Slum Village - The Fan-Tas-Tic Box Set

Pitchfork 85

Slum Village is a rap nerd's dream—cult figures with a drama- and death-filled story that's tied into the genesis of a nigh-mythical figure, a man who was still redirecting the path of the genre while he lay on his deathbed. The group's lineup was constantly churning, and because it included producer J Dilla—one of hip-hop's most revered saints—in its ranks, they've become peculiar cult figures: frequently referenced, yet largely unknown. The group now consists of sole original surviving member T3 and longtime SV producer Young RJ, but it has variously boasted the presence of Detroit wordsmith Elzhi and J Dilla's younger brother, Illa J and gone through name changes (weeks after their official debut was released in 2000, they released quasi-album Best Kept Secret as J-88). But there is one combination—the OG trio of T3, Baatin, and Jay Dee (as Dilla was primarily known then)—that stands as the Supremes with Diana Ross, Harold Melvin and the Bluenotes featuring Teddy Pendergrass. And with the Fan-Tas-Tic: A Jay-Dee Production box set, we're given the most concise and thorough presentation of the group's formative years ever released.

The Fan-Tas-Tic box set is sourced mostly from the the group's two most widely lauded efforts—Fan-Tas-Tic, Vol. 1 and Fantastic, Vol. 2. Both achieved holy-grail status in part due to their scarcity, in the days when music was passed hand-to-hand and dubs of dubs were of ever-decreasing quality. The majority of people who heard the first two Slum Village records in the early days were hearing corrupted versions full of hiss and distortion that actually aided Dilla's warm grooves and the rappers' frayed and imperfect vocal performances. All of the songs were recorded in Dilla's basement on a DAT machine, which meant that the group had to do their songs in one take. They only had two mics—even ad-libs and hooks were done in real time. Furthermore, the entire debut album was made over the course of a week, sandwiched in between Dilla's growing responsibilities and rising renown as a producer for acts like the Pharcyde and A Tribe Called Quest. This imbued their early recording with a genuine garage-band quality—and even after they signed to A&M Records for their second project, they still recorded from the same location, bringing acts from the both coasts to in Dilla's Conant Gardens basement.

In hindsight, Dilla was the star of Slum Village, but that message was never broadcast through the releases—and it's great to hear Dilla's music outside of the idol worship that has sprung up around him following his 2006 death. Hearing full swaths of Dilla productions where his music is foundational but not central is almost unthinkable today. Even though this set is subtitled A Jay-Dee Production, it skips the heavy-handed approach of 2012's Rebirth of Detroit tribute or of his many reissued digital artifacts, which tend to get weighed down by their own sense of of historical importance. On Fan-Tas-Tic, the stars are aligned equally—Baatin's squiggly esoteric weirdness, T3's rhyming with a chip on his shoulder, the celestial backdrops of Dilla's expansive, smooth-yet-rugged palette of soul samples. Everyone was locked in for these records, and the focus is on no single part, but the sum of Slum Village.

There's a beauty in how local these records are—not in terms of landmarks or civic pride (though that is palpable too), but in the sound of young artists trying to break away from a crowded pack of competition. T3 and Baatin experiment with bar formation, wordplay and vocal inflection—most notably on Fan-Tas-Tic, Vol. 1, which is more or less a collection of semi-polished demos chronicling their real-time progression from collaborators to actual group. On this debut, the rappers stutter as if trying figure out how to navigate over Dilla's low-end theories—the producer's tracks were incredibly articulate, full of intelligent bass grooves, cushioned and hidden drum patterns that spoke to a shyness, and an offbeat smattering of snaps, snares, ticks and claps that felt like nervous tension or socially awkward conversations full of pauses and repeated non-sequiturs. It's all there on Fan-Tas-Tic, Vol. 1's opening number, “Fantastic” which features a nearly-eerie but wholly-soothing track hosting laughable sex advice: “All you gotta do is grip your meat/ Laugh at her, massage her/ Take a bath with her/ Devour her.”

