Fourth Quarter Hip-Hop Round-up, Part 3: Wu-Tang Clan

Alright, I won’t tease any longer. I think it was fairly clear that our earlier discussion of Ghostface and RZA’s 2007 solo output, though enticing, were just mouthwatering appetizers. So let’s roll out the main course.

Wu-Tang Clan – The 8 Diagrams

Wu-Tang Clan (feat. George Clinton) – “Wolves”

Wu-Tang Clan – “Sunlight”
(from The 8 Diagrams)

Anyone hoping that Wu-Tang’s first new album in six years would reach out and grab their throats and squeeze until their veins throbbed and eyes bled, like on the Clan’s now-classic debut Enter the 36 Chambers, is set for severe disappointment. The 8 Diagrams is what we like to call a noirish slow-burner, not a shotgun blast from a dark alley. The RZA, GZA, Ghostface Killah, Raekwon, Method Man, Masta Killa, U-God, Inspectah Deck, and the posthumous Ol’ Dirty Bastard aren’t young boys from the Staten Island ghetto anymore; they’re grandfathers to a tradition. This is the sort of album you’d expect them to make at this stage in their career — mature, nuanced, tempered, rife with revelations upon repeated listens. If the Wu is still obsessed with the kung fu genre, this is the start of their Kurosawa period.

Sure, by now you’ve heard everyone rave about “The Heart Gently Weeps,” the RZA’s mellow interpolation of the Beatles’ “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” featuring George Harrison’s son Dhani, the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ John Frusciante, and Erykah Badu, but for all the praise being heaped upon this genre-bending collaboration everyone seems to forget to mention that it’s not even one of the strongest tracks on the new album. For that, look no further than the very next track, “Wolves,” featuring a frayed-at-the-edges George Clinton rasping like the long-lost black Brother Grimm on the chorus over spaghetti western-styled funk samples. But what really makes this album stand out — besides the awkwardly tacked on postmortem ODB track “16th Chamber” (complete with postmortem James Brown samples), the surprisingly touching ODB tribute track “Life Changes,” and the heavy use of melodic singing throughout — is the remarkable strength of the quieter tracks. In fact, one of the most striking songs on 8 Diagrams is also the sparsest, “Sunlight,” which features RZA alone in what ought to be a Borges monologue, reflecting on the mysteries of the caliph.

The RZA is clearly the largest influence on this album, both in style and scandal. First there was Raekwon kvetching about Bobby Digi’s supposedly dictatorial control over the recording process, and then came Ghostface whining about the album’s release date coinciding with his own Big Doe Rehab, and there will almost certainly be complaints from fans and record execs about the lack of a clear-cut smash single. But it is to RZA’s credit that he was able to hone in the Wu’s various egos and produce a cohesively surreal and moody masterwork. In a year when most other hip-hop felt aimless, 8 Diagrams presented us with the Shaolin masters staking out in a new direction.

-Posted by Todd