When people discuss musicians from Minnesota, the first name commonly mentioned is the late, great Prince Rogers Nelson, and rightfully so. In the early eighties, he would be a key player in creating the Minneapolis music sound that would bring him mainstream success and almost make him the biggest music superstar of the eighties (love you, Prince, but MJ’s got you on that one. Sorry). Minnesota has produced other successful music artists. Bob Dylan. Soul Asylum. And ripe from the Prince tree came The Time and super producers Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis (side note: Jam and Lewis were part of Prince’s band until he fired them in 1983 for working on other artists’ records, specifically, the S.O.S. Band, while on tour with him). And on the hip-hop side, a group named Atmosphere began to make a name for themselves in the late nineties.

Sean Daley (aka Slug) and Derek Turner (aka D-Spawn, which later morphed into Spawn) met in high school (my alma mater, Washburn (go Millers!)) where they formed a group, first calling themselves Urban Atmosphere, and later dropping the Urban and going with just Atmosphere. They’d later add Anthony Davis, aka Ant (not to be confused with the injury-prone, unibrow basketball player), to the team as the group’s in-house producer. Atmosphere, along with Musab Saab (aka Beyond) and Brent Sayers (aka Saddiq), would get on the independent bus years before it would become commonplace, forming Rhymesayers Entertainment in 1995. Beyond’s debut album, Comparison, would be the label’s inaugural release in 1996, followed by Atmosphere’s debut and the reason we’re here today, Overcast!, in 1997.

The cover art pays homage to the artwork on jazz pianist Andrew Hill’s 1964 Blue Note release, Judgement! Before Overcast! became a full-length album, it lived as an eight-track EP (two of the records from the EP wouldn’t make it to the full-length). Ant produced the entire album (which would become customary for Atmosphere projects), and it would be the only release Spawn would appear on before leaving the group.

I was on my secular sabbatty when Overcast! came out, but I’m a Minneapolis boy (southside!), so I was fully aware of Atmosphere’s existence. My official introduction to their music wouldn’t come until 2005 when they released You Can’t Imagine How Much Fun We’re Having. I enjoyed the album, and its 2008 follow-up, When Life Gives You Lemons, You Paint That Shit Gold, so much I slowly began to collect their back catalog, and here we are today. And with that said, let’s jump into Atmosphere’s origin album.

1597 – Slug invites the listener to “step within his psychoanalysis” for the song’s first two verses as he waxes poetic, spewing complex battle rhymes. Spawn gets the last verse and sounds like he’s reading his boastful bars straight from the sheet, which might be why they decided to fade out his verse prematurely and end the song (it might also be why he would leave the group after Overcast!). The theatrical feel of the classical string loop complements Slug’s almost Shakespearean rhyming style. I have no idea what the significance of 1597 is. If you know, hit me in the comments.

Brief Description – Slug goes dolo and intricately explains how he started in the game, expresses his love for hip-hop, and discusses his desire to be great and respected as an emcee. Nothing about his three-and-a-half-minute diatribe felt brief, but he does leave you with a lot to chew on and a severely overly worded hook. The track ends with a clip of a man making one of the most profound statements I’ve ever heard on a hip-hop record. If anyone knows where the soundbite came from, hit me in the comments.

Current Status – Beyond (who some of you may know as Musab or Sab The Artist, both monikers he would take on later) joins Slug for this rap duet. Beyond kicks things off with a decent sparring verse. Then after a half-baked chorus performed by both rappers, Slug goes second, pitting “those, flavorless with shitty flows” with a matter-of-fact arrogance. Ant’s backdrop sounds as frigid as Minnesota winters.

Complications – After getting silenced by way of fade out on the opening track, Spawn returns with his first solo joint of the evening, sounding every bit like a stone-cold simp. The object of his simpage, Scribblehead Taliyah, told him she had a man when they met, but he felt he could win her over. He doesn’t. And after years of being used, abused, and manipulated, he realizes that she’s not the one. Three years of being led on and played with, and he didn’t even get to smell the pussy. Certified Simp. Slug does interject for a moment, attempting to get Taliyah out of his partner’s head, and helps Spawn with the hollow hook. Speaking of hollow, Ant’s instrumental is the audio equivalent of a tin can. The best part of the record is the last twenty seconds when the beat switches to an emotional soul loop.

4:30AM – Slug continues to eloquently diss wack rappers while Spawn takes care of hook duties (the whole “It’s 4:30 am, do you know where your head’s at?” was way over my head). Ant’s bluesy backdrop sounds like something Bill Withers would rap over if he were an emcee. Rest in peace to the legend.

Adjust – Other than the second verse, where he appears to be talking to a friend with a coke addiction, I couldn’t follow Slug’s cryptic soliloquy. And Spawn’s stuck with hook duties again. The flute-driven instrumental sounds like a spooky derivative of the James Bond theme music.

Clay – Slug plays the role of some sort of rapping alien sent to Earth to save hip-hop. He leaves you with more meaty bars to dissect, and that string loop (is that a harp?) is hard as hell.

@ – Slug and Spawn take a break and give Ant the spotlight. He uses it to place soundbites and mediocre scratches over an instrumental that sounds like paint drying.

Sound Is Vibration – Plush and bougie harps lay in the background, making Slug and Spawn’s back and forth more enjoyable.

