Most famous rappers don’t go on stage wearing an outfit they would go to the YMCA in, but Atmosphere doesn’t seem to care. Rocking a lazy Adidas fit, Slug rhymed out every song you would want to hear on a lazy Sunday. The duo opened with ‘God Loves Ugly’, and the sky seemed to prove it. The clouds made the air chilly, but the music definitely over rode that. Just pure smiles.
Ant dropped a couple more beats, including ‘One at a Time’. Brother Ali, an Islamic-Albino rapper from Slugs home town of Minneapolis then came out to sing ‘Cats Van Bags’, a song they appear on together off of “Sevens Travels”. The two of them played a couple songs together, until Brother Ali went to sit in the back next to Ant while Slug went on with “Trying to Find a Balance”, and “Yesterday”. The sun started to creep out from behind the clouds a little more, and by this time a crowd so large had gathered all I could see were faces over my shoulder.
Slug paused to give his usual praise of how beautiful we all are and how much he appreciates our support, and then he took another moment to do the most personal act of appreciation I have ever seen an artist do. Slug went behind Ant’s turn tables, grabbed a box that had a picture of a boom box on the side, and passed it through the crowd to a little girl in a green sweater who sat atop someone’s shoulders. That iPod Boombox with a mic which was encased in that cardboard box will change that girl’s life. The gift of music. So pure.
Atmosphere then went into ‘Sunshine’, (which there wasn’t much of), and thousands of ugly people with out of tune voices chimed in. The lyrics “feel it in my skin, warmin’ up my spine” never felt so relevant. That warmth that radiates from the heart is a feeling only music can deliver, and a feeling that Atmosphere always delivers live.
