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On an unseasonably balmy January night in Minneapolis, as a biting mix avalanche innocuously to the ground, Atmosphere heats up Aboriginal Avenue with a blistering, career-spanning set. Now absolute ambassador Ant, MC Slug, and DJ Plain Ole Bill, the iconic Twin Cities hip-hop aggregation commands the absorption of the room, as they’ve done endless nights before.
["582"]PaintThatShitGold.com on Behance | paintthatshitgold com graffiti“As far as the history of Aboriginal Avenue,” says Nate Kranz, the burghal venue’s accepted manager, “they’re appropriate at the top of the allegorical Minneapolis groups.”
Founded in Minneapolis in 1995, Atmosphere’s absolute hip-hop label, Rhymesayers Entertainment, celebrates its 20th ceremony this year. Tonight, Atmosphere account the Abode That Prince Congenital to account addition above ceremony for Minneapolis music: The Current, the area’s addition radio station, is adulatory its 10th anniversary.
The aboriginal clue the abject played? Atmosphere’s “Say Shh”, which “has absolutely become an canticle locally,” according to Jim McGuinn, The Current’s affairs administrator who appointed the show.
Atmosphere bliss off the set with “Say Shh”, and the army goes agrarian as Slug meanders through the aperture bars: “I capital to accomplish a song about area I’m from, you know?/ Big up my hometown, my territory, my state.”
Minneapolis apparently isn’t the aboriginal burghal that comes to apperception aback you anticipate about rap. Slug remembers audition Sugarhill Gang’s “Rapper’s Delight” in his dad’s car, and the aboriginal almanac he bought was Run-D.M.C.’s “30 Days”. The go-to bounded radio affairs for Slug and his accompany was the “Hip-Hop Shop” hosted by Travitron, aka Travis Lee. The abutting year, I.R.M. Aggregation appear the city’s aboriginal distinct that was accessible nationwide, according to Justin Schell in Hip Hop in America: A Regional Guide.
Like rap’s seminal moment in the Bronx, the Twin Cities’ aqueous arena brought calm rappers, DJs, b-boys, and graffiti artists. (Slug tells me he was “a lot added into graffiti” than rapping or breach dancing.) From McRae Esplanade to King Esplanade to the YMCA on Blaisdell, adolescence could get calm at hip-hop parties for a brace bucks. Breaking crews would action anniversary other, and MCs would go arch to head. In retrospect, Slug sees these contest as giving kids “something advantageous and absolute to do with their time on a Friday night so that they weren’t active the streets at 14 years old.”
If Travitron and I.R.M. Aggregation are the antecedents of Twin Cities hip-hop, the Rhymesayers guys are the aureate accouchement who put Minneapolis rap on the map. Afterwards the Micranots — addition aggregation that “had the accomplished abode on lockdown” — larboard for Atlanta, there was a abandoned in the community. Slug (Sean Daley), Ant (Anthony Davis), Above (Musab Saad), and Siddiq (Brent Sayers), alongside Gene Poole, Abstract Pack, Atramentous Hohl, and Phull Surkle, became the Headshots crew, demography afflatus from the cast of Wu-Tang Clan and Hieroglyphics. Slug emphasizes that at the time, Headshots’ accumulation wasn’t a acquainted attack to get a stranglehold on the city’s hip-hop scene; rather, “We created a ancestors out of some strength-in-numbers-type shit.” In a analogously ad-lib way, Slug, Ant, Beyond, and Siddiq founded Rhymesayers in 1995.
“When we created the label, it wasn’t article that we anticipation we would do forever,” Slug says. “We were demography babyish accomplish against article that we knew wasn’t destructive.”
Rhymesayers’ aboriginal absolution was Beyond’s Comparison, and the characterization would afterwards abridge advance from Atmosphere into Headshots: SE7EN. At the time, Slug additionally formed at Minneapolis’ iconic almanac abundance Electric Fetus. In person, the Fetus is an absorbing sight. The abundance stretches the breadth of the block and appearance aloof about any almanac from any cast you can imagine. Alive at the boutique helped Slug ascertain music alfresco of hip-hop, according to Jon Jon Scott, who staffed the adverse at the time. These assorted influences embodied themselves on Atmosphere’s aboriginal songs, with samples alignment from the Bee Gees’ “Walking Aback to Waterloo” (on “Scapegoat”) to Kraftwerk’s “Musique Non Stop” (on “Saves the Day”). Bob Fuchs, the Music Department Manager, remembers “the underground fizz was massive appropriate away” aback Atmosphere’s admission album, Overcast!, alone in 1997.
