this is lif aka code name mayhem

you know when you have a really angry, aggressive but edifying conversation with a good friend about the sadistic negliglence/ treachery of the administration and the pervasive what*the*fuckitude of our country? the new mr. lif album ‘mo mega’ is like that. he is just wildng out and i am affirmed by his fury, it makes me feel not-alone and his is totally motivating. at its best:
“Fact 3: the Bush Administration’s worth nothin: “just fuck ’em/throw ’em in a barrel, buck ’em’
Oh, you ain’t know those flood waters is comin? You can’t smell that African blood runnin?
Or that y’all niggaz is [unintelligible] or suh’in
fuck Clinton too
you ain’t really down cuz you live uptown, bitch: Rwanda.”
a screed of palpable noise and post-katrina doom–a monotonous cyclone of rage and sorrow–and el-p’s backcatalogue of ’70s sci fi samples, which i believe he just conjures inside the reaches of his brain.
fuck yeah. i yearn for good political music because i want to feel like i’m not on an island, same as i want good love songs and good party songs and good pain songs, good meaning “emphatic.” with feeling, accurate and honest and verbose or as precise as possible. Anyway I did not really like that Perceptionists album beyond the idea of it, but this Lif album makes me want to hi five him and then activate.
Also, he has some pretty explicit sex songs–phonesex and groupies–it’s like the dead prez vein of diversification i think, which didn’t workfor the prez so much but i wil tell you this: el-p doing a dancehall riddim is actually a way fucking better idea than it might sound. it’s like he sampled the sound fx from some detective movie or old hitchcock film and yeah, blade-runner dancehall is exactly what i wanna be listening to in 2079.