Hip-Hop Duo Atmosphere Announces New Album, Summer Greens Festival Gig

Sean Daley, aka Slug of Minneapolis hip-hop duo Atmosphere, remembers where he was when George Floyd died.

"My studio is located two blocks from my house, and I was there that day, crying because it was my father's date of death; my dad died back in 2006. And I don't tend to cry on that day, but I came across a box, and I opened it, and it was photos, so I started looking through it and taking pictures of a couple of photos to text to my siblings. And I had a real ugly cry; I just was bellowing," Daley recalls. "But it's okay, because I was all alone in this building. And afterward, I went to go pick up my kids and take them to the cemetery so we can just go visit my dad's gravesite, just so I can also make sure they stay somewhat connected to this grandfather that they've never met.

"In order to get there, we drive down a street called Chicago Avenue and take a left on 38, and then take 38 all the way to the cemetery. The cemetery is there in south Minneapolis, on 38. And you know, when you see a police car, you don't think nothing of it because they're everywhere. Well, we saw the police car, and we literally drove past the incident," he says. "Later on that day, after we had gotten home from the cemetery, is when the news hit. ... Things were already fucking weird, and this is not a thing that doesn't happen — cops kill people in Minneapolis, like, yearly — but this was different."

Not long after, Minneapolis and the rest of the world were flooded with protests. The pandemic had already created a pressure cooker for emotions, Daley says, and Floyd's death was the breaking point. Daley had frequented the store that Floyd was killed outside of; he had been there "hundreds" of times, he remembers, and his mom would get him ice cream or a burger, and soda from the fountain. He even had his first job at the shop next door.

"Here in Minneapolis, we went through a major traumatic experience with the George Floyd murder and the uprising that occurred here. And then that was also during COVID. And then on top of that, the art scene went through this purging of their own traumas," Daley says.

And Daley, in turn, began to process some of his own trauma. But the social justice movement that erupted following Floyd's death also pushed him in a new direction, and he began writing lyrics with more intentional deliberation than he ever had before. "I was just trying to document my thoughts, my lens, my reality, but while trying to be cognizant of the other realities involved," he explains. "It's not like how it used to be, when I would just write these weird little songs about what I think, what I feel, because now I have seen how...people take your songs and they apply it to their lives.

"All this shit — COVID, George Floyd, what was happening in the arts community — really pulled out things from me that I had tucked away," he continues. "Things from my own childhood, things that I just was not engaging with or confronting within myself — processing traumas."

That balanced, intentional emotion is prevalent throughout Atmosphere's first album release since 2021, which the duo just announced today, February 22. The album, So Many Other Realities Exist Simultaneously, will be out on all streaming platforms on May 5 via Rhymesayers Entertainment. Daley and producer Ant, aka Anthony Davis, will play Fiddler's Green Amphitheatre as Atmosphere during the Summer Greens Festival on June 16.

The first single from the new album was also released on February 22; it displays Atmosphere's usual penchant for finding the bright side of life — not the sort of deluded positivity that belies reality, but the kind that affirms it. "I wish that could bring back George Floyd, or I wish that could erase tons of trauma that has occurred for people I fucking know in this city," Daley says. "I wish [the album would] make things better somehow, and it can't. But for me, it did. So I have to take that, and now my silver lining there is, 'Okay, if I can get a little healthier, a little bit lighter, then I can maybe also help somebody else.' That's my hope."

Although Davis and Daley began working on the album in the midst of the pandemic, Daley was able to be positive. One day, Davis gave him a beat to work with, and he wrote "this fucking overtly optimistic song."

Daley remembers Davis's reaction: "'What the fuck? Why would you write an optimistic song right now? This should be the darkest shit ever.'

"And I was like, 'Actually, no, because this makes more sense to me.'"

The duo worked each song on the album in order: Davis would send him a beat, then Daley would write the lyrics, and so forth until the album was fully composed. While Atmosphere is known for its conceptual albums, this wasn't a method the two had used before.

"What it did is it allowed me to actually keep a thread going through the album, from that very first fucking optimistic song, to carry a thread through the whole album," Daley explains. "So there's this ongoing theme. We've never necessarily created something that had this thread going through it, so that it read like a book or a story. And that's not to say that this album is one long story, but there are commonalities that occurred."

He's also now bringing more intentionality to his live shows, Daley adds. Although he's always been known for calling out people in the audience who might be acting inappropriately, Daley says he's now more conscious about how that, in turn, may affect the victim of the inappropriate behavior. Everything is a balancing act at the moment, but Daley is traversing it like a trapeze artist. "I have to be more intentional. I can't just naturally fly by the seat of my pants anymore," he notes.

You'll see Atmosphere's new era on display at Fiddler's Green, with Dirty Heads and Stick Figure. Daley loves Denver — he notes that Westword provided him with some of the first press he got outside of Minneapolis — and is excited to return. In fact, he would buy a house here if he "had, like, two more hit songs," he says.

In the meantime, you won't want to miss out on Atmosphere's latest.

"I've never worked with so much intentionality, and that might be the biggest silver lining to come out of all of that shit," Daley says. "I need to move with more intentionality, not just in my music, but in considering everything that the city went through. I need to be as intentional as possible, to show that to my kids and my wife. I need to show that to my audience. ... I've been doing this for 25 years-plus, and so I don't know who to blame or who to thank for allowing me to do that for this long. But now I'm going to be as intentional as possible for the remaining time that I get."

At 5 p.m. Friday, June 16, Atmosphere will be at Fiddler's Green, 6350 Greenwood Plaza, Greenwood Village; tickets are $49-$150. So Many Other Realities Exist Simultaneously will be released May 5.