This video has circulated the internet for a wee bit but the strength of the song and lyricism deserves more love than just one-week of blog hotness and then fade away status. Hip-hop is so throwaway these days that regardless of if something is a dud or a perfect 10, it’s forgotten about in two weeks time flat. Bollocks! Elzhi rapped his ass off throughout the entire Elmatic project and if you haven’t watched the video yet for “It Ain’t Hard to Tell,” jump on that right now. And major shoutouts to one of Detroit’s most slept-on emcees, Fes-Roc, who is Elzhi’s right hand man in this video, and in real life. Salute fellas.

Ooooooweeeee!  Really?!?  This is almost too good to be new Slum Village.   It sounds like old SV came back from the past, but with a renewed, fresher sound.  It makes me feel kinda guilty that I like it so much knowing that Baatin and Dilla are no longer with us.  Is that wrong?

“Don’t Fight the Filling/Daylight” is basically one of those two-in-one combo deals.  Elzhi and T3 spit some classic verses while Dwele softly kills the hook on the first half of the track .  Don’t Fight the Filling then gives way to Daylight, which is basically the best use of funky hand claps and sitars I’ve ever heard.

This track is off the the Villa Manifesto EP, which came out July 27th - just in time for Slum Village to break up.  Yup, that’s what I said.  Ain’t that some bullshit?

Download “Don’t Fight the Filling/Daylight” here (right click, save as).

DJ House Shoes is easily one of the best ambassadors of Detroit hip-hop that a city could ask for. The fact that he’s moved to Los Angeles like so many other Michigan hip-hop staples (J Dilla, Ta’raach, T3, Mayer Hawthorne, Now On, etc.) is actually fitting. There’s a musical kinship between Detroit and LA that dates back to when Berry Gordy packed up Motown and landed in California over 40 years ago. Since then, it’s been on!

While Shoes is out here on the West Coast, he’s keeping the Detroit hip-hop torch blazing and producing tracks as if he never left the 313. His latest production gem is called “Newports” and features another Detroit to LA transplant, Jordan Rockswell. It’s on the upcoming All City Records LA 10″ vinyl series that hits iTunes on May 18th.

Check out “Newports” below. Then get your hands on Elzhi’s criminally slept on Out of Focus EP. House Shoes produced the lions share of that underground jewel back in ’98 and I still listen to it once a month on cassette. No joke.

[audio http://www.thesouldojo.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/House_Shoes-Newport.mp3]

Today I popped Elzhi’s Out of Focus EP into my tape deck (yes I still listen to cassettes) and reminisced on how gifted Elzhi is as an MC. That EP is from like ’98 –I’ve even been told it distinctly sounds like it’s from ’98 –and mostly features production from DJ House Shoes. Neither Elzhi nor Shoes had come-up in the rap world yet, but both were just a year or two away from changing that. This is all around the time that Detroit artists like Dwele G, Waajeed, Hodge Podge (now Big Tone) and El were all emerging out of The Hip-Hop Shop/St. Andrews and on the verge of record deals.

Here we are some 11-12 years later and Elzhi is still coming off the top with crazy quotables and verses unlike any other rapper. It’s clear that he’s getting better with age and I’m loving him for it. Instead of having House Shoes on production this time, he’s got the even more internationally known, yet still Detroit born and raised Black Milk holding down beatmaking duties for his latest single. Those two have been grinding together since Slum Village’s Detroit Deli album. The two 313 favorites just released a video for their latest song called “Deep.” Ya gotta love the brief cameos from Phat Kat, T3, and DJ Dez.

I’m really not a fan of promoting projects that are attached to gimmicky marketing campaigns. It’s not that I’m totally against the merger of corporate branding and fresh music,  but when cigarettes or alcohol are being pushed, I usually don’t feel the need to promote said company any more than necessary.

So if you can ignore that this download is being brought to you by a vodka company, delight in the fact that they’ve got world renowned DJ Benji B picking the cuts that are included. If you listen to Benji’s show on BBC 1 Xtra you know he’s got a good ear for playing futuristic world grooves and is one of the better DJs in the U.K. bar none. On his latest podcast entitled Future Music Series#2, he’s got heat from Little Dragon (Sweden), Bei Bei (California), Martyn (Holland), Electric Wire Hustle (New Zealand), Yaw (Chicago) and several other artists that you probably wouldn’t expect.

You’ll hear some good features on the podcast also with guest appearances from Detroit’s Elzhi and California’s Georgia Anne Muldrow as well. Feel free to download it if you’re over 21. Since it’s being promoted by a liquor company, the podcast itself is for those 21 and up.