowledge and see somebody else's experience. And you're not letting your experience just kind of cover all of it. Just because I'm standing next to you doesn't mean I'm having the same experience.

…on the day George Floyd died

George Floyd was killed less than like a half mile from where I grew up, and a mile away from my house, where I was that day. We drove by there that day and didn't know what's going on. There were cops on the corner, but that's normal. We were driving to visit my father's grave because that was also his death day, so I had the kids in the car. Later that night when I get home and news starts, like, “This is what happened.” And I was just like, “Holy smokes!” We drove by there and saw cops, but I didn't even look enough to register what was happening. I don't know why I always look away when I see cops, but I'm going to start looking at them.

And then also there was — not just in our arts community, but lots of arts communities, but specifically in ours, that summer there was a lot of people coming forward. It was kind of like a Me Too movement within our arts community where people were being brought into the light and held accountable for shitty behaviors. There was this kind of moment of that flower unfolding so we could see all of the bugs inside of the petals, and it was really emotional for a lot of people. People were already tired of being locked away [from COVID], so this huge uprising came out of it. They burned down neighborhoods — lots of neighborhoods in our town. 

It's crazy because my whole life I've been on the “fuck the police” shit. It's what rap informs me. It’s what it taught me. But not it's just rap. My city has had huge issues my whole life with inequity and the real stark contrast of what the Black community is forced to go through versus what the white community is forced to go through. So finally, after hella people being killed by the police, this one, because it was filmed and because it wasn't a gun…I mean, to kneel on somebody’s fucking neck for 10 minutes…you had a lot of opportunity to change your mind about killing this person. You know what I'm saying? With a gun or a knife, it's all fast, bro. You go, “Oh shit. Fuck. I wish I hadn't done that.” But this fucking piece of shit had time to really consider what he was doing. So, that was different. That was that was evil. That was seriously fucking evil.

…on Minneapolis attempting to move forward

And so when that happened, the city blew up. Our city was fucking hot, and it really hasn't bounced back from all that. It's an interesting thing now to watch the city try to like pick itself back up and decide whether it wants to…like, there's no way to pretend like this didn't happen. And so now, how do you piece it all back together and get it moving?

I go to other cities: Milwaukee is beautiful. It's bubbling, it's alive with pleasure. Every city in this country has had this COVID bounce-back, but Minneapolis hasn’t. You go to Minneapolis and you would think that we're still in the midst of the fucking lockdown. Everything is still kind of depressed.

It's the wild west, because everybody wanted to defund the police after what happened with George Floyd. And so the cops basically responded by just quitting their fucking jobs. So, now, you could be driving down the street and somebody is going to pass you on your left doing 60 on a fucking regular residential because the cops don't care and people are taking advantage of that.

It's kind of a crazy time to live in Minneapolis. This is that part where I'm like, “Man, maybe we should have moved to Maui a couple of years ago when we had the chance.”

…on nonprofits and other organizations not following through on racial equity promises

I want to be careful throwing around words like “performative,” because what I'm realizing about people is that they don't realize that they're being performative. I want to find a word that actually works because “performative,” it kind of Implies that it was an intention to be that way, right?

I think that what happened was people started thinking with their heart for that year and a half instead of their head and their gut. And all of us are connected through pain. It's a lot harder to have a lack of empathy than we like to pretend. We feel like there's a section of humanity that just doesn't have empathy and they're just cold, but it's a lot more nuanced than that. If you see a lack of empathy in somebody, that's only because it's been overcome by another part of their heart, which might be desperation. Or it might be anxiety, fear — they’ve got to save their family. They’ve got to protect their family. They’ve got to find money to eat. That's why you see people act out and do things that we label as a lack of empathy.

And don’t get me wrong: there is a sector of the population, a smaller one, that really does have a lack of empathy. But even that, I do think, is conditional and situational and even environmental. When you are in an environment that doesn't nurture you for having empathy or it doesn't validate you for having it, it does become one of the little heartstrings that we tuck to the back. But when you saw these companies and organizations feeling like, “Oh, we’ve got to do something. We’ve got to help this community,” — when you see that, we call it “performative” now because we're like, “Oh, where’d they go?” But I'm like, “Man, were they being performative or was there intention really just from the heart?” They felt like, “Well, we’ve got to fucking do something. Everybody's doing something. It feels like the right thing to do.” And then when they fall off the boat, we hold them accountable for falling off the boat.

But where's the conversation about…like, they didn't know how to get on the boat in the first place. We needed to show them and teach them how to get on the fucking boat because capitalism doesn’t — and I don't mean to say the “C” word, but it doesn't necessarily validate those things. It's not the type of structure that that pats you on the back for doing good shit, which is why we create these other institutions to do the good shit. Capitalism knows it doesn't know how to do it, so capitalism pays for other fucking people to do it, right?

So, we’ve got to figure out the language — the way to talk to people to let them understand, “No, you could do this without our help. You could be good. You can help without us having to hold your hand. You just have to hire somebody to put them in your company. You’ve just got to have somebody on staff that that's one of their fucking jobs.” And truth be told, I do think some smaller companies have done that. Big companies? Maybe. I don't know.

