Lethal Attraction

Mac also recorded a song based on a broken engagement. In real life, he says, his ex-fiancée (alias "Teagan") lied and told him that he'd gotten her pregnant and that she'd lost the baby. In "Teagan," bullet casings plink to the pavement alongside disembodied guitar and bleak choral vocals as Mac spits at his lost love, I'm a lovesick idiot, infected, itching to breathe/And you're a genius with your clit on your sleeve. In "Tummy," Mac recounts a relationship broken apart on November 11 (hence the album title) by a miscarriage. Over melancholy acoustic guitar lines, he shouts, So from the knuckles that I broke on the concrete walls/To the tears in the hospital bathroom stalls/From the vast amount of blood that you lost in seven days/To the daughter I could listen to talk but never raise. Elsewhere, "Tangle" is a dark celebration of sex and fame in a world where McDonald's are opening in church lobbies.

Pent-up emotional angst exploded all over the recording. But when he sent it to Rhymesayers, Siddiq wanted Mac to keep honing it. The record was unbalanced, a little too heavy on the suffering. Too much pain doesn't make for a well-rounded MC.

Luke Echterling

Luke Echterling

Mac Lethal sweats out an early-November set at Lucky Brewgrille.

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• DJ Lethal
• Lawrence
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• Hip-Hop and Rap
• Underground Hip-Hop

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"If anybody was to label Rhymesayers as something, it would probably be emotional and heavy music — that's kind of our bread and butter. It's always been our thing," Siddiq tells the Pitch from his office in Minneapolis. Still, Siddiq has helped Mac bring out all sides of his personality, putting equal emphasis on the hurt and the humor.

"When he sent me back to the lab," Mac says, "it was more or less to create a better balance. I've definitely added some songs to dilute it, I guess, to not make it so fucking hard to swallow."

The label would have put him in a professional studio, but Mac wanted the entire album to maintain the sound of the original demo. So Rhymesayers paid him $5,000 (straight to the mortgage) and told him to keep working and think about how he wanted to present himself to the world.

That was over the summer, after the label had decided not to introduce any new artists in the latter half of the year. With plenty of time, and with Nezbeat and Been at his disposal, Lethal opened the abused door and went back to writing and recording.

Now a new version of 11:11is getting a listen in Minneapolis, where Rhymesayers will hear two new, upbeat songs. The apocalyptic "Strike Me Dead" has been pushed to a bonus track.

The first new song, "Luis Guzman" (though he's not mentioned in its lyrics, the song is a tribute to the heavy-browed Latino character actor who never gets near the leading role), is driven by bouncing bass and sampled orchestral flourishes; it stands up for Kansas women and trashes the media for misrepresenting blacks.

There's also "Walkin' on Nails." Over an audacious sample of the guitar riff from the classic-rock staple "Funk #49" by the James Gang, Mac opens it up saying "Let's go happy with this one." Despite the divergence from the album's overall grit, Mac employs his usual lyrical prowess in listing some of his favorite things: readin' magazines backwards/Wrinkle-free trousers/Takin' Percocet and masturbatin' in the shower.

The songs may not make the final cut, but if they aren't good enough, he could do more. He's finally in a groove, one he couldn't have found until now, a year after losing his mom, his girl and his hair.