El-P - Cancer 4 Cure (2012) [MP3]

Even the best relationships acquire baggage. Circa 1999, Def Jux forged a fiefdom from the ashes of vinyl champs Fondle 'Em and the soon-to-be-ruined promise of Rawkus. "Independent as fuck" was the mantra, and for those wondering why MF Doom and the Roots couldn't get airplay, it may well have been a war cry.

Until Russell Simmons took a temporary sabbatical from model mongering to threaten a trademark-infringement lawsuit, even Def Jux's name riffed on (Darth) Def Jam, the rap overlord at its greased-up and growling Ruff Ryders, Jigga, and Ja Rule apex. But back when the "Underground" was tagged in capital letters, the promise of an alternate subterranean grid seemed infinite. Fat Beats did booming business. Hip-hop culture mags cropped up to survey the soundbombing. Clinton was President. Gas was $1 per gallon. A Bellevue-certified eccentric like Kool Keith could get Doctor Octagon dough from Dreamworks to squander in and around the West Hollywood IHOP.

During that last spring of the 20th Century, Rawkus Records released Soundbombing II-- an Underground Now That's What I Call Music*!*-- that banged incessantly in dorm rooms across America and England. It marked the first and only time Eminem and El-P shared space on wax. Yet it didn't feel that weird at the time. People still used the phrase "on wax" and Shady had only recently signed to Interscope. To balance his quality time with Dr. Dre, Marshall Mathers also worked with people like Thirstin Howl III and Outsidaz. As the demented fan from "Stan" said: "I like that shit you did with Rawkus too, that shit was phat." Not only did people still use the word "phat," they opted to build clothing lines around it.

You can trace the genesis of El-P's solo career back to Soundbombing II's "Patriotism". A five-minute fulguration to American culture and the military-industrial complex, it was credited to Company Flow, but his one-time rhyme partner Bigg Jus sat on the sidelines. The next year, the group released its final single, "DPA". It was the second release on the fledgling Def Jux and doubled as a mission statement. This is "heart of darkness," El-P fulminated and as if to prove his point, George W. Bush "won" the Electoral College several months later. He may have been referencing Joseph Conrad, but the Brooklyn bomber soon received a bête noire worthy of Richard Nixon and Raoul Duke. The new imprint existed to chronicle the fear and loathing. And by 2007's I'll Sleep When You're Dead, he confessed to "a gonzomatic fear turning [him] Hunter S. Thompson."

At least that was the image that took root. The reality was more and less sophisticated. Bizarro attempts to break the mold with funk-fusionists Chin Chin and the original Lonely Island, Party Fun Action Committee, rarely received the attention they deserved. Nor did the mutant howls of Camu Tao, whose genre-clobbering experimentation influenced Kid Cudi, Mr. Muthafuckin' eXquire, and Danny Brown. Luck didn't lend itself to the Def Jux enterprise. Rjd2 could have re-made Deadringer a half-dozen times, and both label and artist could have reaped that soccer mom Moby licensing money. Instead, he ditched turntables for the microphone, signed to XL, and offered prayers to the mustache of John Oates. Meanwhile, meal tickets Cannibal Ox couldn't get it together for a sophomore album and were last seen wandering lost around the Gardens of Asgard.

That's a lot to deal with for any label head, let alone one tasked to redesign the Delorean every five years. It's hard enough to rap and make beats professionally, never mind having to worry about C-Rayz Walz wanting help with his 401(k). Factor in the ravages of online piracy and the tragic death of Camu Tao, and bombing the system seemed like the only obvious option. Yet what might've been most damning was that Def Jux became imprisoned by ideals that belonged to a different era. Even if most of their artists had long outgrown the "Us vs. Them" mentality, outside perception didn't always chart the progression.

By now, Eminem was making 12-step anthems for trailer trash. Soundbombing II star Common was allowed to wear angora and cinematically woo Queen Latifah with his low-post moves. But El-P and by proxy Definitive Jux were stereotyped with opinions like the one A$AP Worldwide co-founder Yams offered earlier this year: Company Flow fans don't buy A$AP Rocky records. Maybe that was true 10 years ago (if A$AP Rocky been out of Junior High), but the truth had become closer to El-P's response: I'm in Company Flow and I listen to A$AP. It was the rap equivalent of the Battle of New Orleans. The cease-fire had been signed, but there was one last conflict before putting the era to sleep.

