Consumer Guide Album

Atmosphere: Southsiders [Rhymesayers Entertainment, 2014]
Rarely has such a modest record been so in-your-face about it. Ten years since Sean Daley d/b/a Slug started disengaging from the old-boy alt-rap he hoped he'd outgrown, lines like "The world might not live through the night" and "I highly doubt that y'all think about sex anywhere near as often as I think about death" add a gravitas you may shrug off and I believe keeps him up nights. I also believe that as he "write[s] it all down before it vanishes," he feels "Fortunate" to make music from his words and a living at it too. For CD purchasers only: a portfolio of proudly unpretentious architectural photographs documenting the workaday housing stock of his mixed Minneapolis hood. A-