Atmosphere

Around the turn of the century, Atmosphere introduced a new form of hip-hop deemed “emo-rap” for its aggressively earnest lyrics, but the group avoided falling victim to the somewhat condescending label, pushing their sound and storytelling in new directions with each album. Rapper Slug embraced the full-band setup of Atmosphere's recent tours on the group's 2008 album <i>When Life Gives You Lemons, You Paint That Shit Gold</i>, a series of hardscrabble narratives about down-and-out folks that bounced with old-school hip-hop beats, and ran with a similar sound on last year's piano-heavy <i>The Family Sign</i>.