Minneapolis emcee/producer duo Slug and Ant are an anomaly in this Hip Hop world. Not just because they’re from a state better known for snow, Fargo and a bad basketball team, but because they only do it their way.

Despite being the best-selling act on the indy Hip Hop scene this decade and constantly fending off major label advances, Atmosphere has never given up their right to do what the fuck they want. Would a major ever let someone release an album called When Life Gives You Lemons, You Paint That Shit Gold [click to read]? I think not.

Live from the smokiest hotel room you can possibly imagine, Ant and (mostly) Slug talk about their new album, the 30-something mindstate, and why Murs is smiling so much. 

HipHopDX: Lemons has a real live instrument feel to it, can you talk a bit about the production process for this record?
Slug: It wasn’t like they play through, they play bars. Sampled bars, you know what I’m sayin? It’s still chopped and sampled, just not off the record.

DX: Right, like Dr. Dre does.
Slug: Exactly, only there is a whole lot less weed. And guns. Well not a whole lot less.
Ant: As long as I can remember, I’ve always wanted to do one of those kinds of records. I mean he’s been doing that kind of shit since ’86. It’s just knowing the people, having the finances to do these types of things…not anyone can just make a record like this. You know, probably some part of it too is that I’ve already done a lot of the sample shit. I probably exhausted that avenue five years ago. It’s just a growing up thing I guess.

DX: I’ve been to a lot of your shows and you have a pretty young fan base, especially considering the type of music that you make. Does the age of your audience enter your thought process when you are making records?
Slug: No, no. In fact, I think that not so much the making of this album, but the minute we finished it and I knew we had to start the other cycles, I actually started thinking, ‘how do I start translating what I’m doing to a 35 year old soccer mom, single dad.’ Cause you know, I’m going to be 36 this year. Everyone I went to high school with, they don’t even listen to music the same way anymore. They play it in their car on their way to work. When they’re at home, they don’t play records, they watch TV. You know what I mean? So how do I make what I’m doing - because my perspective and my reality is that of a 35 year old – how do I make what I’m doing relevant to a 35 year old also, you know? And without pandering to it, 'cause I don’t want to exclude the kids but I’ve so many issues standing on stage in front of a bunch of kids singing along and I’m wondering mid-song, "How the fuck can they be relating to what I’m saying right now?" Mind you, thank God they do. Thank God anyone does. Realistically, I feel confident enough to believe I’ve got some good things to say that kids maybe could fucking benefit from hearing. You know? But how long before my records turn into, "Wear your seatbelt," "Wear a helmet," "Eat your vegetables," you know? "Brush your teeth."
Ant: Wouldn’t you say that’s the case with a lot of records though? I think about the stuff I was listening to when I was 12 years old, I didn’t know what half of that shit was about.
Slug: When Aerosmith’s Pump came out, was it 35 year olds that made that shit go triple platinum? Probably not. When I was a kid, I was listening to adults that made music, I was listening to Chuck D and I was relating. Even though Chuck was talking from his perspective and he’s got 10 years on me, you know what I mean? So I have to just believe in it, and just believe it is what it is. I wouldn’t even know how to write a song with the 18 year old in mind.

The way I look at it across the board is, when the record is done and we turn it in, it’s no longer our problem. It is somebody else’s problem, you know? Skye, Saddiq, you guys go figure out how you can get this record to do what you want it to do. I’m committed for being who I am 150% of the time, whether it’s on record, in an interview or ordering coffee, eating, sleeping, I’m committed to being me. It’s your issue to make people relate to me or recognize me, or make me their friend, or hate me or think I suck. I can’t put any thought into what can I do to make people think I suck, or make people think I’m cool. The minute I do that I don’t know that I can necessarily do this job. I’d have to go find a new job, and not on some martyr me shit, but on some like, the reason I like this job more than any other job is not because I get to travel, it’s not because I get to smoke as many cigarettes as I want, any time that I want. It’s because it feels purposeful, and I don’t mean that what we do has this higher purpose. I mean like, this, compared to driving a delivery truck is soothing me. This makes me fucking happier than shit. Driving a delivery truck would make me happy too, much more than working a cash register…so it’s just the elements of this job that I love, I try to stick to in order to keep me in check and keep me from taking this for granted. That makes me a loser now, anyone who takes their job for granted is a fucking loser. If you come to terms that you deliver newspapers, and that’s what you do and you take that for granted and fuck that off? Then you’re a loser, cause you’ve got something that someone would kill to have. That’s how I see it, I don’t want to be a loser. I started to feel like a loser a couple of years ago, that’s why I started the live band because I felt like there was no challenge performing. Come out here and make my way through “Modern Man” and “Scapegoat,” I could do it in my sleep. It just wasn’t challenging and I was like ‘man, I’m gonna get fired if I don’t start taking my job more seriously. Continued on page 2 »