Remember we were discussing Slum Village a few months back? Carl Craig brought Slum Village in to remix People Make The World Go 'Round - hopefully that will see light of day soon on Planet E.
Slum Village are a great new hip-hop outfit from Detroit. Think Native Tongues style hip-hop for the 2K. One of the members is JayDee who also forms part of The Ummah, A Tribe Called Quest's production arm, along with Q-Tip and Ali Shaheed Muhammad. (I am not exactly sure of the status of this triumvirate since Tribe's demise?) Slum Village's album, Fantastic Vol 2, has been widely bootlegged in the underground but has never seen the light of day due to some bad decision-making at Interscope. Anyway, news is that the group have now left the label and the album will now come out in the US via on Baraka/Goodvibe/Atomic Pop in May. The album features input from Q-Tip, D'Angelo, Pete Rock, Busta Rhymes and Kurupt. Also I just got a promo copy of another hip-hop CD from a West Coast outfit called The People Under The Stairs. The title is The Next Step and it's out via Om Records. It's kinda on the ol' skool, 'conscious' hip-hop tip, very funky and upbeat. But to bring it back to 313, there are three tracks with input from one DJ Assault. Would this be the same DJ Assault?
