Six months after Mr. Lif‘s tour bus flipped off the side of the highway and fell down a 30 foot embankment, the artist sounds as reflective as ever. In a new interview with csindy.com the indie rapper notoriously known for some of the biggest hair in hip-hop he talks about the accident and a new approach to his art.
“I was finishing a bowl of cereal, watching Anchorman with my friends, next thing I know, it was pitch black. It was the loudest noise I had ever heard. Furniture was going everywhere. The bus caught on fire. It happened in the desert at 3 a.m. Luckily, people were driving by and were kind enough to stop and take my friends and I to the hospital. People were airlifted out of the accident. I got out with a sneaker and a sock on and my cell phone. I had a friend who lost a lot of flesh on her hand. I had to use the sock as a tourniquet. It was straight carnage.”
Up to this point of his career, Lif has been a politically charged musical activist, he was one of the first musicians to respond after 9/11 in musical form and has often questioned this countries leadership and political leaders. Since the accident though, Lif barely acknowledges “that era” – anything prior to the accident, even his 2006 record doesn’t exist to him anymore.
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“When people hear my new material, it’ll have new elements on it,”Lif said, “It’ll be a return to some things people do like about me. It’ll be a grand narrative, have an overall theme, having to do with a story that will run through the whole album.”
Lif says that parts of his body still ache from the accident and he’s committed to a limited tour with three shows in Colorado before a month off. The accident hasn’t only changed his musical approach, it has also affected his perception of life and his career.
“It’s pretty tough to figure out how no one died, I would just say that the old Mr. Lif is definitely gone, passed away in that accident. My new identity will be revealed in months to come, when this new [album] is fully realized. Part of me wants to be away from the world. I’ve always been an introvert. Now even more so. [But] now I’m a grown man who fully understands how powerful life is. If it were up to me, I wouldn’t even be seen for the next year. But the reality is, you have to do shows and keep your life financially viable. And when I’m on stage now, it’s almost a vengeful-type experience.”
