Sorry for the delay folks. Work was a bit hectic today. Whatever… So, Detroit, Michigan… Home of one of the most respected hip hop crews to ever step on a stage. Slum Village, made up of T3, Baatin and J Dilla. There was not one artist out in the 90’s and early 2000’s that did not have a beat by Dilla. Slum Village, for the most part, were really exclusive with their music. They never really came out on many other artists albums. The way they did it, and are still doing it, will always be the right way in my eyes. Since 1996 Slum Village have been recording. Their first drop was back in ‘97 with ‘Fantastic Vol. 1′ and it wasn’t for another 3 years before Vol.2 hit the streets. Given, by now, after 3 years of working with Dilla, and making such an amazing album like Fantastic, which had classic singles like, The Look of Love, Players, and Estimate, there are a few artist’s out there that are basically idolizing you. Mean while, one of these artist’s that was idolizing Slum Village, Elzhi, is busy trying to sell his first mixtape. By now, Elzhi had already met Waajeed and was well in his way to the top. Waajeed had a group “Platinum Pied Pipers” which he was one half of. They had done a few things with Dilla by now, and Waajeed had spoken to Dilla a few times about Elzhi and his word play skills. Elzhi, then, got introduced to Dilla and the rest of the Slum Village artists.

After some time after, hanging out with Elzhi, Baatin invited him to be featured on a few tracks on the album they were working on, Trinity. They’re third studio album and now, with three members. The chemistry was SO perfect that T3 and Baatin asked Elzhi to be a permanent member of SV. Dilla had no objections, all he saw was talent off of Elzhi.

Although in the group, Elzhi still had plans in pursuing his solo career. With all the work he was putting into being the new member of a group that had a huge following, he still found the time to jump in the studio and work on his solo album. Worked with artists and producers such as Black Milk, Guilty Simpson, Fatt Father, DJ Dez, Danny Brown, Royce da 5′9″, Fat Ray, Dwele and DJ Houseshoes.

Here’s a small part of an interview by LeisureLab.com, which explains a bit of how he writes and rhymes.

I know people are asking you about this a lot but songs like “Guessing Game” (my personal favorite) and “D.E.M.O.N.S.” feature some great wordplay and unique lyricism. Can you tell us a little about your writing process? How do you take the songs from ideas to complete records, lyrically?

I’mma take you through the whole stage… I listen to a track and, to me, it’s like the track is saying something. It might be saying a girl song, maybe saying a club song or maybe some street shit. I take it there you know what I’m saying? Lyrically.

Now the process of me writing songs varies because once I have that idea I might end up going to the studio just fresh off that idea and writing something at the studio at that time, or maybe writing to it at the crib and then going to the studio and laying it. Basically once I get that idea in my head of what I want to write about then it just comes to life. That’s the tunnel vision that I have. I see that all the way down at the end of the tunnel and that’s what I’m trying to get to. Everything just falls into place after that.

So do you start writing out lyrics before you even listen to the beats or are you starting with the beats and working lyrically?

For “Guessing Game” it was just an idea that popped in my head off a line that I had in this one song called “Fire” which I put on an album… it wasn’t really an album… it was more like a mixtape – Europass. I said something where I broke up the word technology and from that one word wrote out the Guessing Game. And basically I heard a beat that Black had and I felt like this concept would go with this beat. Now I wrote the chorus and everything to the beat. I actually wrote the rhymes to the beat too but I had a couple of lines that I was kinda playing with before I even heard the track.

And as far as a track like “D.E.M.O.N.S.”… now this is real crazy. I didn’t know this man but after I cut the record and after Black came into the studio and heard “D.E.M.O.N.S.” he told me that same record that he sampled for “D.E.M.O.N.S.” had a demon on the cover of the record. So I thought that was crazy. When I hear music I go off of what the music is telling me to write.

P.S. Rest In Power, Baatin and J Dilla. Slum Village and Black Milk are holding it down for you two.