Lushlife
Lushlife this week dropped the radical new interdisciplinary mixtape, My Idols are Dead and My Enemeis are in Power featuring appearances from various Impose icons & more like Killer Mike, Kool AD, R. Stevie Moore, Sad13 & many more luminaries. A pay what you want tape that goes to support the ACLU, Lushlife once again proves to us why he has been one of our favorites around for years.
The inaugural-apocalyptic tone is set with “Sky is Falling” that alludes toward the fallout that occurs when the exploited turn against their bourgeoisie bosses/rulers, riding through the shape shifting weirdness on “OOOUUU” ft. Elizabeth Scanlon, turning the the tables on the jargon pushers with a new sort of lexicon on “No Dead Languages” ft. Sad13 to a PSA from Open Mike Eagle. The conscious cracking continues with the Zilla Rocca Remix of “This Ecstatic Cult” ft. Killer Mike & Kool AD, right before the intensity gets turned up on “The Heart is An Atomic Bomb” ft. Billy Woods & Porochista Khakpour that is an eye-opening reminder of the modern age’s day to day dangers that are juxtaposed with the strength & power of the soul & heart. The entire UK Brexit debaucle is taken on too with the brilliant “Julie Profumo” (Brexit Planet Dust) ft. Nikesh Shukla that encourages all to be “agents of hope.” Upheavals are heard in visceral, prosodic real time on “I’ve Seen It Before I Was There” ft. Moor Mother, Botany right before Lushlife provides an escapist outlet on “The Feeling When You Walk Away”, to further conscious expanding lessons on “O Glowing Hunter” (Stamper & Lushlife Version) ft. Sut Jhally. Lushlife maintains that trademark signature of production/delivery/execution that materializes from the most beguiling of places & states of mind & being as heard on the hypnotic “Blues for Vijay” ft. Little Strike, right before you are introduced to the new left on “11 Theses / Anthropocene Dream” ft. Jedediah Purdy, Sun Airway that issues something beyond a new hope with a strong sense of a new school of solidarity. Dreams rise high on the beautiful “Bashar Loves ELO” ft. John Morrison, Visto, Sarah Blake right as Lush leaves you with the inspiring “Totally Mutual Feeling” (Remix) ft. Khruangbin that completes the mixtape’s modern day hymn for the future.
Raj Haldar, oka Lushlife provided us with the following exclusive thoughts about compiling some of the world’s greatest artists & activists together on a comp to help us cope with whatever this whole new regime change will mean:
From the moment the project’s co-producer, Brendan Lee and I began planning Idols + Enemies late last year, we knew that cross-discipline collaboration would be the driving principle for the project. We wanted to create a platform where the siloed audiences of indie-rapper, Kool AD, law professor, Jedediah Purdy, and Iranian-American author, Porochista Khakpour could engage with each others’ voices. Even the site that hosts the project is meant to be much more than an inauguration week microsite. We want idolsandenemies.com to live as a long-term resource, with new content planned to stoke organizing and collaboration between groups of people who don’t typically overlap. At least, we hope it works that way.
