Black Milk is quickly becoming one
of the hardest-working men in Hip Hop. This year saw him gain ground
with his Popular Demand album, as well as beat placements with
the likes of Pharaohe Monch and Lloyd Banks. But the Detroit producer/emcee
is ending 2007 on a high note, and riding his momentum well into the
new year.
With the help of Aftermath’s Bishop Lamont, Black
originally released Caltroit as a free online mixtape with DJ
Warrior, but a mastered version without any drops is available for digital
download on Fat Beats Records’ website, and the CD is available on the Fat Beats website.
The new version is dubbed as “Black Milk Presents” instead of “Bishop
Lamont & Black Milk” due to clearance issues with Aftermath, but
only one of the songs—“Ret 2 Go” with Ms. Jade, Lady Of Rage and
Peeps—is missing. Two new songs are added: “Ape Shit” and “Get
Em,” the latter featuring Detroit heavyweights Marv One, Fatt Father
and Trick Trick.
The emcee/producer has other collaborative
efforts in the works as well. He says that The Set Up,
an album with fellow Detroiter/B.R. Gunna partner Fat Ray, should hit
stores in January under his Music House label and with distribution
by Fat Beats. One of the songs, the Guilty Simpson-featured “Bad Man,”
can be heard in our Audio Section [click here]. Most of the highly anticipated full-length
with Sean Price and Guilty Simpson—the trio collectively going by
the name Random Ax—is three to four songs away from completion as
well. He plans to finish recording for that project by mid-January,
and to release the disc on Price’s Duck Down Records in summer ‘08.
“I know people expect just to hear
shoot ‘em up, street shit through the whole album. But that’s when
I get my producer’s hat on, and actually produce the songs,” Black told HipHopDX. “I’m not just giving them hard beats and telling them to put
16’s on them. We’ve got some concept songs, and songs of substance,
plus those hard joints people want to hear.”
An untitled EP with Michigan mainstay
One Be Lo, whose R.E.B.I.R.T.H. album dropped earlier this month,
is also nearing completion.
Black says that he’s adopted some
beat-making techniques that allow him to increase his productivity,
and at this rate, he’s going to need them. After the aforementioned
collaborative efforts, he’s got others. He’s been in talks with
Pharaohe Monch to collaborate on an entire album, and he says that Pharaohe
has already recorded to four or five more tracks after the two he did
for Desire, which Pharaohe released earlier this year. He also
says that he’s agreed to do an album with Detroit’s two most respected
emcees: Royce Da 5’9” and Elzhi. “People always probably thought
about it in their head, but they probably thought it would never come
to life.”
Elzhi and Royce were working on a Black
Milk-produced track for Elzhi’s upcoming solo disc, and after Black
presented Elzhi with the idea, Elzhi approached Royce.
“I was surprised, Royce was like,
‘Nigga let’s do that, I’ve been wanting to do that.’ I’m like,
‘Damn, why you ain’t say nothing?’” Black laughed. “But hopefully
it goes down. I’m going to try to knock out all this other stuff fast,
because that’s one project that needs to be heard. I think that would…I
don’t even want to think about it, man, ‘cause it’s going to mess
up my concentration on all this other stuff.”