Who is Slum Village and how did you get together?
Slum Village has evolved trough so many different things. Right now Slum Village is just Elzhi and T3. In 1998 when the Fantastic vol. 2 came out, Slum Villages consisted of Baatin, Jay Dee and T3 and then from that point, Jay Dee left and they brought me in to the group which is Elzhi so then it was Baatin, Elzhi and T3 for the Trinity Album and then Baatin left because he is dealing with some issues right now, so then it’s just Elzhi and T3. Basically Slum Village started off doing music in Jay Dee’s basement and basically making a tape Fantastic Vol. 2 ant from that point they where scattering the tape across the industry and it got in to the hands of Qtip, D’Angelo, The Roots, Talib and a bunch of people. After that the got their deal and pretty much for every album we had to change labels. Now we are on Capitol where we are releasing “Detroit Deli: A Taste of Detroit”.

For how long did you personally know the original members of Slum Village?
The original members of Slum Village know each other for 15 years. I presently joined the group officially in the year 2000. I first appeared on the Trinity album.

What was your motivation to do an other album with Slum Village after Jay Dee and Baatin left the group?
We worked on the album for about a year. Right in the beginning Baatin got sick and, you know he is dealing with issues a nd unfortunately, he is not on the “Detroit Deli” abum. T3 was like, “man, what are we going to do”, you know, we where stuck for a minute, we didn’t really know what to do. Because everybody who knew Slum Village from the Trinity album, they where used to 3 people. And somehow we just went to the studio and made our music flow and came up with an other incredible album.

Why are you calling your album Detroit Deli?
The reason is because we felt that it was about time for people to basically hear where we come from because we feel that Detroit is a city that has been slept on for so long and for me honestly I don’t understand that because so many influencial artist came from Detroit. Not just Rap artist but Techno, Motown and Pop. We just want to show people how we are livin’ over there.

Let me know about Detroit Deli the album?
Detroit Deli is really really of artists based in Detroit with the exception of two tracks where we have Kanye West and we have ODB. ODB and Slum Village always where tight since Brooklyn Zoo, It was a blessing to work with ODB. We got Jay Dee from the original Slum Village on a track called “reunion” and that song is basically summing up why Baatin is not on the whole album. And we have Phat Cat, who is part of our click and we got MC Breed from Flint Michigan who is on a couple of songs. I think it is the most focused album that Slum has ever done, and we tried to keep our style and get more personal. That’s the way whe evolved on this album. It dropps June 29th.

How did Slum Village manage to keep the original style?
We understand the elements. As much as Slum Village evolved we still do Slum Village. We just know what we like and we just incorporated in to our music. It’s been a blessing because it was received in all different types of levels. MTV, BET a lot of people give us great response. But Slum has and will always just be Slum Village. We try to push the envelope every time but we still try to make good music.

How did you evolve with your second Slum Village album?
When I first got in to Slum Village, this is what happened: how I got in to Slum Village is the story. T3 was looking for somebody to manage around the time Jay Dee left and Baatin and T3 where working on the Trinity album, I was working with a Child hood friend of theirs and we where doing music together. What happened was; this friend referred me to T3 who was looking for someone to manage. So original I was T3’s artist but on Trinity I was on 6 songs, first he wanted to just feature me on the album, but as the album progressed a little longer T3 and Baatin decided to bring me in to the group.

So, the difference between the Trinity and Detroit Deli Album is that now I am more a part of Slum Village then ever as far as the style goes. I have influence in the concepts which before was all T3 and a little of Baatin. We are much more of a group now.

What do you think of the current state of hip-hop?
If you would have asked me that 3 or four years ago, I would have said that hip-hop is not really going no where, but now, I got on two albums, I mean, groups like Outkast, The Roots cats like Kanye West, Talib and Common they are setting the paste for hip-hop, they are starting to bring this music over ground to where every is able to appreciate this music. When I was and Emcee back in Detroit, around 1994 and was in a whole lot of clubs trying to bust my freestyle and get it on, that was my goal basically, to take this hip-hop and bring it to a main stream level to where I am able to turn on the radio and keep it on and listening to this hip-hop music without being interrupted with some garbage. Groups like Outkast and The Roots and Kanye West are taking his to the next level they are allowing groups like Slum Village and J5 to do what they do and be successful with it. I think hip-hop is evolving in to a really great thing right now.

How does the future for Slum Village look like?
We are already working on our next album, we don’t have a title for it but we have made a couple of interesting new songs for it.

Are you going on Tour?
Yes, with D12 and Bone Crusher. The tour stats June 18th and we are going to hit 35 places. That’s going to be interesting because the crowd is going to be very diverse, we got the Bone Crusher Crowd, the D12 crowd and our fans together in the same place. It’s going to be an opportunity for us to get new fans from different crowd.

Are you going to try to get everybody on to the next album?
Jay Dee is going to be on the album, It’s not going to be to four of us just jet. Baatin is trying to get his solo career together, Jay Dee working on some project with Common and QTip.

We are triing to get a video together about the story of Slum Village, because we think if it is visually displayed it would look great. We have been trough a lot of struggle.

I feel the Fans deserve our good music not just because we have rearranged the groups many times.


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