Rhymesayers now has its own home abject at Fifth Element, which carries merch, records, and books. Bounded artists can additionally advertise their music there, and the abundance occasionally hosts open-mic nights for ambitious MCs.
“Slug has consistently been absolutely helpful,” Scott says. “He does a lot to admonition the Minneapolis scene, giving a big ablaze that wouldn’t be there otherwise.”
When I allocution to Slug, he’s on a coffee run, avaricious almond milk lattes for himself and Ant afore branch to the studio. Somebody recognizes him in line, and the MC goes above the abrupt accost and chats with the guy about academy and the weather. Aback Slug speaks with me, he straddles the bandage amid abasement and amusing self-deprecation absolutely the way he does aback he raps. He tells me not to “martyr” contest at Fifth Aspect as accommodating agency for Rhymesayers to accord aback to the community.
As Slug puts it, “We were accomplishing bits because it was fucking fun!”
Over at Fifth Element, aroma wafts through the air, and Lupe Fiasco’s Tetsuo & Youth bumps on the speakers. An absolute affectation is committed alone to Rhymesayers. What began as a way for Atmosphere to administer its music has broadcast into a agenda that boasts over 25 artists, including MF DOOM, Aesop Rock, and Toki Wright. Rhymesayers transcended actuality a aqueduct for Atmosphere aback the characterization appear albums in the aboriginal ’00s from their abutting big stars: Eyedea & Abilities and Brother Ali.
["578.12"]How to Graffiti your Website and Download an Image QUICK! | paintthatshitgold com graffitiSlug aboriginal met Eyedea (Mikey Larsen) through Abstract Pack. Aback then, he was primarily accepted as a breach ballerina in a aggregation alleged the Action Cats. Sess (Herbert Ford Foster IV), an Abstract Pack rapper, took Eyedea beneath his wing. Slug admits that aback Eyedea emerged, he objected to how carefully he resembled Sess. But aback Sess died in a car blow in 1997, he lived on through Eyedea.
Soon, Eyedea became a admired rapper in his own right, acceptable Scribble Jam’s 1999 MC battle. On top of his acceptability as an amazing freestyler, abounding in the Minneapolis hip-hop association call Eyedea as absolutely exhausted in creating music. Incidentally, while arresting his acme at Scribble Jam 2000, Eyedea was defeated by labelmate Brother Ali (Ali Newman).
In that MC battle, Ali strikes an arty amount abutting to Eyedea. Ali, who is albino and accurately blind, self-produced and self-released his Rites of Passage cassette, which bent Slug’s attention. Although Slug says “the allegory surrounding him was that he was an aggressive, beggarly dude,” the two rappers clicked. Ali’s aisle with Rhymesayers exemplifies how the characterization allows its artists to advance on their own terms. The MC’s angrily political appearance has annoyed some accoutrement over the years — “Uncle Sam Goddamn” on The Undisputed Truth reportedly got him kicked off a bout aperture for Gym Class Heroes because the sponsor was Verizon. But the characterization stood by him.
A huge graffiti mural adorns the aback bank of Fifth Aspect with a simple bulletin cacographic in the upper-right corner: “Be in accord … Dream.” For Rhymesayers, dreams of how big the characterization could get accumulate growing. And those dreams are congenital on the rock-solid foundation of Atmosphere’s adamant touring.
“You consistently gotta bethink that there’s somebody in the admirers who is at their actual aboriginal concert,” Slug says. “You can’t aloof accord them a appearance that is you active through the fucking motions. Because for somebody out there, this is not aloof how they’re gonna appearance you, but this is how they’re gonna see accessory concerts.”
Dan Monick, a columnist who actual his time with the characterization in his book Seven Years with Atmosphere & Rhymesayers, remembers aboriginal bridge paths with Slug at Aboriginal Avenue. From afresh on, Monick was the go-to guy for Rhymesayers’ photography as they blazed trails through Middle America.
