Mr. Lif - Rejuvenating the Voice of Human Decency

*Originally appears in Ghettoblaster Magazine – Issue 22. 2009 

 Words: The Committee

Mr. Lif - Rejuvenating the Voice of Human Decency

Election Night, November 4, 2008. On the verge of economic collapse, the coming of a second French Revolution, with the shadows of the Iraq War still lingering, America is now on a new course. America is getting rid of a tyrant, an illiterate golden boy who claimed to talk to God. Score for American Democracy! We’re free again! Change is here! The historical occasion when America elected its first black president. 

Fast forward to the summer of 2009. All the commentators on cable news mention the honeymoon is over. As the jaded have predicted, not much has changed. Those who cheered and believed in the slogans say give it some more time.

Over the phone, I catch Mr. Lif on a Friday afternoon. He tells me he is “in transit,” driving around running errands and visiting his mother. Political MCs are on the go. They don’t make bank like clown rappers on MTV or BET, bragging about the stacks of cash they may or may not be piling while spitting a chorus of trite materialism. Instead, a political MC rides the train, sits in traffic, visits his mom and runs his own errands.

After I introduce myself to Lif, I don’t know to refer to him as Mr. Lif or Lif anymore. Nonetheless, he’s more than a political MC and despite crying out against social injustice, his task is to express what it means to be a human being, which after all, is the lofty goal in the process of creating art. And me? I’m just a high school English teacher raised in the grim extension of New York City on the densely and purposely quotidian south shore of Long Island (you know, Strong Island – where Rakim, EPMD, and Public Enemy are from) who tries to get nihilistic kids to just understand what social injustice even means. There’s a connection between teachers and rappers. We’re always exhausted and at the end of the day we just mold into the nocturnal and wake up the next day. Still, there are as many different kinds of teachers as there are rappers. Therefore, the comparison is void. But for a political rapper and a teacher who wants to make a difference in a broken system, they both have to just continue doing what they do. It might all feel in vain, but they continue because it’s better to live on your feet instead of dying on your knees, as the cliche goes. The first words on Mr. Lif’s new record, I Heard It Today, comes from a deep and pessimistic voice that sneers at the Obama voters who shuffle through their Ipods or tune into NPR in their late model European cars on their morning commute to a job that they very well could lose next week. The voice sounds as if it’s coming from a cold basement, “Oh I see. So ah, we all supposed to start trusting the government again because we got a friendlier face to it now, ah? All them problems gonna be solved. Everything is all good, right?” There’s no other record in recent memory that comes forth with such a clear question (and in turn, statement) from the very beginning. Unlike Lif’s last record, Mo’ Mega, this time around, Lif is more focused and his outrage is balanced with relief and redemption. Lif explains, “The record is a little sobering or whatever. Not necessarily the tone of hope that a lot of people felt when Obama got elected. It’s more in touch with the actual hardships that are going on and the major obstacles that this administration would have to face. I felt with songs like ‘The Sun’ and ‘Dawn,’ they ended the album on an optimistic note. Like no matter what the future is, let’s march towards it boldly.”

Optimistic or not, I Heard It Today should not be thought of as a hippie peace jam. Lif has not lost his indignation. Instead, he presents a vague concept of human decency and creates an alle- gory built on graceful but straight rhymeflows and purposeful beats full of noise with soul-shattering, hard thumps and fuzzy grooves that get to the core of the woes placed on people of color and those who are marginalized by a government serving corporate interests - “Whenever these leaders can cheat us, dangling the sweetest op- portunities for home ownership then flip.”

Lif describes the records as a roller coaster. "It starts you off in panic mode with the economic collapse, bailouts and all that type of stuff. Then you get a moment of freedom, if you will, through the power of imagination on ‘Collapse the Walls.’ Then you get dropped down to the darkest part of our system, which is the prison system... it’s a roller coaster ride.”

When talking to Lif, he offers reasons to why making a rap record with substance is still relevant. “It’s tough, man. The focus of the music has shifted towards more frivolous things... I would say now, obviously making political statements and consciousness isn’t in the forefront in the music. It makes my role a bit more challenging, but at the same time I love what I’m doing.”

What Lif accomplishes on I Heard It Today is an achievement of urgency, the same kind that is expressed in the best Public Enemy records. But one man cannot start the revolution and carry it out. What resonates in Lif’s explanation of the record is community and representing what he comes in contact with.“My approach with this album was I really wanted to come at this from the standpoint of being the voice of the people. I talked to so many people along the way when I was creating this album; my thoughts on there are a reflection of those who live in my community out in Philadelphia. My lyrics are reflective of thoughts of people over the internet from various parts of the country and the world who express their concerns, their hopes, some of their suffer- ing. It didn’t feel like an odd era to me, just some- thing we collectively are going through. That’s what drew me to wanting to make this album at this time, that there was something so complex and so huge about what we’re going through as a people.”

Human decency does not give a shit about nostalgia. It is about the present, not about reliving the evening of November 4, 2008. I Heard It Today is not about any particular city or community. Like any great hip-hop record, it’s universal. Across the world kids freestlye at bus stops, at school and even on farms. Any good MC knows this. Lif knows this. Yet, does the half-ass young rapper rhyming over a ringtone beat, rocking fancy Nike Dunks and wearing an Obama t-shirt know about civilian death counts? Bank bailouts? Home fore- closures? Guantánamo Bay? How to survive in what looks like the end of times? Lif does.

Sometimes hip-hop, when it’s not being marketed to sell sneakers or cheeseburgers, is a subconscious reaction to history’s madness. Its voice and beats are pure folk music. Furthermore, the disappointment that comes with the realization that the music you love is bland or just another commodity is only overcome by another realization that human decency is still possible. Whether that’s for Lif or kids in the South Bronx or Johannesburg or anywhere else where folks rhyme out of boredom and necessity.