Foreshadowing his final evolution with Donuts, some of Dilla's tracks were lyrical enough to not require much rapping, and the group was smart enough to let some of his music breath, playing loose with their presence. For “Look of Love (Remix)” they laid back and mimicked Slick Rick; on “Hoc N Pucky” they free-styled over-the-top grunts and growls and sound effects; and on numbers like “Fantastic 2,” “Fantastic 3,” and “Fantastic 4,” they retreated to simply chanting hooks, treating alternate takes as half-song interludes.

If the song titles (and history) get confusing, it's understandable. Slum Village wasn't necessarily focused on being easily accessible or readily formatted. Songs, themes and concepts were constantly treated as serials, reduxed, remixed, and reprised; the average song length on the debut is about two-and-half minutes, with almost half of them clocking out before the 90-second mark. Amazingly, they all come off as complete ideas. There's never the impression that the crew ran out of ideas, or had too many to share—rather, it feels as if they said what they had to say and when they had no more to say, they stopped.

By the time Fantastic, Vol. 2 was released in 2000, Dilla had worked closely with A Tribe Called Quest, Busta Rhymes, Common, The Pharcyde and others—all of whom found new rhyme pockets in his work. T3 and Baatin obviously cribbed from these greats, but it wasn't just the rappers who felt emboldened by Jay's advancement. One boon of his prodigious career is that—despite its brevity—Dilla's work had mini-phases and periods, like truncated versions of Picasso's Blue Period or Miles Davis' forays into fusion or funk. On Vol. 2 he's no longer condensed, adding a sense of comfort and ease to all his prior antics. Despite all of the (deserved) accolades given to Donuts, Vol. 2—with warm shimmers like “Get Dis Money,” “Fall In Love” and “Climax (Girl Shit);” throbbing excursions like “Eyes Up” and “Go Ladies”; and pulsing moments like “Conant Gardens” and “Raise It Up” —makes one of the strongest cases for Dilla's greatness.

The album featured Busta Rhymes, Kurupt, D'Angelo, Pete Rock, and—perhaps most notably—Q-Tip affirming the end of A Tribe Called Quest and anointing SV and flame keepers on “Hold Tight”: “Hold tight, this is the last time you hear me/ I'm out now, this is the last time to cheer me," he rapped. “I'ma leave it in the hands of the Slum now.” Q-Tip's declaration didn't help the album's fortunes much; Vol. 2 was shelved and left in purgatory for two years before being shipped off to another label. And by the end of that year, the Slum Village of Jay Dee, T3, and Baatin (who passed away in 2009) was no more.

Fan-Tas-Tic: A Jay-Dee Production also comes through with a comprehensive history of Slum Village (the A Fan-Tas-Tic story booklet), as well as full disc of instrumentals (which may or may not yield even more Dilla tributes), and a smattering of worthy remixes and further instrumentals from Pete Rock, Madlib and Dilla himself. Fan-Tas-Tic, Vol. 1 and Fantastic, Vol. 2 themselves are slightly re-worked and extended, but mainly kept intact and made to sound crisper without losing their original basement charm. The five included pieces of 7” vinyl seem gratuitous (their content is duplicated on the discs), but for the Dilla faithful and hardcore collectors, they're admirably fetishistic. Some of the packaging seems thoughtless—the records, discs, and booklet are just in a box with too much space for them; they just sit and shift and will likely be damaged under less than the most careful handling. But the draw here should always be the music. And Dilla comes through on both of these projects, but he's not the only one. On the re-released version of Vol. 2's “We Be Dem #1” (and “#2,” both a reworking of the Vol. 1's “Beej N Dem”) Baatin raps: “You say looking for them niggas, yeah, we be them/This shit remind me of some old EPM/ D shit,” before going on to shout out the Roots, Detroit's House Shoes, and his rhyme partner, but never Dilla. It may be sacrilege to many, but hearing Dilla without hearing rappers talk about Dilla is the best way to hear Dilla.