El-P's Debut Album 'Fantastic Damage' Now on Streaming Services
Alongside his “Deep Space 9mm” lyric video.
Earlier this week, legendary rapper and producer EL-P announced the official tracklist for his and Killer Mike‘s Run The Jewels RTJ4 project alongside a June 5 release date and 2021 tour dates with Rage Against The Machine. He also delivered on his promise of a campaign to reissue an extensive collection of his full solo catalog in a collaboration with Fat Possum Records. After dropping I’ll Sleep When You’re Dead for the first time on streaming platforms, El-P’s 2002 debut album Fantastic Damage is now available to stream digitally for the first time.
El-P started his solo career after the breakup of his old group Company Flow, a staple of New York City’s hip-hop underground dating back to the early 1990s. The rapper’s solo records have been in purgatory for years after the no-defunct Definitive Jux went on hiatus in 2010. Calling Fantastic Damage ahead of its time wouldn’t do the LP justice. It was a polarizing dose of experimentation, a cacophony of sounds completely foreign to the hip-hop environment at that time.
It was hyper-political even with the rapper writing most of his rhymes just before the September 11th attacks. He stated in a recent tweet that the only post 9/11 track was “Accidents Don’t Happen” featuring Cage and Camu Tao. It was a purposefully challenging listen, as El-P the producer decided to toy with the mix enough to have an equal focus on the instrumentation as the lyrical content.
“In hindsight I wish I mixed some of the vocals higher/better. But that was a choice at the time. I wanted people to be submerged in the music and really have to listen. I felt like rap was too vocal focused level wise and as a producer I wanted it to be an immersive thing,” El-P said in a series of tweets after the album reissue launched. Collaborator Danny Brown even chimed in saying, “I don’t know where I’d be today if it wasn’t for this album.”
Listen to the full project below and watch the new “Deep Space 9mm” lyric video above. In more music news, slowthai connected with Kenny Beats for his new “MAGIC” single.
shout out to the great folks @FatPossum records for convincing me to put my old shit out again. if it were left up to me i probably wouldn’t have bothered. my general drive to make new music always got in the way of thinking about the old stuff.
— el-p (@therealelp) May 14, 2020
— el-p (@therealelp) May 14, 2020
I don’t know where I’d be today if it wasn’t for this album https://t.co/s4kPQUQsh2
— Danny Brown (@xdannyxbrownx) May 14, 2020