Multiples – This record is all over the place, which makes sense, considering the song title. It goes from Spawn listing some of the things he’s never done to Slug shouting out various groups of people to Spawn throwing out words for Slug to rap the definitions. All of the randomness is supported by a slapstick-esque backdrop, which works well with the content.

Scapegoat – The song title is the answer to Slug’s riddled rhymes. It’s a clever way to tell people to take accountability for themselves instead of constantly passing the buck and pointing fingers.

Ode To The Modern Man (Lightning Blend) – Slug kicks things off with an introspective verse, followed by battle bars from Spawn that find him chewing on emcees’ asses (his words, not mine). Spawn’s ass-chewing must have inspired Slug as he gets back to dissing emcees on the song’s second verse. Ant provides some Al Green soul to assist his group members in getting their points across.

WND – Sean takes on his rap alter ego, Slug. It’s a unique idea, but Ant’s backdrop is beyond mid, making it easy to mentally check out.

Multiples (Reprise) – Slug spews more enigmatic bars over drab drums and the sound of whistling wind.

Caved In – Spawn relives the trauma, pain, and sorrow of losing his dad at the tender age of eleven. As expected, this shit was sad, and Ant’s mournful music damn near made it depressing. My son turns eleven in a few months, so this song did a number on my anxiety level. It morphs into a chilled, slightly bluesy loop at the end, ironically lightening the mood.

Cuando Limpia El Humo – The title, which is Spanish, translates to “when the smoke clears” in English, which is also the song’s hook; well, at least one of the song’s hooks. Besides an occasional chime-in from Spawn, Slug uses Ant’s dry drums and contemplative melody to cerebrally dismantle more emcees.

The Outernet – Over some mysterious outer space type shit, Slug calls for unity in hip-hop, so all involved can benefit from it: “Let’s network, let’s work, let’s all get work, so we can build the overall net worth.” I love the message, but the hook is too wordy, and I wasn’t crazy about the soulless instrumental.

Hidden Track – This record sports a bland instrumental with a tin melody that Spawn and Slug use to each get off a verse, firing one last round of verbal darts at any would-be adversaries or opponents (Slug kindly ends his verse and the song by thanking the listener for the purchase). If you’re patient enough to hang around for another minute, at the four minute mark, a second hidden track surfaces and finds Slug in a completely different mindset than the sage emcee/poet we’ve heard from for much of the album. On this record, he’s drenched in toxicity, hurling insults, threats, and belittling his wife: “This is the middle of hell/you got no job, no diploma/might as well kick it with me and live in Hinckley, Minnesota/ she’s my trailer park chick/with the Pop Tarts and venison/hard liquor to cop a buzz off the over the counter medicine/the rent is in the mail, bitch, pump the cake/fix the antenna, act your age and spread your legs/ this is my castle, white trash hoe, and if I want to I’ll put it in your asshole/you wanna battle, baby? I’ll put a shadow over your sky/now shut the fuck up and fix me turkey pot pie.” The toxins only get worst during the hook (“I own the Camaro and the mobile home, so where the fuck you gonna go?”) and the second verse. Slug’s content is extremely dark and disturbing, but the way he paints the perspective of an insecure, male chauvinist, low-life redneck borders on genius. Ant’s anxious and dusty music bed only makes Slug’s words more vivid.

The term, overcast, primarily describes something that is clouded or darkened, as if covered with clouds or gloom. It’s also synonymous with fog. Overshadow. Dim. Blurry. Hazy. Louring. It can also be used to describe dull, a fitting adjective to describe a large portion of Ant’s production on Atmosphere’s debut album.

Ant’s production isn’t dull as in being wack, but the dreary, drab, and colorless musical theme that dominates the album throughout eighteen tracks easily allows for boredom to set in. On a handful of records, the overcast is lifted, and the penetrating light results in a few solid instrumentals and a few dope beats (see “1597,” “Clay,” “Sound Is Vibration,” and “Ode To The Modern Man”). Ultimately, the clouds win the battle, causing Overcast! to sonically live up to its name.

Slug is easily the more skilled and polished emcee of the two. Much like A Tribe Called Quest during their earlier projects, Spawn plays Phife, only rapping on a third of the album’s tracks, to Slug’s Q-Tip, carrying most of the lyrical load as the group’s chief emcee. Spawn proves to be a competent lyricist, but his delivery sounds stiff, and his lack of personality on the mic allows his voice to get lost in Ant’s musical clouds. Meanwhile, Slug sounds confident, spewing cryptic bars and riddled rhymes, balancing introspective and conscious verses with cerebral verbal darts aimed at his contemporaries for sport. Slug’s an intellectual emcee with a lot to say, but at times, his effectiveness is stifled by his coded content that he even acknowledges on “Clay,” most people won’t take the required time and brain power to “unravel his babble.” Substance is clearly more important than style to Slug as he often overloads his bars with words, abandoning a fluid flow, which makes his delivery feel more suited for a spoken word poet than an emcee.

As I mentioned in the opening, my introduction to Atmosphere came a few albums into their run. Overcast! is a far cry from where I met them. In the in-between time, they would shed some unrequired weight (Spawn), Ant’s production would become more consistent and enjoyable, and Slug would learn to turn his intelligent thoughts into witty bars and more relatable content. You have to crawl before you walk.

-Deedub
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