Slum Village takes us back to hip-hop’s golden days at World Cafe Live, while Trio and Ivy Sole showcase its evolution

Slum Village | photo by Matthew Shaver for WXPN | brightloud.com

It’s hard to overstate the influence Slum Village has had on the hip-hop world. They were peers of major names such as The Roots and A Tribe Called Quest, and founding member J. Dilla’s beats reshaped the sound of hip-hop in the 90s and thousands. Even though things have completely 360-ed for Slum Village with the passing of Dilla and another original member, Baatin, the Detroit hip-hop group have managed to keep their music alive and relevant. Now, the group consists of founding member T3 and his brother Young RJ. As we saw at a World Cafe Live set last week, the two honestly have not lost their touch with their smooth as butter flow over slick beats. Everything about the performance was clean and simple, which I appreciated a lot. People were really feelin’ what these two were putting down and it was nice to get a glimpse of how hip-hop used to be, a contrast to what is mainstream now.

The openers were no joke, either. Ten minutes into the show and Delaware hip-hop group Trio had the whole crowd jumping and hyped up. They came out with an incredible amount energy and got the ball rolling immediately. Afterward, we entered into the world of Philly’s Ivy Sole as she slowed things down with her wonderfully mesmerizing voice and effortless storytelling skills. She performed multiple songs including “All Mine” and “Rollercoaster,” which had everybody in the room boppin’ to the beat. She then did a cover of Musiq Soulchild’s “Just Friends” to celebrate the amazing talents that have come out of Philadelphia. Everyone in the room immediately started singing along — including myself, who was basically yelling every lyric. To end her performance, she performed her soulful gem “Life.”

The evolution of hip-hop is something to take notice and when I saw Trio, Ivy Sole, and Slum Village all in one night; it felt like we were going through a timeline of where hip-hop started to what it has become. Below, check out the photos from the night’s performance.