Monick’s photography is intertwined with Atmosphere’s discography, from the covers of God Loves Ugly to the Lucy Ford EPs. Monick remembers those aboriginal shoots were consistently unstructured, acceptance him to abduction the aggregation in their element. The columnist says he knew Atmosphere fabricated it big during the Lucy Ford tour. Branch alfresco from the complete analysis for a appearance at Aboriginal Avenue, Monick saw a bandage about the block.
“I go and aces up Sean and we drive bottomward there,” Monick says. “We were boogying to this aback aperture because he was affectionate of benumbed out.”
In 2003, Atmosphere active on for accepted administration with jailbait ample Epitaph, historically home to bands like Bad Religion and the Offspring. While Rhymesayers has consistently prioritized independence, inking the accord helped extend Atmosphere’s reach. That year, Seven’s Travels became their aboriginal almanac to able the Billboard Top 100. The group’s highest-charting release, 2008’s Aback Activity Gives You Lemons, You Paint That Bits Gold, accomplished #5 on the Billboard Top 100. This is addition accomplishment Slug downplays — he says the almanac had anemic competition.
A 2004 SPIN affection dubbed Atmosphere’s cast of accessible lyricism “emo rap,” a appellation that Slug says doesn’t absolutely bother him anymore. As far as actuality advised a “white rapper,” he says he’s afresh started to amend the role of his multiracial character — which includes black, white, and Built-in American roots — and his music.
“If you’re casual due to white privilege, afresh you’re white in a civic way,” Slug says. “Now, does that body a altered set of issues central somebody who knows they’re not white, but they apperceive that they’re casual as white? Yeah, sure. Who the fuck am I to sit actuality and act like I can allege for atramentous people? I can’t alike allege for white people. I can’t allege for nobody. And I acquainted awe-inspiring about that. So I took my ancestral architecture and aloof ashore it in the aback bend for a continued time.”
That year, Atmosphere ventured out with the punks and the rockers for their aboriginal Warped Tour, assuming for a predominantly white audience. Slug asked bounded rapper P.O.S (Stefon Alexander) to appear along.
“Slug told me, ‘Go ahead, advertise merch. But accompany out some music because bodies abatement off Warped Bout all the time, and if I try, I can apparently end up with a brace sets,’” P.O.S says. “And afresh I concluded up playing, like, every show.”
["1008.8"]Paint That Shit Gold | Communication Arts | paintthatshitgold com graffitiWith his aboriginal record, Ipecac Neat, beneath his belt, P.O.S remembers he “learned everything” about assuming on Warped Tour, area he would hustle to draw bodies into his tent. It’s a accepted cilia amid Rhymesayers artists: Touring with Atmosphere makes for a able experience, seeing immediate how the characterization accomplished cities like Boise or Madison, places amid the hip-hop epicenters of LA and New York.
“It’s adamantine for kids in Minnesota to analyze with East Coast/West Coast rapper argot and beefs,” says Chris Riemenschneider, a music analyzer at the Minneapolis Star Tribune. “The things these guys are rapping about, it hits home with these kids.”
If anybody could actualize a acknowledged hip-hop festival, it’d be Rhymesayers. As rap festivals like Bedrock the Bells and Paid Dues accept folded, Rhymesayers’ Soundset has thrived. The accident takes its name from a agnate advertise the Rhymesayers aggregation hosted aback the characterization was aboriginal founded.
“It was a big affliction in the ass with actual little payoff,” Slug says of that aboriginal rap party. “But it let bodies know: Dudes from Rhymesayers are aggravating to booty bits to the abutting level.”
Last year, the accident awash out, with an estimated 30,000 attendees. The aboriginal apotheosis took abode at the Metrodome’s parking lot in Minneapolis. The anniversary has aback confused about 25 afar southwest to Canterbury Esplanade in Shakopee. While the accident attracts above performers like Nas and Snoop Dogg, Atmosphere consistently headlines. The moment Slug is best appreciative of is aback Wiz Khalifa came through admitting actuality arrested for pot control the morning of Soundset. Khalifa commissioned a clandestine jet and went anon from the airport to the stage.
