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Slum Village delivered an all-world classic with their second album, Fantastic, Vol. 2. The project made the Detroit-based crew critical darlings and further cemented the reputation of producer J Dilla, who co-founded Slum Village with high school friends Baatin and T3 in 1994. While both Dilla and Baatin tragically passed away in 2006 and 2009, respectively, SV has remained active (with longtime affiliate Young RJ joined in 2012) and the group’s legacy has continued to hold strong. Okayplayer caught up with Young RJ and T3 to talk about the album’s legacy on the occasion of Fantastic, Vol. 2’s 25-year anniversary.
Okayplayer: What’s the first memory that comes to mind when you think about making Fantastic Vol. 2?
Young RJ: Mine would be the DATs coming in. Hearing what they’d worked on in the basement. That’s the first memory. The best memory would be them asking me to help finish “Climax (Girl Shit)” and mixing on the record.
T3: I guess my best memory would be us making “Fall In Love” and finishing it at Studio A. Shout-out to Studio A–it’s not around no more. Dilla holding a handheld mic and singing the hook. I thought that was pretty dope. Us knocking it out at Studio A. We had a great time doing that record.
If you could play one track from Fantastic, Vol. 2 for someone who’s never heard the album, what song would you choose and why?
T3: If I could play one track for the people so they could kinda get the vibe of the album, I would probably do “Get Dis Money.” The thing about “Get Dis Money,” it represents Detroit so well. It represents us, and us coming up from the struggle. It represents the creativity of what Dilla did what the beat–
sampling Herbie Hancockand filtering it and doing all that. That’s the one track I would probably play because of the different vibe.
Young RJ: Imma go [with] “Tell Me.” Because it got that vibe. It don’t really sound like nothing on the album – but it’s got that vibe. D’Angelo came through extra buttery. And the way it was put together.
T3: The story behind that: we was in the studio – Electric Lady, a ridiculous studio – we in there and we got to hear him working on Voodoo at the time, which was incredible. We’re hearing pieces of that and then we went into the other room and he did our joint. So shoutout to D’Angelo. He came through on that, for sure.
Did you all know you were making a classic at the time, or were you just going with the flow in the moment?
T3: At the time we made the record, I knew we was probably on to something because we had so many artists that wanted to be a part of it. Shoutout to everybody that contributed on that album; from Busta Rhymes to Q-Tip, D’Angelo, Common, Questlove and The Roots. Jazzy Jeff. Kurupt. Pete Rock. All the people that showed us love. Everybody.
I knew we was onto something because we had just came out of the buzz of doing Fan-Tas-Tic Volume 1. It was bubbling in the streets already. So I was like “We ‘bout to make some shit.” And Dilla was like “Yeeeaaaah, nigga.”
English (US) · 