| Slum Village: Prequel To A Classic |
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| Written by Ifè Oshun | |
 Slum Village
has gone through major changes since their classic late 90s Fantastic
Volume 1 was leaked to hordes of grateful fans such as ?uestlove who
dubbed them "the next level in soulful, vintage hip-hop."Much water's flowed under the bridge since then, as well as four personnel changes. The current incarnation, consisting of (original member) T3 and Elzhi held down the last Slum excursion, 2004's Detroit Deli, which featured the Kanye West-produced "Selfish." Now that Slum's left Capitol Records they're doing things their way. They recently dropped the mixtape Prequel To A Classic which features previously unreleased SV material spanning back to that first popular bootleg. The album contains fifteen of these cuts and two bonus tracks, including the boom-bap crush of "Ghetto Movies" produced by B.R. Gunna. Guests include Kurupt, Dwele, The Dramatics and Frank & Dank. Elzhi recently took the time to speak on their latest as well as their new found independence and upcoming group/solo projects. What's the deal with Prequel...? Basically we decided to put out this mixtape to get people ready for the album. The album will be out later this year, the mixtape is called Prequel To A Classic, so basically we're preparing you for a classic. And the songs that are on this mixtape is like songs from different eras of Slum Village's career. From when Dilla was in the group, when it was Dilla, Baatin and T3, from when it was just Baatin and T3, to when it was Baatin, T3 and Elzhi, and to now when it's T3 and Elzhi. It's songs through many different periods of our career. And basically the songs are old, but these are songs we wasn't able to use because they wasn't fitting the mainstream standards. These were the classic songs that we couldn't do just cause the labels was on and what they were shooting for. And now we off of Capital, you know, no hard feelings or nothing, but since we off of Capitol we able to do exactly what we want to do. This new album will be classic, just like those songs are but even more classic. It's because we're able to bring those songs to the forefront and we able to work on strictly a classic and not us just walking a tightrope, trying to give you Slum Village and make some mainstream music. This is just strictly hip-hop, classic, feel good soulful music. Who are you signed to now? Through the years, ever since Slum had a label it was always Barak that was behind us, every step of the way from when we was on A&M, we was on Goodvibe, we was on Interscope and we was on Capitol, it was always Barak. So right now, it's just Baarak and Slum Village trying to do our thing. How do you feel about that? If we able to keep this creative control the way we are keeping it right now, I don't see any problem with it. I feel like you got to let an artist be free you got to let an artist do what he does best. I understand there's a lot of labels out there... every label is in it to make money, that's what they're there for. But if you're not letting your artist do what [they] do and you're not pushing that artist to that fan base where they can sell records and at the same time do what they do, then it's not going to be a happy relationship. So I feel great right now. We're able to bring out a classic album without watering anything down. Does the upcoming set feature some of the old crew or material from Prequel...? It's a couple of songs [on the mixtape] that's gonna be on the album. Right now we don't even have a title for the album yet. We going through sample clearances, trying to clear a lot of these artists trying to get them on the album. We trying to get two from Dilla, we're trying to get a vocal from Dilla as well as get something from Baatin. So right now, basically what's holding us up is pre-cuts, and the guest appearances and the sample clearances. But other than that everything seems to be going a-ok. I feel like personally, it's better than the mixtape, because there's a concept. It's an album, and every album that Slum Village do we have a concept to it. It's preparing you for what we do best and really letting the world hear what we do best without hiding it. How's Baatin progressing? He was going through a situation, he's getting better now. He's actually about to put out his own album. Think it's still titled The Slum Lord, I'm not sure, but he just went to Cali to mix that album. The friendship it never deteriorated, it's always been in tact. I'm there for him, he there for me, as well as T3 and Baatin, they're there for each other. So when the time is right, all four of us will get back together and I feel like it's all in everybody's hearts and heads right now, but we all kinda like got our own little things going down. The friendship has never left, but we in this game and we gotta do what we gotta do to eat, and at the same time be who we are and nobody else. And to that it's gonna take a little more harder work to do. J. Dilla, Elzhi's solo mixtape & the Slum Village movie What's the word on Dilla? Dilla's been going through some things too. He was sick for a little while. I can't really speak on it too much cuz I don't really know (what he was sick with) actually... like that. But he was real sick.. I mean real sick. But now he's better, doing his thing. Last time I was in Cali. I was smoking weed with him, we was drinking at the club, kicking it and listening to some hip-hop. He's better and now... and more busy than he was before. Dilla's working with D'Angelo and a bunch of other cats, so he's busy himself as well as Slum Village. What you got cooking on the solo tip? Right now I got 7 songs I'm sitting on right now. I got a mixtape that I put out called Witness My Growth, which was was a 2 disc and its basically like Prequel... Basically, it's just me going back to the days when I was doing it solo and reaching back to as far as '97 bringing songs out like that and putting it all together on a mixtape and basically allowing people to witness my growth through the whole CD from 97 all the way to 2005. Guests? Big Tone, Dwele, B.R. Gunna did production, J. Dilla did production, Karriem Riggins, Waajeed, Alchemist did one beat. All family... Yeah, all family... Nick Speed, (DJ) House shoes... trying not to forget anybody, T3 on the mixtape, so it's got a lot of good response and it's a blessing since a lot of that stuff is old. T3 got a mixtape he's putting out called the Oleo coming out soon. And he got a lot of people on there as well as myself, Guilty Simpson from the Dreadnautz, Big Tone, he got Dilla tracks, BR Gunna produced [some] joints, he's got Phat Kat on there... he got a bunch of people on there, it's bananas. We're working on a movie. It's basically about our life. All our a struggles, our ups and down. T3 just interviewed Waajeed from Bling147 and basically got his take on what happened before Slum after he went off and did his thing. Cuz Wajeed... actually gave Slum Village their name. [We got] everybody that was a part of that era, as well as myself and people who knew me. We got a lot of stuff that we've written already, we're just trying to find the right people that's willing to back it up. |
