![\"eLZhi\"](\"http:\/\/evolvingmusic.files.wordpress.com\/2008\/11\/elzhi21.jpg\" "\\"elzhi21\\"")
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In September’s version of “What I’m Hearing,” I reviewed the solo debut album from eLZhi, The Preface<\/em><\/a>. Late last month, I had a chance to sit down and chat with the up and coming Detroit rapper who has been in the game since the ’90s about the state of hip-hop, his progression as an artist, remix culture and politics. Enjoy!<\/p>\n AC<\/strong>: How are you doing? Where you at today? AC<\/strong>: Talk a bit about growing up in terms of your relationship with music. What were some of your early influences? AC<\/strong>: When did you first start officially rapping and writing rhymes and what were your initial experiences like both live and in the studio? The first time I got in the studio it was kinda weird. Usually you\u2019re just rapping on the streets, rapping in the hallways, lunchrooms, whatever, but when you put your voice to that mic, sometimes you don\u2019t sound exactly how you sound to yourself when you\u2019re just talking. I had to really learn how to control my voice, my breath control when I was in the booth, I was out of breath a lot of times, it\u2019s just a whole different world. That\u2019s really the test to see if you want to be an MC is mastering that booth, and mastering how you sound on the mic and then from there mastering how you sound on the stage. When I finally got it down pat, I was definitely satisfied with the outcome.<\/p>\n AC<\/strong>: You\u2019ve done a lot of collaboration in your career with other artists. Talk about how you identify artists you\u2019d like to work with, how that process comes about and what this constant collaboration has done for your career and your style. AC<\/strong>: You\u2019ve been a longtime artist now on the Detroit scene, and you were on the scene long before Eminem was, who in a way has become one of the biggest pop rap names out of Detroit. Have you noticed a difference in the feel and quality of the scene from before and after his discovery, and would you say by extension that artists from Detroit are tired of being associated with him? After Eminem blew up, hip-hop was changing, so it was people back then doing it to make classic records, and now they\u2019re trying to make classic records while at the same time making that radio hit so they can get on like that. But one thing I do like about it, is that in Detroit, I can\u2019t speak for nowhere else, just us going off into that music for the masses or whatever, it\u2019s a good thing and a bad thing. But I focus on the good thing. It made a unity happen in Detroit that wasn\u2019t there before. You got cats like Trick Trick rapping with Royce, Trick Trick rapping with eLZhi, elZHi rapping with Stretch Money, it formed a unity. As far as Eminem, we never get tired of that. Eminem making it was like everyone else making it from that era and he set a real good example of how to come out of the hood and do good, so we\u2019re definitely not mad at that. He represents all of us like we represent him.<\/p>\n AC<\/strong>: You just released The Preface<\/em>, and I\u2019ve been listening to this a lot\u2026the album is hot. It was a long time coming for you to release an official solo album debut. Why did you wait so long and what was the process for you working on this album? AC<\/strong>: Is it true that most of the production on this album comes from Black Milk? AC<\/strong>: What was working with Black Milk like and how did his musical ideas influence the album? AC<\/strong>: What I like a lot about this album is that there\u2019s a lot of variety on it in terms of the sound. You have harder hitting songs like \u201cD.E.M.O.N.S.\u201d and \u201cHands Up\u201d and then you have more playful songs like \u201cGuessing Game\u201d and \u201cColors,\u201d to the two really laid back ones that I\u2019m enjoying the most, \u201cTransitional Joint\u201d and \u201cSave Ya.\u201d What are your favorite cuts and can you talk about your lyric writing process and how you incorporated all those different styles? Songs like \u201cTalking in My Sleep,\u201d I\u2019m proud to say that\u2019s a visual song even though it\u2019s something made up, that\u2019s something I imagined and put to paper so people could visualize it. \u201cSave Ya,\u201d \u201cTransitional,\u201d \u201cHands Up,\u201d my writing process just varies. There\u2019s times where I may write stuff down, but that\u2019s rare. If it\u2019s a deep concept and I\u2019m trying to get real visual with you, so it plays in your mind like a movie, sometimes I write those down but other than that, all my rhymes are stored inside my memory bank, and I may write it in my mind before I go to the studio, or I might write it in the studio to a beat or scat a bit in the booth, so there\u2019s so many different ways I approach writing.