Despite its all-star bedfellow performers, the anniversary about doubles as a advertise for Rhymesayers’ accustomed and arising talent. Aback Busta Rhymes was a no-show in 2013, a Rhymesayers artist, Prof (aka Jake Anderson), affective the abandoned atom – and the spotlight.
“Prof stepped in with 45 minutes’ apprehension and played a set during one of the aiguille credibility of the afternoon,” says The Current’s Andrea Swensson. “He won apparently bags of admirers that day.”
P.O.S becoming new admirers through cutting on bout as well. He hit the alley afresh as a abandoned aerialist on Warped Bout in 2009 afterward the absolution of Never Better. On sun-baked summer canicule in parking lots and sprawling alfresco venues beyond America, P.O.S would hop off the Hurley Date and attack into the crowd. While Plain Ole Bill spun beats from the stage, P.O.S would rap amid his fans, a man of the people. Afterwards his set, he’d assignment his own merch tent, signing CDs and cutting the bits with anyone who chock-full by. He befriended the guys from Motion Burghal Soundtrack and Innerpartysystem, who gave him the exhausted for “Get Down” on his latest record, We Don’t Alike Alive Here.
Full of barbaric boom hits, acrid cyberbanking beats, and P.O.S’ best in-your-face lyrics yet, WDELH showcases his assorted influences; he alleged aloft Justin Vernon and Motion Burghal Soundtrack’s Justin Pierre for bedfellow spots. P.O.S chalks up the appearance to Minneapolis actuality a “very, actual collaborative city,” as able-bodied as the friendships he’s fabricated over the years. For a kid who was into jailbait and metal – “weirdo shit” — P.O.S’ dreams started baby and didn’t absolutely absorb hip-hop. He aloof capital to comedy Aboriginal Avenue.
Last December, P.O.S performed a week’s account of shows at Aboriginal Avenue with Doomtree, and gain went to bounded charities. For P.O.S, it agency the apple to accord aback to the association that has accurate him. In 2012, he collapsed, adversity from abiding branch disease. He bare a displace and eventually accustomed a donation from a adolescence friend. The Doomtree aggregation set a $25,000 fundraising ambition to account medical expenses. The attack aloft over $40,000.
“I can’t alike absolutely anticipate about it afterwards authoritative me appetite to cry,” P.O.S says.
Difficult times coin the arch bonds in the hip-hop scene. In October 2010, Eyedea accidentally overdosed and anesthetized away. From beyond the country, an access of affliction flowed through Minneapolis. Slug hosted a canonizing appearance at Aboriginal Avenue. At Soundset the abutting year, Eyedea’s mother led the army in anniversary her son. A aggregate acclamation of “Eyedea!” bouncing through the massive gathering, as admirers appear balloons with handwritten belletrist into the sky. In Eyedea’s built-in St. Paul, Cherokee Esplanade now has a esplanade bank committed in his honor, complete with a applique that memorializes his lyrics: “Heaven isn’t some abode that we go to aback we die/ It’s that breach additional in activity aback you absolutely feel alive.”
deM atlaS — one of Rhymesayers’ best contempo signings — absolutely aboriginal met Slug at Eyedea’s memorial. Prof, the newest signing, and deM abutting Rhymesayers aural one ages of anniversary other, yet couldn’t be added different. The above is an MC who adopted a party-rap persona and acquired a ample afterward afore abutting Rhymesayers; the closing is an advancing aptitude who active aloof a few years out of aerial school.
In the summer of 2013, deM atlaS (the capitalized belletrist in the name are a shout-out to Minneapolis) opened for Rhymesayers artisan Grieves at the Triple Rock. The rapper built-in Joshua Evans remembers authoritative accolade at a friend’s abode aback an email from Siddiq arrived. For deM, who fell in adulation with Atmosphere afterwards audition Overcast!, “my abdomen aloof went up to my heart” aback the Rhymesayers’ CEO appointed a affair at Fifth Element. Afresh Atmosphere tweeted at him.
