Ladies and Gentleman, Boys and Girls, I bring you a CD in true Projectivity fashion. If you don’t know the name, learn it. Elzhi is the real deal. I had first heard Elzhi on some Slum Village shit back when I was in High School. Those were the days of blind ignorance, when any music with a hint of a commercial style or sound was immediately thrown out the window. I never gave Slum Village much of a chance until I heard Elzhi on the Little Brother CD and his verses were ridiculously on point. I wanted more… So you can imagine how excited I was for Elzhi’s newest release “The Preface”.
From the opening track to the final cut, Elzhi does not disappoint. His opening statement to the listeners, “Whats up with this rap game? Shit is all fucked up. I know you heard that bullshit on the radio, I’m tired of that shit.” And with that the lyrical gems start. At first I was worried that this would be an album with battle style rhymes, a great flow, and not much content, but this album has concept after concept and is one of the most original albums I have heard in some time.
On “Guessing Game”, Elzhi says the first syllable of a world and then gives his listeners time to fill in the blanks, “Colors” has Elzhi using as many colors as he can in each verse, the songs “D.E.M.O.N.S.” is a giant acronym, and “Talking In My Dreams” shows what goes on in Elzhi’s subconscience while he sleeps as the verses jump from dream to dream. These songs are only the tip of the iceberg.
The production is very consistent all the way through. Black Milk provides just the right bangers to laid back beat ratio and all of the beats fit into that classic sound. The Preface has rich content all the way from beginning to end and should not be missed. I honestly can’t pick a favorite song. I love any song that makes you have to play it back to fully understand what’s going and this album is filled with them.
-IB
Flow - 5
Lyrical Content - 4.5
Beats - 4
Album-ness - 4
Overall - 4.5
