Slug Talks Complex's 25 Best Rhymesayers Songs

Read the Atmosphere frontman's stories behind the best that this Minnesota indie powerhouse has to offer.

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Complex Original

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A decade ago, Rhymesayers Entertainment was known as a pivotal part of a thriving underground indie-rap movement. In 2011, Rhymesayers has become a viable movement in-and-of itself. They’ve amassed a fanbase loyal enough to help flagship act Atmosphere’s latest release, The Family Sign, tally impressive first week sales of 28,000 copies. It's now been 15 years since the label put out its first release, so Complex has compiled our list of what we feel is Rhymesayers' best songs. We were fortunate enough to be joined by Slug of Atmosphere, who shared his memories and thoughts on our selections. So come celebrate an indie rap dynasty as we count down The Best 25 Rhymesayers Songs.

As told to Chaz Kangas (@chazraps)

#25. Atmosphere “To All My Friends” (2010)

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Produced by: Ant

Album: To All My Friends, Blood Makes the Blade Holy: The Atmosphere EPs

Slug: “I like the guitar in this. It’s melancholy and feels poppy without being pop. The music itself sounded personal, which isn’t an easy task in any genre. We were going to put one EP out with the photography book [Seven Years With Atmosphere & Rhymesayers], and then one EP out with the tour, but then the book got delayed so I went back to the drawing board. It felt non-cohesive to just put the two EPs together so I fashioned it as a double EP based around friends with ex-friends at the center.”

#24. Blueprint “My Culture” (2011)

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Produced by: Blueprint

Album: Adventures in Counterculture

Slug: “First time I heard this song, I got pretty excited. I really liked the dynamics of the song and how Print switched them up. I’m an old head, a sucker for a message, and I like it. In 2004 I once played a set with Blueprint and Mr. Dibbs in Sweden. I had eaten pasta right before going on stage and threw up mid-set behind Dibbs in the DJ booth. I tried to do the right thing and tell the stage manager there was puke on the stage, but somewhere between the language barrier and the puke barrier, communications broke down and he turned our set off after only 20 minutes. Audio of that show has since surfaced on the Internet, and you can hear Blueprint giving the play-by-play as kids in the crowd pelt the stage manager with rocks.”

#23. Vitamin D “No Good” (2003)

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Produced by: Vitamin D

Album: No Good 12”

Slug: “The few times Vitamin D and I have been around each other, dude’s always been classy. This song captures that. There’s a classic vibe to it, especially in the cuts on the verses. I’m happy he gave us this single. He was working with I-Self at the time—as was Jake One—and that really was when the Minneapolis-Seattle connections started to happen. We’ve always been connected, but this was when it became a formal connection.”

#22. Grayskul “Prom Quiz” (2005)

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Produced by: Mr. Hill

Album: Deadlivers

Slug: “I met these guys years ago, they’re a part of Oldominion. They’ve been around a long time and still come fresh every time they drop shit. Most of my heroes can’t do that. Like this song here is about these different girls with their problems and image issues. I like how they push themselves to attack complex concepts in a way where slow listeners, like myself, can still follow.”

#21. Freeway & Jake One f/ Raekwon “One Thing” (2010)

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Produced by: Jake One

Album: The Stimulus Package

Slug: “Being from South Minneapolis, getting the chance to work with Jake and Free was big because, to me, they’re stars. It's one thing to get respect from colleagues, but It feels great when a star acknowledges what you’re doing. It was during the making of the Jake One album, White Van Music, when we found out Freeway was accessible. When Freeway did the song with Ali, it was a big deal to me and that just reinforced how Freeway was accessible and into what we had going on. It's easy for me to forget who I am in terms of working with people who are a big deal to me. I mean, of course you have Rae, who's part of Wu-Tang, and Freeway, who's a guy that worked with Jay-Z! Having him and Raekwon on this track for us made us feel nice, validated, and acknowledged."

#20. Semi.Official “Grey” (2003)

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Produced by: DJ Abilities

Album: The Anti-Album

Slug: “Great song. When I first found out from I-Self that he was doing a record with Abilities, I was jealous. That song’s short keyboard piano bridge felt like it was wearing brass knuckles. Both Abilities and I-Self really know how to dig. It’s crazy how many of that record’s samples showed up six years later. I’d put I-Self up there in terms of digging as much as any other producer out there. He knows how to not only find a record, but how everything someone could sample in a song can be brought out.”

#19. Eyedea & Abilities “Smile” (2009)

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Produced by: DJ Abilities

Album: By The Throat

Slug: “This song fucks me up. It makes me miss Eyedea. I play it quite a bit nowadays. The lyrics are so honest to Eyedea and his perspective. I don’t want to say it was foreshadowing—that would be morbid—but it shows how he thought and how musical the two had become."