["940.9"]Paint That Shit Gold | Communication Arts | paintthatshitgold com graffitiNot bad for a kid who in aerial academy fronted the Argonauts, a bandage that played aggregate from acerbic bedrock to Rage Against the Machine covers. deM says rapping didn’t appear calmly for him at first: “I’d get absolutely balked because I couldn’t anticipate of annihilation to say. I was aloof aggravating to exhausted words.”
deM went from self-releasing his Charle Brwn EP — which facetiously name-drops Atmosphere’s “Sunshine” on aperture clue “A Happy Sad” — to absolutely actuality on the Rhymesayers agenda in a little over nine months.
“Everybody in Minnesota knows this song … but I’m gonna aberration it about and accomplish it my own and be a acerb ass about it,” deM says about referencing the Atmosphere classic. “I was in my mom’s basement aback I recorded that song.”
For deM, the cyclone year and a bisected aback signing has included arena Aboriginal Avenue, rapping at Soundset, assuming at Camp Flog Gnaw, and headlining his own appearance at 7th St Entry. deM has aloof woken up aback we talk, and his easygoing articulation stands in abrupt adverse to his acceptability as a bang alive rapper. Studying Slug and Prof helped him apprentice aplomb and advance his active performances.
“It’s like allegorical a ship,” deM explains. “If the captain is hesitant, and he’s afraid and abrupt his eyes nervously, cartage are gonna get suspicious, and they’re apparently gonna appetite to jump the boat.”
For his aboriginal Rhymesayers release, the DWNR EP, deM capital to accomplish abiding his absolution was “100 percent genuine.” At Siddiq’s suggestion, he drew different art for a thousand copies of the record.
“We were at the appointment till like midnight,” deM says of alive backward on Halloween. “I consistently absurd the plans, accepting trashed, or aloof accomplishing some brainless bits with friends. But I backward my ass at Fifth Aspect packing those DWNR CDs ’cause we had to go on bout tomorrow.”
His accepted dream is simple: “It’s aloof to accomplish it happen. And authoritative it happens is me award a way to abutment my ancestors through music.”
He additionally compares his drive for compassionate hip-hop to grunge (Nirvana is his admired band) before “the bright glamor and misogyny” of beard metal in the backward ’80s and aboriginal ’90s. “People were fed up, so aback grunge came out, it was a animation of beginning air. I see the aforementioned affair accident with hip-hop appropriate now. I see allurement music as beard metal. Some of it’s good, but best of it’s garbage. And the bulletin is garbage. So what I’m aggravating to accept is songs that accomplish you feel good.”
Then deM says article that conceivably best encapsulates the Rhymesayers ethos: “I can scream if I appetite to. As continued as it’s genuine, I can say whatever I want, and I won’t anytime let myself down.”
Back at Aboriginal Avenue, Atmosphere closes the set with “Guarantees” as Slug raps over the mournful, minimalist beat. The abode lights abide dim, and the army acclaim audibly for an encore. Afterwards a abrupt break, the leash allotment to the stage. Slug unleashes a agitated freestyle, and it’s like the old canicule afresh aback the Rhymesayers aggregation would discharge free-form verses together. Atmosphere finishes the acclamation with “Flicker”, their Southsiders chant for Eyedea. Slug asks the admirers to accession a ablaze as he boring after-effects his arm aback and forth, and a sea of corpuscle buzz flashlights and lighters glows aback at him.
When I ask what admonition he’d accord his adolescent self, Slug absolutely responds, “I would accept told myself not to alcohol so much. I would accept told myself, ‘Keep your eyeball on what’s important, and abdicate fucking partying so much.’ You alpha to buy into the actuality that you charge some ball in your activity to admonition accumulate your claret hot … And it’s all bullshit. You’re aloof authoritative excuses for actuality a poor decision-maker.”
Through aggregate – “life, love, stress, and setbacks,” as he raps on “Yesterday” — the MC doesn’t appetite a achievement lap for Rhymesayers.
“For the label, I anticipate the bigger claiming today is to not pat itself on the fucking back,” Slug says. “I’m actual accurate not to be the guy that’s going, ‘Look what we did! We fabricated it 20 years!’ Because I feel like I’m not done.
["1008.8"]Paint That Shit Gold | Communication Arts | paintthatshitgold com graffiti“I wanna do alike bigger than what we’ve done in the past,” Slug adds. “Rather than bless my successes, I’d rather plan on the future.”
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