Open Letter to Ol’ Dirty Bastard: Props to you and your boys at
\nthe Grammys Wednesday night. Your stunt landed you in the same,
\nprestigious circle as Guns N’ Roses and Milli Vanilli, who were
\npast Grammy offenders. Sorry, but saying the Grammys don’t
\nrepresent quality is about as radical as saying the Spice Girls
\nsuck.
\nBlonde On Blonde<\/i>,
\nHighway 61 Revisited<\/i>,
\nIt Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back<\/i>, all didn’t
\nget one award? Surprised? Shouldn’t be.<\/p>\n
Now…onto your album,
\nWu-Tang Forever<\/i>. Gotta say, not bad, not bad at all. 2Pac
\nand The Notorious B.I.G. both released strong double albums, but
\nyours was possibly the first double album that utilized most of the
\nspace on two 60-minute plus discs. I’ll get into the third person
\nwriting-critiquing analysis in a sec, but I just wanted to say
\nWu-Tang Forever<\/i> was the CD that made me feel hippest last
\nyear. When no one was in my apartment complex, this was blaring as
\nI cleaned. This was one of those CD’s where you almost wanted your
\nparents to discover you had, just to piss ’em off.<\/p>\n
Ok, that all said,
\nWu-Tang Forever<\/i> was probably the best rap CD released last
\nyear. Following up the now-classic
\nEnter The Wu-Tang:36 Chambers<\/i> was challenge enough.
\nFollowing it up after nearly each member released solid solo albums
\nposed an even greater challenge. But
\nWu-Tang Forever<\/i> sounds gloriously unified. If Puff Daddy is
\ngloss king on albums, the Wu represent the dirtier side of rap.
\nThey leave spaces, some of the bass is scratchy and a good deal of
\nthe album is original material.<\/p>\n
Thankfully, not all of
\nWu-Tang Forever<\/i> is about boasts about how good the Wu-Tang
\nare or over-glorified tales of street violence. While they do talk
\nabout glocks, money and women who did them wrong(or bitches), they
\ndo make obscure references to Bjork and the Transformers.<\/p>\n
In the optimistic, “A Better Tomorrow”, the Wu deliver a
\ngenuinely moving chorus, “You can’t party your life away\/drink your
\nlife away\/smoke your life away\/fuck your life away\/dream your life
\naway\/scheme your life away\/cause your seeds grow up the same way”.
\nIn that chorus, all of the other bullshit posturing the band does
\non the second CD seems to sound like a bad sci-fi novel.<\/p>\n
The Wu can get away with most of the posturing on the second CD,
\nalthough “The Projects” and “Dog Shit” were a bit unnecessary.
\nTheir infatuation with science fiction and 70s style Kung-Fu movies
\nfits in perfectly with their street narrative tales. Just as they
\nobsess over horror movies, their tales of street life just seem to
\nmorph into another story. Jason kills someone with a cattle prod in
\none lyric…somebody gets filled with AK slugs in the next
\nlyric.<\/p>\n
If they stayed in those borders, the Wu-Tang Clan would have no
\nproblem with discrepancies in their lyrics. Everything they write
\ncould just be storytelling. But the Muslim overtones and the gritty
\nrealisms of prison life make you look twice at some of the lyrics.
\nHow can a band cry, “There is only one faith” and attack brothers
\nfor calling their girl a “bitch” and do the same damn thing
\nthroughout most of their songs?<\/p>\n
Though the lyrics may be one of the weakest part of
\nWu-Tang Forever<\/i>, they at least get a reaction. Why is it
\nthat when a white band like Guns N’ Roses or even The Clash sing
\nabout getting reckless and even capping a person, the impact on the
\nlistener isn’t nearly as harsh as it is coming from someone like
\n2Pac or the Wu-Tang Clan? Maybe it’s because we know some of these
\nrappers live very close to their lyrics, and maybe it’s something
\nmore than that.<\/p>\n
I have to admit though, musically,
\nWu-Tang Forever<\/i> holds up solidly. CappaDonna adds some soul
\nto songs like “For Heavens Sake” and the compelling “Heatherz”.
\n“Visionz” and “Impossible” are tracks that can give even the most
\nadvanced stereo system a workout. The samples of old kung-fu movies
\nare funny, but not as funny as seeing an anchor person at NBC say
\n“Wu-Tan-Clang” or “Old Dirty Bastard” the day after the Grammy
\nawards.<\/p>\n
In all,
\nWu-Tang Forever<\/i> is a complex package. Not only because
\nrecording guru RZA packed the first CD with an enhanced CD-ROM
\nfunction and inserted an America Online ad, but because the album
\nposes a challenge to the listener. Regrettably, there’s about seven
\nor eight songs on the two CDs that either sound too similar or are
\njust throwaways. If you have two hours to kill, by all means, try
\nto listen to the album in its entirety. Time goes by quick when
\nyou’re trying to get down the quick rhymes the band throws at
\nyou.<\/p>\n
The Notorious B.I.G. and the Wu-Tang Clan left albums that
\nrefused to be left on your turntable last year. Each artist had a
\nway of luring you in with some irresistable hooks and some amusing
\nword play. But just as soon as you cozy up to the speakers, a
\nderogatory song jilted a reaction out of the listener. If
\nwomen-hating, homophobia or acts of bluffs about violence irritate
\nyou even slightly, you’re going to get a reaction. Fortunately, for
\nthe Wu, they’re still here to answer questions about why each track
\nwas put on the album.<\/p>\n
1997 also saw the Wu-Tang Clan tour with another controversial
\ngroup, Rage Against the Machine. That tour self-destructed less
\nthan a month after it was launched. While Rage Against the Machine
\ncontinues to rail against greed and socital ills, the Wu-Tang Clan
\nare in a blissful middle zone. Their lyrics hint at greater
\naspirations, while still singing about getting drunk and partying.
\nHopefully, within a few albums, they will have decided which route
\nthey want to travel.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":27342,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[7269],"rating":[5617],"class_list":["post-38707","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-wu-tang-clan","rating-rating-b-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38707","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38707"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38707\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27342"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38707"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38707"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=38707"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=38707"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}