Mr. Lif has never been en vogue per se, but his meditative, geopolitical raps held a special place in hip-hop during the mid-2000s. They served as both a post-9/11 sanity restoration and a breather from the caricatured dystopianism of his peers on El-P’s indie-rap stronghold Def Jux. He was ambitious by underground standards; one need only hear 2002’s I Phantom, a concept album starting with 9-to-5 laments and ending in nuclear holocaust. But after 2006’s righteously pissed Mo’ Mega (“Brothers” roasted Bill Clinton in two words: “Rwanda, bitch“), the man born Jeffrey Haynes mostly disappeared, releasing only 2009’s tepidly received I Heard It Today since.
Which makes this taste of his new album, Don’t Look Down (out April 15 via Mello Music Group) all the more exciting. “Let Go” has a beat like nothing else in rap right now, twisting a Herb Alpert-like swing sample around Lif’s unbroken verbal constructions. He flows over the dusty organ sample while Selina Carrera wafts in from the background for an addictive, Merlot-mentioning hook that never would’ve flown during the Def Jux era. On to the next one. You can listen to “Let Go” below, and pre-order Don’t Look Down on iTunes and Bandcamp now.
