By now, most of the hip-hop heads are aware of the recent passing of Slum Village's Baatin on July 31st. Baatin was known as the eccentric member of Slum Village who brought his spicy unique flavor on in their records. Baatin, along with T3 and the late J Dilla, had underground hits that kept their songs on repeat in CD/cassette players. In fact, their first two records, Fantastic Vol. 1 & 2 are acclaimed as classics by rap listeners worldwide. It is worth noting that Phonte recently posted on his Twitter about the first LB record, The Listening, stating, "There would never have been The Listening without Fantastic Vol. 2.
In 2007, Phonte has gotten a chance to have a interview/hip-hop conversation with 'Tin as they chat about SV's impact on hip-hop, his upcming record, the SV and LB comparisons, and more. This interview is definitely worth reading and is very interesting. Peep it below (words by dcoachman:
Part I:
First I must say, it was an honor to be blessed with the ability to put something like this together of course with the willingness of Phonte and Baatin. There have been many interviews that have opened people’s eyes to many different things about life. Well this is an example of living life through the music. We all have heard the popular mainstream track This is Why I’m Hot by M.I.M.S. which of course stands for music is my savoir. Well for Baatin he could be a lot of other places right now, but fortunately he’s right where he needs to be, in the studio. In this first of a two part conversation Phonte discusses with Baatin the impact that Slum Village had on hip hop, the constant label shifting, and dealing with the success of making a mark as well as the pressure of going platinum on the very next album, and finally the reality of just how similar SV is to LB when comparing the life cycle of two dynamic groups with an innovative producers.
Phonte: First thing I always wanted to know, in the liner notes of D’Angelo’s Voodoo, Saul Williams talks a lot of times about how artists have to serve as their own inspiration and once you listen to all your Tribe records and all your Public Enemy records you have to serve as your own inspiration. He also said that if Prince heard "How Does It Feel" by D’Angelo would he feel ripped off or inspired? With that said when you first heard Little Brother(laughs) did you feel like we were ripping ya’ll off or did you feel inspired?
Baatin: Oh not at all, there was a lot of buzz going around about Little Brother when ya’lls first joint dropped and I kind of took it as dang that’s tight and I thought ya’ll were in a whole bracket of ya’ll own. More lyrical as well, we were kind of doing the freestyle spontaneous type stuff. Once I heard Little Brother the lyrical content and the production kind of separated what people were talking about but the comparisons was honors to hear.
Phonte: When "Vol. 2" dropped it was literally one of the albums that changed my life. A lot of times people would ask me what was going our minds when we created it. My question for you would be when ya’ll were making "Vol. 2" and if you need to go back to "Vol. 1" that’s cool to; but when ya’ll were making it did ya’ll have any idea what ya’ll were on to or were ya’ll just f*ckin around and having fun and it grew legs on its own?
Baatin: I don’t know if we could say we were starting a movement or not, but we knew we had a distinct sound that differed from everybody but we had elements from all the giants that you mentioned in the beginning like Tribe, De La, Jungle Brothers, Showbiz & A.G., Extra P, and we had our vitamins from all of their albums and we just did our own thing. We would listen to the tracks back and forth and be like this is some other sh*t. We would go straight down to the club and let them play it the same night we did the song and sure enough we had our own little vibe. So I would say yes we did know, but as far as the movement me personally I did not know. Dilla probably had it in his head like yeah I know what I’m going to do with this production thing and his vision and he executed to it.
Phonte: We all heard the folklore about "Vol.2" and people [were] saying Dilla made the beat for ‘Players’ in 92, and it can get out of hand on the internet but so I want to hear it from the source. How old were a lot of those tracks what was the timeline for recording that particular joint?
