SHAPE-SHIFTERS
Oct 1, 2002 12:00 PM, By Kylee Swenson
Detroit has been on the mainstream hip-hop map for a while, but Motown trio Slum Village — Jay Dee, Baatin and T3 — have taken an underground approach, sneaking up in the modest manner of A Tribe Called Quest and De La Soul. While the public was largely unaware of Slum in the mid- to late '90s, those in the know — Q-Tip, D'Angelo, Busta Rhymes, Pete Rock, Jazzy Jeff and Common — were already recording with the trio for the group's 1999 debut, Fantastic, vol. 2 (Goodvibe/Barak).
Jay Dee originally took the producing reins, with Baatin and T3 supporting Jay's laid-back vibe with a percussive cadence style more about feel than lyrical content. “We were spontaneous MCs, more like instruments on a track,” says T3. Since Fantastic, the trio has mutated, with Jay Dee handing over much of the creative responsibility to Baatin and T3 for their latest, Trinity (Past, Present and Future) (Capitol/Priority, 2002). Meanwhile, T3 and Baatin brought rhyme-man newcomer Elzhi to the group. “He's like a battle MC, a storyteller,” says T3 of the fellow Detroit native. “He focuses on his rhymes, and that made us focus more lyrically than we ever had before.”
Other producers — including DJ Hi-Tek, Scott Storch and Young RJ Ne'Astra — worked with Slum, and Jay Dee produced three of the 22 tracks. As for T3's part, he applied much of what he learned from Jay Dee to help produce Trinity, a concept album comprising the past “soul joints,” the present “clublike joints” and the future “retro-funk, soul and alternative mixed together.”
Older keyboards — an Oberheim Matrix, an Ensoniq ASR-10, Moogs, Rhodes and Wurlitzers — are featured on Trinity. But when it comes to working with the newer synths, such as the Korg Triton and the Clavia Nord Lead, T3 goes beneath the surface of preset sounds. “I do a lot of disguising with the Triton, filtering and running effects through it, like a Fender wah-wah pedal,” he says.
T3 makes beats from scratch on his Akai MPC3000 and E-mu SP-1200, grabs sounds from records or has musicians play parts on a live kit. But he also creates kick sounds from a simple finger tap. “You can get a kick from placing a needle on any record [not spinning] and by tapping on your turntable and sampling that,” says T3. “Then, you just take all the highs and most of the mids out of your EQ and turn the bass up.”
Jay Dee has passed on a lot of production instruction to T3, but his most important message was not about twisting knobs. “The basic thing is to be able to take yourself away from your music and analyze it like it's somebody else's,” says T3. “When you're producing, everything is good because it's yours. What you should do is make a song or beat, leave for about two or three hours, turn on the radio or listen to your CDs in your car, and then go back and listen. If you don't feel the same way that you felt before, then it's just not right!”
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