Motor City Modified

Eminem may be Detroit’s most famous rapper, but the Motor City is also the home of a number of other dynamic hip-hop artists. Among the best is Slum Village. Where Eminem relies on lyrics full of violence and confrontation, the trio of T3, Baatin and Jay Dee takes a more universal approach. On its first national release, “Fantastic, Vol. 2,” which arrived in stores this week, the group delivers a balanced, soulful sound and attitude that separates Slum Village from rap’s two dominant trends: the glossy glamorization of excess and the hard-core gangster sound.

Although the album was originally scheduled for a 1998 release, “Fantastic” still sounds fresher and more distinctive than all but a few of the rap albums released so far this year. One reason is that Detroit, unlike most other major U.S. urban centers, hasn’t generated a wave of similar-sounding artists.

“Detroit as a whole, we don’t have a set sound,” T3 says. “We accept varieties of music. You go to Detroit and it’s like everyone is in their own little community within a community. When you go to different cities, a lot of the people sound exactly the same.

“A lot of image is being sold right now. We’re trying to be the everyday person, which is why the album is so diverse. We’ve got some hard-core songs, but every day I’m not in a confrontation with a person. Some days I’m chill [relaxed], with my girl. Since we’re not selling an image, we can do whatever we want.”

Slum Village Works With Some Top Acts

Though new to the national scene, Slum Village has already worked with such prominent acts as A Tribe Called Quest, the Pharcyde and Common. They hooked up with Tribe member Q-Tip about seven years ago, when Tribe was in Detroit on the Lollapalooza tour. T3 and Jay Dee gave him a tape of their music, which was being released locally.

Although Q-Tip wasn’t overwhelmed with the overall project, he enjoyed Jay Dee’s production and included him in Tribe’s circle. With Tribe member Ali Shaheed Muhammad, the three formed the production group the Ummah, which produced Tribe’s last two albums.

Although each member of Slum Village plays at least one instrument, Jay Dee is the heart of the group’s sound. He favors crisp percussion, relaxing grooves and mid-tempo beats. Once Jay Dee started networking with artists in the music industry, he found himself producing such critically and com mercially successful acts as the Pharcyde, A Tribe Called Quest and Common.

“Jay Dee’s not a producer that says, ‘OK, this is my sound, All I do is this,’ ” T3 notes. “He flip-flops. A lot of producers just do the same song 100 times. That might be good for your pockets, but it might be bad for the listeners who want to hear something new and innovative.”

Slum Village wants to be the cornerstone of a creative moment that expands hip-hop’s sonic and thematic boundaries. Although the other groups in their fold, including Cali Agents, Spontaneous and Zion I, have little in common sonically with the Detroit group, they are among a wave of artists who are doing more than simply recycling tried-and-true hip-hop topics.

Like Slum Village, these groups shun trends and inject a mixture of spiritual and social commentary into their work.

“If people could open their minds,” Baatin says, “they could see a broader perspective of hip-hop, instead of categorizing it as 95-beats-per-minute beats, loud snares and muffled samples. That’s hip-hop. No. It could be anything.”

Slum Village will demonstrate its broad definition of hip-hop on a number of upcoming projects. T3 is working with several up-and-coming artists from Detroit, while Jay Dee produced some of the forthcoming album from soul singer Erykah Badu. And of course there’s always the next Slum Village album, which the group promises will sound nothing like “Fantastic.”

“The mission is to keep flipping the script,” T3 says. “That’s why we don’t even call ourselves hip-hop. We’re musicians. We play instruments. We sing. We may do a jazz album. We just want to be known as people who make good music, regardless of what it is. Right now we’re choosing to do this rap thing. But when I’m 45, I won’t be rapping. I’m probably going to be playing in the Slum Village band. We’re doing the whole cycle of music.”