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Mr.Lif - Do Worry, Be Happy
Interview By: William E. Ketchum III
 Mr. Lif seemed to be simultaneously focused and elsewhere during his phone interview with NobodySmiling. During a conversation about a certain topic, after aptly explaining his views, he'll easily stray into a tangent and speak on something else. But then again, maybe that's the point: Mr. Lif is known as a politically-minded MC, and while he embraces that reputation, he insists that there's more to him than that. Below, the Boston-bred rapper talks about his new album, compares golden era hip-hop to today's efforts, and explains how politics isn't everything.
NobodySmiling.com : Tell me about the the new album.
 Mr. Lif : The focus of this album was just capturing the sound of the times. Just capturing the stress of the strife of being people in America right now. We know that the government is running amok, and we don't have the level of control over what the government does that we'd hope. And at the same time, people are just trying to be as happy as possible. I think that the media is trying to display all of these shiny, happy images of how people are living, when in reality, there's underlying strife.
NobodySmiling.com : What's behind the title, “Mo Mega”?
Mr. Lif : It's the phrase that El-P and I came up with to capture the strife that exists, that I was just describing. “Mo” is slang created by the African American, and I take the term “Mo” and I bend the notion of the phrase across all of us who are functioning under the powers of that one or two percent of people that are so financially elite that they're able to create the hellish institutions, the labor institutions, the educational institutions.
They decide what we see on TV, they decide all that. So “Mo” represents those of us that are under the powers of the financially elite. And “Mega” represents the hyper-modernized world that we live in that is created by those people who are really calling the shots. The term “Mo Mega” just juxtaposes those two powers, which are the working class and elite, and they shine the light on the fact that there is a definite clash there, and there is no real common ground in between, because it's absolutely too (difficult) to clearly understand the backgrounds of one another.
NobodySmiling.com : Let's talk about a couple songs on the album. On “For You,” you're talking about your child who isn't even born yet.
Mr. Lif :That was something I actually wrote very close after finishing 'I Phantom', which was my record in 2001. That was just one of those things where you start to become a man, and those maternal instincts start to kick in, and you think, “What exactly would I be bringing another human being into?” What do I really think of this world? When I was younger, I had these visions of grandeur, feeling like change was very possible. And change is inevitable, obviously, because it's normal process in life. But I think that a lot of things have been revealed where (we've seen) that our government is running amok, and we don't have the level of control that we thought we had.
On all types of things, the jig is up on people working for government right now. I was kind of thinking about all of that, talking to my child about how he or she is not here yet. And it's not for lack of love that I don't have a child. It's for doubts about my own ability to just keep my own head above water, let alone taking care of someone else, and also just pre-planting the jewels in my child before it's even conceived. (The song is about) what this world is, in a couple of moments of clarity, just jotting down why I feel the world is the way it is, and things you've got to look out for if you're going to live here.
NobodySmiling.com : What about the song “Murs Is My Manager?”
Mr. Lif : [laughs] That was just me and Murs, coolin' out in Japan. We stopped to eat dinner, and my man was bugging out, like, “If I was your manager, I'd call up Elektra Records and be like, 'Yo, we need a verse from Busta Rhymes, but we're going to need him to lay down a demo of it so we can decide if it's hot or not before we accept it.'” Trying to hook me up with mad big willy cats, but at the same time, burning all my bridges and shit.
That was the original concept, and when it came time to do the jam, we ended up having even more fun with it. He's trying to put me in all these big willy situations, where every time I get around these cats I'm putting on an act, because I can't really stand that big lights, cameras on all the time culture where motherfuckers are looking fake walking down the red carpet. Basically, I bloodied everyone down, and then Murs is pissed off because I'm blowing all the opportunities that he's giving me. The whole jam is like a moment of freedom on the album, where we really get to bug out.
NobodySmiling.com : That song is playful, but what kind of real life situations have you had like that?
Mr. Lif : Fortunately for me, those types of things have only happened at the beginning of my career. Right when I dropped out of college, I was rolling with these cats who didn't have the best intentions and were trying to play me out. Motherfuckers had me writing trying to sound like Biggie and shit, and I was like, “Hell no,” so I just had to step. I tried also to be part of the battle scene, because in 96-98, a lot of people thought that was the way to go if you wanted to blow up and get exposure. My forte has never been standing in front of someone and talking shit about them, I don't really have a passion for that.
