Expect to see a lot of the old hip-hop heads staying out late this Wednesday night and blame their Thursday crankiness on Atmosphere. The long-running rap duo from Minnesota has been at it since it debuted as a trio with 1997’s Overcast!. Third member D-Spawn departed after the effort, leaving Sean Daley and Anthony Davis (better known as emcee Slug and DJ/producer Ant, respectively) to carry the torch. The pair slugged it out over the decade, releasing four albums and a collection of EPs before Atmosphere’s 2008 effort When Life Gives You Lemons, You Paint That Shit Gold introduced the group to a much larger audience.
The album put the duo’s record label — Rhymesayers — on the map. Lemons was chock full of live instrumentation and also featured guest background vocal spots from luminaries like Tom Waits and TV on the Radio’s Tunde Adebimpe. The album introduced new fans to artists they may not have known about and was the highest-charting album of Atmosphere’s career thus far (it reached No. 5 on the Billboard 200). Now in their mid-to-late-40s, members of Atmosphere return to Ybor City in support of a brand new album, Mi Vida Local, which continues the group’s recent trend of reflecting on what it’s like to power through middle age and struggle with the complexities of daily existence.
Atmosphere w/Dem Atlas/Lioness/DJ Keezy. Wed. Nov. 28, 7 p.m. $23.50-$50. The Ritz, 1503 E. 7th Ave., Ybor City. INFO.
This article appears in Nov 22-29, 2018.