Elzhi’s come under fire for not fulfilling the promises on his Kickstarter in an adequate amount of time.
The Kickstarter, launched back in November of 2013, aimed to fund Elzhi’s new album Lead Poison (fka GLOW365). Since then, El’s been relatively silent aside from a feature here and there mixed with two tracks “P.S.” and “February”. Understandably, Elzhi’s relative silence has left a good amount of his fans agitated, especially those that contributed to the Kickstarter.
The backlash makes sense, and there’s no reason to argue that Elzhi is completely clean in this matter. He’s not. However, the supposed lawsuit that a fan wanted to bring against him is most definitely not an acceptable response. There are a few things to consider before taking that kind of action. One thing to keep in mind is that anyElzhi fan knows how cautious he is with album releases, taking a perfectionist, borderline OCD approach to his projects. His last release was Elmatic back in 2011. Before that, despite rhyming with Slum Village all the way back in 2002, El didn’t come through on a solo cut until 2008.
“Spending hours on a bar until they measure up with the one before and if I don’t, I drop the line like a underscore”
It also needs to be said that Elzhi isn’t necessarily being accused of taking his fans’ money with nothing in return, rather being too slow about the album release and not offering enough communication about the album’s progress. His fans are in the right complaining about the lack of updates about the project, however how quickly Elzhi drops Lead Poison is another story.
I hate to sound cliche, but rushing someone with their art is impossible without seeing a drop in quality. I think it would be reasonable to stand back from criticizing Elzhi as long as he’s working on getting the album out. This is where communication comes in, and where I find myself agreeing with the fans. At the same time, I can’t listen to the two tracks Elzhi’s dropped, hear the clear mental pain he’s bandaging, and callously ask him to push that aside and deliver on his business promises.
“February”, written in memory of his good friend and legend J. Dilla, details the pangs that come with the month now forever associated with his death. I would think those fans who care about his mental health would refrain at least from launching this criticism in January, throwing another problem for Elzhi to shift through his mind.
Elzhi messed up in not communicating properly, but I believe in him and will definitely pick up Lead Poison whenever it does drop.
Elzhi
art by your homie, Arthur Banach
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