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Last night was a big one for El-P. After emerging from the kind of semi-exile that swallows lesser rappers whole following 2007's I'll Sleep When You're Dead, El released two of the year's best rap albums, in two consecutive weeks: the incendiary Killer Mike record R.A.P. Music, which he produced entirely, and his own majestically gloomy fourth album Cancer for Cure. He is in the giddy flush of a late-career resurgence, and at Santos Party House, he gathered everyone responsible for the moment together.

Inside Santos, the camaraderie was thick-- I overheard people claiming to have personally "known El" for a wildly varying number of years. In this crowd, it had never stopped being 2003, and I can think of no better litmus test of this hypothesis than the fervent reaction received by the opening set by Despot, a talented galoot whose career has been stalled in launch mode arguably since it began. "I have been working on an album for 47 years," Despot deadpanned. The guy over my right shoulder screamed, desperately, as if the mere mention of Despot's abortive classic was painful to him. He plowed through the few songs he had with demonic, short-guy-in-the-crew intensity, including some promising-sounding new songs produced by Ratatat.

El-P and Mr. Muthafuckin' eXquire

Despot then brought out Mr. Muthafuckin' eXquire, and they tore through a woozy, blunted new song produced by Spaceghostpurrp that sounded fantastic. eXquire can really fucking rap live. His voice is forceful enough on record, but on stage, it was Rick Ross-huge. After a 20-minute set, he loped off, a grinning jackal in a NYU jacket and gold-rimmed shades.

Next was El, who takes his live shows extremely seriously, in an effortful, James Murphy sorta way. This was evidenced by the longest, most studious set-up for a rap show I've ever seen in my life. El and his band had reportedly been drilling these new songs mercilessly all week in rehearsals, and the second the first, fearsomely huge synth noise on Cancer for Cure's opener "Request Denied" fired up, the results were obvious.

"I think I'm gonna do the whole album front to back," he announced, and then did exactly that. The sound was enormous-- I felt the hairs at the top of my head lift like I had just walked barefoot across a shag carpet. El's records, for all their grim, misanthropic lyrical concerns, have always been joyfully noisy and physical, and you could see it in his loose-limbed, even goofy demeanor as he rocked along to his music. His band, a mix of drum programming, live synths, and guitars, was both rigidly tight and visibly delighted to be playing new material; El's eyes lit up as he tested out the call-and-response potential of "Drones Over BKLYN".

Killer Mike, El-P, and Das Racist's Heems

The only hiccup came from some unfortunate sound issues during "Tougher Colder Killer", which disoriented El, Despot, and Killer Mike, who rumbled out from backstage in all black, looking nine times the size of everyone else in the building. El was visibly angry: "We cannot hear the music in the monitors," he yelled. But Killer Mike did not come all the way to New York to have his guest verse demolished by a faulty monitor. "Hold up now, I gotta do something right quick," he bellowed, when the song was over. He then he spit his verse flawlessly, a cappella, and left with this: "I gotta say this and then I'm off your stage. I love you; you've given me new life. Finally, the world is on your dick." El blushed. Everyone screamed.