| Detroit Deli (A Taste of Detroit) | |
| Type: | studio |
| Artist: | Slum Village |
| Cover: | Detroit deli.jpg |
| Genre: | Hip hop |
| Label: | Capitol |
| Prev Title: | Trinity (Past, Present and Future) |
| Prev Year: | 2002 |
| Next Title: | Slum Village |
| Next Year: | 2005 |
Detroit Deli (A Taste of Detroit) is the fourth studio album by American hip hop group Slum Village. It was released on June 29, 2004, through Capitol Records, making it their second and final album for the label. The album was produced by B.R. Gunna, T3, J Dilla, and Kanye West. It features guest appearances from Dwele, MC Breed, Melanie Rutherford, Big Herk, John Legend, Kanye West, Ol' Dirty Bastard, Phat Kat, and former member J Dilla. Member Baatin parted ways with the group in 2003 due to health complications.
The album peaked at number 37 on the Billboard 200, number 6 on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums and number 4 on the Top Rap Albums in the United States. Its only single, "Selfish", made it to number 55 on the US Billboard Hot 100.
After Baatin's departure from Slum Village, there was a lot of pressure upon the group to deliver a solid follow-up to their previous album, Trinity. The lead single from Detroit Deli was "Selfish", produced by and featuring Kanye West, with John Legend providing vocals during the chorus. The song was a moderate hit and the group's highest charting single, partly as a result of Kanye West's mainstream popularity. The album received a fairly solid reception, but further promotion from Capitol Records stopped short of a second single or music video. Some of their longtime fans viewed the collaboration with West as a ploy for mainstream attention. The group would acknowledge this somewhat, on their following album, 2005's Slum Village.
The song "Reunion", was originally supposed to feature all four members of Slum Village, but Baatin was absent from the final version.
Detroit Deli (A Taste of Detroit) was met with generally favourable reviews from music critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream publications, the album received an average score of 67, based on six reviews.
AllMusic's John Bush called the album "a parade of digital R&B jams that skillfully navigate the divide between cutting-edge headphone productions and bumping club tracks". Nathan Rabin of The A.V. Club called it "a surprisingly solid disc characterized by the top-notch production that has always been the group's saving grace".[1] Raymond Fiore of Entertainment Weekly found the album "impresses most with production prowess", adding "...if only rappers T3 and Elzhi had the personality to match the enticing soundscapes".[2] In his mixed review for Rolling Stone, Christian Hoard resumed: "long on verbosity but short on personality".