Exciting performers come to Baltimore

Need a break from studying for midterms? Time to get off campus? Check out some of these November concerts before leaving campus for winter break.

Atmosphere, a musical duo by rapper Slug and producer Ant started in 1989, will be performing at Rams Head, Live! this Saturday. Atmosphere recently released its album, Southsiders, this past May, and the group will be touring in the United States until early January. Atmosphere has had several hits, including track “Don’t Forget” off the album Sad Clown Bad Summer Number 9. “Don’t Forget,” like several other songs off the album are nostalgic with lyrics like: “In the tenth grade, we was tight friends/ But neither of us had a driver’s license/ His mom was a flight attendant/ And she’d leave town with a Cadillac unattended/ So we used to get tempted.” The duo remembers their high school days, but their songs have a power to them which reaches past their youth. Slug himself noted this in an interview with Okayplayer.

“I am aging,” Slug said. “I’m embracing it, and I’m rapping about it. And there’s not many that get to age and rap about it. A lot of my contemporaries have a tendency to try and keep up with whatever the young kids are into, and that’s cool, but my challenge is to get 19-year-olds to care about what a 41-year-old actually has to rap about.”

The duo also has several poignant tracks, including “Yesterday,” which reflects on some of the regrets a son has about his past relationship with his now deceased father. Slug raps, “Sitting here wishing we could kick it / Give me your opinions I do miss the criticisms / I didn’t mean to be distant.” The sensitivity of the song is genuine and sober as Slug’s rapping is paired only with a light beat and simple piano playing.

Los Angeles music producer Dillon Francis will be performing with TJR and Hoodboi at Rams Head, Live! on Nov. 22. Francis, who rose to fame only a few years ago, has toured with several well-known DJs including Nero and collaborated on a song with Diplo entitled “Que Que.” Francis’ first full album, Money Sucks, Friends Rule, was released this past October and fuzes electronic beats with synth pop. The songs are easy to both dance and sing along to. In the track “Get Low” off this latest album, the vocals sing, “Get, get, get low when the whistle blow” over and over, making it easy for listeners to mouth along and even easier for them to figure out what to do with their bodies. Fans of Wolfgang Garter and Porter Robinson may enjoy listening to Dillon Francis.

Jack Antonoff, vocalist and guitarist for bands Fun and Steel Train, recently created his own musical project, Bleachers. Antonoff’s first full album as Bleachers, Strange Desire, was released this past June and was worked on entirely in secret. The songs in this album are emotional while at the same time catchy and rambunctious. Bleachers’ hit song “I Wanna Get Better” hints that Antonoff has hurdles he would like to overcome and explore through the album.

“The main theme of this album is finding a way to wake up in the morning and not be continually weighed down by the universe,” Antonoff told LA Music Blog of his intentions for the project. “The contrast of a mix of honest, dark and occasionally hopeful lyrics with the larger-than-life music is a very important element to me, and it results in a certain kind of confusion that defines the album.”

Bleachers will be performing at Baltimore Soundstage on Nov. 22 with band Wild Cub.

English rock band, Suede, will be performing at Rams Head On Stage in Annapolis, Md. on Nov. 22. The band, originally from London, was formed in 1989 and has released six complete albums. The group disbanded in 2003, but in 2010 they reformed. Their latest album, Bloodsports, was released in 2013 and has a turbulent sound to it with strong and determined instrumentation that maintains a vague sense of underlying discontent.

Lead singer Brett Anderson’s voice is sensitive and vulnerable. At times he sounds as though he is groaning, yearning for more from life. In track “Snowblind,” Anderson cries out, “The air is still we are struck like matches / Too beautiful to really care what’s right / The rumours burn like roman candles / In the broken lights.” In the track “Hit Me,” a similar tone is assumed with lyrics, “And the moment we touch we are young / You feel my pulse and we become one / But drop me once / And I will fall to bits.”

Naeem Juwan, whose stage name is Spank Rock, currently resides in Philadelphia but will be returning to his hometown to perform at the Metro Gallery on the 26th of this month. Spank Rock has released two albums: Yoyoyoyoyo (2006) and Everything Is Boring and Everyone Is a F*cking Liar (2011).

He has also collaborated with singer Santigold on the track “Car Song.” Some of Spank Rock’s lyrics can be biting, but the eclectic, hypnotic beats he pairs them with relieves them from being overly crude. When asked about some of the content of his lyrics in an interview with RapReviews, Juwan responded to the criticism.

“I think some people will be like, ‘Oh my God he said that,’ but I think the good people will party,” Juwan said.

For fans of a more classic sound as opposed to the aforementioned hip-hop and rap, Aretha Franklin will be gracing Lyric Opera House this Thursday, Nov. 12 at 7:30 p.m.

Franklin is most famous for her legendary hit, “Respect,” which debuted in 1967 and has continued to withstand the test of time. Other famous works include “I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You” and “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman.”

Aptly dubbed the “Queen of Soul,” Franklin creates music that is slow, passionate and atmospheric. Her voice remains on today’s soul stations and tops classic soul stations.

Adding to her impressive repertoire, Franklin was the first woman to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. She was also inducted into the UK Music Hall of Fame; however, her honor followed Madonna’s.

Her famous voice is widely heralded as tranformative. Franklin has recieved honorary degrees from top universities including Harvard, Stanford, Princeton and Berklee College of Music.

If you don’t know her music (though it’s hard to imagine such is the case), go out on a whim and check her out Thursday!