El Da Sensei built his life upon the four pillars of hip-hop. As a pre-teen, he was a breakdancer, which lead him to writing raps for friends. Then he developed the confidence to spit his own rhymes, so he started digging through crates of vinyl, on the hunt for the samples, which he would use to build his singular beats. Finally, he surveyed the post-industrial landscape of his hometown of Newark, New Jersey, and decided to try his hand at adding to the urban canvas.

“Back in the ’80s, it was just like a war zone,” he says. “There was graffiti everywhere. I’d look at the trains going by, just looking at everything that was on them. My father did that. And I could draw, so I got into it.”

The street art would factor centrally in El’s biggest hit, “Wrong Side of Da Tracks,” which he made as a member of the Artifacts with his partner, Tame One. In their acrobatic verses, the two take turns bagging on competitors and boasting about their own graf, crystallizing the competitive undercurrent that would ultimately propel hip-hop from the inner-city fringe to the international mainstream over the span of El’s career.

“This game is generated off of competitiveness,” he says. “It’s geared off of bragging, geared off of boasting. You’re trying to be better than everybody you listen to. That keeps the game fresh. Like sports, when you’re going out for the team, there’s three running backs. You gotta be better than the other two.”

After fellow New Jersey artists like Redman and the Lords of the Underground released records, El and Tame-One decided to get in contact with an employee at Def Jam, who booked them a meeting with label executives.

When the duo showed up, the suits didn’t want to hear their demo. They wanted a freestyle, live on the radio—the ultimate do or die situation. Schooled by years of rap battles, the Artifacts did what they had to do. They stepped to the mic, and traded bars…

For fifteen minutes straight.

“We just killed it,” he says. “To be able to think that fast and come up with phrases and metaphors—that’s hard. But when you get that groove, it comes easy. And then stuff starts to just fall off your mouth. It’s like a basketball player when he’s shooting three-pointers. You have a heat check every now and then, but you’ll still make them. You gotta be brave.”

Their first release, Between a Rock and a Hard Place received praise from underground aficionados, earning the duo an influential spot among old-school pioneers that they’ve yet to cede. But after their second release failed to match the first’s success, the group split and embarked on solo careers.

Tame One would collaborate with independant big-timers like El-P and Del the Funky Homosapien. And El featured on singles and crafted albums that continued to showcase his dizzying skills. He unspools verses laden with both slang and SAT words, gracefully navigating different tempos like a jazz soloist and spitting mostly over beats sampled and scratched by turntable DJs.

In 2008, he went to Poland where he met up with The Returners. One of the first rappers to record with foreigners, El completed two projects as he toured Europe. He did solid sales in the smaller, yet content-hungry environment and learned that despite the differences between Poland and Newark, fan demands remained the same.

“It still has to be good,” he says. “Even if they’re from another country, they can tell when your shit is bad. And they’ll tell you. That’s how you know who’s good—when you see artists going back and forth to Europe. So whether I’m by myself or with Tame, we going to always give people a show. They know what’s about to happen. It’s not gonna be regular.”

After returning stateside, he entered the mercenary stage of his career. On The Immortals Project, El collaborated with the Duplicuts and contracted to fellow independent artists to contribute verses and “kill” the track. Riffing on this, they threaded a secret agent theme into the EP’s aesthetic and one of the singles, “On the Rise,” won an Independent Music Award.

Recently, El released two collaborations, XL with Sadat X and The Jersey Connection with K-Def, both meticulously crafted throwback projects that prioritize lyricism and delivery as opposed to the current trends of spastic ad-libs and autotuned melodies. Now, reunited and touring with Tame One, El has settled into his role as an old head dispensing advice to up-and-comers about their live shows. With a tinge of back-in-my-day wistfulness, he complains about new rappers simply performing over a pre-recorded playlist of their tracks.

“They’re cheatin’,” he says. “People want to hear your voice, not the record. (And) a lot of guys don’t have DJs, but the DJ is one of the elements of hip-hop. So he should be a vital element. It gives it spice. It gives it a little traditional flavor. When you go out on that stage, you’re like running for president. You’re campaigning. You’re letting people know this is serious.”

The Artifacts
Jul 22, 9pm, $10-$12
BackBar SoFa, San Jose