January 22nd in Posso's Prompts

What band/artist has had an impact or influence on your life that you wish you could share with them?

My cousin Nathan shot himself in the head one morning in January five years ago. It was in downtown Minneapolis in LaSalle Plaza. He was only 32 at the time. Nathan lived a troubled life. Some, I knew; he had been hit by a train while jumping from car to car trying to tag them with graffiti when I was in high school. Other things I had to learn through family and his friends. Once I had a few friends find him on Judge Joe Brown for a case where he owed a friend money. An article easily accessible on the internet showed he did have many people that cared about him. Admittedly, I felt ashamed at the time because after the train accident, I had barely spoken to Nathan. The family dynamic had changed and Nathan’s mom, my aunt, became the ‘crazy one’ for not being responsible for her son and letting him run rampant through the Twin Cities by himself. I never really understood but my families’ issues with communication and honesty are a fatal flaw. It’ll be something that will probably be discussed in future prompts.

In any case, when I had gotten the news, I had tried to get out of my work schedule and commitments to see if I needed to go home. I found out his friends were throwing a big celebration of life party and taking donations for his arrangements and then donating the rest to a youth homeless shelter. There was a internet donation page set up for him and I was browsing it, looking at hundreds of people leaving what they could. Some anonymous, some friends leaving notes, stories, but I reached one name with a substantial amount of money attached to it. I recognized the name, Sean Daley, and it took me a moment to put it together - this is Slug. From Atmosphere.

I had no clue what the experience of Atmosphere would bring me until I was a fresh Freshman in college with my new roommate, Mark, from Golden Valley (I’m still pissed I lost my shirt from Totino-Grace High School to this day.) Mark had a sick speaker set up in a lofted dorm room (for 2004 anyway) and the guy was amazing to me; he beat boxed in an acapella coed group, he’d sing me to sleep. He, along with our friend Brooks, coined the warlock persona I had in college - I was fat, smelly, drunk, hairy, and yet they made me out to be this majestic magical creature. Mark was blasting something I had never ever heard one day, I was laying in bed when I felt the bass from “It Goes” rattle literally everything in our room. I was captivated. I wasn’t a huge hip hop kid - I grew up in rural northern Wisconsin where I had to hear my little brother scream inaudible shit into a broken microphone - I wanted more. My first concert in Madison was with Mark and Atmosphere at Luther’s Blues. The first time I toked up in public. It’s almost clear as day the first time I saw them do “The Woman with the Tattooed Hands” live. After that, it didn’t matter; I was an obsessed fan. I listened to everything Atmosphere. I got into all the Sad Clown EP’s, I sat in College Library and listened to You Can’t Imagine How Much Fun We’re Having on repeat for days. The songs spoke to me, I couldn’t explain why sometimes.

When I saw that Mr. Daley (sounds douchey but I don’t think I know him well enough to just call him Sean) had donated a large sum of money to my cousins memory, I was intrigued. How did my cousin know popular people in Minneapolis but still be so lost to the point where no one knew where he was at for days? Clearly I had missed out on the journey he had taken in influencing neighborhoods, a city. Everyone knew of him or about him in the entire West Bank area from what I could tell. Nathan had ‘Lick Nuts’ tattooed across his stomach and I can remember it becoming a searchable hashtag after his death. Totally sounded like a dumb shit thing a Posso would do for sure. My cousin needed help, he didn’t get enough. If he’s anything like I know my family is though, they aren’t good at asking and they put up an incredibly believable front for all to never find out. I’m sure alive, Nathan would have never taken any help and more likely would have gotten pissed off if it was offered. I was grateful that Slug selflessly helped him even with him being gone. The music of Atmosphere got me through some bad days, wrong moods, stupid decisions. I even reached out and tweeted at him, telling him thank you and he responded that day, when he clearly never had to. This is why Atmosphere has had an irrefutable impact on my life for fifteen years now. They most likely will never know but like a fanboy or fangirl would, I’ll never stop raving nonsensically about them.

I need to wrap this one up before I get lost and ramble. There are two things that I want to share that have influenced my actions a lot.
A few lyrics from Atmosphere’s song Lovelife:

Let no tears to fall from none of y’all
Just remember it all, the beauty as well as the flaws
L-O-V-E-L-I-F-E
Here lies Sean, finally free

Life, love, stress and setbacks
For those trying to breathe…

I needed those lines to balance out myself a few times in my life.

The other, a quote from one of Nathan’s friends that I still repeat fairly often when I need a reminder to take steps in my own life day-to-day

“No man is free if he can’t open the door to his own cage.”

Rest in peace cousin. Many a day where I wish I could just ask why you had Lick Nuts tattooed on you. Had to have been a great story to tell.