S. Samuel
Slaughterhouse's Joell Ortiz recently talked about his rap crew and why their goal is to form like Voltron rather than only represent four different emcees thrown together.
In Ortiz’s perspective, the media and hip-hop fans initially put too much hope into what Slaughterhouse represented in hip-hop.
“The first album kind of felt like this assembly of four solo artists that are ill, and they all came together to do what they do in hip-hop. Like, hip-hop needs this, hip-hop needs this alliance, and that was kind of the story that the media ran with, when in all actuality it took us to get to this [new] album, in my opinion, to realize that we’re not the saviors, we’re not this assembly of super-rhyme dudes that came together for that purpose. Nah, this is part of a plan–God’s plan, in my eyes. … The object is to try to make Slaughterhouse one person. Like, when people refer to it, not like, “Yo, did you hear Royce’s verse? Did you hear Joell’s verse?” Just to be like, “This is Slaughterhouse sh*t, man.” How do you make it one person? And we’re gettin’ there, we’re gettin’ there. It’s fine to have four personalities–I have four personalities.” (XXL Mag)
Joell also provided a small update on the group’s upcoming third effort.
“Slaughterhouse producers, just an ill assembly of dudes with different sounds that have all come together for that one common goal. We just wanted to make it raw, a raw sounding album, and I think we achieved that. Everybody was just working together as one cohesive unit; it was real, real cool. Maybe Cardiak would have a sample, and Just would be like, “I love it, but let me change the drums,” and Ill would be like, “Maybe if we just drop this a few dbs,” it was just a whole bunch of stuff going on that was just super ill. Everybody was on it; that was what was really going on in the studio, just a bunch of learning from each other going on, and it felt natural.” (XXL Mag)
Recently, reports of the group reuniting in New York City to work on the LP surfaced.
With the month of June comes Summer, and things naturally begin to heat up. Same thing is happening over here, as Slaughterhouse have officially begun recording their second album for Shady Records/Interscope. The Core Four are spending the month of June in a secret location in New York City cooking up something new with a team of producers including the J.U.S.T.I.C.E. League, Araab Muzik and Just Blaze. Just Blaze is set to serve as the album’s Executive Producer. The collaborative approach — everyone has been working in the studio at the same time with the hand selected top-notch production squad — has the House Gang feeling great about the album’s prospects. “I’m really excited about doing things a different way this time around”, says Joe Budden. This isn’t a send-tracks-around, and everyone-records-in-their-own-studio type of album. Joell Ortiz said that he is happily looking forward to the process as well: “The creative being creative! Fun, fun fun!” (Shady Records)
In May, Royce revealed what sacrifice the entire group had to make in order to move forward.
“I think we all realized that we’d have to put the competition to the side in order to get the record done. Obviously we all wanted to have the best verse, but we came to terms that it’s impossible for one person in the group to come first every single time. We are all focused on making sure we bring our A game to the table every time. And it helps.” (Murder Dog)
