Mr. Lif
Like many college-bound hip-hop lovers, Jeffrey Haynes arrived at Colgate University in the early '90s and sought out like-hooded heads at the campus radio station. Soon, as a DJ for Colgate's WRCU, he was spinning underground classics from Jeru the Damaja, Del Tha Funkee Homosapien, and Black Moon. He quickly graduated to writing his own rhymes. And now, almost a decade later, the turntables have turned. Haynes (a.k.a. Mr. Lif) is one of alt-hip-hop's hottest commodities, with campus DJs nationwide spinning his tunes.
''It's an honor that they're playing my stuff,'' says the Boston-bred rapper, 27, who released LPs on the Beastie Boys' now-defunct Grand Royal before joining indie label Definitive Jux in 2000. ''Hip-hop has become such a party culture, but college radio has always been dedicated to playing more cerebral stuff. I hope they'll feel like I'm right up their alley.''
That alley better be mighty dark: Lif's latest, ''I Phantom'' (due Sept. 17), opens with gunplay and climaxes with nuclear holocaust (''Thugs, executives, and cops with tasers/Trees are dust, skyscrapers are vapors''), all accompanied by apocalyptic drums and spastic synths.
In fact, college radio might be the only outlet for Lif's jagged-edged expression. While commercial radio clings to bling-bling, college rap charts feature a more thoughtful, diverse set of artists with Def Jux currently at the top of the indie-hop heap. In August, three of the label's artists (RJD2, El-P, and Mr. Lif) had releases among the top 10 on CMJ's hip-hop chart.
''Everything that I've heard from Def Jux has been right on the money,'' says Andrew Bryant, music director at Wake Forest's WAKE-FM, which regularly spins Lif. ''They're doing stuff that is, by far, more creative than the average Puff Daddy or bloated Busta Rhymes track.... These people are a lot more attuned to what we're going through.''
Lif's rhymes range from the personal and the abstract to more precise visions that reflect his radical politics: ''It's easy to control the scared so they keep us in fear/With their favorite middle eastern demon named Bin Laden this year/Bush disguises blood lust as patriotism/Convincing the living to love 'Operation Let's Get 'Em','' he raps on ''Home of the Brave,'' from his June 11 EP, ''Emergency Rations.''
''It's important to keep a dialogue going and to keep on viewing things with a critical eye,'' says Lif. ''Whenever I perform, I have conversations with people about how they feel. In interviews, we talk about the topics that are raised. That gets printed and the dialogue continues. Then there are the chat rooms at various hip-hop sites. I just want to keep on presenting topics. People don't have to agree with them, as long as it presents a forum to discuss the state of affairs in our lives.'' It seems people are ready to talk back.
''He's trying to school people instead of saying the same thing,'' says Mike Onley, a DJ at Wilkes University's WCLH, who spins ''Home of the Brave'' during his hip-hop show. ''People have to be exposed to this stuff and college kids are ready to hear it.'' Loud and clear.
