Atmosphere is an American hip-hop duo from Minneapolis, Minnesota, consisting of rapper Slug (Sean Daley) and DJ/producer Ant (Anthony Davis).

Atmosphere, as a group, joined with other rappers Musab, Phull Surkle, Black Hole, and The Abstract Pack to form a collective known as Headshots.

introduced Atmosphere to a wider audience, largely thanks to the airplay that the single "Scapegoat" received on college radio stations.

Meanwhile, Slug improved his live performance skills at Minneapolis clubs such as The Front (Freeloaded), First Avenue and 7th Street Entry.

[6] With Lucy Ford, Atmosphere also finally achieved national distribution through the independent distributor Fat Beats.

Atmosphere planned to release their second studio album God Loves Ugly on June 11, 2002, but experienced delays in editing.

Atmosphere toured extensively in support of this record, going as far as Europe and Japan, playing sixty shows in seventy-one days.

[6] The success of the album and subsequent tours came to the attention of the major labels Interscope, Sony and Warner Brothers.

Atmosphere's third full-length studio album, Seven's Travels, was released on September 23, 2003, through Rhymesayers and the punk label Epitaph.

[9] It contained two singles, "Trying To Find A Balance" and "National Disgrace", both of which had music videos that received airplay on MTV2 and other stations, attracting more attention and success for Atmosphere than previous releases.

Reviews were generally positive, with Stylust saying "The result may be, in a manner of speaking, the most consistent Atmosphere album to date.

[13] While completing the LP When Life Gives You Lemons, You Paint That Shit Gold, Atmosphere released four EPs as continuations of the "Sad Clown Bad Dub" series.

Despite not having a music video or any promotion, the song became popular among the band's core fan base, eventually becoming a staple in live shows.

The seventh track of the album, "The Loser Wins," is on the soundtrack for EA Sports' "Fight Night Champion.

On June 22, 2016, the band announced the track list and release date for their upcoming album, Fishing Blues.

The album included guest appearances by rappers Kool Keith, MF Doom, The Grouch, Aesop Rock, and deM atlaS, as well as artists Kim Manning and I.B.E.

Since the Paint Your City Gold series of "release parties" in support of When Life Gives You Lemons, You Paint That Shit Gold, the live band has been re-rostered with Ant providing percussion as DJ, Nate Collis on guitar and back up vocals, Erick Anderson on keyboards and synthesizers and Mankwe Ndosi as the "human samples".

Atmosphere had special guests at some of their shows, music groups like Lifter Puller, Brother Ali, deM atlaS, and Dilated Peoples.

"[42] Further examples come in the song "Abusing of the Rib" from Headshots: SE7EN; it has been said that the "lover" Slug speaks of is actually an allegory for hip-hop itself.

In the tour-only release Sad Clown Bad Dub II, Slug used both symbolism and metaphor with references to nature and relationships throughout each song, culminating in the album's penultimate track "The River."

The most notable example of such allegories is a character whom Slug refers to as "Lucy," who has been purported to be a symbol of a range of different entities.

[43] Slug raps in a very introspective style, as seen on the song "Little Man," in which he confronts the complaints that people have about him by looking at his relationship with his father and son.

[44] This introspective style became less prevalent with When Life Gives You Lemons, You Paint That Shit Gold (2008) in which Slug navigates through other peoples' lives.

Slug maintains the allegorical stance from previous records in songs such as "Your Glass House" which deals with his emotions towards the war in Iraq under the guise of a person waking up from a hangover.

[45] Slug also dislikes some of the songs that he wrote before and does not perform them live, such as "Vampires" from 2002 album God Loves Ugly.

[46] Daley has stated, "when I did get my phase of trying to figure myself out, there was a lot of tug-of-war inside of me between wanting to hate a particular woman and then feeling guilty about that.

"[44] Slug has also released three albums with Murs from the West Coast hip hop group Living Legends.

Slug has also appeared on albums by Buckshot of Black Moon and KRS-ONE, Hangar 18, C-Rayz Walz, CunninLynguists, Brother Ali, Eyedea & Abilities, Evidence, Berner, Aesop Rock, Unknown Prophets, KRS-One, Oddjobs, Vakill, DoseOne, Jel, P.O.S, X-Ecutioners, Kanser, Blueprint, Illogic, Heiruspecs, Kristoff Krane, Dem Atlas, Mac Lethal, Jean Grae, Parallel Thought, Static & Nat Ill, Grieves, DJ Vadim, Booka B, El-P, MF Doom, Roosevelt Franklin, Grayskul, Minnesota indie rock band Lifter Puller, Cool-Aide (iCON the Mic King & Chum), Anomaly (a.k.a.

Slug also took time to congratulate DJ Free Leonard on his song "Wise Words Spoken" Featuring CMA (The Grouch and Lucky I AM of the Living Legends) in a now viral moment online.

Atmosphere has been honored with a star on the outside mural of the Minneapolis nightclub First Avenue,[50] recognizing performers that have played sold-out shows or have otherwise demonstrated a major contribution to the culture at the iconic venue.