“My songs have always been about my conflicts and whatever shit I was pursuing,” Atmosphere (real name: Sean Daley) says. “I feel like this record is in line with that.”
Tonight, the indie rapper from Minneapolis brings his Family Vacation Tour to House of Blues with Evidence and Blueprint. They’re supporting their collaboration, The Family Sign, which Daley sees as consistent with his music, despite the other artists. He feels he is taking part in a subculture of what he calls “struggle music.” He explains, “A lot of our music has been about internal struggle. Some of these songs are celebrating some of the victories that have come along with that struggle.”
The album touches on heavy topics, such as domestic violence on the track “Last to Say” and birth on “Something So.”
“It all kind of works together in that circle of life,” Daley says. “Everything in my life always tends to have an effect on what I write because I’m lazy like that. I only write about things that are in my surroundings, even when I’m writing fiction.”
He attributes both his factual and fictional music to life experiences. “I’m a self-reflecting motherfucker,” he says. “I never stop analyzing dumb shit, and so that’s what carries over regardless.” Daley says he manages to keep an aspect of himself in his fictional songs saying, “They fit my moral compass. I ain’t never really had to do too much that would make my mother cringe.”
Another factor contributing to the mood of the new album, Daley says, is the death of his friend, the rapper Ideal. He says the death prompted changes in the final track choices. “We were just about to begin tracking, and we ended up re-tracking our demo when he passed away,” Daley says. “We had a few happy songs that got changed.” For example, the last song on the album was replaced by “My Notes,” which has a relatively somber tone. He describes this change saying, ”The last song on the record originally was a different song called ‘Okay’ that had a chorus: ‘I want to sing today because I’m going to be okay.’ I wanted something different. I wanted to change the song.”
Daley says he looks forward to performing in New Orleans and taking part in the city’s energy. He says, “I got to come down and see [New Orleans] after the storm. The way the people came out wasn’t that they came out to have a party. They came out to be part of a community together. That to me, that’s a special thing, and it’s too bad you can’t see that in every city.”
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9boD5WIUGTw[/youtube]
Atmosphere’s Family Vacation Tour is at House of Blues tonight.Tickets are on sale now. Doors open at 8 p.m.
