Between paying his dues at Hip-Hop Shop, building a buzz from his Out of Focus EP, and enjoying more visible success after joining the renowned group Slum Village, Elzhi always had a one-of-a-kind penchant for lyrical wizardry. With multilayered rhyme schemes, uncanny metaphors, and inventive concepts, he persistently had a case as the most gifted rapper in his city — even when Eminem dominated the charts. But even some of his most dedicated fans knew that he hadn’t crafted a legacy-defining album yet. Such records often come from pain, and in 2009, that’s exactly what he dealt with: his Slum Village groupmate Baatin suddenly died in July, longtime manager and Detroit rap impresario HexMurda suffered a nearly fatal stroke two months later, and he went through a messy public breakup with SV the following year.
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