Mr. Lif

If you slept hard on this record, or forgot that it came out entirely, you’re not alone. Waiting four years to release a record will do that to a fan, which is a damned shame. Mr. Lif’s 2002 output may not have been the best of the Def Jux crop, but I would argue that, for all its hang-ups, I, Phantom is probably the most fun. Not that you’d know from the first half of Mo’ Mega. Supplanted by El-P’s clipped, bottom heavy beats, he begins the record contemplating suicide as a response to critics (“Listen to my wrists leak crimson / all over the floor from my wrists / there, now ya got Lif”) and goes on from there. Lif cleverly used his political awareness to muse on modern life’s alienation throughout Phantom, but here he’s straight out bugging. Lif hasn’t abandoned his themes altogether (the anti-commercialist “Ultra/mega” finds him listing off clothing styles as if they were sharks surrounding his raft), and in fact part of what makes it work is that he’s portraying an overwhelming society by being overwhelmed. Good thing, though, that there’s “Murs iz My Manager,” wherein Murs convinces him to sell out by, among other things, doing a verse with Al Gore and writing one for Ben Affleck. Mo’ Mega is on par with the Bostonian’s best work; now if only he would work more frequently.