I’m officially back in routine mode after a vacation that was too short.  Hopefully everyone has purchased my new project, Stanley Ipkiss: Year of the Nice Guy on iTunes.  I promise it’s worth the money.  You can imagine how hard it is to find the right music to listen to on the first day back at work in almost two weeks but today was made a little bit easier from the legendary, Slum Village.  Their new album, Villa Manifesto has been in rotation since before I left so I figured I would continue bumping it for the rest of the day.  If your not familiar with the drama that has been surrounding Slum Village in recent weeks let me inform you that this album, is supposed to be the last album, at least with Elzhi as a part of the group.  Apparently there are some issues with the head of Barak Records and Elzhi and his management.  I’m not going to feed into all that but it is a shame that another great group splits up.  Slum Village gave us some incredible music, regardless of who was in the group.  The new album is pretty solid but a few tracks I don’t really like.  It’s hard for me to listen to Slum though because Fantastic Volume 2 is one of my favorite albums of all time and I thought Trinity was sick too.  The other releases definitely have gems but nothing touches those two, in my opinion.  Their self-titled was pretty solid too.  This album is cool because you get to hear Dilla and Baatin on tracks with T3 and Elzhi.  Dilla brother, Illa J even makes a few guess appearances.  Although I wish there were all Dilla beats on the album, it is always real cool to hear Dilla and Baatin.  Baatin comes back on the album really well.  He sounds sharper than ever and really fits back into the group pretty seemlessly.  It sucks that this is some of the last music we will ever hear him on.  I’m not a huge fan of the single, Faster though.  It sounds a little forced at least production and hookwise.  I’m not sure if it was a mainstream radio attempt or what but I’m not really a fan of that joint.  Um Um sounds kind of strange to me too.  The girl on the song throws me off.  Regardless, I think there are some solid records on there but Slum will always be remembered for Dilla, Baatin and Fanstatic Volume 2 rather than any of their more recent stuff.  T3 and Elzhi have done a good job trying to keep it going but it was just never the same.  With all that said, definitely check the album because all 5 cats on the album sound good and Little Brother has a feature on there as well.  Check out a couple videos from Villa Manifesto, Faster and Reunion Part 2.  RIP Dilla and Baatin.  Slum Village we will always love you.