As fear propels the 2016 U.S. elections, Amir El Khalifa continues to wrestle with the place that he and other Muslim Americans occupy in a post-9/11 world. On his latest seven-song EP Alwasta, the DC-born, Brooklyn-based rapper/producer better known as Oddisee considers the reality of being the middleman, or colloquially, the plug (“al wasta"). On EP highlight “Lifting Shadows,” he hits punchline after punchline about what it means to be both feared and needed by those in power, to worry about his family’s safety halfway around the world, and to be over-surveilled and misrepresented.
While the production on much of Alwasta has a warm, L.A. soul sound, “Lifting Shadows” is darker and more lyrically compact. Donning a Brother Ali cadence on the track’s hook, Odd raps, “Darkness all I see, and darkness all I hear/ I'm trying to lift the shadow, but the cloud ain't got no give.” Towards the end of the song, staccato piano chords give way to a plodding snare and bass guitar line. The wolf-like barks heard in the periphery throughout the track come to the fore. Oddisee's earlier musings that his “TV's clothed in wool” become a physical reality, as a cloud of television static emerges, swallowing everything around it.
