Mr. Lif

Jeffrey Haynes, known professionally as Mr. Lif, began issuing singles in the late 1990s at a time when party rap and gangsta rap dominated most MCs’ choices, yet his own lyrics pursued a political and socially conscious direction that recalled the socially engaged rap stars of the late 1980s and early 1990s, including Public Enemy, Gang Starr, and Boogie Down Productions. Born in Brighton, a Boston, Massachusetts suburb, he completed two years of college before turning his full attention to music. His first single, “Elektro,” surfaced in 1998 and caught the ear of Grand Royal and Def Jux. Closely aligned with producer and Def Jux label head El-P, he issued a run of critically acclaimed singles and EPs that opened with Enters the Colossus in 2000. Although touring consumed much of the next year, he still delivered the single “Cro-Magnon” and the live recording Live at the Middle East.

Two ambitious concept projects appeared in 2002: the Emergency Rations EP framed collaborations with Edan and Akrobatik inside an MC abduction narrative, while the full-length I Phantom unfolded as a saga stretching from birth to apocalypse. He renewed the Akrobatik partnership in 2005 when the two joined producer Fakts One to form the Perceptionists, whose album Black Dialogue appeared on Definitive Jux. One year later came Mo’ Mega, his proper successor to I Phantom, featuring eight productions from El-P and appearances by Murs, Aesop Rock, and Blueprint. I Heard It Today, released in 2009 on Bloodbot Tactical, contained some of the most pointed lyrics of his career. The aptly titled Don't Look Down arrived seven years later on the Mello Music Group imprint and was filled with “agnostic sermons” that helped the Boston MC through a particularly dark period. The same label also released The Life & Death of Scenery, his collaboration with abstract beatmaker L’Orange, in October 2016. In 2017, Lif and Akrobatik revived the Perceptionists for the full-length Resolution, while his work with the Balkan brass ensemble Brass Menazeri produced the album Resilient on Waxsimile Productions.