The Life & Death of Scenery
L’Orange & Mr. Lif
2016
The Life & Death of Scenery is told by “The Narrator” (played by The Daily Show’s Wyatt Cenac). These Big Brother missives capture a world where the, “books are all burned, the vinyl has been melted, and the remaining art catapulted over the city walls.” The mere act of whistling is cause for the guillotine.
It’s the rap analogue to Fahrenheit 451, 1984, or Brave New World, where the Soma is uncomfortably soothing and the sunshine eerily abundant.
L’Orange & Mr. Lif, The Life and Death of Scenery, conceives a chimerical “lighthearted dystopia” just far enough from modernity to breathe easily, but close enough to make you consider relocating to that cave in the forest. In this collaboration with the eccentric North Carolina producer, L’Orange, Lif imagines an adjacent future called the “last society,” where culture has been obliterated, and physical survival has taken precedence over art.
The former Def Jux legend inhabits the role of The Scribe, frantically showing the post-apocalyptic survivors the power of what’s been lost. It attacks those who value disposable art over the timeless; it articulates the necessity of preserving culture; it lampoons the absurdity of attempting to destroy one of the most immutable qualities in mankind.
Stand-Out Tracks
A Palace in the Sky
Strange Technology
Antique Gold
