Interview: Mr. Lif
by Jeremiah Griffey
The liner notes imbedded within Mr. Lif’s new album “Mo Mega” (Definitive Jux) reveal that ‘Mo’ represents the dialect of the Black slave in America. ‘Mega’ represents the hyper-modernized world we live in. Further, Lif says he extends Mo to the millions of people nationwide struggling to keep pace while the rich get richer. Mo Mega thus juxtaposes the extremely poor with the extremely rich, eliminating any sort of middle class or, in Lif’s words, common ground between the two.
“The word Mo just really stood so predominantly in my mind”, Lif says. “From the slang dialect of African Americans who are emancipated slaves here in North America. Just taking the idea of the slave and expanding it. At tax time we all feel the crunch. We’re all slaves to the government and the country. Now more than ever we’re realizing there’s a huge separation between the people and the government. There are less people now who feel like the government actually works for them currently than ever. There have probably been other points in history where people thought that, but it’s more obvious than ever. Then you have the mega which is just like the mega corporations who have huge amounts of money that they use to suppress the world view. They control what goes on in the world. Mo Mega contrasts the haves and the have nots and the gargantuan gap between the two, and the misunderstanding and disharmony that results from that.”
Lifs ten-year career in underground hip-hop has actually earned him enough money to attempt to invest wisely like those rich folk do. He recently bought his parents a house, rescuing them from rising rents in the shithole apartment they had been living in.
“I wrote in my high school yearbook that one day I was going to buy my parents a castle because I just loved them so much,” Lif reveals. “It’s not exactly a castle because I’m a much more humble person than that. But it was great to be able to do that for them. My parents were in an awful situation, getting price-gauged out of a bullshit apartment. I always try to make the wisest possible decisions with my money, and a career in music is fleeting, even though its my ninth year of doing this. My fan base seems very dedicated, but you never know, anything can happen. I’m satisfied with my music career but the fact it translated into me being able to help my parents was huge for me. I remember when I dropped out of school, my parents didn’t want to support what I was doing at all. It was mainly because they were skeptical of me being able to survive. Now its on the opposite side of the spectrum. I’m traveling the world, making music people respect and at least making some decent money. I’m sure if I had a whole different state of mind, I could be breezing through all my money and have nothing to show for it. But that’s not how I roll. I’ve been able to turn it into something that’ll hopefully gain value for me.”
Primarily known as a political rapper, especially during the “I Phantom” and “Emergency Rations” (Definitive Jux) years, Lif recently began addressing his personal life for consumption by the masses. The first major shift occurred on ‘Love Letters’, from “The Perceptionists Black Dialogue”, his collaboration with Akrobatik. On “Mo Mega”, Lif addresses his sex life on the reggae-tinged ‘Wash it up!’ and long distance intimacy on ‘Long Distance’, in part because his long-term relationship recently came to an abrupt halt. He’s starting to realize he may never have the family life he wants to go along with a successful music career.
“It’s almost like a squeeze play, man. I love my music. I love my career. But I also love being at home. It just creates a paradox. In the span of time that I’m home, I’m almost lulled into believing I have a normal life. It’s funny. When you have things going on that seem mundane you always dream you can have wild and crazy shit going on. When you’re bouncing through a different city everyday, you dream about just being able to sit on your couch.”
Lif said hes learned that communication, or brief absences of communication, is the key to a relatively healthy road relationship.
“If you’re sitting in a crowded van with a bunch of guys talking at the top of their lungs and you get a phone call from someone you’re seeing, you probably don’t want to answer that one,” Lif says. “You’re just going to have to say, ‘Hey, I gotta call you back.’ Sometimes it’s just better to let the voicemail kick in. Sometimes you just don’t need to translate that chaos that’s around you. You’re just in such different places. If someone’s at home waiting for you and you’re just out there, sometimes you can’t relate to what’s going on in their day. You can’t relate to their viewpoint. Whereas I’ve had to do a soundcheck and a couple interviews, that persons only been focusing on me, waiting for a phone call from me. That one chance we have to talk has been so built up in her mind, but for me it’s a phone call that I’m happy to get but its in the midst of me doing a bunch of other things. It’s a game of careful calculations. But when you get home you’ve got to absolutely make the most of your time. From the moment you walk in that door until the moment you leave you’ve gotta show appreciation for that person. You’ve gotta make her feel like a queen.”
Thats where ‘Long Distance’ comes into play: ‘Lift her skirt, lick her inner thigh / See her via mirror / Looked her dead in her eye…” It gets pretty graphic from there. Nice.
So, can Mr. Lif envision a time where hell be able to settle down and still have the career he has?
“I was in a long-term relationship that crashed and burned, I would say unexpectedly,” he says. “It was bizarre because it got to a point where after several years, I just kinda realized, ‘Wow. This person doesn’t understand me the way I thought they did.’ I know that my career did not assist us in achieving understanding and it drove us apart to a large extent. The whole thing as far as having kids, I dont know when it’s gonna happen. I don’t know if it’s gonna happen. I don’t know if it’s right for me. I’m just taking the time right now to build a strong future for myself, at least financially. Having a portfolio that has some diversity. Making sure I’m as knowledgeable about money and how it works so I can get the most out of mine because I don’t want to go back to having to be a slave, you know? That desk job I wrote “Live From the Plantation” about. I’m not trying to see that shit again. I think I’m a fool if I walk through a ten-year-plus career and have the support of all these people around the globe and I can’t turn that into something positive. I can’t be that dude. I’m not trying to be that dude. I’m trying to be one of the young, black men out here who has some wealth to build my community. Not just being a rich person. It’s something Chris Rock talked about – trying to be a wealthy person. Have investments that are continually generating funds. Have wealth that I can pass down to future generations in my family that they can live off of. On ‘Black Dialogue’ I say, “Rich teach their kids to invest and Poor teach their kids to work.” I want to be teaching my kids how to invest. That starts with me applying a high level of diligence into how money works. Those are the types of things that keep me awake at night. Keeps me hungry.”
On the heels of Mo Mega Lif has already completed eight of 12 songs for his tenth anniversary album, which should be out by next spring.
“I’m basically trying to make the best record of my life right now,” he says. “It’s coming along. I feel like I might be making that one right now. It’s been an amazing journey so far and I’m not ready to let it go. I feel I have a lot more to say.”
2006 Mo Mega (Definitive Jux)
2003 Sleepyheads (Thought Wizard)
2002 I Phantom (Definitive Jux)
2002 Emergency Rations (Definitive Jux)
2000 Enters the Colossus (Definitive Jux)