#18. Atmosphere “God’s Bathroom Floor” (1996)

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Produced by: Slug

Album: Overcast! EP

Slug: “This was our local breakout song. Prior to this, I was just another fish in a pond. This song made people start to notice and started us on a path to become more locally known. It was the beginning of my attempts to write more introspective raps. This song was pre-Ant, and I wouldn’t be surprised if this was the song that drew Ant in. He’s always regarded this song highly. I think this song was the first time he saw potential in me.

"I wrote this in ’95, but we first recorded it in ’96 at this half-studio at Siddiq’s. When I recorded, I wanted to make it a 4-track. I had a 16-track on a half-inch reel with a 24-track Maki and—since we made 4-tracks on all the Headshots tapes—we only used 4-tracks on a half-inch 16-inch tape. But by then we had already put a live recording of the song on a Headshots tape. Putting it back out as a recorded version seemed pointless so we voted against it. When it came time for the original Overcast EP to come out, everyone decided they now liked the recorded version and I didn’t really want it on there so we just threw it on there at the end."

#17. Brother Ali “Self Taught” (2004)

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Produced by: Ant

Album: Champion EP

Slug: “I first met Ali prior to him joining RSE and I remember feeling so nervous because he was so fucking hungry. While most of us who rapped were ego-driven, his hunger came from the pit of his stomach rather than his balls. What’s bugged out about this song is that it was almost too easy for him. It’s a very real concept. Where we’re from, we don’t have mentorship. If you’re a sculptor, an MC, a DJ, you couldn’t depend on your surroundings to show you how to do that. We toured a lot with him and when we’re not on tour with him, I miss him.”

#16. Eyedea & Abilities “Big Shots” (2001)

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Produced by: DJ Abilities

Album: First Born

Slug: “This was their first 'hit.' I remember the three of us on tour in my girlfriend’s car, and this song would always get the crowd jumping. I’ve seen football team-sized rap groups that didn’t match their energy. When you get a reaction to a song like that night after night, it almost makes you want to stop performing it. You feel good until it’s popular and then you’re resentful your other songs aren’t getting the same attention. You start to feel guilty like, This song’s good, but I have these other songs that are good too. And then you feel like you’re beating those other songs into an audience.”

#15. Atmosphere “Guarantees” (2008)

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Produced by: Ant

Album: When Life Gives You Lemons, You Paint That Shit Gold

Slug: “The first time I had recorded this song was over a really dark Ant beat that Ali had abandoned. He was trying to write a song about suicide, which is why I say 'a friend of mine tried to kill himself to the same song,' as like a little friendly shout-out. With both of us using Ant’s productions, there are many songs over [beats] Ali made that I couldn’t make work that he made good and a lot of songs he couldn’t make work that I make good.

"A few weeks later, Nate [Collis] and I played a one-guitar, one-rapper set and I asked him to write a guitar piece for it. He came up with the guitar part and a chorus that gave it a much more optimistic feeling. Ant wound up liking that version better and it became the one we used. [There's an original version but] nobody’s ever heard it. It was a lot darker, as there wasn’t Nate’s chorus, the 'do-do-dos' in it or anything.”

#14. Micranots “Glorious” (2003)

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Produced by: DJ Kool Akiem

Album: The Emperor & The Assassin

Slug: “Great song. These guys have been superstars since way back. I remember going to their shows, taking notes, and how they helped define to me what a hip-hop show was supposed to feel like. Through watching all their different cycles since 1990, they both exemplify what evolution in rap music is to me. This song really captures that, it’s triumphant. One of the most slept-on groups of all-time.”

#13. Brother Ali “Take Me Home” (2007)

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Produced by: Ant

Album: The Undisputed Truth

Slug: “I first heard this song and couldn’t believe how I could relate to so much of it. I felt Ali was rapping about my life. Back in the day, the audience for rap songs about rapping were all aspiring rappers, but Ali found a way to articulate a rapper’s life to make people relate to it.”

#12. P.O.S. “De La Souls” (2006)

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Produced by: P.O.S.

Album: Audition

Slug: “I really thought mixing the Bouncing Souls song with 'I Am I Be' was extra clever. I’m a sucker for clever stuff and audio nerdery. I’m from an era where rap was about making 'struggle music,' and I feel he really used those two songs to build a message.”

#11. Eyedea “Bottle Dreams” (2002)

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Produced by: Eyedea

Album: The Many Faces of Oliver Hart or How Eye One the Write Too Think

Slug: “When I say that we make rap that’s 'struggle music,' I think we (as Atmosphere) make a version of it in broad strokes that a lot of people can relate to. Eyedea would instead just use the tip of his paintbrush. Without being contrived, it’s a song that’s just listening to the pain of one person and it’s a testament to how great he really was.”

