Between paying his dues at Hip - Hop Shop, building a buzz from his Out of Focus EP, and enjoying more visible success after joining the renowned group Slum Village, Elzhi always had a one - of - a - kind penchant for lyrical wizardry. With multilayered rhyme schemes, uncanny metaphors, and inventive concepts, he persistently had a case as the most gifted rapper in his city — even when Eminem dominated the charts. But even some of his most dedicated fans knew that he hadn’t crafted a legacy - defining album yet. Such records often come from pain, and in 2009, that’s exactly what he dealt with: his Slum Village groupmate Baatin suddenly died in July, longtime manager a nd Detroit rap impresario HexMurda suffered a nearly fatal stroke two months later, and he went through a messy public breakup with SV the following year. In 2011, Elzhi fearlessly took on the biggest challenge of his career: remaking Nas’ GOATed debut album Illmatic in his own name. He enlisted four - piece band Will Sessions to put a live, vibrant spin to sounds originally crafted by producers like DJ Premier, Pete Rock, and Large Professor, and demonstrated lyrical wisdom about when to maintain the original spirit of a song and when to switch things up. He conjures images of the blocks he grew up on with “Detroit State of Mind,” recounts a romance with a woman who had a traumatic childhood on “One Love,” and uses “Memory La ne” to take a nostalgic cruise through childhood connections before the pain from such reflections is too much to bear. The technical proficiency was potent as always, but emotiveness made Elmatic blossom: the wistfulness of his mother’s flowing hair befor e chemotherapy took it from her, falling in love with a woman he met in the mall, the palpable pride in the peaks and valleys of his city. It was a detailed, refined version of the introspection displayed on Out of Focus . Elmatic proved that Elzhi didn’t just have prodigious talent — he had a city to represent, and he had a story to tell.

Elzhi And Will Sessions – Elmatic

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Label:	Jae B. Group – CM120-LP, Coalmine Records – CM120-LP
Series:	Coalmine Reissues
Format:	Vinyl, LP, Album, Limited Edition, Reissue, Black Ice
Country:	USA & Europe
Released:	Dec 10, 2024
Genre:	Hip Hop
Style: