{"id":40482,"date":"2015-03-17T00:48:12","date_gmt":"2015-03-17T00:48:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/wordpress\/?p=40482"},"modified":"2017-06-27T14:59:02","modified_gmt":"2017-06-27T14:59:02","slug":"once-upon-a-time-in-minneapolis-20-years-of-rhymesayers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=40482","title":{"rendered":"Once Upon a Time in Minneapolis: 20 Years of Rhymesayers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Once Upon a Time in Minneapolis: 20 Years of Rhymesayers<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Consequence of Sound<\/a>
\n2015-03-12<\/p>\n

Killian Young<\/strong><\/a>, Contributing Writer<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Two decades later, the Midwestern independent hip-hop<\/a> label is still going strong.<\/em><\/p>\n

On an unseasonably warm January night in Minneapolis<\/a>, as a wintry mix falls innocuously to the ground, Atmosphere<\/a> heats up First Avenue with a blistering, career-spanning set. Now comprising producer Ant, MC Slug<\/a>, and DJ Plain Ole Bill, the iconic Twin Cities hip-hop crew commands the attention of the room, as they\u2019ve done countless nights before.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs far as the history of First Avenue,\u201d says Nate Kranz, the downtown venue\u2019s general manager, \u201cthey\u2019re right at the top of the legendary Minneapolis groups.\u201d<\/p>\n

Founded in Minneapolis in 1995, Atmosphere\u2019s independent hip-hop label, Rhymesayers Entertainment<\/a>, celebrates its 20th anniversary this year. Tonight, Atmosphere headlines the House That Prince Built to honor another major milestone for Minneapolis music: The Current, the area\u2019s alternative radio station, is celebrating its 10th anniversary.<\/p>\n

The first track the station played? Atmosphere\u2019s \u201cSay Shh\u201d, which \u201chas really become an anthem locally,\u201d according to Jim McGuinn, The Current\u2019s program director who booked the show.<\/p>\n

Atmosphere kicks off the set with \u201cSay Shh\u201d, and the crowd goes wild as Slug meanders through the opening bars: \u201cI wanted to make a song about where I\u2019m from, you know?\/ Big up my hometown, my territory, my state.\u201d.<\/p>\n

Minneapolis probably isn\u2019t the first city that comes to mind when you think about rap. Slug remembers hearing Sugarhill Gang<\/a>\u2019s \u201cRapper\u2019s Delight\u201d in his dad\u2019s car, and the first record he bought was Run-D.M.C.\u2019s<\/a> \u201c30 Days\u201d. The go-to local radio program for Slug and his friends was the \u201cHip-Hop Shop\u201d hosted by Travitron, aka Travis Lee. The next year, I.R.M. Crew released the city\u2019s first single that was available nationwide, according to Justin Schell in Hip Hop in America: A Regional Guide<\/em>….<\/p>\n

…A 2004 SPIN<\/em> feature<\/a> dubbed Atmosphere\u2019s brand of vulnerable lyricism \u201cemo<\/a> rap,\u201d a term that Slug says doesn\u2019t really bother him anymore. As far as being considered a \u201cwhite rapper,\u201d he says he\u2019s recently started to reconsider the role of his multiracial identity \u2014 which includes black, white, and Native American roots \u2014 and his music.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019re passing<\/a> due to white privilege, then you\u2019re white in a societal way,\u201d Slug says. \u201cNow, does that build a different set of issues inside somebody who knows they\u2019re not white, but they know that they\u2019re passing as white? Yeah, sure. Who the fuck am I to sit here and act like I can speak for black people? I can\u2019t even speak for white people. I can\u2019t speak for nobody. And I felt weird about that. So I took my racial makeup and just stuck it in the back corner for a long time.\u201d…<\/p>\n

Read the entire article here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Two decades later, the Midwestern independent hip-hop label is still going strong.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,24,8,20],"tags":[19636,19637,19640,19642,5703,1392,19641,19658,19638,19639],"class_list":["post-40482","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-arts","category-media-archive","category-usa","tag-consequence-of-sound","tag-killian-young","tag-mc-slug","tag-minneapolis","tag-minnesota","tag-music","tag-rhymesayers-entertainment","tag-sean-daley","tag-sean-michael-daley","tag-slug"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40482","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=40482"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40482\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":54311,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40482\/revisions\/54311"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=40482"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=40482"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=40482"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}