Music: Concept Junkie

“Ohhhhh, shit … I pulled an all-nighter,” says poet/rapper Mike Ladd, mumbling by phone from his Bronx, N.Y., apartment, as he emerges from a deep sleep. “I’ve been working my ass off on this other project. We just finished yesterday. It’s a Jazz piece. It’s sorta consumed my life.”

For the uninitiated, Ladd is the mastermind behind The Majesticons and The Infesticons, a pair of fictitious, rival Hip-Hop groups whose records represent polar opposites of the creative/class spectrum.

“It’s basically the top dogs versus the underdogs,” he says of the ongoing saga. “So The Majesticons are like the jocks in high school; The Infesticons are the smokers. Or The Majesticons could be the fat cats; The Infesticons the dock workers.

You can pretty much stick any Hollywood paradigm in there, and it works.”

The Infesticons drew first blood in this battle of brains versus bling — their 2000 debut, Gun Hill Road, was punctuated by esoteric beats, anti-playa attitude, “dirty” production and a stellar guest spot by fellow poet/rapper Saul Williams.

But that was then.

After three years of plotting, the 14-person collective known as The Majesticons have retaliated with the sleek, commercially-minded Beauty Party.

The antithesis of the lo-fi, underground aesthetic of The Infesticons, Beauty Party revels in its shiny beats and boastful rhymes, pulling off everything from the smooth R&B of “Luv Thief Party,” featuring the buttery vocals of Sun Singleton (who’ll be with the touring version of The Majesticons), to the gangsta Funk of “Majestwest Party,” with equally ear-pleasing results.

These post-P-Funk pranksters have only one goal in mind — total commercial and materialistic domination of the Hip-Hop landscape. Well, maybe there’s two objectives: All of Beauty Party‘s 15 tracks contain “party” in the title. Detect a theme?

Ladd’s influences are diverse. His childhood consisted of Classical music in the morning and a radio emanating the sounds of Bob Marley, Nina Simone, George McRae and Roberta Flack at night. As a teenager, Punk Rock took center stage.

“It brings a little grit,” he says of his Punk roots. “I mean, the other thing about The Majesticons versus The Infesticons is the production. I personally have always loved dirty production. When I listen to Bad Brains’ Rock for Light or ‘Banned in D.C.,’ I listen to it on the same cassette I’ve had since 1984. I just like the way that sounds. That’s why a lot of Rock music that was made after, like, ’78 — when people started insisting that everything sound super-clean — sounds like absolute crap to me.”

Yet don’t think Ladd’s dissin’ those with more straightforward sonic tastes.

“I respect really clean production,” he says. “While The Infesticons is like this really dirty record — I tried to make a Hip-Hop record, but one by the ultimate Garage band — The Majesticons is a really clean record, ’cause I really wanted to appreciate that, too.”

Beauty Party’s satiric centerpiece is the hilarious ode to Hip-Hop careerists, “Platinum Blaque Party,” featuring the mantra, “I got so much access to excess/Words cannot describe my success/Saving lots of cash, a reflex/Call me Platinum Blaque, Platinum Blaque.”

” ‘Platinum Blaque’ is a tricky one,” says Ladd. “Cause there’s a part of me that takes it serious. I really get into that character, you know. He’s sort of like this 1978 bling guy. And not like 1978 superfly cat, but a 1978 brother who lives in Martha’s Vineyard, and he’s got a tenured position at an Ivy League school. You know, (he employs a deep professorial tone) ‘Hello, my name is Dave, I’m the head of African Studies.’ ”

Does Ladd worry that some listeners might not get Beauty Party‘s tongue-in-cheek leanings?

“Well, we’ve been going around sayin’, ‘Don’t get the joke; get the record,’ ” he laughs. “But it doesn’t matter to me. What matters is that they enjoy it, one way or another, and it doesn’t piss them off. I’m not interested in making people mad. I’ve done that before. It’s fun for a while, but it gets tired. Unfortunately, I’m probably better at that than I think.”

What can we expect of The Majesticons’ live show (the collective has been scaled down to five for the touring version)? Even Ladd’s not sure.

“We’ll find out,” he says. “I think Beauty Party is a pretty bumpin’ record, so the people should at least bounce to it.

“For the European shows, we all came out as Majesticons,” Ladd continues, clearly reveling in the endless contradictions of his concept. “Then by the end of the show I’d be like, ‘I can’t take it anymore!’ And I’d be throwin’ off my shirt and be like, ‘I’m an Infesticon!’ ”

Which brings us back to Ladd’s current project, a collaboration with pianist Vijay Iyer. “It’s sort of this highly theoretical art project, basically about people of color negotiating globalization in the context of airports,” he says, in a rare bout of seriousness.

“Whoa,” Ladd says suddenly, as an unidentifiable noise interrupts his thought. “There goes my clock radio. Thanks for wakin’ me up, man. I’ve got to catch a train.”

This article appears in May 21-27, 2003.