With over a million albums sold independently, Atmosphere's soaring popularity is well deserved. Slug and Ant, along with their labelmates on Rhymesayers Records, are the reasons I write my monthly Hip Hop column for CityBeat. The folks on this bill have been doing it right for years.  

Honesty. That's the first word that comes to mind when someone mentions Atmosphere, a fiercely independent Hip Hop duo (producer Ant and MC Slug) from Minneapolis whose reputation has grown exponentially (and organically) since its inception more than a decade ago.