Published on Feb 28, 1998
Open Letter to Ol’ Dirty Bastard: Props to you and your boys at
the Grammys Wednesday night. Your stunt landed you in the same,
prestigious circle as Guns N’ Roses and Milli Vanilli, who were
past Grammy offenders. Sorry, but saying the Grammys don’t
represent quality is about as radical as saying the Spice Girls
suck.
Blonde On Blonde,
Highway 61 Revisited,
It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back, all didn’t
get one award? Surprised? Shouldn’t be.
Now…onto your album,
Wu-Tang Forever. Gotta say, not bad, not bad at all. 2Pac
and The Notorious B.I.G. both released strong double albums, but
yours was possibly the first double album that utilized most of the
space on two 60-minute plus discs. I’ll get into the third person
writing-critiquing analysis in a sec, but I just wanted to say
Wu-Tang Forever was the CD that made me feel hippest last
year. When no one was in my apartment complex, this was blaring as
I cleaned. This was one of those CD’s where you almost wanted your
parents to discover you had, just to piss ’em off.
Ok, that all said,
Wu-Tang Forever was probably the best rap CD released last
year. Following up the now-classic
Enter The Wu-Tang:36 Chambers was challenge enough.
Following it up after nearly each member released solid solo albums
posed an even greater challenge. But
Wu-Tang Forever sounds gloriously unified. If Puff Daddy is
gloss king on albums, the Wu represent the dirtier side of rap.
They leave spaces, some of the bass is scratchy and a good deal of
the album is original material.
Thankfully, not all of
Wu-Tang Forever is about boasts about how good the Wu-Tang
are or over-glorified tales of street violence. While they do talk
about glocks, money and women who did them wrong(or bitches), they
do make obscure references to Bjork and the Transformers.
In the optimistic, “A Better Tomorrow”, the Wu deliver a
genuinely moving chorus, “You can’t party your life away/drink your
life away/smoke your life away/fuck your life away/dream your life
away/scheme your life away/cause your seeds grow up the same way”.
In that chorus, all of the other bullshit posturing the band does
on the second CD seems to sound like a bad sci-fi novel.
The Wu can get away with most of the posturing on the second CD,
although “The Projects” and “Dog Shit” were a bit unnecessary.
Their infatuation with science fiction and 70s style Kung-Fu movies
fits in perfectly with their street narrative tales. Just as they
obsess over horror movies, their tales of street life just seem to
morph into another story. Jason kills someone with a cattle prod in
one lyric…somebody gets filled with AK slugs in the next
lyric.
If they stayed in those borders, the Wu-Tang Clan would have no
problem with discrepancies in their lyrics. Everything they write
could just be storytelling. But the Muslim overtones and the gritty
realisms of prison life make you look twice at some of the lyrics.
How can a band cry, “There is only one faith” and attack brothers
for calling their girl a “bitch” and do the same damn thing
throughout most of their songs?
Though the lyrics may be one of the weakest part of
Wu-Tang Forever, they at least get a reaction. Why is it
that when a white band like Guns N’ Roses or even The Clash sing
about getting reckless and even capping a person, the impact on the
listener isn’t nearly as harsh as it is coming from someone like
2Pac or the Wu-Tang Clan? Maybe it’s because we know some of these
rappers live very close to their lyrics, and maybe it’s something
more than that.
I have to admit though, musically,
Wu-Tang Forever holds up solidly. CappaDonna adds some soul
to songs like “For Heavens Sake” and the compelling “Heatherz”.
“Visionz” and “Impossible” are tracks that can give even the most
advanced stereo system a workout. The samples of old kung-fu movies
are funny, but not as funny as seeing an anchor person at NBC say
“Wu-Tan-Clang” or “Old Dirty Bastard” the day after the Grammy
awards.
In all,
Wu-Tang Forever is a complex package. Not only because
recording guru RZA packed the first CD with an enhanced CD-ROM
function and inserted an America Online ad, but because the album
poses a challenge to the listener. Regrettably, there’s about seven
or eight songs on the two CDs that either sound too similar or are
just throwaways. If you have two hours to kill, by all means, try
to listen to the album in its entirety. Time goes by quick when
you’re trying to get down the quick rhymes the band throws at
you.
The Notorious B.I.G. and the Wu-Tang Clan left albums that
refused to be left on your turntable last year. Each artist had a
way of luring you in with some irresistable hooks and some amusing
word play. But just as soon as you cozy up to the speakers, a
derogatory song jilted a reaction out of the listener. If
women-hating, homophobia or acts of bluffs about violence irritate
you even slightly, you’re going to get a reaction. Fortunately, for
the Wu, they’re still here to answer questions about why each track
was put on the album.
1997 also saw the Wu-Tang Clan tour with another controversial
group, Rage Against the Machine. That tour self-destructed less
than a month after it was launched. While Rage Against the Machine
continues to rail against greed and socital ills, the Wu-Tang Clan
are in a blissful middle zone. Their lyrics hint at greater
aspirations, while still singing about getting drunk and partying.
Hopefully, within a few albums, they will have decided which route
they want to travel.