I have to say that it has been a long time since my days of Atmosphere obsession. There was a period after he had released his profile raising album, Seven's Travels, when I spent many nights driving around my small town blasting their music and feeling incredibly disenfranchised. For a white kid with a severe bent towards hip-hop, the malleable identity and heartfelt words of MC Slug, coupled with the dark and soulful production of DJ Ant, was encouraging in its form and inspiring in its emotion.
Although it stopped having the same resonance after I had graduated and realized things weren't all so bad, I still continued to follow the career of the dynamic duo, buying You Can't Imagine How Much Fun We're Having and being severely impressed by the group's musical evolution.
Every time I go to Ram's Head Live!, the night turns into an ordeal. Sometimes it is the fault of the venue, like when they confiscated my fake ID at a Clipse concert. But more often it is a combination of poor preparation and bad luck. A friend who bailed, two more who decided to come last minute and a veritable orgy of wrong turns threatened to derail the night and ruin a highly anticipated concert. However, we managed to navigate the drunken hordes of young professionals in the Inner Harbor to catch the last few songs of Brother Ali.
A legally blind albino Muslim, Ali's music shares the same soulful production of Atmosphere (both are produced by Ant), but his MC style is vastly different. His themes tend to be both more religious and more violent, and any thoughts that he is simply a novelty act disappear once you hear his heavy and effortless flow.
Ali came in full force, sweating profusely as he burned through his song "Champion." His voice boomed through the club as he paced the stage spitting to the crowd. His stage presence is extremely impressive, and he was in top form in Baltimore.
Unfortunately Ram's Head Live! is as much a bar as a club, and the young and mostly white crowd were too busy gearing up for the alcohol- and sex-obsessed lyrics of Slug. The few hip-hop heads that attended and were familiar with Ali's impressive catalog seemed to be enjoying the show immensely, but sadly, the large albino with the fiery passion seemed too strange to win over those ignorant of his music.
Disinterest was not a problem for Atmosphere. He was greeted with heavy cheers the moment he came out, and the fans rapped along to every single song, no matter how obscure, but a soulful rendition of "God Loves Ugly" was the unquestioned hit.
The drunk crowd reveled in his angry words, at one point so loudly that he stopped mid-song to ask, "Why are you doing my job for me? I don't come to Merrill Lynch and start messing with your computers."
Backed by a band, the set by Atmosphere was very different from what I was expecting. Although a lead guitar was traded in for two keyboardists and half of the drummers kit consisted of electronic pads, it more a rock concert than a hip-hop show. There were guitars solos, long lead ins, reggae versions of a few songs and Atmosphere left his microphone in the stand for the majority of the show, a blasphemous move in the hip hop world. While the idea of a backing band is always greeted with excitement, this idea failed to pan out. Many of the songs seemed garbled or abstracted by the band, and because the production of the songs relies so heavy on old soul vocal samples, Slug was forced to sing easily as much as he rapped (and Slug, while charming, is not a singer).
The saddest part of the show was DJ Ant. He rarely, if ever, accompanies Slug on tour, and I was shocked and excited when he walked on stage. This excitement quickly turned to horror as I saw that the band set up forced him to sit in the corner and chain smoke while they mimicked his excellent production, tuning in for the occasional scratch on the single turntable when the song called for it. It was sad to see such an immense talent wasted, and I spent much of the show waiting for a tabling session from him that never materialized.
Slug was by far the star of the concert. He has toured enough to know how to play a solid show and he understands his appeal to the legion of white fans. Even his countrified rendition of "Spaghetti Straps" (complete with cowboy hat) sent the crowd into a frenzy and the set's emphasis on the new album got everyone moving. At the end, he still delivered the self effacement that makes his lyrics believable, proclaiming to the crowd, "I was scared shitless at playing a venue this big, but you guys are the best bosses I have had in a long time." Although I was sad to see the growth away from straight forward hip hop by the group, it was an entertaining show that helped narrow in exactly what is so endearing about Atmosphere. It seems that you have to love them, because like you, they really really needs it.