<\/p>\n AC<\/strong>: Going to broader industry questions, you worked extensively in mix tapes before you released this album. What do you think of the current state of the music industry and where do you see it going? AC<\/strong>: You were talking earlier about two different generations in terms of hip-hop in Detroit, but overall in hip-hop, how do you view the genre as changing, and do you view these as positive or negative changes? AC<\/strong>: What has your career in hip-hop taught you about life and what has life helped you learn to enhance your hip-hop? AC<\/strong>: A lot of bands outside of hip-hop, most notably Radiohead, have started letting fans remix their songs on the internet. Do you view that as a positive form of interaction with fans, and would you let your fans remix your cuts? AC<\/strong>: To get a little political with you, we\u2019re in a massively important election. Have you been following it and do you have any thoughts about what direction our country needs to head in? In September’s version of “What I’m Hearing,” I reviewed the solo debut album from eLZhi, The Preface. Late last month, I had a chance to sit down and chat with the up and coming Detroit rapper who has been in the game since the ’90s about the state of hip-hop, his progression as an artist, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[5,15,17,22,23,24,25,26,27,34],"tags":[173,190,219,245,272,315,328,396,502,547,601,607,819,821,850,946,975,1012,1071,1102,1131,1195,1285,1390,1397,1419,1466,1483,1487,1563,1678,1742,1780],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.mixmatchmusic.com\/evolvingmusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1022"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.mixmatchmusic.com\/evolvingmusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.mixmatchmusic.com\/evolvingmusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.mixmatchmusic.com\/evolvingmusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.mixmatchmusic.com\/evolvingmusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1022"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.mixmatchmusic.com\/evolvingmusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1022\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.mixmatchmusic.com\/evolvingmusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1022"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.mixmatchmusic.com\/evolvingmusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1022"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.mixmatchmusic.com\/evolvingmusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1022"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nEL<\/strong>: I\u2019m over at my friend Phat Kat\u2018s house. Chillin over here, writing rhymes.
\nAC<\/strong>: Up in Detroit?
\nEL<\/strong>: Yea, we\u2019re in Detroit right now.
\nAC<\/strong>: Start off easy\u2026what\u2019s the meaning of your name, and you have stressed capitalization in it. What\u2019s the importance of that?
\nEL<\/strong>: The L and the Z are capitalized in my name because that\u2019s what I used to go by before eLZhi<\/a>, LZ. How I even got eLZhi was trying to spend out LZ, spelling it out wrong and it was elzhi and I was like, \u201cYea, I like that, I\u2019m going to keep that.\u201d At first there wasn\u2019t a meaning to it, I didn\u2019t know what it meant. Then I got into Slum Village and my boy Baatin was really big on Hebrew and was learning the Hebrew language and actually broke my name down to me and said my name means \u201cGod\u2019s Spirit.\u201d So the \u201cel\u201d is God and the \u201czhi\u201d is 7 and 7 is a spiritual number.<\/p>\n
\nEL<\/strong>: Before I started writing rhymes, my influences were things my Mom used to play. She used to play a lot of Motown records from Marvin Gaye to Stevie Wonder, Luther Vandross, things of that nature. My auntie used to play Planet Rock, stuff like Jack the Ripper, LL. I got my first cassette tape from my Grandfather. He bought me a walkman and a cassette tape and it was like Fat Boys. So from there I was in love with the art form and started hearing a little Rakim, hearing a little Special Ed, a little Ice Cube and I was just gone after that, I knew it was something I wanted to pursue and be a part of.<\/p>\n
\nEL<\/strong>: I started writing rhymes at the age of 8. Things like \u201cI figga like a nigga\/pop the gun and hold the trigger\/the gun is loaded 12 gauge I hold it\/the bomb exploded one sucker corroded\/and I just won\u2019t stop til my lyrics pop\/making sure that you weak and my opponent gets dropped.\u201d That\u2019s something I wrote when I was 8. My first rhyme that I wrote was actually off the top of my head. Another thing that kept me going on and on was one of my family members, she used to always want me to freestyle in front of people she brought around the house. By her pumping me up like that, it really made me want to keep going with it.<\/p>\n
\nEL<\/strong>: Basically, if I want to collaborate with someone, it\u2019s cause I feel what they\u2019re doing. Collaborations that came about in the past with us getting involved with people already in the industry, we just let the label know, cause at the time we were working with Capitol. I\u2019m speaking on Slum Village, by the way, for those who don\u2019t know. But at the time we were working with Capitol and we let them know that we were trying to get at Kanye. Now Slum worked with, before I got in the group, a bunch of cats from Busta Rhymes to Pete Rock to Kurupt to Common, Q-Tip, the whole nine. And those were strictly off the strength that they liked Slum\u2019s music. You listen to the Detroit Deli<\/em> album, I was a part of the group at that time, and we got Kanye, mainly because we really identified with his music and thought he was live with it, so the label hooked up the situation and he was actually in the booth. And just to see this guy in the studio, doing his thing, happy about making music and enjoying increasing the quality of his craft, it was inspiring, it made me want to take it to the next level. In these days and times, I\u2019m just trying to get mine and I think about that from time to time and use that as inspiration to push forward.<\/p>\n
