Atmosphere has a pretty sweet gig these days. Their hype man - their "opening act" - is Brother Ali, one of the fiercest, truest, most impressive emcees around. There's no need to ease into a set when you follow a could-be-headliner. By the time Atmosphere took the stage as the headliners of the God Loves Ugly Tour at the House of Blues on Wednesday night, the crowd was already loose, already pumped up, and chomping at the bit to bump.
Atmosphere's frontman, Slug, was clearly impressed by the Boston masses. "Intimidating", he called the crowd at the House of Blues, saying that the audience for him represents the city, and that he'd never played a crowd like this. For all I know, he says that in every city. But he says it well, and it seemed like he meant it. And from the first verse he dropped until the end of the night he had the crowd waving their hands, raising their voices, and revelling in the jubilation of the night.
For me, though, the real show was in that opening act. Brother Ali is my favorite rapper around, and his performance on Wednesday night straight up blew the roof off of the House of Blues. With a tight set of 9 songs, he proselytized newcomers while preaching to a multitude of existing fans. An informal poll from the stage revealed that half the venue had seen Ali before. Given his performance, it's no surprise that they came back for seconds.
Ali opened with "Bitchslap", an underground favorite from Shadows on the Sun, my favorite of his albums. He moved on nicely with "Truth is Here" and a fantastic version of "Uncle Sam Goddamn", wooing the crowd, ramping things up, and getting Boston to sing along by the end of his third song. Then, with the audience at attention, he absolutely KILLED it on "Walking Away", the most impressive track off of his latest full length, The Undisputed Truth. Already an intensely personal song, the tune bumped up a notch as Ali spit two unrecorded verses - a cappella, I might add - about an incident involving his ex-wife and his son Faheem. I've never seen an audience like I did during the last 2 minutes of the tune - rapturous, attentive, impressed, heartbroken, and completely consumed by an artist and his craft.
As an albino, Brother Ali has difficulty seeing. At one point, he asked the crowd to make noise to show their support, since he has trouble distinguishing anything out in the audience. A thousand throats cried out their support. It's no surprise that later in the evening Slug would proclaim in admiration - "Damn, y'all really love hearing your own voices".
The final tunes of Ali's opening act summed up the mood for the evening - celebrating the beauty of the individual. "Good Lord" from his newest EP, and his signature "Forest Whitiker" had the crowd moving, grooving, and celebrating the beauty of being human. Throughout the following set, Slug would repeat the refrain "God loves ugly"; Brother Ali took it one step further - "To everyone out there who's a little different, I say damn a magazine, these is God's fingerprints". Amen.
Sidenote: I got a chance to shake Brother Ali's hand and talk to him for a minute after the show, and he was a legitimately genuine dude. He took time to sign autographs, made an effort to engage with his fans, and spent over an hour after his performance just listening to people who listen to him. As if I needed another reason to ride for the man...
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