FORMED JUST ABOUT a year ago from four very disparate corners of the Hip-Hop United States, Slaughterhouse brings the beastly lyrical pedigrees of its four component MCs (Jersey’s Joe Budden, Long Beach, Calif.’s Crooked I, Brooklynite Joell Ortiz and Detroit-bred Royce Da 5’9 ) to bear in aggressively straightforward rap music. Furthermore, it seeks to do nothing less than hotwire and run away with the rapidly flagging and disintegrating hiphop music industry, to poise itself as the harbinger of a new and prosperous golden age. Elevated goals to be sure, but in Slaughterhouse’s case, the “show and prove” seems to be a constant and breathless pursuit—all of the group’s initial output is swollen with lyrical blood and the members describe recording their forthcoming self-titled debut (out this week) in a tireless few days.
Royce recounts the sessions thusly: “We have two rooms going and we manufacture verses like an assembly line. We do what we do best, and there’s nothing to nitpick or over think. That’s machinery, that’s not regular. [We set] a lot of unrealistic deadlines for ourselves and we got the record done in six days. It was the first time we had an opportunity to really be around each other, and it just went like a machine.”
The group was formed rapidly on the heels of an explosive cut on Budden’s recent digital-only Halfway House album, also titled “Slaughterhouse,” which laid out a communal destiny pretty clearly. From Joell’s densely knotted first bars forward, the vibe is fierce but joyous; when in Royce’s middle verse he calls out “Matter fact my nigga jump off can I keep goin?” and is immediately called back “Why the fuck not?”The sense of lyricists at ease but ecstatically alive in their work is thick. Unlike many of today’s blockbuster posse tracks, where MCs drop in just long enough to stamp their familiar styles and bolt, “Slaughterhouse” gave each of its participants plenty of time and bars to really extend themselves, fuck around and challenge each other, and this has proven the continuing mode of the group.
The MCs of Slaughterhouse discuss the project with a level of enthusiasm rarely heard from such grizzled dudes, and it is clear they all feel that the group has the potential to be far greater than the sum of its parts. As Joell describes it, “Joe Budden bring that psychotic, pill-popping dude who just spaz out and go crazy, we have an assassin in Crooked in terms of lyrical content and how technical his flow is. Royce—you don’t know which flow you’re ever gonna get and he just becomes such a part of the beat every time he comes out, and I just bring that Brooklyn, gutter, bubblegum-on-the- bottom-of-your-shoe vibe, I think I bring some of the best feeling to a beat. If an MC had all that he would have powers; every corner of hip-hop covered.”
All four members have had strained and ultimately unsatisfying dalliances with major labels (most recently Budden had a public falling out with Def Jam during Jay-Z’s presidential tenure and Ortiz’s deal with Dr. Dre’s label Aftermath disintegrated) and all four seem to see the group as a new and stronger paradigm in the independent game. Joell puts forth, “We all feel that we’re contributing to the New Hip-Hop, that’s what I call it.You make sure about the integrity of your craft and that your career is long—attack your core audience and excel at what you do.” Crooked I stresses the power of cross-national solidarity and the regional excitement the group pools when together.
“There’s definitely power in numbers.When I come to the table in Slaughterhouse I have to humble myself.You know I’ve been a power on the West Coast for a long time, and I’m a leader of many. And on the West Coast I’m pushing [Slaughterhouse] thuggishly. I hired my own publicist out of my own pocket to try and spread the word. I’m a hip-hop almanac and I’m trying to figure out when this has ever happened in history, people helping each other out like this.”
And, stating the mission ever more clearly, Royce says, “We’re not gonna take it back to this time, no we’re going to make great and timeless music and the people of this time are gonna like it. All the Ts are crossed and all the Is are dotted and all the loose ends are tied up.”
