El-P: Cancer 4 Hip Hop

By Alif Omar Mahfix  •  17 May 2012 in Music

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Hip hop is a genre that has a cyclical cliché in that every generation will bitch and moan about the want for a cure to a supposed genre malaise. That’s BS though, and here’s the man behind the founding of underground hip hop legends Company Flow and indie hip hop label Def Jux back to provide some much needed cancer to hip hop.

The punk rock air of not giving a f#ck in modern left-field hip hop can be traced back to Def Jux, but the label’s demise can be faulted on the artists stubborn insistence on conforming to some blinkered genre truthiness (here’s looking at you Vast Aire). New album C4C (Cancer 4 Cure) is vintage Def Jux goodness, industrial synths over Bambaataa-esque hip hop beats and dense rap meters.

Penultimate track ‘Stay Down’ featuring Nick Diamonds of Islands has both the emotiveness of sophomore I’ll Sleep When I Die and the bile articulation of debut Fantastic Damage. With C4C and the wholly El-produced R.A.P. Music by Killer Mike, Def Jux is rebooted to kick hip hop’s arse again.

More on the rebooted Def Jux at www.definitivejux.net.