Concert Review by Nadia Pflaum
Last night at the Granada in Lawrence, El-P took the stage beneath white sheets imprinted with the disturbing icon from his album, I’ll Sleep When You’re Dead: a skeletal bird in flight, head twisted to look heavenward, crowned with a halo. His bassist, DJ and keyboardist arrived dressed in woolen facemasks with holes for the mouth and eyes. Sleek, expensive-looking projectors blasted the background with images of gray-smog-chugging smokestacks, Matrix-like grids of streaming green codes, smoke, flames and cartoon animations befitting his concept of his latest work: a post-traumatic stress album.
El-P, with skeletal bird creature. Photo by Mike Schreiber.
El-P, short for El-Producto, owns the label Def Jux and was once signed to Rawkus Records with Company Flow before splitting due to – guess what – creative differences. Last night he took the mic looking like my makeup-artist friend Eanna got to him, blood dripping from his left ear, a couple red gashes on his cheeks. The entire effect was dark, apocalyptic and metal-industrial – and yet El-P himself somehow remained human, engaging, and even warm. Having never seen him perform before, his rhymes reminded me of Mac Lethal’s self-effacing humor, but with more biting social criticism. Like Mac Lethal if he went to hell and back.
One track recalled the helpless feeling of praying to baby Jesus on a turbulent flight – I’ll never do drugs again…I’ll wear a condom… and repeated the saying, “There are no athiests in a foxhole,” for the chorus.
During a break, El-P told a story about playing video games in the mall and being approached by a Marine recruiter.The recruiter asked him if he liked music. He describesd the recruiter in withering detail: his fake sincerity, his crisp uniform, his deceptive pitch: “You don’t even have to fight – the Marines are just looking for a few good guitarists!”
El-P took that moment to advise, “I might have been born yesterday, but I stayed up all night,” a line that lead to the song, “Up All Night.”
The show was so different than the hip-hop shows I’ve been seeing lately, so heartfelt and raw and loud. No call-and-response, no throw-your-hands-in-the-air. The only buzzkill was the arrival of Captain Morgan, some dude dressed up as a pirate, shilling rum and handing out stickers and free t-shirts.
Someone should tell the Captain that the Marines are looking for a few good…pirates.
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