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Le1f: “Ja Rule and DMX’s voices scared me”

LE1F with BAMBII at Apt 200 (1034 Queen West), Sunday (November 29), doors 10 pm. $15 adv, $25 at the door.


Le1f was 16 when he first had the idea for what would become the song Taxi, a sombre ballad that draws a parallel between racist cab drivers and gay men, on his just-released debut album. 

“Boys pass me like taxis do,” he laments in the chorus. “I don’t care, whatever, it’s cool.” It’s perhaps the angstiest sentiment on Riot Boi (Terrible/XL), but more a reflection of his knack for aphoristic wordplay than the album’s overall tone. 

Riot Boi is structured like a wild night out in New York City, with all the dynamics of race, sex, politics and queerness laid bare over futuristic, playfully aggressive club beats and acrobatic, double-time flows that gradually wind down into contemplative balladry.

“I pushed myself to talk about politics,” says Le1f, born Khalif Diouf, over the phone from New York City. “I’m 26 now. I haven’t even been voting for a full 10 years, so to have a political voice you have to have definite opinions instead of vague feelings about things.”

Diouf grew up in midtown Manhattan and studied ballet and modern dance at a private college in Connecticut, where he started producing music for school performances. He first got noticed as the producer of Das Racist’s single Combination Pizza Hut And Taco Bell and Spank Rock’s Nasty. He’s since released three mixtapes and two EPs. In 2014, his hooky club single Wut went viral, turning him into the spokesperson for so-called “gay rap,” a term he’s shot down as homophobic and ghettoizing.

Based on reviews of Riot Boi, the narrative is back on the music, and he’s happy fans and critics are responding to its emotionally complex songs, even if the mainstream hip-hop world isn’t paying attention.

“I wanted to use my platform to make music that’s good for dancing or crying for people who don’t already have those songs,” he says. “There’s a constant feed of songs that are great for heterosexual relationships or young Caucasian Americans who want to get into their feelings. I wanted to make something like that for my people.”

“Riot Boi” is a play on riot grrrl, the 90s feminist punk movement. Feminine energy is all over the album, in his collaborations (Junglepussy, La’Fem Ladosha) and his celebration of dark-skinned women (Grace Alek Naomi).

“Since I was very young, most of the musicians I’ve identified with are women of colour,” he says. “Ja Rule and DMX’s voices scared me and irked me. Some guys are cool musicians, but my favourites are everyone from Aaliyah and Missy Elliott to Alice Glass and M.I.A. Women going against the status quo are always who I’ve gravitated to.”

He spent a lot of time researching and reading up on transgender experiences for Riot Boi song Umami/Water, a tribute to the artist Juliana Huxtable. In particular, he zeroed in on the feeling of “fishiness,” or the moment when a person in transition has accomplished the goal of feeling fully feminine. 

“I had to decide whether I’d do the song in third person or second person – that was a very detailed choice for me. I wanted to make a song that, if you heard it on the radio and didn’t listen too hard to the lyrics, you might think it’s for any woman,” he explains. “And it is that – it’s dedicated to cis and trans women in my heart, but I say some clever things alluding to wanting to be feminine in your body and accepted as a trans woman.”

Does he relate to that feeling?

“In the past, I’ve definitely closed my eyes and imagined myself performing and seen hair flips or Beyoncé or Brandy’s body,” he says. “Like feeling out of your own place in your own body, but I don’t feel it that strongly. I feel more androgynous, but that still leaves me as a cis man.”

His opera singer mother – billed as Miss Geri – also appears on the final song, Change, a co-write with Dev Hynes (aka Blood Orange). He wrote the lyrics as social media and news reports were fixated on police violence against black people in the U.S. and the ensuing Black Lives Matter movement.

“That’s definitely where my head was at as a black man and has been before and probably will be forever,” he says.

Why did he want his mom to sing on that one?

He laughs. “I wanted her on the record and there are very few appropriate songs to ask your mother to be on on my record.” 

Diouf also asked his favourite producers to contribute, and Sophie, Evian Christ, Lunice and Blood Diamonds agreed. Those names will carry weight for those paying attention to the experimental outer limits of pop and hip-hop, but talking to Diouf, you know he was onto all of them before you were.

Sophie, aka London-based producer Samuel Long, blew up last year with the song Bipp. His spastic, hyper-feminine style has made him one of the more polarizing producers in pop. Diouf and Long were already working together on Riot Boi’s sparkly single Koi when Bipp came out. 

“I love his production,” Diouf says. “When I first heard his music three years ago, I could already tell he was going to be major.”

While his instincts as a producer and rapper are just as sharp and future-forward on Riot Boi as they were before, the album crosses a new threshold in terms of sonics.

“I expanded my world entirely. I was much more of a stickler on this record than I was in the past even though I always thought I was a perfectionist. I was definitely a complete asshole making this record. I’m proud of the level of polish on it – it’s not Michael Jackson, but it’s still way better than what I was doing before.”     

kevinr@nowtoronto.com | @kevinritchie

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