[su_dropcap style=”simple”]I[/su_dropcap]n 2011, Detroit’s MC Elzhi was releasing ‘Elmatic”, his own version of Nas‘ 1994’s classic debut album “Illmatic”. Since then, we didn’t hear that much from the artist who is also a former member of Slum Village. In January, he released a new single “coSIGN” and announced a new album “Lead Poison”, due to be released on March 25. Here is “Two 16’s”, the second single of the opus that was produced by Karriem Riggins.

Elzhi is particularly known for his lyrics and his storytelling. In “Two 16’s”, he spits two sixteen bar verses which both contain tragic stories that allude to the number sixteen in different ways. The track also features a jazzy instrumental with a unique percussion loop.

As the artist explains, “The idea for the song came from comments that were left by my fans that only wanted to hear two 16 bar verses of straight spitting. Once I was able to flesh out the concept, Karriem came with the music that enabled me to fully zone out. Our goal was to give the fans something new, but to also give them something they didn’t even know they wanted”.

[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/250891795″ params=”auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=true” width=”100%” height=”450″ iframe=”true” /]

If you pre-order Elzhi‘s album “Lead Poison”, you will already get the two first singles. “Two 16’s” will also be featured on Riggins‘ upcoming LP “The Headnod Suite” due out in June.

Listen to his previous single “coSIGN” featuring Skonie below:

[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/244322722″ params=”color=ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false” width=”100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /]