Mr. Lif is one of the most talented and outspoken MCs in hip-hop's underground. Known for his ridiculous rhymes and commanding stage presence, the Boston MC has just released his first solo LP, I Phantom, on Def Jux Records. He also put out his controversial 9/11 commentary "Home of the Brave" single last spring. Street caught up with Mr. Lif while on tour with DJ Shadow this summer.
Street: What are your earliest memories of hip-hop?
Mr. Lif: In '86 when I got my first Run DMC tape. My mom gave me a boom box with a cassette player and she also gave me Run DMC's first joint -- that was when all hell broke loose. I just ran that tape to death and memorized all the rhymes on it and everything, and I would actually give little performances of it to my family.
Street: What has your educational experience been like?
Lif: Ultimately, I feel like my parents made a lot of sacrifices for me to go to the allegedly elite educational systems, which surrounded me with critical thinkers... I was being bred to be a part of corporate America. I wore a suit and jacket every day for six years in high school and middle school... It was high level conditioning really. Luckily, I was able to take the better parts of my knowledge with that and parlay it into following my passions in life.
Street: Did you go to college?
Lif: I went to Colgate University for two years. It was the wrong place for me, but I met some good people there. College, for me, wasn't as much keeping up with the dogma of the curriculum, but more about self realization. Up until that point I had been taking everything I learned for fact... College was a time for me to step back from all of that and try to understand myself a little bit.
Street: When did you first try to make MCing into a career?
Lif: I cut my demo in December of '94 and went back to Boston and mailed it to my favorite radio station -- WERS Emerson college radio -- and to my favorite personality, Papa D... He got my tape and said, "Come up to my crib." And basically, that was the beginning.
Street: What is it like to be on a label like Def Jux, one of the hottest independent labels out right now?
Lif: It's completely inspirational. I don't know how many times in history, in hip-hop at least, there has been a label where the artists are all friends and that all respect each other's work... All of us don't want to be the weak link... Its a situation where we all know we are lucky enough to be creating our own thing. This may be our era and none of us really want to see that shit die.
Street: What can we expect from I Phantom?
Lif: If you listen to the song "Phantom"at the end of the EP [Emergency Rations, released this summer], it's basically a thesis statement for what the album is... You can expect it's an exploration of what you can consider to be the life of an everyday person... It talks about the social ills within our society that lead to a greater decay... It's a story told from beginning to end. It's told from several different perspectives; it explores everything from armed robbery and quitting your job to the colonization and nuclear holocaust.
Street: Your music still has a pretty positive message. Would you consider yourself an optimist?
Lif: Not at all. I consider myself a pessimist. All anyone has to do to understand is try living a lie. Think about anything going on in your life that you are in denial of, and think about several years from now when that shit will snowball and come back to haunt you... Basically, people have no choice but to be true to themselves, 'cause ultimately it catches up with you at some point.
Street: You've been opening up for DJ Shadow all summer. What is it like playing for mostly non-hip-hop crowds?
Lif: I very much enjoy the opportunity to play for crowds that are not hip-hop crowds, 'cause its very easy to stay in your own niche and never expand. But if you come up and do a show where someone has never seen an MC get busy, you gotta approach it like it's Hip-Hop 101.
Street: What was your goal in releasing the song "Home of the Brave?" What has the response been like?
Lif: I'm really glad that it's out there and I just didn't know what kind of responses I was going to get to it at all. Of course, on many levels I feel fear, 'cause the whole thing... it was kind of tongue and cheek, but none of us really knew what this increased level of security will really bring us... but in the land of the free, home of the brave, we're all supposed to be able to speak our minds.
