At Definitive Jux Headquarters (aka El-P's studio apartment), the most avant-garde, important, and progressive independent rap label in the ...

At Definitive Jux Headquarters (aka El-P's studio apartment), the most avant-garde, important, and progressive independent rap label in the world brainstorms its next collective project. This cluttered one-room again plays host to the kind of high-level talks that could shape the direction of the entire underground aesthetic...

Vast Aire: Yeah, so I just shit in her mouth, son! Seriously, she didn't even bat an eyelash!

[everyone laughs heartily]

Camu Tao: Oh Vast, you so crazy! Hey, El-Producto, I just got an idea. You know what'd be really, really funny?

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El-P: Let me know, gangster.

Camu Tao: What if we just sorta, you know... stopped trying?

Mr. Lif: I don't follow. I mean, yeah, I follow the tour bus around because you guys always forget to pick me up, but you know what I'm say--

El-P: Shut the fuck up, Urkel! Man, who invited you? I think Camu might be onto something. Elaborate, nigga.

Camu Tao: Word. Basically, you could make a few beats that all sound pretty similar and are all technically tight, except whenever we would normally show a dope beat respect, we could just dumb down the whole process! Like, maybe you could make this dirty, guttural synth bounce track with some cowbell in it and we could act out a story about crashing the VMAs and you being too messed up on mushrooms to accurately shoot Sheryl Crow!

El-P: It's a plan-- but only if I can reference Salvador Dali. I have to appear intelligent while limiting my vocabulary at the same time.

Camu Tao: Deal.

Aesop Rock: I am inclined to agree, amicable individuals. Most of the [unintelligible] consumer base that purchased or electronically procured Bazooka Tooth, my magnum opus, were taken aback by my [unintelligible] production backdrops. Ergo, I must regress my musical acumen and output to aurally mirror that of my earlier albums. Clearly, our fans consider us so far ahead of our time that if we were all to similarly regress, we'd be allowing the opposition a chance to see us and understand our message!

Mr. Lif: I hate to be a Negative Nelly, but shouldn't we keep trying to top our previous work, instead of just making the same sounds and retreading older developments?

El-P: Listen, Whoopi, maybe if you'd pipe the fuck down, I could make some calls and see if Ted Danson will have sex with you again.

[everyone laughs, sings Cheers theme]

Camu Tao: Yeah, so, anyway, we could bring in some of those newer guys and make sure they follow the new Def Jux song template: The beats can be solid, but they have to be so monotonous and regressive that it makes the lame verses of the label's core artists appear better than they actually are.

Carnage [popping out of a closet]: Yeah, and I could rap about rapping, over a beat that samples me saying, "Make news," over and over! It just might be irritating enough to work!

El-P [to Carnage]: I have no idea who you are, but that's never stopped me before. Right, 4th Pyramid?

4th Pyramid [to El-P]: Word, God. My plan is to do this ridiculously pretentious one where the chorus is, "Master of my own fate, it's my career," and the song itself is an obnoxious, over-rhyming brag track with a bong sample. No one could ever like that! Like, seriously, I'll be all, "Rap attack you, grab and smack you/ MOVE WITH THE FLASH DUDE, never act rude/ Past dues, harpoons come back at you!" Or shit, like, "Move with the mellow cheeba/ groove like the yellow cheetah?" I didn't even write that shit, man, it just came to me!

[door opens; Drug Delivery Man enters]

Drug Delivery Man: Who ordered the OxyContin?

El-P: ME!!!

Camu Tao: Hey! We could do a song about this! Except you could be the OxyContin dealer fucking someone else's girlfriend, Cage could be an angry lover, and you could have a conflict that has no actual ending! Oh, and instead of making a beat, you could just use the same sample as Slug's "Body Pillow" for added irony. And when is that girl gonna suck me off?

El-P: She's slow, but her work is surprisingly technical-- SORTA LIKE VAST THREE YEARS AGO, ahahahahhahaha...

Vast Aire: Fuck you! I ain't fallen off yet! I'm just trying to focus on me right now, and if you can't understand that, then I guess you aren't really my friends!

El-P: Uh, Camu, how will we get this memo to Rjd2 and Murs? They're in the studio right now! They're liable to make some dope shit and fuck everything up!

Camu Tao: Don't worry, champ. We need to have a couple good songs to make it seem a little less suspicious. And besides, everyone will skip Murs' song because no one will admit to liking him.

El-P: On the real, yo, I think this could work out fine. I mean, maybe if we try to become more and more commercial in our mindset, we could get on TRL! Come on, dog, you know how I do! I LIKES MY PUSSY YOUNG!

[Vast Aire shakes his belly; C-Rayz Walz breakdances with glee]

[The album is recorded, sold around the world, and ultimately considered a disappointment. But Definitive Jux continues undaunted, eventually landing a stadium tour in 2014, opening for the biggest band in the world, The Stills...]

El-P: Okay, so this is a new track. We call it "Niggas Be Sippin'". It's a lyric-for-lyric cover of Snoop's "Gin and Juice", but the beat samples Roxy Music, Blue Magic, and some National Geographic penguin documentary. NOW LET'S! GET! CRAAAAAA-UUNNNNNNK!

Anonymous Future Def Jux Fan #1: How am I s'posed to go back to the dorms and brag to my friends about how smart my rap is compared to theirs? I mean, Jay-Z's comeback has a song about algebra!

Anonymous Future Def Jux Fan #2: Muthafuck! I knew we shoulda seen the Preserved Heads of the Wu-Tang Clan!