Atmosphere dons a new identity for latest release

Sean Daley’s made a career turning hip-hop’s macho myth on its head with self-deprecating stories that find him passed out on girls’ bathroom floors, trumpeting his ugliness and relational dysfunction. The introspective style made him king of the latest made-up genre, emo-rap, though the crown didn’t wear well.

“I became a caricature of myself. Emo-rap backpacker, international playboy fuckhead with acne,” says Daley, aka Atmosphere MC Slug. “It’s easy to get lost in that. You know these are stories; your friends know that these are just stories. But that drunk 24-year-old girl doesn’t know these are just stories, and she’s actually offended by the fact you’re not trying to fuck her.”

By 2005’s You Can’t Imagine How Much Fun We’re Having, it wasn’t much. Daley had cocooned himself in alcohol, and wasn’t happy where he found himself when he came to.

So Atmosphere renovated for its latest, When Life Gives You Lemons, You Paint That Shit Gold. Daley honed his technique on four EPs and a free album, Strictly Leakage, building muscle for the album’s third-person narrative chronicling the trials of beaten and struggling parents. “I used it as an opportunity to be a bit more obvious that, ‘this isn’t about me either.’”

Meanwhile, DJ Ant, worked with the live band that’s also backed Daley for the past few years, sampling its music and chopping it up for the record. Instead of scratchy, sputtering beats, the sound assumes a richer, more organic “cold soul” tone that owes a debt to Minneapolis forebearers Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis.

Daley insists he doesn’t mind the suggestion that he’s the “Dave Matthews of hip-hop” or that his hip-hop’s gone adult contemporary. “That’s fine,” he says, mirthfully. “I want to be an adult and contemporary.”