I'll Sleep When You're Dead : El-P : Review : Rolling Stone

Smart, intense and more underground than a sewage line, El-P (a.k.a. El-Producto) is the face of independent rap -- one version of it, anyway. Like most of his catalog, I'll Sleep When You're Dead sounds like a hip-hop version of a Philip K. Dick novel, all mysterious, dystopian beat poetry. El-P's rhymes are fierce and sometimes cryptic, and "Drive" offers something like a thesis statement: "My generation is carpoolin' with doom and disease." El-P never met a groove he couldn't murk up, and Dead is long on synths, grinding sound effects and chopped-up break beats. Some of the beats are very good: "Run the Numbers" rocks, and the clattering funk of "EMG" is something Ghostface should jack for a mix tape. If you're into nodding your head and scratching your head at the same time, Dead is for you.