Via: The A.V. Club
It's been a few ticks since El-P abandoned the blog he set up to chronicle putting the finishing touches on I'll Sleep When You're Dead, his upcoming solo record and the follow-up to 2002's Fantastic Damage. Since then, we've been waiting patiently (okay, we've been kinda restless) for some word on the album, wondering if the blog was only a clever ploy to showcase his prickly looking new moustache.
Leave it to the A.V. Club (check out this interview with Ghostface for proof of their focus) to track down the Def Jux head honcho and finally get him to talk. And talk he does. While the interview doesn't contain much insight re: I'll Sleep When You're Dead (sure it's done, but is it actually dropping March 20?), the newly shaven El-P gets super verbose about the trials and tribulations of running an independent label and why RJD2 signed with XL. ("At first, it was like, 'Oh, shit. No, man. We don't want to lose you.' But at the end of the day, I respect these dudes. And I respect RJ, because he was like, 'I just don't think you guys are the label for this.' And I was like, 'Fuck you. Of course we're the label for this.' And then he played me the music, and I was like, 'Oh, right. We're not the label for this.'") He also weighs in on the now-mandatory interview question of whether or not hip-hop is dead.