Asif Khan Inc.

Slaughterhouse – Slaughterhouse

In the world of hip hop where you have every emcee dissing out the other with incisive precision, it seems but an incongruity when you are faced with the concept of hip hop groups. After all, a bunch of rappers, most of whom are known to possess bloated egos, coming together and working on a collective plan doesn’t sound like an easy thing. Surprisingly, as time has been witness, it has been groups like these which have come to the forefront when the question of injecting a fresh lease of life into hip hop has emerged. This is probably the reason how and why we still remember names like NWA, Wu Tang Clan and Run DMC.

Some of us might remember the time when a quaint group called HRSMN came about. Made up of some of the biggest names around at that time (Canibus, Ras Kass, Kurupt and Killah Priest), their sole purpose was to refresh the industry with their version of going back to the roots. What we see now, is something quite similar in terms of the making of a hip hop supergroup, if there was ever this term. Joell Ortiz, Joe Budden, Royce da 5’9” and Crooked I – each of them superbly talented emcees in their own right, joined forces around a year back to form a collective known as Slaughterhouse. The vitriolic passion they bought with their lyrics ensured they had smash sold out concerts over the short period of time right after their birth. An album was a natural followup. It seems though that they were putting in all energies into their lyrics, and couldn’t muster much in terms of conjuring up an album name, leaving it as simply “Slaughterhouse”.

“Slaughterhouse” isn’t your average hip hop record made of thumping bass and racing 808 beats. The samples which have been employed in making the record range from rock n roll infected guitars right up to blaring horn sections. What strikes you as the most potent force in the album is the sheer versatility of the lyrics. These guys talk, and they sure well know how to – which makes dissing so much more easy. Take “Microphone”, which talks about the ills which plague the industry today, and how there are so many rappers who shouldn’t even dare coming anywhere near a microphone. The lyrical finesse continues on the first half of the album as you coast along to the aptly titled “Lyrical Murderers” and “Slaughterhouse”. “Onslaught 2” hits you right on spot just when its needed the most in the middle of the album. Which happens almost right after you are exposed to the crazy production of DJ Khalil on “Cuckoo”. Marching ahead, what catches your attention is the bluesy guitar hook of “Salute Me”, which undoubtedly has one of the most heartwrenching samples to have been seen in recent times. The guitar sample just adds to the overall darkness, and gloom pervades through the track, while the rappers get into an vocal overdrive. Similar is the treatment given to “Pray”, a sort of an autobiographical outburst where each of the four come out with stories from their past, and how living in the hood was not so easy – but most importantly, they learnt to live life on the streets.

So if lyricism is what you are looking at, don’t think twice, but go ahead and check out these brothers. And just like they finish their album with “Killas”, which has a serial killer based theme, don’t be surprised when you see how many homies are caught in the crossfire of words spewed by the vocal barrage of Slaughterhouse, and serially slaughtered to be made a convert.