Elzhi Interview
The Boy Hollywood
CHAMP: So we here with Elzhi, what up what up what up?
Elzhi: T Dot what’s the deal?
CHAMP: How you feelin’ on the response of The Preface album so far?
Elzhi: Man it’s been a great response man Fat Beats told me it’s doing well and they feelin’ it fo real fo real out here
CHAMP: Also to mention you got Ayah on The Leak which is the first joint, so that’s a good look. How’d you guys hook up to collab on that album
Elzhi: Myspace. I tell everybody though who’s tryina get in the game Myspace. The internet is like the new streets and it’s a good way to get well connected
CHAMP: Now with this album I actually wanna get the mental process you had when creating this album like what was your main focus and main objective?
Elzhi: I just wanted the people to see what I can do in the short amount of time. I had to make this album in 3 weeks. With this album I was riding off the buzz of this one joint that was on the internet called Europass which was just a bunch o songs that I had put together for when I was going overseas and I was tryina strike while the iron was hot and you know Bill told me I had to get it done at a certain amount of time ; I did and at the same time I’m not just good for a hot 16, or I’m not just good for writing girl songs I also can do battle – well not just battle but you know like concepts you never thought of before like Guessing Game and Colors
CHAMP: Like you mentioned there’s different concepts on this album like Guessing Game where your spitting and having the listeners guess what the last word of the sentence is gonna be and you were real creative on that and there was some real talk experiences on the album that was dope. Now what a lot of people have been asking is the connection between you and Dilla with Slum Village and everything and why there weren;t any Dilla joints on this album Of course there’s a situation behind that but we were never told flat out what it was. What is it?
Elzhi: It’s stuff that gotta get taken care of before anyone can rap on some Dilla beats. Certain stuff that he signed that back then is coming back to haunt him and everybody around him trying to represent his music, so once that gets taken care of we gon’ be some Dilla joints and represent
CHAMP: In terms of Slum Village is there an album in the works as well?
Elzhi: Actually my man T3 peace to T3, he doin; an album so once he finish with that we gon’ get into it I mean we always be recording but we gon’ get the bottom of it once he’s done
CHAMP: Coming from Detroit, a lot of people look at Detroit as Eminem, Royce Da 5’9 type of artists coming from out there. Do you feel any pressure coming out the D and having to live up to their expectations?
Elzhi: Nah ‘cause everybody do what they do. Like Royce do his thing, Danny Brown do his thing, Black Milk do his thing, and what I do you can’t you can’t get from nobody else, so we all created our own lane and got a class of our own and we all about to take it to the next level so there really aint no pressure
CHAMP: Now initially I had mentioned you had the track with Ayah. Are there any other Toronto artists you have on your radar that you wanna work with?
Elzhi: I like Saukratees you know what I’m sayin’. I met up with him a long time ago in a hip hop shop and he came there for a second and that’s a dude I would fuck with like that
CHAMP: Now is this your first time in Toronto?
Elzhi: Nah I was here last year
CHAMP: Aight, how are you feelin’ the atmosphere out here?
Elzhi: It reminds me of a cleaner New York. It’s clean but everything is poppin’. I heard about Yonge st and I ain’t never been to Caribana but I heard about Yonge st
CHAMP: Now you obviously gonna rock the show tonight but what else do we got planned for Elzhi outside the music?
Elzhi: I’m tryina flip cribs, they just passed medical marijuana so I’m tryina make a Cannabis Club or something and you know as far as music goes shout out to Houseshoes and look out in December man we doin’ a mixtape titled Elmatic and it’s a tribute to Nas’ Illmatic
THE LEAK - ELZHI FT. AYAH