Baatin: I would say like 95-96 a lot of the joints like "I Don’t Know," "Fantastic," and some of the songs from "Vol. 2" were on "Vol. 1." We put "Vol. 2" together in like 95-96 the songs from "Vol. 1" were accumulating and that was long after our name was changed to Slum, which came out to be about 35 songs to be exact and 23 made the "Vol. 1" album. In the time period "Players", "Get Dis’ Money," was probably the last one. "Rock Music," "2U4U," "I Don’t Know" from "Vol. 1" made "Vol. 2."
Phonte: Explain how the whole thing happened with Interscope and A&M and that situation because the first time I heard "Get Dis’ Money" was at the time when Jay Dee was making noise of off Beats Rhymes and Life, Pharcyde and so forth, so I was copping anything that had his name on it like he could have done a polka record and I would have bought it. I heard a interview regarding "Vol. 2" where they were say that, that was on Interscope, so what happened with the label changes?
Baatin: Well Barack which was the label that signed us and Interscope was the first record label who picked us up and they signed us off of this song that was a compilation called "Rock Music," "Rock Music" was on "Vol. 1" the remix of "Rock Music" made this compilation. Interscope heard and they felt it and they gave it a shot. So Interscope signed us and something happened where Atomic Pop the internet label had started a record company. It was one of the biggest internet website companies in the world. They bought us out of the Interscope deal. Next thing you know we’re with Atomic Pop and Goodvibe. So we went through four different labels to be exact. So Vol.2 is probably sold through like five different companies.
Phonte: The parallels between Little Brother and Slum Village are similar in a lot of ways in which we will talk about (laughs). Watching ya’ll and seeing the cycle of how things go I really think ya’ll set the model in a lot of ways for a lack of a better term the “internet group”, being in that you have a group that comes in on some grassroots type sh*t and you have everybody buzzing about them like crazy and then the album drops and they hold you up to be the next Jesus out of Detroit, I see that as the Fantastic Vol. 2 period as that being one of ya’ll periods. With that, when the Listening came out for us sh*t was happening real fast so just explain to me what was life like for ya’ll when Fantastic Vol.2 came out for ya’ll.
Baatin: Oh my God, me personally I was kind of in another zone soul searching at the time. So at the time the success and praise from the album and all the promotion kind of caught me by surprise but we didn’t know that the doors would be open for us to be international, we didn’t see the vision. For one we were in our own zone making this music for ourselves and we really didn’t want to get out of the vibe we were in. That’s why I went through the experience I went through because it caught me off guard.
Phonte: There seems to be a curse with groups that have in house producers (laughs) specifically what happened with Little Brother and 9th Wonder and Slum and Dilla, hell Guru and Premo. From interviews I’ve read and stuff that has happened within my own group I can kind of piece together what happened but tell me exactly what happened that lead to the deterioration of the relationship between ya’ll and Dilla.
Baatin: I really can’t say it was a deterioration but we kind of parted ways. Dilla had a lot on his table, he was full time production house for UMA. So by the time Slum had a deal in '99, Dilla was like, "I can’t really sign this contract," because he had so much on the table so he kind of pushed away from the Slum business aspect and stayed in his own circle and kept with his own production, but he toured with us for part of that time and we did our thing but that’s pretty much what was happening and he had a lot on his plate already but he made sure we got on and had a solid album. That’s why a lot of the songs from "Vol. 1" made "Vol. 2" because we kind of put "Vol. 1" vibe into "Vol. 2" and polished it up a little bit. He was like ya’ll tight now, off and running, got the publishing deal.
Phonte: By the time "Vol. 2" dropped was he pretty much doing his own thing?
Baatin: Way before "Vol. 2", like '95 when he had the Busta Rhymes remixes, the Masta Ace remix and the Tribe albums. You know two of the Tribe albums he was constantly working. We were still in the studio during those years, we got our first check from the record biz from Dilla. Like damn we’re officially rappers now (laughs).
