Not long ago a good friend of mine (and fellow emcee) texted
me from the much-beloved hiphop festival Scribble Jam: “Underground rap
is boring as shit, why didn’t you tell me? I thought we were friends,
man.” Yeah, it’s true, watching—or even listening to—90
percent of so-called underground hiphop is absolutely paint-dry
compelling, almost as musically unadventurous as it is pretentious. A
lot of righteous rah-rah and wave-your-hand-in-the-air pandering that,
ultimately, signifies nothing.
The last time I saw the most innovative artist in the sphere of
indie-rap, El-P, he stormed the stage with a multimedia shock-and-awe
assault on the senses. The Company Flow founder/Def Jux impresario
staged a scene ripped straight from “Black Steel in the Hour of
Chaos”—El in an orange jailhouse jumper, blood smeared on his
face, searchlights sweeping the stage. Screens flickered behind the
band, who stood glowering at the crowd in fatigues and ski masks.
There’s nothing cozy or intimate about El’s stage show—it’s every
bit as brutal, paranoid, and dissonant as the barren, dystopian hiphop
landscape he has serialized throughout his career. It’s also
hype as all hell; the man bounces all over the stage like he
sees snipers in the rafters, and it’s no surprise that he rehearses
like a boxer might, wearing a weighted vest and wristbands.
2007’s I’ll Sleep When You’re Dead shook up the ’80s
electro-futuristic Terminator vibe he’d established on 2002’s
Fantastic Damage—akin to dousing his dusted Blade
Runner b-boy in high-grade LSD and shoving his ass out of the
Humvee. Bangers like “Smithereens (Stop Crying)” and “Everything Must
Go” pierce your inadequate armor and make you wonder what it sounds
like to huff Krylon in Fallujah. Subtle collaborations with Trent
Reznor (the battlefield boogie “Flyentology”) and personnel from a
handful of platinum-cred indie rock crews (Yo La Tengo, the Mars Volta,
Cat Power) also put a little English on the woozy spin of El-Producto’s
swiftly tilting planet.
Usually the genius of those bent on pushing hiphop light years ahead
doesn’t translate to the live arena, but Def Jukie #1 has got the
goods. Don’t give up on the underground yet. You tell your friends,
I’ll tell mine.