Mr. Lif

The problem with a majority of political music is that once you remove it from it’s specific time period, it’s often stupid, facile even. Mr. Lif’s new record commits a rather dire sin of political music. Giving names and instantly damning his music to this era, but despite this, Lif’s record works well as an hip-hop record.. with or without his limited views on politics. Because you know, being cynical about politics, such a new thing to do. Now I’m just being a bit harsh. Mr. Lif focuses on other stuff as well. Like cop brutality and pot.

 Points:

 What I don’t get is how impossibly ‘hard-hitting’ Mr. Lif is trying to be, when he’s essentially saying the same or similar thing in an equally cynical manner. And talking about Obama already? Okay, your record has 8 years of relevance at best. Bringing in the collapse of the economy, okay, fair enough. But the constant cynicism, and sometimes facile claim to some kind of political knowledge is hair-raisingly bad at times. This album was supposed to be “dedicated to capturing the pulse of this tumultuous era we’re living through.” huh? In doing so Mr. Lif has created an album that’ll be quickly and rightfully forgotten.

 Being unapologetically cerebral is one thing, but when doing so I’d beg Mr. Lif to have restraint when spouting off about politicians. In a rare instance where I fully agreed with Pitchfork, “Lif’s intentions– to heat up his politics with personal immediacy– are admirable, but the result, unfortunately, recreates a bit too successfully how it might feel to read a Mr. Lif Huffington Post column”. Damn straight, this album’s primary problem is that it never stops spouting off it’s cynical point of view, perhaps on the final track it offers a glimmer of hope, but by the time, it’s hard to maintain any kind of interest in what Lif is trying to say. He’s too political, he’s too immediate with his flow.

 Mr. Lif thanks the listener at the end of his album, and it’s clear that “I Heard It Today” is an extremely personal work constructed almost entirely of politics according to Mr. Lif.. I don’t disagree with what the man is saying, his weariness isn’t totally without merit, but it’s so constant that I have a hard time caring about the album as music, as something I listen to so I can experience it. Listening to this again, right before the next phase of my life starts.. before I graduate makes me feel down, Mr. Lif is constantly looking into the gutter and never looking up right now, and I hope he finds a subject that will give his flow a better gravity then ‘politics with Lif’, because that’s just depressingly sour.