Phonte: I know for me being in a group with a producer, trying to explain it to people on the outside, a lot of people think the emcees get jealous. Like man their probably jealous because the producer is making more money than them. My thing is just from studying hip hop and the history any producer that is worth a damn is going to eventually go off and do their own thing. With ya’ll relationship with Dilla and his outside production work assuming that it was the same way as it was for us, what was the moment or many moments when ya’ll was like damn our man is really doing it?
Baatin: It was Tribe and Busta Rhymes, and his connection with Ahmir (Questlove) at that time as well as Common and De La that’s when we knew; and the Busta remix that Tip hooked up, we knew that he was really on.
Phonte: Explain to me the remix that came out, it was a Daft Punk joint, and this is the story I heard. Thomas Bangalter who did the "Raise It Up" sample. He heard the sample found the record and was like instead of me suing these cats I’ll just get them to do a remix for me because he liked the "Raise It Up" record.
Baatin: When they finally connected it was all cool.
Phonte: Moving to the Trinity album, one of my favorite songs on the album was the "Reunion" song. First of all I bought the album as a fan, but out of all the albums Trinity was my least favorite. It wasn’t so much that Dilla was gone and I even talked to El (Elzhi) from way back and he was saying it was just a real confusing time. What was the state of your life in particularly when you were doing the Trinity record?
Baatin: Pressure man, we were touring for three years straight and that ain’t no pressure but you know how it gets on tour.
Phonte: It’s a real f*cked up lifestyle and that sh*t gets old and it’s a real lonely place.
Baatin: Capitol picked up Trinity, and the pressure was to try and push Slum Village to the commercial market. Timbaland was doing a lot of remixes, Tweet, Truth Hurts were hot so they were trying to put us in the market of a lot of that hot R&B type stuff with catchy singing hooks. It wasn’t unison in our creative ideas together on making a solid album. Then Dilla wasn’t in the picture and cats was feeling the wrath from that, so it was a lot of pressure to top that first album.
Phonte: Sounds familiar (laughs)!-- [ SOURCE ]
Part II:
Phonte: Working with the Trinity record, how exactly did Elzhi come into the fold and do you think that was a good thing for the unit?
Baatin: It could’ve been for the better if we were cohesive in our creative part. Initially he was supposed to be on the album on just one song and not me and T3 on every song. Next thing you know, we were like why not just make him part of the group.
Phonte: Was that more of a call on T’s part to make him a part of the group?
Baatin: It was T’s call because he had initially brought him in the picture as his artist. So he was managing him and his career, next thing you know he did ‘Tainted’ and another song and he started writing verses to additional songs.
Phonte: By the time the Trinity album was finished had you left the group, or you left after the album came out, how exactly did that work?
Baatin: Well we came back from a tour and we sat down and we’re like we need to start making plans to make moves on our own to keep ourselves going. I had some business issues that I was stressing on and I came up to the studio and was like, “Yo, if I don’t have my own personal lawyer or manager, then ya’ll won’t see me for a while.” So they took what I said literally and ran with it.
Phonte: Was that more between you, T3 and Elzhi or was that between you and Barak and RJ?
Baatin: It was between me and RJ; so little bit with management and my concerns with the label. So I trusted that T3 would carry on and finish the contract but me not thinking I left and separated myself from a contractual agreement which left me really in the dark.
Phonte: So how many albums were ya’ll signed to Barak for and how did it that all workout with Capitol picking ya’ll up?
Baatin: I think it was six to ten albums. We were on our second including the EP’s, 12inches’ and singles. So we were somewhere around the middle of the albums we were supposed to do. So we were kind of sitting still for a minute but constantly working and we put the second one together. When we got with Capitol we had about four or five albums left.
Phonte: So the money went to RJ and them first and then to ya’ll?
Baatin: Yeah we had individual relationships with our [attorneys]. Cats were getting second hand information from unknown sources and then the divide & conquer came into play. You know how it is when a label pulls you to the side and says, “Yeah Phonte, you’re the Bob Marley of Little Brother.” (laughs).
Phonte: Do you think signing with Capitol was a bad move?
