Elzhi is a Detroit rapper and former member of the group Slum Village. Lead Poison is the first album since Elzhi's 2008 release The Preface. He released the mixtape Elmatic in 2011 with the band Will Sessions, which is a reinterpretation of Nas's 1994 classic Illmatic.
Lead Poison was funded by fans via kickstarter.com. This caused some controversy as some fans became angry with Elzhi and decided to sue him because they did not receive any information about the project for over a year.