#10. Atmosphere “Sunshine” (2007)

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Produced by: Ant

Album: Sad Clown Bad Summer 9

Slug: “One morning I went to Ant’s house with a hangover. I tried to write it as true to life as possible, although I may have blurred a few details. I don’t know if I really heard the Fresh Prince and DJ Jazzy Jeff song. The hook comes from a Beyond song called “Sunny Days,” which is about when you have a shitty day, you just need to flip your mind about it.”

#9. Soul Position “Right Place Wrong Time” (2003)

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Produced by: RJD2

Album: 8 Million Stories

Slug: “This here really illuminates why RJ and Print are such masters of moody shit. I remember when Blueprint and I were doing shows together, I always liked performing backgrounds on it. It’s just so natural. I was happy to see this make the list.”

#8. Atmosphere “Scapegoat” (1998)

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Produced by: Ant

Album: Overcast

Slug: “While 'God’s Bathroom Floor’ was our local breakout song, this was the song that was our national breakout to the rap underground. While it did get us booked on mix shows across the country, I felt it was almost a 'cheating' style of writing. I use the word 'It’s' over 50 times. That’s the hook. It’s cheating. Sometimes when we do a song a lot I feel the need to put it on hiatus, but this song did recently return to our live shows.”

#7. MF Doom “Hoe Cakes” (2004)

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Produced by: DJ SubRoc

Album: MM..Food

Slug: S: “As an older fan of rap, working with the greats is validating. Working with Doom was another form of validation. Before he was Doom he was in a group called KMD under the name Zev Love X and I was always a big fan of his work. I like this song too. This song’s title, a reference to ‘Hollywood Shuffle,’ touched my teenage heart.”

#6. Atmosphere “Modern Man’s Hustle” (2002)

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Produced by: Ant

Album: God Loves Ugly

Slug: “I think this is one of our more popular songs because it has a good blend of lyrics and music. I felt the music was accessible to speak about what was going on in my life, and that’s what I came to the table with truly. I don’t really remember a whole lot about recording from 2002 to 2003, but with this song I really tried to capture how I was feeling then. It’s 'struggle music' that 'I' make a solid connection with.”

#5. Beyond “B.L.A.K. Culture” (1996)

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Produced by: Ant

Album: Comparison

Slug: “Beyond, who later changed his name to Musab and then Sab the Artist, is still immediate family. I’d known him prior to Rhymesayers, but we really connected at the beginning and he’s still on tour with us now. This was the very first 12" Rhymesayers put out. I have more stories about Sab, but I’m going to be selfish and save them for my book.”

#4. Atmosphere “The Woman with the Tattooed Hands” (2000)

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Produced by: Ant

Album: Lucy Ford: The Atmosphere EPs

Slug: “With this song I had to define what religion was to myself. Still, people took it literal. They ask me if it’s a true story and I’m like, 'Do you really think this happens?' To some, this song still makes me that 'emo rapper' even though I haven’t mentioned Lucy in a song since 2002. This song’s one of the ones on hiatus.”

#3. Eyedea & Abilities “Now” (2004)

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Produced by: DJ Abilities

Album: E&A

Slug: “This song was way the fuck ahead of its time. Like I said with 'Smile,' I think this is what Eyedea and Abilities thought their musical heroes envisioned the future of music being. I mean, Abilities is scratching notes on the chorus like he’s playing guitar! That’s what they did best, matching old school values with new school vision.”

#2. Brother Ali “Forest Whitaker” (2003)

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Produced by: Ant

Album: Shadows on the Sun

Slug: “There’s so many ways this topic could have been approached, but the way Ali did it with humor and humility was class. All class."

#1. Atmosphere “Always Coming Back Home to You” (2003)

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Produced by: Ant

Album: Seven’s Travels

Slug: “I hope these songs aren’t in any sort of numerical order because there’s no fucking way that this is the best song we ever did. This was one of the first times we used an instrument at the center instead of a sample. It was the first song our guitarist Nate was on. That’s why I don’t get why people have such an issue with us using so many live instruments and having a band now because, going back to here, we’ve had musicians for a long time.

"I wrote it as an exercise about a walk from the 43rd and Chicago Walgreen’s to 26th and Garfield to make something as visual as possible. Every few bars I tried to introduce a new rap cliche: a robbery, flirting with a girl, a hood runs up, stealing cars, but I wanted a twist in the ending for each one. We made it during God Loves Ugly, but then put it on the back-burner.

"I forgot about it, but when it came time to do Seven’s Travels, Ant said, “You know, we still have this song...” He liked it. I never had much faith in it. It’s not a very well-written song. We never had a video for it although I would have loved to make visuals. But you have to let listeners’ interpretations have their own life and that’s why I think people get so much from this song.”

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