Can You Gig It?: Atmosphere/Brother Ali @ KOKO, London 18.6.08

I’d never seen Atmosphere live before and have to confess to not being especially au fait with their back catalogue. I fully intend to investigate it now, though.
The first thing that struck me was how… well, healthy rapper Slug looked. I’d spent a bit of time before the gig checking out the odd video of theirs, and the guy looked prrretty smoked out in the “Guarantees” video. And yet onto the stage he bounded, straight off a coach from Edinburgh, looking a lot fresher than me.
The show was a collaboration between the Atmosphere guys and their labelmate, the “visually striking” (i.e. big, bald, albino) Brother Ali.

I was curious as to how the often downbeat lyrics of Slug would work in the live setting, but it soon became clear that this was a captive audience - recent mainstream success in the States hasn’t been replicated here yet, but Atmosphere have a loyal and passionate fanbase happy to spit back every rhyme that comes their way. It was a nice touch to see Ali and Slug giving the hardcore at the front of the crowd the odd fist bump in return.
Tracks like “Godlovesugly” and “Trying To Find A Balance” were always going to go down well in this environment but it’s also easy for acts to become complacent and go onto auto-pilot in front of a crowd that doesn’t need converting. So well done Atmosphere for not doing that. I had trouble making out a lot of lyrics, but I reckon that might have been down to where we stood in the venue and my unfamiliarity with them.
Anyway, one had a jolly good time all round, as did my fellow wiggaz. Check out some more photos from the show below.
Plenty more pics for ya - click to enlarge. Images by Niki Jones.