Baatin: Yeah for the pressure we were under to sell so many records, yeah that was a bad move. It took us out of our own vibe where we started. We were making music to please a company and we kind of forgot where we came from. At least I did, I was kind of lost in the clouds somewhere.
Phonte: Yeah, the joint Elzhi wrote on the ‘Reunion’ which was on the Detroit Deli album had Dilla, T3 and Elzhion the track and he (Elzhi) was pretty much just writing: Tell exactly what was he referencing?
{Elzhi's verse from Slum Village's ironically titled "Reunion"}
"Yo T kill’n em, Three kill’n ‘em
You thought we broke up and ya you rite we really did
I wrote a verse that I recited it was hot
But I had to rewrite cuz I thought we was united and we not
But though all the love that I got for you
Parna I picked apart ya words and I’m shooked in them interviews
I been accused of not carin
When the city threw your furniture out
Its not fair when I’m learnin about how stress you fell in a article
Forget a rhyme I’m just as real when I talk to you
And you know that we share Kodak moments
I wish we could go back
But don’t act like you wasn’t bug’n out like a phone tap
Chase’n cars in the street
I saw you throw a part in the sink
After hit the bar for a drink who asked you to slow down?
Even though niggaz told me you was gon’ clown
You didn’t know I cried when I saw you whallen at the State Theater
In the door by the side
Throw you in the trunk and found a preacher for you
Cause I thought you had unlawful demons on you
Sink’n fast in the deepest soil
Ya parents finally got you some help
You came out seem’n normal and
I heard you on medication
Had a illness you couldn’t heal with herbs and meditation
And believe me; Me and T, Three kept it low
Don’t take this as a dis this is just to let you kno that I love you
But watch the company you keep
Sware niggaz don’t care, but they love you in the streets
Get ya mind right nigga..."
Baatin: I wasn’t diagnosed with schizophrenia until after my furniture was put out. That was three days before my furniture got put out he was talking about the incident that happened at the State Theatre. Next thing you know I’m back in my [mom's] crib chasing cars.
Phonte: How exactly was your furniture getting thrown out was it a rent thing, what was that?
Baatin: Well three months had passed and the break thing I had mentioned at the studio, went from a week to two weeks, to a month to two months, loosing my child’s mother and loosing my son. Nothing was broken and there was no violence or anything like that, it was just my mental problem to have the ability to persevere through that was shot. So I had to go with the fall…ah man, he(Elzhi) was on point with everything he said …a voice came to me and was like Baatin you have reached a certain plateau in spirituality before I first came to the studio and warned them about the lawyer thing; he(the voice) was like you have a choice, you can stay in this situation and continue or go on your own and leave and take another journey and the few years that passed were a struggle.
Phonte: So during that three month period where you stepped off from the group there was no shows or money coming in, you were just on your own?
Baatin: Just me in the house by myself just sick with it, I don’t known what particularly was going on but you know the affects of spitting controversial lyrics that may offend religious people or different types of people that listen to music? When the pressure came back from me from things I said, reaping what I sow.
Phonte: What was it particularly, because for me just reading the interview that Ahmir had wrote for Like Water for Chocolate, when ya’ll did the "Thelonious" joint he wanted to censor a lot of ya’lls verses because ya’ll were talking about b*tches and hoes, and ya’ll were just getting it how ya’ll get it. Was it the misogyny in some of the lyrics or was it something else?
Baatin: It was really me exaggerating and they call that paranoia. It was so easy for me to exaggerate and put the blame on something outside of myself but I was really dealing with my inner demons.
Phonte: It makes sense because whoever you are as a person all this business does is multiply that times ten. If you’re a really shy person, once you get in front of a million people yeah you might do your job and sing in front of a million people but once the lights go off you just become more withdrawn. At the same time if you’re the party all the time with 10 dollars sh*t!
Baatin: The habits do multiply. I tell cats that all the time!