With the exception of the Jay-Z/Kanye/Young Money/Rozay axis, the rap game has largely flattened out (or bottomed out, depending on your angle). A guy like Mr. Muthafuckin' eXquire can get a deal from Universal after releasing a free mixtape over old Necro and El-P beats. Waka Flocka fronts this month's XXL, but Killer Mike and El-P get second billing alongside Chief Keef, Curren$y, and Slaughterhouse. 2Chainz is playing Rock the Bells. Things are more similar than they've seemed in a long time.

Cancer 4 Cure is both reinvention and inversion. El-P's first album since putting Def Jux on hiatus in early 2010 marks a break from the old order and another call to arms. Whereas Fantastic Damage served as a Def Jux coming out party and I'll Sleep When You're Dead synthesized the sweaty jitters of the mid-Dubya daze, Cancer 4 Cure consciously creates its own iron galaxy. None of the Def Jukies appear, save for Despot. In their stead are eXquire, Danny Brown, and a snarling Killer Mike, whose El-P produced R.A.P. Music is already the front-runner for rap album of the year. Any one of their guest spots could be a hip-hop quotable, if we still lived at a time when people cared about the Hip Hop Quotable. But my vote goes to Danny Brown, self-described as "Ric Flair/ With thick hair/ Yelling out 'woo'/ Getting head in the director's chair."

Cancer 4 Cure's closest analogue may be Portishead's Third: the textures and tones are distinctly different from past releases, but it's unimaginable that it could be made by anyone else. El-P has described the record as fight music abstracted. To be more specific, it's fight or flight music. Primal response mechanism rap. And like any good storyteller, his narratives are rooted in conflict. On "Tougher Colder Killer", El-P inhabits the mindset of a soldier haunted by post-traumatic stress, who made "his enemy dig his own grave at the point of a gun." "For My Upstairs Neighbor" finds the protagonist getting grilled by cops about a domestic violence situation in his apartment building. He tells "Columbo" nothing, but later confronts the abuse victim in the stairwell and whispers to her, "do the thing you have to and I swear I'll tell them nothing." Meanwhile, "Works Every Time" is a drug dealer dialectic between the urge to self-medicate and the consequences of the obliteration.

The closest thing the record has to a love song is "The Jig Is Up", where the hook uses the words of Groucho Marx to describe a relationship: "I wouldn't want to be a part of any club that would have me." Even "Sign Here", a song grappling with sexual power issues uses an interrogation room as a metaphorical backdrop. You don't need me tell you that it's heavy. It's a record from El-P, a man who could make Pollyanna see poltergeists. But to balance out the hangman's tension, there's "Drones over BKLYN" and "The Full Retard", two clavicle-cracking rants reminiscent of the old El-P, with rhymes "short and fat like Joe Pesci" that would "slap you out of your fucking shit."

The beats. The synths sound like they've been stolen from a bargain bin on Alpha Centauri, stocked with futuristic workout anthems for robot soldiers. Listening to it in daylight hours can make you feel allergic to sunlight. Most rumble at 130 to 140 BPM and feel uniquely congruent with and ahead of the times. After all, the producers at L.A.'s Low End Theory and the early London dubstep architects all owe a small but significant debt to El's experiments with negative space and bone-chipping bass.

What grounds the record is a scarcely subliminated obsession with death. Dedicated to Camu Tao, whose demise directly preceded its creation, the characters are forever warring with some imminent end, whether creative, romantic, or literal. It's rare when re-inventions seem so deliberate but unselfconscious. And through the struggle it gains a certain scarred freedom. It's simultaneously able to stand alone but alongside that trademark blend of sneering New York City skepticism. It sheds the bullshit of the past and is stained with the weary residue of an incalculable number of cigarettes, weed deliveries, bodega runs, and blind turns. It's the best kind of tribute El-P could make: a record that you can pump like they do in the future.