Roughly five years have passed since El-P, the founder of indie rap juggernaut Definitive Jux Records, released his highly acclaimed solo debut, Fantastic Damage. And with his long-awaited follow up, I'll Sleep When You’re Dead, already more than two years in the making, it was of little surprise that last September, the former Company Flow frontman felt compelled to take drastic measures to hurry and finish the album. His solution? A hideous orange mustache.
“One of the tricks of the trade I employ to get myself motivated during a period of dire work is to alter my appearance in a way that is completely socially unacceptable,” he wrote in a September entry on his blog. “This process forces me to stay indoors and work, all the while avoiding the regular pitfalls of socializing, drinking and any other distractions. This is my vow to you all: I will grow this mustache until the record is done. Wish me luck.”
El stayed true to his word. But last week, when I visited him at his Fort Greene apartment—located in between the rusting steeple of the Paul Robeson Theatre and the quiet benches of Cuyler Gore Park—the mustache was gone, having been replaced by faint-orange stubble.
The album was finished and set to be released on March 20—perhaps offering the rapper, whose full MC name is El-Producto, a sense of relief. Yet you wouldn’t know it from listening to I’ll Sleep, his best and most Orwellian album to date.
Though the disc offers a diverse cast of artists—from Aesop Rock to indie rock demigods, the Mars Volta—musically the album offers much of what you’d expect: The majority of the beats are thickly layered backdrops replete with caterwauling guitar licks, haphazard electronic beeps, iron-booted bass lines and drums that hit like brass-knuckled fists.
Yet it’s El’s lyrical content, and his presentation of it, that makes the disc superior to its predecessor. Often known for his dense, off-kilter style, El manages to pare down his lyrics, slow down his flow and allow the listeners to better take in what he’s saying.
On “The League Of Extraordinary Nobodies,” for instance, he simply and effectively raps about fresh death in the midst of careless debauchery—over the sardonic clangor of Atari-like bleeps and manufactured laughter: “I’ve been wondering how arrogant it is for me to keep doing the things that killed so many that we know/No, no, no!/I’ve been noticing how quickly muthafuckas have the answers to existence just as soon as someone goes/Go go goes!”
Thematically, I’ll Sleep When You’re Dead is also a much more tightly conceived project than Fantastic Damage. The latter assembled a sonic dystopia but offered a diverse array of subject matter—from dissing wack MCs to harrowing sci-fi storytelling; however, on the new album, both the beats and lyrics present a dirty, dusty montage of New York, a tombstone manuscript seemingly scrawled at the open maw of Ground Zero.
“I think these are weird times, and they deserve documentation in some way,” El explains when asked about the political content. “If I’m making a love song, the backdrop is a society on the brink of collapse that happens to be involving itself in a humungous war of Iraq.” So, while stocked full of political overtones, I’ll Sleep is no mere series of novice policy recommendations on wax. Instead, the MC crafts nearly every track so that the personal is tinged with a sense of the political and vice versa.
That’s not to say the album is flawless. On “Smithereens (Stop Cryin’),” for example, the intentionally jarring repetition of the refrain overindulges in discord, while El’s lyrics seem to be packed too densely into the chaotic, siren-filled production. Nonetheless, what makes the bulk of the album so successful is that the beats and lyrics fuse to create a masterful portrait of personal experiences unraveling amidst a city and a world on the verge of splattering into oblivion.
“I realized one day that I would be lucky to make it out of the City That Never Sleeps alive,” says El, referencing the title of the album. “This fucking world is fucking crumbling.” Perhaps. But mustache or no mustache, impending destruction has never sounded so dope.
March 22, Bowery Ballroom, 6 Delancey St. (betw. Bowery & Chrystie St.), 212-533-2111; 8, $15-$20 (Sold Out).
“One of the tricks of the trade I employ to get myself motivated during a period of dire work is to alter my appearance in a way that is completely socially unacceptable,” he wrote in a September entry on his blog. “This process forces me to stay indoors and work, all the while avoiding the regular pitfalls of socializing, drinking and any other distractions. This is my vow to you all: I will grow this mustache until the record is done. Wish me luck.”
El stayed true to his word. But last week, when I visited him at his Fort Greene apartment—located in between the rusting steeple of the Paul Robeson Theatre and the quiet benches of Cuyler Gore Park—the mustache was gone, having been replaced by faint-orange stubble.
The album was finished and set to be released on March 20—perhaps offering the rapper, whose full MC name is El-Producto, a sense of relief. Yet you wouldn’t know it from listening to I’ll Sleep, his best and most Orwellian album to date.
Though the disc offers a diverse cast of artists—from Aesop Rock to indie rock demigods, the Mars Volta—musically the album offers much of what you’d expect: The majority of the beats are thickly layered backdrops replete with caterwauling guitar licks, haphazard electronic beeps, iron-booted bass lines and drums that hit like brass-knuckled fists.
Yet it’s El’s lyrical content, and his presentation of it, that makes the disc superior to its predecessor. Often known for his dense, off-kilter style, El manages to pare down his lyrics, slow down his flow and allow the listeners to better take in what he’s saying.
On “The League Of Extraordinary Nobodies,” for instance, he simply and effectively raps about fresh death in the midst of careless debauchery—over the sardonic clangor of Atari-like bleeps and manufactured laughter: “I’ve been wondering how arrogant it is for me to keep doing the things that killed so many that we know/No, no, no!/I’ve been noticing how quickly muthafuckas have the answers to existence just as soon as someone goes/Go go goes!”
Thematically, I’ll Sleep When You’re Dead is also a much more tightly conceived project than Fantastic Damage. The latter assembled a sonic dystopia but offered a diverse array of subject matter—from dissing wack MCs to harrowing sci-fi storytelling; however, on the new album, both the beats and lyrics present a dirty, dusty montage of New York, a tombstone manuscript seemingly scrawled at the open maw of Ground Zero.
“I think these are weird times, and they deserve documentation in some way,” El explains when asked about the political content. “If I’m making a love song, the backdrop is a society on the brink of collapse that happens to be involving itself in a humungous war of Iraq.” So, while stocked full of political overtones, I’ll Sleep is no mere series of novice policy recommendations on wax. Instead, the MC crafts nearly every track so that the personal is tinged with a sense of the political and vice versa.
That’s not to say the album is flawless. On “Smithereens (Stop Cryin’),” for example, the intentionally jarring repetition of the refrain overindulges in discord, while El’s lyrics seem to be packed too densely into the chaotic, siren-filled production. Nonetheless, what makes the bulk of the album so successful is that the beats and lyrics fuse to create a masterful portrait of personal experiences unraveling amidst a city and a world on the verge of splattering into oblivion.
“I realized one day that I would be lucky to make it out of the City That Never Sleeps alive,” says El, referencing the title of the album. “This fucking world is fucking crumbling.” Perhaps. But mustache or no mustache, impending destruction has never sounded so dope.
March 22, Bowery Ballroom, 6 Delancey St. (betw. Bowery & Chrystie St.), 212-533-2111; 8, $15-$20 (Sold Out).