I hold my ground, and I have an aggressive tone, because in general, I'm kicking in the door and I'm flexing my skills and letting cats know that I'm here to stay, and that few can fuck with my skill level. But anyone that knows me knows that I'm one of the most polite people out there, I'm very respectful. Standing there and disrespecting someone and possibly saying something that brings people to blows just so I can get some points in a rap battle, that's not really my forte. Maybe it would be a different thing if I legitimately had beef with someone and it wasn't staged, but I'm that cat that's liable to play the side and just let it all blow over, and let someone feel the weight of his own mistakes rather than strike back. Everything comes to pass.
NobodySmiling.com : You came out in the late 90s, which had a lot of party music. How difficult was it for you to come out with political music during that time?
Mr. Lif : It was a trend that rap went through. It's painful for a lot of us cats about lyrics. But it was very easy, and a lot of party music was being made on the commercial level. On the underground level, a lot of MCs had their blades out ready to cut each other down, it was really intense. You had to hurry up and find your own...to me, it's the closest thing I can think of to relate hip-hop to what it was in the late 80s and early 90s. In the late 80s and early 90s, everyone was trying to sound different. It wasn't a compliment for someone to tell you, “Yo, you sound like 'Rakim;'” it was a diss, because no one wanted to sound alike.
Obviously, today in commercial culture, cats don't give a fuck. You've got dudes like Guerilla Black or Shyne trying to sound exactly like Biggie, which to me, is complete fuckery [laughs]. I can't even believe that they're accepted as artists, but that's a whole other story, cuz biting is like the “in” thing now. Everyone in that era was trying to find their own niche, not sound like anyone else, and I was lucky to be a part of that. For me, my passion for writing thought-provoking rhymes helps separate from the pack. It was very easy for me to be like, “Let me fill a void that other cats aren't necessarily feeling right now.”
NobodySmiling.com : Being a politically-minded MC, a lot of the time, a stigma comes with that. What do you think is the most misunderstood thing about you?
Mr. Lif : They say that if you make your bed, you've got to lay in it. The bed I created for myself is that political bed, because I was writing a lot of rhymes that people liked before “Home of the Braves” came out. People couldn't point at me and say, “He's the guy that does (place category here),” they just didn't have a title for me. But “Home of the Braves” came out, and they said, “That's the political rapper.”
With that title, there are stigmas. Once you have that political tag on you, you aren't having relationships with no women, you ain't writing no rhymes about nothing except politics, you're just supposed to be the rap CNN. That's how it breaks down, unfortunately, inevitably. When people talk about Malcolm X, they don't talk about what a passionate man he was.
They talk about his passionate as far as politics, they don't talk about his passion as far as how amazing of a family man he might've been. I know the brother was on the road a lot, because he was crazy motivated, and he was on a mission. I want to know what's up with what type of father Brother Malcolm.. what was the brother's father-son relationship like, how well was he able to balance that time away with coming back home and making his wife feel like she was his queen for real?
For instance, the song “Long Distance.” That's a position that I'm consistently in as a touring musician. I've been having relationships all throughout my adult life, and every time you go away and you leave someone at the crib, it's not the most pleasant thing.
Your girl don't necessarily just want to be there chilling; she might want to be on the road with you, or she just might point blank want you there. So, every time you come home, especially when your life is segmented like that, there might be periods of time when you're only home for a couple of weeks. You've got to show and prove, like, “This is how much I Love You. This is how much I thought about you when I was on the road. This is how much you mean to me.” And every day, it becomes that. That can work against you, and that can work with you. It can remind you that life is really about living with passion.
That's what I'm about. That's why I wrote songs like “Love Letters,” and “Breathing the Sun” on the Black Dialogue album, that's why I wrote “Washitup!” and “Long Distance” on this album. I can't just write a whole album that just pertains battle raps and raps about politics, because that's just going to perpetuate peoples' ability to put me in a box, and basically castrate me and act like I'm not a man. And next thing you know, people try to act like you're a saint, then someone hears that you're drinking a beer and eating a burger and then motherfuckers want to act all shocked, like you fell from grace.
I can't have that. I'm a mortal man. The women that I've been involved with are far higher on my agenda than watching Bush's ugly ass on TV every day. I'm a very passionate man, and I pride myself on that. It's not (about) whether or not people want to hear it; they're going to have to hear it, because I refuse to live in a box!
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Dope interview, dope mc.