Elzhi is an emcee from Detroit who has been at this for over two decades, notably joining up with Slum Village after Jay Dee’s departure before embarking on a critically acclaimed solo career. His most recent project came in 2020, when he worked with up-and-coming Brooklyn producer JR Swiftz on the album Seven Times Down Eight Times Up. Now he is back, this time teaming with a West Coast legend, Georgia Anne Muldrow, to deliver the album Zhigeist.

For this album, Muldrow is handling production and occasionally adding some sung vocals here and there, and Elzhi is on the mic to rap his ass off. If you’re familiar with Muldrow’s music, you know how experimental she can get, and Zhigeist is no exception. She’s bringing in elements of free jazz, gospel, electro-boogie, soul, and hip hop as she crafts this sonic world that is always fluctuating between these amazing grooves with big fat pockets and these free flowing moments where the music could turn on a dime at any second, or it could just let these ethereal sounds build around you. This would be a big challenge for a lot of emcees to work with, because Muldrow isn’t spoon feeding anyone some classic pop song structure where they can just hop on and spit a dope verse and then just wait for the chorus. You have to work and find the right moments with the right flow and then make those moments count. Fortunately, when you have a veteran emcee like Elzhi, you don’t need to worry about any of that. If anything, this album is really making the case for Elzhi as a top tier emcee, the way he’s able to let the music drift around him, wait for the right moment, and then go to work, delivering verses just layered with internal rhymes, clever wordplay, and really smart social observations. He does so with a really clear and articulate delivery, making sure that you don’t miss a word, because he wants every one to count. As a result, this is an album that you really need to listen to in one sitting, because you need to get the full experience of what Elzhi and Muldrow have built together, and how the push and pull of their dynamic has created some really wonderful hip hop.

Zhigeist is exactly what you want out of an album from Elzhi and Georgia Anne Muldrow. It’s musically adventurous with a very distinct sound to it, and Elzhi gets to demonstrate just how a veteran emcee can push themselves out of their comfort zone and still make some dope hip hop.