But when you’re talking about localized stuff, it's harder because they can't hire the staff. And so there's that space where we get lost and we don't know what's to do. So, we’ve just got to figure out how to make it so that those people not only feel welcomed and feel like, “Hey, I can be a part of this.” But if you want them to stick around and be a part of it forever, you’ve got to also give them a little of the reins.

You’ve got to be like, “OK, you're not just going to be a part of this by listening to us tell you what you should do. We want to hear your voice in the conversation. We want to know what you think. What do you think you should be doing right now? How do you think you can help?” Otherwise, you end up with a bunch of white people who don't know how to be an ally or how to be a helper. They are just stuck there, not knowing what to do because all they know how to do is go, “Let me follow the rules that you lay out,” but that's not going to fucking work. You've got to get them to be like, “Oh, we're going to make our own schedule. We're going to get involved and actually be assertive.”

Lot of orgs popped up during the George Floyd thing. They all wanted to fucking help. But then a year later…none of them really knew how to help. And rather than me being mad at them for not knowing how, I’ve got to look at me and go, “Well, what did I do in helping them to understand?” And that's where I’ve got to hold myself partly accountable for that or hold my org or hold my friends partly accountable for not helping Karen. Sorry for the horrible, you know… but not helping Karen understand because Karen didn't grow up understanding. And we want to be mad at Karen that her parents didn't have the tools? I don't know. And at what point…where do you stop the accountability and where do you start it?

…on positive signs in Minneapolis

At least in our community, what I'm hoping above all is that the harm reduction orgs survived through this because I do see that they're going to be the most important ones moving forward. The epidemic that was here before COVID and remained and is going to be here for a while is the overdose situation, especially with fentanyl being put into everything. It's one thing when you buy fentanyl and that's what you choose to get high on, you know what you’re getting into. You do it accordingly. But when fentanyl’s showing up In all the party drugs and these fucking 17-year-olds aren't even…when they're not trained to think like that, then they need to be trained on how to react and what to do if they see their homie fall down.

And so, of the different orgs that I saw grow during the lockdown, during the aftermath of George Floyd, the harm reduction ones grew because everybody was getting a little money. All all of the money was being sent. And the harm reduction orgs are the ones that I’m really like, “Yo, we need those orgs moving forward,” specifically the inner city joints. Because, forever, there's been a hotline number for the white kids to call. But there's not been a lot of thought put into what happens when a Black child overdoses. So that's what I did see grow was harm reduction that understood how to communicate with Black and Brown communities, and that's the one thing that I'm going to continue to fucking talk shit about and fight for.

…on the lack of a chart-topping hip-hop album or single in 2023 until Lil Uzi Vert’s Pink Tape in early July

I don't know what to think. Is seven months a long time? I don't know. I don't pay attention to too much that's on that upper level of the industry, only because I only have so much time in the day. I’ve got a lot of kids. I have a couple of jobs, so I don't know how to pay attention to it like I used to. I didn't even know Lil Uzi Vert had a new record. Shame on me. I'm going to have to go check that shit out.

If I were to try to forge some thoughts about a drought or what that means, what that effect is — I'm not sure. I wonder sometimes, when an album like Kendrick [Lamar’s] goes #1, does that mean there are more people who understand the language than there used to be? Because that's a good thing. Or does that mean that Kendrick's music is less challenging and it's not scaring old white people the way it should? I'm not sure.

To me, this culture, specifically, is a way to build community. It’s a bonding mechanism for people to find identity among others, to have a movement to share information. But also it challenges the status quo, whether that be through rapping about violence, rapping about the situation in your communities, or just, you know, fucking horrorcore rap —whatever!

But to scare the status quo, to scare old white people was what I would always say to be funny. And so, when albums do really good, you look at it and go, “Of course [MC] Hammer did good. He's dancing, his music's fucking funky, he samples a lot of songs that are hits already. It’s going to do great.” But when Kendrick does great, and he is literally rapping about challenging the status quo, what does that mean? What does that mean for the status quo? Does that mean the status quo is us? I don't know.

I don't know how I feel about the drought. It's probably good that there's a drought sometimes. 1) To shake up those artists that give a fuck about the drought. But 2) To kind of give some space so that somebody can come out and fucking scare people again. I don't know how I feel, but my initial response to the question is: I don't think it's a bad thing. Seven months? I mean, shit, dude — I remember a time when a year would go by before Fresh Prince put out a motherfucking song that got high up on the charts.

So who's been dominating the charts since then? Has been like all your Shania Twains and Taylor Swifts and Beyoncés? I mean, technically, that’s what it’s supposed to be: songs about love. That's why they were invented, because everybody understands them.

But to be fair, a lot of hip-hop is dark and that darker matter that Lil Uzi Vert’s talking about resonates with people, too. People understand when you paint with dark colors much easier than if you make a song about summertime. The darker shit resonates harder because people live in that dark shit. We're looking for the light shit. We're looking for the bright shit. But you don't get to live in the bright shit. If you do, then you're not listening to any music at that point. You’re listening to, you know, talk radio. I don't know what the fuck you're listening to.

There's no space for happiness. This is America.

IF YOU GO

Who: Atmosphere with HEBL and ZooDeVille
When: Tuesday, Aug. 1, 8 p.m.
Where: The Orange Peel, 101 Biltmore Ave., theorangepeel.net
Tickets: $25 advance/$28 day of show

(Photos by Dan Monick)