This Brooklyn hip-hop heavyweight hasn’t released a straight-up rap album since 2007’s I’ll Sleep When You’re Dead. Oh, he’s kept plenty busy, as the title of that disc suggests: producing for Das Racist, winding down operations at his influential Definitive Jux label, issuing the third volume of his instrumental Weareallgoingtoburninhellmegamixxx series. But fans of the exasperated growl El-P honed as a member of Company Flow have had only scraps to dine on during the past five years. The famine ends this month with Cancer 4 Cure, an impressive new solo album on which El-P vents his long-bottled frustrations (with cops, politics, you name it) over harsh cyborg-funk beats that suggest he’s grown no more optimistic about the future.
Tonight El-P celebrates the record’s release (via his unlikely new home on Fat Possum) with a gig slated to include performances by “special guests.” Who might show up? Paul Banks of Interpol appears on Cancer 4 Cure, as do Mr. Muthafuckin’ eXquire and Killer Mike (whose great new record, R.A.P. Music, was produced entirely by El-P). Queens rapper Despot is billed as the evening’s official opener.—Mikael Wood