"Hold tight / This is the last time you hear me / I'm out now / This is the last time to cheer me / Niggas in the game is gettin' too slimy / Liable to make this peace-brother turn grimy / I'mma leave it in the hands of the Slum now..." - Q-Tip on Slum Village's "Hold Tight"
"...leave it in the hands of the Slum now...leave it in the hands of the Slum now..." The music has faded but the words continue to reverberate around the walls of a small conference room in Los Angeles where the three members of Slum Village have gathered. It's the winter of 1998 and the burgeoning group from Detroit - Jay Dee, T3, and Baatin - are just hours away from opening a pair of dates that will turn out to be the final shows from iconic hip-hoppers A Tribe Called Quest.
"Damn," whispers Jay Dee, Slum Village's masterful producer and one of the group's MCs, in the track's aftermath. "I don't really know what to say. When we made that song, we didn't know what to do. We were ready to go with some other shit and then he dropped that. We just sort of sat there quiet." Indeed, what can you do but sit in awe when one of hip-hop's most revered citizens pronounces a changing of the guard?
Fast forward to the present day: Slum Village is on the verge of releasing their debut album, Fantastic Vol. 2, into the world. The album is a supreme effort nearly three years in the making, one that christens the Detroit trio as the next generation of soulful, vintage hip-hop.
The members of Slum Village have known each other since they were in their teens, having grown up in the same Conant Gardens neighborhood of Detroit. Even though they haven't put out anything beyond a handful of singles, already their peers are singing their praises. In addition to the torch passing by A Tribe Called Quest, everyone from The Roots to Common to D'Angelo has singled out Slum Village for rejuvenating passion in hip-hop music.
D'Angelo, who appears on the song "Tell Me," relays this story about hearing an early version of the group's album: "I remember we were in the studio, being real smug, like 'Nobody's fucking with us. We're doing the real shit.' And then Q-Tip came in and played the Slum tape and I was just floored, man. I was screaming, jumping up...I haven't felt like that about music since ΓÇö I can't remember the last time I felt like that about some music. It was incredible."
Adds ?uestlove, drummer for The Roots, on okayplayer.com about Slum Village: "Simply stated, if it weren't for Slum Village, I'd quit the business and go back to college."
Why are there so many guardian angels looking out for a relatively anonymous trio from Motown? "That's a good ass question," T3 admits. "I guess it's because we're musicians and we try to make musicians' music. We try to make music that other musicians can respect because a lot of the music you hear today, you can't respect. I think that those other artists feel what we're doing."
There's also the fact that Slum Village isn't entirely anonymous; in fact, chances are you've been hearing a variation of their music - and loving it - for years. Producer Jay Dee is also a part of the production team, The Ummah, and has helped concoct beats for Q-Tip (Amplified), D'Angelo (Voodoo), Common (Like Water For Chocolate), A Tribe Called Quest's last two albums, classic joints like The Pharcyde's "Runnin'," "Stakes Is High" from De La Soul, and numerous remixes for artists like Brand New Heavies and Janet Jackson.
Slum Village's Fantastic Vol. 2 is colored by that same old-school, soul-drenched sound that makes a Jay Dee production instantly recognizable - lush keyboard swells underneath sparse drum taps and funkdafied rhythm stabs - except this time, he's got Baatin, T3 and himself on the mic to compliment the steady head-nod feeling. On Fantastic Vol. 2, Slum Village reveal a vibrant palette of musical styles: there's the hypnotizing, soul minimalism of "Players" and "Get Dis Money," the post-disco bounce of "What It's All About" (with Busta Rhymes), and the irreverence and acumen of "I Don't Know," where the groups rhymes are integrated with artfully chopped up James Brown phrases. Other guests on the album include Kurupt ("Forth And Back"), Jazzy Jeff, and venerable producer Pete Rock ("Once Upon A Time"), confirmation that Slum Village are a part of that movement in hip-hop intent on being culturally grounded and true to the lineage of great black music.
"It's weird how everything is coming together," Jay Dee reflects. "All the people that are helping us - through interviews, tours, or whatever ΓÇö are all the people we listen to or grew up listening to. It's all an honor, number one, but it's hard to believe.
"It's more like a dream," Jay Dee continues. "Like when we played Philly and we had Jazzy Jeff DJ-ing for us. That's some shit I would wake up and tell everyone about. 'Yo, I was dreaming we had Jazzy Jeff as our DJ.' "
"And," adds Baatin, "sometimes our reality seems to be even better than our dreams."
