MR LIF - Mo Mega - 2006 - Album review

MR LIF - Mo Mega - 2006 - Album review
RATING: 3/5
HIGHLIGHTS: Murs Iz My Manager (hip hop track of the year so far!)
Lif's collaboration project Perceptionists released a solid LP last year but this is his first solo outing since 2002's quality 'I Phantom' and - er - it's not quite as good. Now I realise I may be going against the prevailing wind of opinion there - but that's in my nature. Anyway - there's no need to get too disappointed- I'd have bought this for the track 'Murs iz My Manager' alone which is classic funky sh*t, the likes of which Gang Starr and Del used to churn out by the bucketload, only better. This particular track is as old school as it gets without actually travelling back in time to say, 1992, with Lif and Murs trading rhymes about how Murs has 'got Lif's back' in the murky world of the music business over a bassline so funky it'll make you dance like you've just acquired crabs. Meanwhile stabs of funk soul horns battle it out with Coldcut style phone bell samples. The problem with Lif, for me, is that he always feels compelled to offer you an LP (or EP) of two halves. On the one hand superb old school offerings like 'Murs iz..', on the other new school cut and paste beats some more turgid and heavy than others in the El-P/ Cannibal Ox vein. Always politically conscious, Lif's scathing lyrics are always better if, like KRS - 1 they're accompanied by upbeat breaks and samples (which also seem to encourage his sense of humour) rather than the laboured grindings of what people have come to associate with the Def Jux label. Don't get me wrong - if anyone can make the Def Jux template groovy it'll be Lif. It's just that when he junks the 'Jux style and just grooves he's a lot better and with this LP there's more of the slow heavy stuff on offer here. So it's just as well he's also thrown on his funkiest ever track too.