Will "Villa Manifesto" Be The Last Slum Village Album? [VIDEO]

It’s never easy holding together a group in hip-hop and few know this better than T-3 of Slum Village.

Since the group’s debut in 1996 with Fantastic Vol.1 the crew from Detroit, Michigan has dealt with rampant bootlegging, members leaving and more recently members actually passing away. Founding member J-Dilla left in 2002 to pursue a solo career and MC Elzhi was brought in to help shoulder the load on the rhymes. Soon after Baatin left for personal reasons leaving T-3 as the only original member to carry on the torch.

Just as they were preparing a reunion album J-Dilla died on February 10, 2006 from complications due to Lupus and on July 31st 2009 Baatin died suddenly while T-3 and Elzhi were performing in Canada.

However, they held things together and finished Villa Manifesto, the first Slum album since 2005’s self-titled CD. It is also the first album to feature all of the original members since the classic Fantastic Vol. 2. But this accomplishment has been clouded reports that Elzhi is leaving the group and that there would be no more Slum Village after this album. Watch as TheUrbanDaily sits with T-3 and producer Young RJ to get the skinny.

“People just pick groups apart..” – T-3 of Slum Village