Slum Village should not exist and Obie Trice probably shouldn’t be alive.
The smell of death lingers over Slum Village, two of their three founding members are dead, while Obie Trice was shot in the head on the freeway and survived, the bullet still lodged in his skull.
Both Trice and SV harken back to two very different peaks in the Detroit rap scene that happened at about the same time. While Slum Village was receiving national acclaim for their 2000 classic Fantastic Vol. 2 and being welcomed into the conscious-rap scene with groups like A Tribe Called Quest and De La Soul, Obie Trice was one of the boats being lifted by Eminem’s early aughts rising tide, his goofy grin and stupid lyrics broadcast across the world.
Since then Obie was dropped from Em’s Shady label, J Dilla and Baatin died, and both SV and Obie were left for dead. The two mixtapes they each released this month don’t promise a rebirth, but they each show signs of life.
Since its inception the best things about Slum Village have been T3 and the group’s beats, and both of those elements are fantastic on Dirty Slums. The problem of course is that this isn’t a solo record, and the Slum Village legacy hangs like an albatross on any moments of levity or strength on the tape.
The first sign of trouble is the fifth track, when T3 finds it necessary to use a skit to justify SV’s existence; he fails. Before that the tape starts off solid with sterling production and some nice verses. Black Milk and Big Sean even show up early on Dirty, on “Just the Past,” neither one performing anything particularly special but each providing the laid back cool that the hustling SV dudes are trying so hard to fake.
Riding with T3 on the SV roster are Illa J, J Dilla’s brother, and Young Jay. Illa J is almost as good of a producer as his famous family member James Yancey, and both him and Young Jay are fine rappers, the kind that could drop a couple guest verses without offending and float soundlessly away, unnoticed. Unfortunately of course these two are sharing billing with T3, and while they don’t appear on the tape nearly as much as the original member, it is still a bit too much.
If the biggest problem with Dirty Slums is the dead weight of the Slum Village legacy being dragged along, issues 2 and 2A are the frequent appearances by Chicago’s MC Vice, and the record’s repeated failure to match its best beats with the best verses.
Maybe it’s some personal offense I take to a Chicagoan breathing all over a Detroit legacy like SV, but Vice is just fucking terrible and he is a constant low point on any track he disgraces with his presence. Meanwhile Dirty Slums never manages to marry the kind of off-kilter, unique beat that made the Detroit sound famous with an impressive flow. Every Illa J beat worthy of his brother’s legacy, or every J Dilla borrowed production is marred with flat performances; while the only beats that get murked are easy pickin’s: rappers riding beats like roller coasters, each thrill’s excitement dimmed by the predictability of it all, the highs and lows previously decided by the engineer.
With its guest appearances by De La Soul, Phife and Phonte, and T3’s skits about the Vill’s collaboration with Native Tongues and Tribe, Dirty Slums is decidedly a tape aimed at a national audience. The record seems designed to re-assert SV’s place at the table with the old-school conscious hip-hop heads. This goal more than anything explains the reunion of Slum Village. A T3 solo record, over beats by Black Milk, Illa J and Pete Rock would be something to watch, a new sound that my be a little bit surprising. But a reanimation of a Slum Village long dead is just an attempt to get more European concert dates with De La and Phife Dog. Ho hum, call me if Elzhi and T3 ever get back together.
While the Slum Vill tape is a plea for international recognition, Obie Trice’s Watch the Chrome, is a decidedly Detroit production. Trice does it all on his own on the tape, and while the record features a few tracks from Watch the Throne and some borrowed beats from Dr. Dre and Wacka Flocka Flame, this is a mixtape that is all about a certain Detroit sound.
What’s interesting about these two tapes coming out about the same time is the exhibition of two distinct but equally prevalent Detroit sounds in the rap scene.
Personal preference alert: if its done by Jay Dee or Black Milk I’ll take the SV-style every time, otherwise I prefer Trice’s version of motor city banging with clever one-liners and tough guy fronting.
Speaking of, by far the best track on Chrome features a multitude of both. “Black Bitch” is a silly, offensive song that makes women analogous with guns. The track serves as a litmus test for your likelihood for fandom of this kind of silly gangster rap. If you find a line like: “Big chick hard to grab around the waist/like me hittin it from the back with another nigga in her face,” hilarious you are definitely going to love Watch the Chrome. (Remember he’s talking about a gun).
Personal preference aside, Obie just sounds so much more comfortable in his skin. His flow is smooth, typically hitting easy rhymes but occasionally striking upon a revelation of a one liner or a second of emotion that is striking amidst the casual bravado.
When buried amidst a pleasant and professional smattering of rhymes, a line like, “I’m alone, so I keep your phone on just to hear your voice tone when your boy in a zone, ma I’m in a zone,” about Trice’s dead mother is hard to ignore. Same for his funny and poignant line about being shot in the head on the track after the eulogy for his mother, “I’m living proof that a death certificate’s not a definite unless you the nigga got my roof peeled.”
That line comes on a track about Trice’s relationship with Eminem, a track peppered with those obligatory lines about people on the Internet not getting it twisted about how much he loves Marshall. Well Obie I’m not trying to read to much into things, but you just made a whole song about how you feel like Eminem left you behind even though you claim you made him go platinum.
The whole thing is like someone saying, “look I love Courtney, but here is a list of reasons why she totally fucking sucks.” It’s OK, Obie, you’re bitter, we get it.
The tape does feature one skit featuring Mr. 8 Mile, which is just a clip from the Shade 45 radio station, and it serves as a great reminder that Eminem is really stupid.
