I Phantom

I Phantom
Studio album by Mr. Lif
Released	September 17, 2002
Recorded	Boston Butta Beats, Boston; Def Jux Studios, Steel Acres, The Danger Room, New York City
Genre	Hip hop
Length	47:44
Label	Definitive Jux
Producer	El-P, Insight, DJ Fakts One, NASA, Edan
Mr. Lif chronology
Emergency Rations (2002) I Phantom (2002) Mo' Mega (2006)

I Phantom is the debut studio album by American rapper Mr. Lif, released on September 16, 2002, by Definitive Jux. It was produced mostly by El-P,^[1] and recorded at Boston Butta Beats, Def Jux Studios, Steel Acres, and The Danger Room.^[2] I Phantom is a hip hop concept album about the working life of an African American who is pressured into pursuing the dubious rewards of the American dream.^[3] It received positive reviews from music critics upon its release and was praised for El-P's sparse hip hop production and Lif's incisive lyrics and everyman themes.

Music and lyrics

I Phantom is a concept album described as "an exploration of the dynamics of everyday life, and the pursuit of our dreams, in a rapidly decaying society." The narrative begins with death ("A Glimpse At The Struggle") and resurrection ("Return Of The B-Boy") and ends with nuclear holocaust ("Earthcrusher," "Post-Mortem"). The liner notes provide instructions on how to follow the story.^[2]

The album expands on the everyman persona that Lif debuted on his 2002 extended play Emergency Rations, of which he said in an interview for the Chicago Tribune: "We're wasting time if we're not talking about issues that affect us and the planet in our music. I grew up in an era when Boogie Down Productions, Public Enemy and Eric B. and Rakim were dropping serious science on their records. They didn't ignore what was going on around them at the time, and neither should we. We're talking with each other through this music."^[4] While the EP was a fierce political diatribe on U.S. foreign policy and the Bush administration, I Phantom focuses more on working class black America.^[5]

Release and promotion

I Phantom was released by Definitive Jux on September 16, 2002, in the United Kingdom and on September 17 in the United States.^[6] Lif promoted the album with a national tour that began on September 14.^[7]

Critical reception

Professional ratings
Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	[8]
Blender	[9]
NME	7/10[10]
Pitchfork Media	8.3/10[11]
Rolling Stone	[12]
Stylus Magazine	B+[13]
Tiny Mix Tapes	4.5/5[14]
Uncut	[15]
Vibe	4/5[16]
The Village Voice	A[17]

I Phantom received widespread acclaim from contemporary music critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average score of 81, based on 12 reviews.^[18] Ben Ratliff of The New York Times found it "far superior" than Lif's Emergency Rations,^[19] and Uncut called it "an album of flashing wit and giddy ambition."^[15] Blender found the funk-influenced beats "innovative" and Lif's rhymes "engaging", and wrote that he "brilliantly avoids the pitfalls of vacuous bling-drones and 'real hip-hop' whiners alike."^[9] Nathan Rabin, writing in The A.V. Club, found it "really audacious and ambitious" and said that it mixes producer El-P's "icy B-boy futurism with Lif's nasal-everyman flow, to powerful effect."^[1] NME described it as "the sound of hip-hop fishing for cents in the gutter" and "vengeance made eloquent".^[10] Rolling Stone called the album "graceful" and Lif "a rapper as incisive as early-Nineties X-Clan - and far more crucial in these depoliticized times."^[12]

Moira McCormick from the Chicago Tribune called I Phantom "a heady, lyrically dazzling, unsparing" hip hop concept album told "with humor, heart and a sorcerer's way with words."^[3] Matt Cibula of PopMatters called the album "smart, realistic, nimble, harsh, funny at times, and a really effective critique of a messed-up society by one of its most intelligent chroniclers", adding that "it sounds like a mission statement. It sounds like victory. And it sounds great in my car."^[6] Robert Christgau wrote in The Village Voice that it "evinces not only conceptual ambition but detailed knowledge of what it's like to work a job and raise a family", and found it to be "underpinned by an analysis more Boots Riley than Talib Kweli or Steve Earle." He also said that the "musically pleasurable" album "fleshes out its cohesive narrative and cogent ideas with beats that respect the spare antipop ethos" without falling back on "wayward rhythm elements" typical of Definitive Jux.^[17] He later named it the fifteenth best album of 2002 in his "dean's list" for the Pazz & Jop critics' poll.^[20] Kludge ranked it at number seven on their list of 100 best albums of 2002.^[21]

Track listing

Personnel

Credits adapted from liner notes.^[2]

• Aesop Rock – vocals
• Akrobatik – vocals
• Keith Atkins – engineer, mixing
• Edan – producer
• El-P – engineer, executive producer, mixing, producer, vocals
• Fakts One – mixing, producer, vocals
• Ray Boy Fernandes – engineer, mixing, vocals
• Jean Grae – vocals
• Insight – featured artist, producer
• Dan Ezra Lang – art direction, design
• Emily Lazar – mastering
• Mr. Lif – primary artist
• Nasa – engineer, mixing, producer, vocals
• Amaechi Uzoigwe – vocals
• Vast Aire – vocals

Charts

References

External links

• I Phantom at Discogs (list of releases)
• Mr. Lif official site
• Definitive Jux official site