with the eighth pick in the 6th round of the 2013 Desert Island Music Draft, i select...
El-P - Cancer 4 Cure (05/22/12):
01 Request Denied
02 The Full Retard
03 Works Every Time (feat. Paul Banks)
04 Drones over BKLYN
05 Oh Hail No (feat. Mr. Muthaf***in' eXquire & Danny Brown)
06 Tougher Colder Killer (feat. Killer Mike & Despot)
07 True Story
08 The Jig is Up
09 Sign Here
10 For My Upstairs Neighbor (Mums the Word)
11 Stay Down (feat. Nick Diamonds)
12 $4 Vic / FTL (Me and You)
Genre: hip hop, alternative hip hop, noise rap
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cancer_4_Cure
note: the version of "Drones Over BKLYN" above is censored, for those who might be averse to colorful language...
here's something different for the sixth round. i wrote an official review of this album at the end of last year, and an edited version of that review appears below:
Social condition always affects the artistic tenor of a particular moment in time, and 2012 is clearly a year in which many talented musicians are thrashing back against the calamity. However, Brooklyn's El-P has been doing it longer than most. His 2002 solo debut, Fantastic Damage, was a perfect document of New York's post-9/11 malaise, and 2007's I'll Sleep When You're Dead was a masterful augmenting of El-P's formula. At 37 years old and highly-respected in the independent hip hop community for his talent both as a producer and as an emcee, Jaime Meline clearly has little left to prove, either to himself or to others. But El-P's Cancer 4 Cure arrived in the listener's eardrums as the result of unfortunate circumstances.
In 2008, El-P lost friend and labelmate Tero "Camu Tao" Smith to cancer, a death that sent shockwaves through a much-revered portion of the indie hip hop community. In the time since Camu's passing, El had been busying himself with his duties as CEO of the Definitive Juxtaposition record label, but the strain of contemporary music's commercial realities would eventually force El-P to fold Def Jux in February of 2010, until further notice. The upside, of course, was that El would finally have the time to devote to his next solo album. 2012's Cancer 4 Cure is clearly a labor of struggle, and its smog-filled, retro-futuristic neon buzz scans like a triumphant return for a man sorely missed in the five years since his last album.
"Request Denied" very ominously opens with a quietly-ringing guitar sample and a soft, droning synth. Then William S. Burroughs chimes in from beyond the grave, warning that "This is war to extermination; fight cell by cell through bodies and mind screens of the earth. Souls rotten from the Orgasm Drug. Flesh shuddering from the Ovens. Prisoners of the earth, come out. Storm the studio." From this literary Armageddon, Cancer 4 Cure explodes forth in a punchdrunk frenzy of claustrophobic drum breaks, squawking guitar solo, and Rhodes organ flourishes. Unexpectedly, "Request Denied" takes its jittery time ushering Brooklyn's finest to the mic. When you're as exceptional a producer as El-P, I suppose you can show up fashionably late to your own party, marking the album's first rap salvo a full three minutes into "Request Denied." But it's an introductory fury of syllables-per-second that scorches the final 1:30 in front of it. By the song's end, El is "Drunk and defiant, sunset started up all night / crawl through the cracks in the halls of the battered up / scattered up, middle finger, d*** held / brick kids screaming at the top of our airbags / 'this is our timing, we are not dying.' NOT FOR YOU / NOT FOR YOU / NOT FOR YOU." In a world where sons and daughters are so often called to fall on the swords of those who can shield their own from harm, "Request Denied" is an uninhibited roar of a rallying cry. That final chorus of "not for you"s projects outward from the rooftop like a bat signal: El-Producto has returned.
Built around Cancer 4 Cure's most vicious drum break, "Drones Over BKLYN" is an absolute bonecrusher of a song, the kind of sci-fi diss track that Ray Bradbury might have listened to if he had ever made it to the moon: "I'd sooner wash my d*** in acid than ask what you think / I'd f*** myself with a stun gun before gassin' your team / you patch me in and I'll dumb out with a channeled disease / it sucks to be nothin' / nobody struts when they're down on their knees / this whole racket's for the bees / f*** my life already / f*** the law / f*** the sun / say goodnight, already." HOLY S***. Curiously, each swear word in "Drones" is punctuated by a kick drum/synth stab combo that pseudo-censors his vulgarity, as if El knows he’ll never be able to escape the watchful eyes of those who seek to suppress. And instead of delivering the kind of satisfying hook one might expect of a banger like this, El pitch-shifts his voice into an eerie contemplation of Orwellian paranoia: "I can see them in my eyes when they’re closed / I can hear them at night / I can feel them plot a course through the sky / I believe in their flight." "Drones" is a masterstroke of dystopic rap, and, as such, also features a star-gazing and jazzy coda, the kind of victory lap that an artist born again in his craft will occasionally feel the compulsion to take.
While tracks like "The Full Retard," "Drones Over BKLYN," and "Oh Hail No" are Cancer 4 Cure's hardest-hitting bangers, "The Jig is Up," "Sign Here" and "For My Upstairs Neighbor (Mums the Word)" are its narrative centerpieces, steeped in El-P's patented brand of paranoia. "The Jig is Up" introduces the album's midsection with an overload of anxiety: "Tell me who sent you here / what agency? / Who's paying for this time you're wasting? / Who signs when you submit receipts? / What did they have on you to bribe you with? / What's the threat they held above that very pleasing face? / What do they want from me?" The song's seesaw beat seamlessly gives way to "Sign Here," and the listener may not even recognize that a new track has begun. It's a persona piece that tackles the power struggle in relationships by turning it into an interrogation: "Let's play 'Interrogation.' / It goes: what's your name (LIAR!!) / I'll call you rotating one-eighty / face down, undulating / adjust the angle of your presentation to me (HIGHER!!) / hold that position while I… / there's nothing coy allowed within these walls / be nothing less than honest / please sign this document attesting voluntary process / you wouldn't acquiesce to this full-probe / if you still didn't want it." DAMN. El's woozy and nearly-spoken delivery really enhances the sleazy intent of the character he's created. "For My Upstairs Neighbor" similarly invents an elaborately imaginative scenario, this time a hallway encounter between neighbors. El fantasizes about telling a fellow tenant to kill the boyfriend who is clearly abusing her: "As you passed I stopped and put my hand on your left arm / and we both paused, I meant no harm / and you look startled as I leaned in to your ear / and said the first-and-last-thing ever to you: 'Do the thing you have to and I swear I'll tell them nothin'." It's a brilliantly-rendered story that captures the insulation of New York life.
C4C closes out with lengthy final space-aged track "$4 Vic / FTL (Me and You)." No longer in persona, El shouts out his home state directly: "This goes out to the maniacs / and aristocrats, grifters / to the zealots and monarchs / what up, brainiacs? / compulsively acidic rainiacs? / repulsively predictable painiacs? / to the liars / for the devil's night fires / same to you, too, town crier / top o' the mornin', morbid / quite a day we're havin', gorgeous / salutation's unimportant / hello, uninspired / I thought I'd drop on by / and wish you all the luck desired." El props up these dedications with a considerable amount of negative space. "$4 Vic" is among C4C's most spare tracks, and El takes his time in arriving at the declaration, "I can no longer contain what's under my disguise / I've always had a cancer for the cure / that's what the f*** am I!!” El-P could never be accused of writing music of an agreeable persuasion. He's not looking to uplift his listeners. Instead, he's got a synthesizer and a beat for each and every wrong he perceives in the world, a cancer for the cure, an ability to connect to the parts of us that recognize just how f***ed up things can get. It's not a bright, sunshine-y day. But I suppose some of us prefer it that way.
