El-P gets personal and political
Busy hip-hop man's solo debut, 'Fantastic Damage,' combines elements of electronica, early '80s post-punk and raw, old-school hip-hop sounds
Issue date: 2/7/03 Section: A & E
|
El-P is best known for his production style, and "Fantastic Damage" will certainly cement that reputation. The influence of the Bomb Squad, Public Enemy's famed production team, is clear: Songs are made up of layers of wailing sirens, screams and abused guitars perched precariously atop brittle funk bases. But El-P has done more than just memorize the hip-hop Bible: The staccato drum break of "Deep Space 9mm" owes as much to the latest electronica as it does to any rap artist, and the man-machine funk of "Lazerfaces' Warning" sounds like the product of '70s German art-rockers Can -- if Can did too much acid and went to a rave in the 23rd century. If anything, El-P draws from the same source as early '80s post-punk, creating collages that are Frankensteined out of equal parts noise and herky-jerky dance rhythms.
Rather than follow the tired "keyboard/plodding drums/pseudo-haunting string sample" formula that results in so much hip-hop karaoke these days, El-P has pushed the music to an equal level with the lyrics. Rap purists will complain that El-P's vocals are buried, that the emphasis in a rap album should be on the words, not the beats. Let them. The music on "Fantastic Damage" will remain interesting long after most hip-hop has sunk to the level of self-parody.
El-P's producing prowess shouldn't slight his lyrical skills -- after all, this is a rap album. Constructing abstract, elliptical rhymes in the Kool Keith vein, El-P's lyrics reveal themselves slowly, each listen yielding one more decipherable metaphor or insult. El-P makes no apologies for incomprehension, rapping "Motherf--ker did I sound abstract?/I hope it sounded more confusing than that/ my clarity was buried under the arm of an economy-sized mousetrap" and spitting lines like "Most of these rappers grew up in the forest/ I'm a walrus/ Sitting on my cornflakes, trying to float out to the chorus."
However, El-P's lyrics on "Fantastic Damage" are also his most deeply personal and political yet, addressing America's entertainment culture in "Lazerfaces' Warning" and evoking the detached persona of a CEO of a company that makes abusive robotic parents in "Stepfather Factory."
A 70-minute hip-hop album will usually sag under the weight of its own ballast, especially when a string of filler at the end makes the listening experience seem interminable. Not so here: El-P's taut production lends a sense of urgency and compressed energy that at album's end leaves the listener sweating but hungry for more. Sure, you could probably listen to two P-Diddy albums in the same timespan, but at least "Fantastic Damage" won't make you want to kill yourself.
With "Fantastic Damage," El-P has delivered on years of promise, offering up one of the year's best hip-hop albums and pointing the way for forward-minded rap in the 21st century.
Thank you, El. You can sit down now.