\nEL<\/strong>: The scene was two totally different eras. Back then, hip-hop was a little bit more live, even to people in the mainstream because you could turn on BET and see Rap City and actually look at a Hieroglyphics video or a Black Moon video. Hip-hop was alive because you didn\u2019t really have to go digging. Now you have to go digging. You\u2019re not even really seeing videos from some of the illest artists that are out today, so it\u2019s a totally different thing. It was strictly just on some hip-hop stuff, people werer just trying to make classic records, they weren\u2019t even thinking about the radio.<\/p>\n
\nEL<\/strong>: It\u2019s been a long time coming. The reason it took so long was I had to make sure my business was right. Slum Village as well as eLZhi was going through some label troubles, but everything is all good now. I did the album in like 3.5 weeks and what happened was I took a CD overseas to sell when I went on tour and that CD has become known as the Euro Pass<\/em>. Really I was just taking it over there to sell, I didn\u2019t know it would do as good as it did, as far as being on the internet like it was, and I just wanted to take control of the buzz and strike while the iron was hot. They basically told me I had this amount of time to work on a record, and if I didn\u2019t, I would have to wait to put out a record after Black Milk, so I was like let me just get in the studio and buckle down and make some music from the heart but at the same time be snappy about it because I only had a limited amount of time to do it so The Preface<\/em> was born.
\nAC<\/strong>: Was everything on The Preface<\/em> original material for the album or did you take anything from your previous work?
\nEL<\/strong>: I took maybe three or four songs from the Euro Pass<\/em> that circulated around the internet. Reason being for that is that these were songs people were expressing to me through Myspace that they enjoyed and I\u2019m like, \u201cI\u2019m not going to take those away, especially if I can put it on another album and make it sound better than it did, basically breathe more life into it. So I didn\u2019t want to do that to the fans who had that record, but at the same time I didn\u2019t want to take everything off the Euro Pass<\/em> and put it on The Preface<\/em> cause I did want to make it a different record. So besides those 4 cuts, everything else is original.<\/p>\n
\nEL<\/strong>: Yea, most of the production is done by Black Milk, there\u2019s a couple tracks done by my DJ who goes by the name Andreas or DJ Dez, and I got another one from T3 and another one was done by this dude named Demark Vessey. So I just wanted to give some new up and coming talent a chance to shine.<\/p>\n
\nEL<\/strong>: To be perfectly honest with you, at the time, Black was working on his album (Tronic<\/em>)<\/a>, so all I really did was take the Black Milk beats that were open, I took the best Black Milk beats I could find and put it all together and made the record. He would come in from time to time and put his ear on it, tell me what he thought I should keep, let me know how he should approach the record, change the drums or something. But working with Black is always an honor because we appreciate each other\u2019s craft and we recognize the real and are coming together for one common cause, to breathe life into the game, so it\u2019s always cool working with Black.<\/p>\n
\nEL<\/strong>: Some of my favorite songs on The Preface<\/em>. One being D.E.M.O.N.S. I was actually in Cali when I thought about this, I thought, \u201cit\u2019d be crazy if I broke the world down to acronyms and just made the D the E the M the O and the N mean something different throughout the whole verse not missing a beat,\u201d so I was proud of myself when I did that one. Another record is the \u201cGuessing Game.\u201d For one, I\u2019ve never heard anybody even attempt to do a concept like that. That came to mind when I was rapping in the backseat of this van. Me, Fat Kat and T3 were on tour and it just popped in my head like one of the lines I have on this song called \u201cFire,\u201d where I was saying \u201ctechnology,\u201d and just the way that I played with the word \u201ctech\u201d and \u201cnology\u201d made me come up with the idea like what if I did this with words and tricked everybody into thinking I was going to say one thing and then I didn\u2019t? So that\u2019s how that concept came about and I\u2019m glad I put that on the album.<\/p>\n
\nEL<\/strong>: I see the music industry being on the downlow tip. I see people buying records from the internet. I see the internet as the new streets. I remember back in the day being in New York and seeing promotional vans and people just stopping on the side of the street and opening up the back doors with music banging from the person they were promoting, while a street team was out in front of the van slinging fliers and giving singles away. I can recall when Eminem, before he put out his first record, he had that song \u201cI Just Don\u2019t Give a Fuck,\u201d and his promotional tour was passing VHS tapes with the video on there out in the club. But now it ain\u2019t like that anymore. The internet is so big that people are promoting what they need to promote on the internet. I just see music as being on the downlow where it\u2019s sad to say that you see Tower Records folding here, a Virgin Records closing there and music stores closing in general. But I see music sales going straight to the internet.<\/p>\n
\nEL<\/strong>: I see the genre changing in that rock groups trying to incorporate rap and rap groups are trying to incorporate rock. And to me that\u2019s not a bad thing, because it\u2019s all about evolving and changing. I\u2019m eclectic. I like Bon Jovi, I like Jimi Hendrix, Miles Davis, so I\u2019m all for hip-hop changing and flipping, as long as the music sounds good, I don\u2019t have a problem with it.
