Boston's Alternative Source!
     
Feedback

Gimme indie rap
Rhyme Sayers and Atmosphere

BY HUA HSU

Printed on the back of the T-shirts sold at last year’s Rhyme Sayers tour are two words: “Midwest Music.” Given hip-hop’s urban bias, it’s odd to find the Minnesota-based Rhyme Sayers collective trumpeting their flatland roots with such pride. After all, nothing’s going to change the fact that hip-hop was born in the streets of NYC and bred in gritty, post-industrial sprawls like LA, Miami, and Houston. Midwesterners may have bought the music, but they sure didn’t live it.

Over past decade, though, hip-hop has found its way into suburbs and chat rooms worldwide. And Rhyme Sayers has helped lead the way for this predominantly white, underground community characterized by DIY distribution, off-kilter production, regional micro-scenes, and unorthodox lyricism. Made up of ANT, Eyedea, Atmosphere (the duo of ANT and Slug), DJ Abilities, Musab, Brother Ali, and Los Nativos, Rhyme Sayers has mapped out a blueprint for how to succeed in isolated communities.

At the center of the collective is Slug, a 28-year-old Minneapolis native who spent his teens worshipping NYC hip-hop legends like Big Daddy Kane and KRS-One. He grew up before mail-order distribution and the Internet made underground music available in remote areas. And after he and some fellow locals consolidated forces as the Headshots collective, in the early ’90s, he began building what would become Rhyme Sayers Entertainment. “We just decided that we were gonna be fuckin’ assholes to the rest of the rappers in the city,” he recalls over the phone from Minneapolis. “Once we pretty much made everybody bow down, it was like, ‘What are we gonna do next? We gotta start making some music and puttin’ it out, we can’t just keep on freestyling everywhere.’ ”

Without access to a pre-existing hip-hop infrastructure, Slug tried alternate routes. “I started networking with a lot of punk and indie-rock bands. I was probably doing 200 shows a year.” Alterna-rock audiences responded well to Rhyme Sayers’ two-turntables-and-a-microphone sets. In ’97, gigs opening for bands like Babes in Toyland and Lifter Puller paid off when Atmosphere’s self-released Overcast (Rhyme Sayers) became a local hit. Word began to spread via tape traders, indie zines, and the Internet.

With Overcast, Slug and ANT had come up with an alternative twist to hip-hop’s fierce keep-it-realism. ANT’s production sidesteps the hard funk-soul orthodoxy of NYC with a sound that’s sparse and bluesy. Relying on melancholy piano loops and skinny guitar lines, his samples complement the edgy desolation and heartbreak of some of Slug’s best rhymes. And tracks like “Nothing But Sunshine” and “The Woman with the Tattooed Hands” have little to do with the braggadocio that dominates mainstream rap. In “Nothing But Sunshine,” Slug explores the turbulent emotions of a frustrated young farm boy who has lost both of his parents and whose only moments of serenity come with late-night trips to murder cattle. The song is alternately horrifying and funny. It’s also fictional. “It’s a completely false story. But there’s so much that I feel I put inside there that’s not false. I don’t really know how to make a song that I don’t connect with. I don’t know how to make a song that I don’t actually mean.”

The latest Atmosphere CD, Lucy Ford, which collects the vinyl-only 2001 EP Lucy and 2000 EP Ford, illustrates the moody, yin-yang æsthetic Slug is known for. The Lucy tracks reveal a vulnerable Slug cursing out his ex-girlfriend. The ones from Ford are filled with romantic images of zipping down highways in a fly American automobile.

Although Atmosphere and Rhyme Sayers are still gaining a national foothold, they’ve become almost ubiquitous in their home town. Besides opening a record store (the Fifth Element) and hosting a weekly a hip-hop show on local independent radio station KFAI, Atmosphere can claim to be the only act who’ve brought serious hip-hop credibility to the Land of 10,000 Lakes. And lately Slug’s been experiencing some growing pains. “Minneapolis is one of those big-small towns where everybody knows your business. I think people in Minneapolis that hear the Lucy EP are gonna be like, ‘I know what this dude’s talking about,’ because you can’t even make a move without 15 people knowing exactly what you’re doing.’”

Issue Date: June 14 - 21, 2001