The El Word

The sophomore album by hip-hop artist El-P portrays a world plagued by war and malevolent technology. Cities are burning under the noses of uncaring mayors. There are "rats tappin' glass in a government lab." It doesn't sound happy. Then again, these aren't happy times.

Dystopian as it may be, I'll Sleep When You're Dead is an A-bomb of an album, set to flip the script of underground hip-hop in both beats and rhymes. It was worth the wait — El-P's first solo effort, Fantastic Damage, came out in 2002. Dude, what took you so long?

"Obviously, I was doing a lot of other projects," says the 31-year-old Brooklyn native, a boyish redhead with a pterodactyl tattooed on one inner forearm. "I wouldn't say I got sidetracked, because I wanted to do it all I take the time on my records as well. I probably work a little longer and harder on my own records than the average person. It's really that it was ready, so I put it out."

If underground hip-hop had a quintessential renaissance man, El-P (born Jaime Meline) would be it. Besides recording solo albums and appearing as a guest MC on other musicians' tracks, he's a prolific producer, making beats for and remixing other artists. He released a completely instrumental album, Collecting the Kid, in 2004, and even scored a film, Bomb the System, released in 2005.

Oh yeah, then there's the fact that he founded and owns one of the most influential independent hip-hop labels, Definitive Jux (formerly Def Jux but changed in 2002 thanks to legal threats from major juggernaut Def Jam). It's the stable that has produced indie stars and critical darlings such as Aesop Rock, Mr. Lif, and Cage. He also started, along with fellow MCs Mr. Len and Bigg Jus, Company Flow, the seminal group whose 1997 debut, Funcrusher Plus, is now part of the underground canon.

Not that he misses making music as part of a defined group.

"At this point, fuck yeah I like making solo albums better," El-P says. "Company Flow was simultaneously incredible and incredibly difficult. You have to understand, we had been making music since '94. By the time that full-length album came out in '97 and we toured, it just ended up falling apart, personalitywise. At the time, it felt like a tragedy to me, but I'm much happier doing things the way I am now."

Translation: with El-P handling everything. Not only did he write all of the songs on I'll Sleep... but he produced the disc as well, programming all of his own beats.

As early as his teenaged years, El knew he was destined to make a life in hip-hop. "I would just fucking cut class and drink beer and act like a juvenile and freestyle," he recalls. "I played piano when I was a little kid for three years. I tried saxophone and trumpet too. My problem with all that shit was I couldn't really make Run-D.M.C. records with a saxophone. So I would make loops of someone else's break on my boom box and rap on the little microphone attached to the boom box. Then I bought a four-track. I was totally self-taught — there was no school for that shit, and if there were, I probably would have gotten kicked out."

Because of this early facility with performing and producing, today he feels comfortable using either as a mode of expression. "I love production just as much as I love MCing," he says. "But at the same time, I like having something to say."

Rooted as it is in golden-age New York hip-hop, El-P's production style is flagrantly unorthodox. Rather than aim for retro boom-bap, he often slows his breaks to a narcotic crawl, burying them in distorted reverb and lacing in eerie samples, both organic and computerized.

The sound of I'll Sleep... is that of a paranoiac's fever dream, of robots and tanks grinding through a scarred landscape and breaking into bits. Then there's El-P: narrating the impending apocalypse in his unrelenting, wordy flow, middle fingers raised at the powers that be.

Kicked out of high school for disciplinary problems (he later got his GED), El is a voracious reader. He name-checks George Orwell, Philip K. Dick, and even Borges and Faulkner as lyrical influences.

"Philip K. Dick is kind of like pulp theology fiction," he says. "Where else do you get huge questions about the nature of existence along with aliens and flying cars?" He cherishes Orwell for his ability to write about the misuse of power. "Those ideas appealed to the kid in me who always felt that way. Of course, when you're a teenager, you think it's your parents, or 'society.' It's just unfocused."