\n
\nAC<\/strong>: Following The Preface<\/em> here, do you see yourself working on some more solo stuff or going back to collaborations for the next part of your career?
\nEL<\/strong>: Well I\u2019ve got a mixtape coming out in December, I like to give a shout out to one of the illest rappers who\u2019s still breathing right now, Nasir. I\u2019ve got a record where I\u2019m giving tribute. I actually got the idea from my boy DJ House Shoes and the name of the mixtape is Elmatic<\/em> and it\u2019s a tribute to the classic album Illmatic<\/a><\/em> that Nas put out so in a way it\u2019s me giving my own personal hip-hop honor to him, so I\u2019m getting that mixtape ready, hopefully it should be ready in December. I\u2019m working with Fat Kat on his new record, I\u2019ll be on like 80% of that record. I\u2019m also working with T3, we\u2019re doing a mixtape for DJ Who Kid right now but at the same time me and Royce are getting our thoughts together for our collaboration, but at the same time I\u2019m still planning on putting out an album after the mixtape called The Feed<\/em> and that\u2019s going to be bigger and better than The Preface<\/em>.
\nAC<\/strong>: You\u2019re a busy man.
\nEL<\/strong>: It\u2019s about that time. We\u2019re living in a whole different era right now where we need to be in peoples\u2019 faces and we gotta work overtime. But to me it doesn\u2019t even feel like work cause I love to do what I do, but yea you have to stay busy if you want to stay relevant.<\/p>\n
\nEL<\/strong>: What hip-hop taught me was just to go hard at everything I do. Taake it to the next level with everything I do in my life. And my life influenced my hip-hop because everytime I pick up the pen I write about something that\u2019s happening in the street or happening in my life, personal things, my wants, my fears, so it\u2019s always influencing me in terms of what I write in my verses and the concepts that I think about. So you can\u2019t help but let it influence you like that because you live in it everyday and if you rap about it from the heart it\u2019s gonna automatically come off that way.<\/p>\n
\nEL<\/strong>: There\u2019s been a couple of times when I got my stuff remixed. This is what happened. My record came out and somebody took one of my songs and put their verse at the end of the song, then put that version in with the album and had it where people could download it. So when certain people downloaded the record, the version with that person rapping on my record is the version they got, so they\u2019re thinking that\u2019s what the record sounded like. I don\u2019t agree with that, but as far as people wanting to put their spin on it or be heard or whatever, it\u2019s all fun, it\u2019s all good, I\u2019m not mad at it, go for theirs is what I say.<\/p>\n
\nEL<\/strong>: I\u2019ve been following it a little bit. It\u2019s time for a change, my people here in the D that aren\u2019t into this rap game and work regular jobs, there\u2019s cats getting laid off, can\u2019t find jobs here. So that needs to change. The economy as a whole, I mean gas is starting to look a little better, but man, it was even better than this at one point and we\u2019re just happy it\u2019s at this level now, but it was worse only a few weeks ago, maybe a month ago. The economy as a whole needs to have a makeover and I just feel it\u2019s time for that change, and like you say man, this is a real important election and everyone needs to voice their opinion and vote, and I\u2019m voting for Obama, and that\u2019s just how it is.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"