Welcome back to the CD Odyssey. Now let’s get this
ship under sail!
Disc 1232 is… I Phantom
Artist:
Mr. Lif
Year of Release: 2002
What’s up with the
Cover?
At first glance this just a logo of a person in front of a nuclear holocaust,
but when you look closer, the picture is surrounded by a bunch of smaller
graphics including the Capitol building, booze and drugs, luggage, weapons,
sex, fast food, consumerism, and various forms of media. Like the record, it is
a lot to unpack.
How I Came To Know
It: My
friend Ross introduced me to Mr. Lif. I liked it and before I knew it he’d
bought me this album as a thank you for taking care of his cat. Thanks, Ross!
How It Stacks Up: I have two of Mr. Lif’s four albums. Of those
two, “I Phantom” is the lesser.
Ratings: 3 stars
“I Phantom” answers the question “what if you crossed ‘Office Space’ with
‘On the Beach’ and then made it into a rap album? Put another way, if you are looking
for a rapper that talks about drugs, violence and how cool his new Nikes are,
then this is not the album for you.
“I Phantom” is a concept album that tells the story about a man
who tries to pursue the American dream but finds he is just falling further and
further behind, making low wages at a job he hates and growing apart from his
wife and son. He quits and finds happiness as a rapper. Then there are a whole
bunch of plot twists which are kind of hard to follow, and then the whole thing
ends in a nuclear holocaust. So yeah, there is a lot to unpack.
The plot twists are explained in a narrative in the liner notes, but I am
of the opinion that art should speak for itself and not require explanation. The
songs lose me somewhere between “career rapper” and “mushroom cloud” and figuring
it out through the liner notes is like some guy at an Open Mic explaining his
song before he plays it; annoying.
Rap albums have a tradition of skits, and “I Phantom” has a few. I’ve
never liked this particular tradition, and the opening track “Bad Card” where
our narrator seeks to borrow a gun from a friend just goes on interminably and
had me frustrated and hoping that at some point I’d hear music. A later skit, “Daddy
Dearest” features some solid writing and voice acting about an awkward
conversation between a father and his estranged son. It was really well done
but again, I would prefer music. Save that stuff for the podcasts I don’t
listen to!
Fortunately, when the songs are featured they are solid. The beats and
samples have a head-bob inducing groove and are clever and original. There is a
seventies funk quality to “I Phantom” which is artfully mixed with jazzy beats
and well-placed scratching. “New Man Theme” and “Status” are particularly funky
and the album is a winner for having these two tracks alone.
While inventive, the beats and samples on “I Phantom” don’t get so
complicated to stand in the way of Mr. Lif’s frenetic flow. Lif leans into the front of the beat, and when
he is hitting he compares favourably to K-OS or Eminem. There are times where he
is pushing a bit too many rhymes into a beat without the expected payoff but
those times are rare.
For the most part, Mr. Lif’s flow combines urgency, narration and dense,
clever rhymes that create energy and drama. On first listen, these songs come
at you hard and from many angles. It threatens to overwhelm you but on repeat listens you learn to
find that sweet spot between the funky grooves and the intensity of Mr. Lif’s flow. Maybe
the storyline will also be clearer to me as I continue to get to know the
record, but if not the songs are good enough to stand on their own.
Best tracks: Return of the B-Boy, Live from the Plantation, New
Man Theme, Status, The Now, Earthcrusher
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