Phonte: I’ve read a few articles regarding your battle with schizophrenia. I haven’t really dealt with a lot of people who have mental illness in my family or close friends. So if you could paint the picture of what exactly that is like and or the struggle that goes on in your mind, what is your day to day struggle in dealing with that illness?
Baatin: It’s a constant struggle as well as the side temptations that go along with that. I was diagnosed schizophrenic, bi-polar and depressed and that’s according to the hospital records. It’s the cause of all situations that result to the solution. My background growing up depressed, kind of feeling like a loser, not graduating high school, child abuse and all of that contributed to me sitting at home, my habits multiplying, me battling with religious things that I took into my consciousness; as well as me thinking maybe I’m not supposed to be paid and they say when I’m rich, and now I’m putting them in my lyrics. That contributed to me falling off in the game. So I’m drinking more and that contributed to the mental sickness. It could be hereditary as well because my father went through something similar as well as my cousin. I think it was the excessive drinking because when I started with "Vol.2," I was on a spiritual path.
Phonte: When you were talking about the spiritual path and the religious ideas that you had, what religion were you raised in, because a lot of artists struggle with the spiritual versus secular thing and I think Sam Cooke is the best example of an artist who struggled with singing for God and singing for the world. So did you ever have the struggle between your music and your religion?
Baatin: I was raised Baptist in church and that was the struggle for me. When I decided that I was going to be a conscious emcee somewhat (laughs)…
Phonte: On a side that’s funny because when we got the ball rollin with Little Brother people put those aspirations on you like if your not this then your automatically that. So because I’m not talking about bustin my guns or sellin crack than automatically I’m a tree huggin n*gga. It’s like, "Yo, I’m just a regular dude!"
Baatin: There was definitely pressure from outsides sources that influenced some of the topics in the music but it was still in our zone. The good thing about us was we always invested our experiences into our music.
Phonte: Where were you when you got the news that Jay Dee and died?
Baatin: I was in a rehabilitation center and I had went to church that Sunday. This dude came up to me and was like, “What’s up? [You're from Slum?] I love your music.” After church he came up to me and was like, “You know Jay Dee passed.” and I was like, "What?" I was in church and I hopped in a van because I had just broke my foot jumping out of a window, and three days before that my brother had died. All this happened in the beginning of 2006. That whole experience was devastating and I have just now accepted the fact that he is questing in peace.
Phonte: You mentioned you hurt your foot jumping out of a window, was that a accident or mental related?
Baatin: Depression from not being able to eat with my family on Christmas because I’m out on the street using drugs, and I went out the house and was like give me this and a couple of dollars and I’ll jump out the window. The first attempt I landed on my feet and the second time it was terrible.
Phonte: What drugs were you using?
Baatin: It was crack, terrible choice of drugs.
Phonte: This is all back in Detroit?
Baatin: Yup, all in Detroit.
Phonte: Did ya’ll have any clue about Dilla and his health? My friends and I talk believe that the output of music that he was creating made us believe that he knew the end of was coming. So did ya’ll know or did he try to hide it from ya’ll and keep it going?
Baatin: He totally kept that to himself. Years passed before we knew he was even sick. It wasn’t even a situation where we came together to hook up with my brotha. I feel like if I was in the position I could have got the group together and we could have seen what was up with Dilla, because I feel that any disease is not fatal, because I’ve done so much cleansing in my blood I feel like that could’ve been situated beyond him going to the hospital. There are ways and natural remedies to deal with that type of thing, so that’s what crushed me.
Phonte: To date have you, T3 and Elzhi talked at all?
Baatin: I talked to T3 about three weeks ago. I saw him at one of the clubs here with Dwele and we talked briefly about the tour we were supposed to do together so we have good connection now. I haven’t spoken with Elzhi in a while but we’re all still connected, there isn’t any animosity anymore.-- [ SOURCE ]
R.I.P. Baatin 1974-2009
Slum Village Forever
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