During the production of "36 Chambers", the debut of the Wu-Tang Clan published by Loud Records, Matty C, the A&R of the label, communicates to his friend Dante Ross that not all the rappers of the supergroup have signed a contract with Loud. Ross is the A&R of Tommy Boy, and moves to the Elektra Records subsidiary, a label that wants to invest more in hip-hop artists. The executive goes to listen to some of the Wu-Tang boys live on Stretch & Bobbito show and joins them, to communicate his intentions: he wants to sign Ol' Dirty Bastard and Method Man as a kind of new Run-DMC-style hip-hop duo, but RZA, who controls and manages the group and the individual rappers, stops him right away. Meth is destined for Def Jam, Ross can only have ODB. In 1994, Dante Ross signs a contract with the rapper for two albums with Elektra. Afterwards, the rapper brings him 6-8 songs already made with RZA — I assume by intuition, that they're the ones in which Bobby Digital worked as an engineer, because from that moment on he'll no longer work on the ODB album. So the songs should be: "Baby C'mon", "Hippa to the Hoppa", "Raw Hide, "Damage", "The Stomp", "Goin' Down", "Proteck Ya Neck II The Zoo" and "Cuttin' Headz" — the rest of the first record must do it Ason himself, with the help of Ross, in order to complete the project.
It seems a simple thing, in the end, how many songs will it take? Five, maybe seven? Instead, it becomes one of the most complicated, absurd and meaningless challenges in the history of the music industry. It takes at least a year to complete the entire album — meanwhile, "36 Chambers" comes out and the group gains wide mainstream notoriety — and add another ten songs to those already delivered. During this time, Ol' Dirty Bastard is convicted of second-degree assault and attempted robbery (1993) and get shot in the abdomen during an argument with another rapper (1994). He completes the disc with a lot of alcohol of all kinds, wine, daily chocolate donuts, lots of drugs and orgies in the studio. Also, one day he takes LL Cool J's platinum record from the walls of Elektra and pisses on it, risking getting killed by LL's manager Chris Lighty. In addition to Dante Ross, one of the key characters who remain deeply hidden in the success of this tape, is Buddha Monk: the boy is originally the ODB hype-man, but for this project he transforms himself into his body man, he's a studio engineer and has the delicate task of preparing and bringing the rapper into the studio, also making sure he spits something on the mic. The rapper continues to get in trouble even after the end of the album, he even gets into a fight with producer True Master and the two are stopped by mastering engineer Tom Coyne, who's honored in the liner notes as "the referee". To promote his debut, in 1995 he was picked up by an MTV crew, deciding to go and cash a $ 375 social allowance with his family in a limo. Dante Ross works almost exclusively on this record for the whole year and manages, with a lot of struggles, to complete it, because Ol' Dirty Bastard took so long to do very little work.
1. "Intro"
The disc opens with an intro of five minutes, performed in spoken word, only three cuts have a longer duration: "Proteck Ya Neck II the Zoo" is a posse with nine rappers, but it's shorter. On triumphal, dark and foggy sounds, an almost certainly drunk RZA introduces Ol' Dirty Doggy Ol' Dirty Bastard, who continues the intro crying on some distant piano key, complaining of having taken gonorrhea again, from a girl to whom he dedicates a poem sung in the finale, in one of the most funny-senseless intros ever in hip-hop, closed by a concluding sample from the 1978 Hong Kong movie "The 36th Chamber of Shaolin".
2. "Shimmy Shimmy Ya"
This intro is followed by a classic, "Shimmy Shimmy Ya", one of his best-known tracks, the composition of which is somewhat confusing and botched. An eclectic and extravagant piano opens the dances, vinyl crackling sound, Richard Pryor samples, booming bass that's splendid, then it's all ODB: vicious hook and braggadocio bars spitted with his extravagant, unassailable, dope flow. After the first verse, there's a sort of part made up of a couple of lines extracted from that stanza and played in reverse, then the MC repeats the entire first verse to close the cut. Dante Ross struggles to get one more original verse from Ason Unique for this choice, and eventually gets it: the rapper delivers semi-incomprehensible frayed lines that replace the repetition of the first verse, while the outro is replaced by the hook and this version is used for the music video of the song.
3. "Baby C'mon"
The third one is a braggadocio track in which BZA continues to draw out lines with his style effortlessly on a dirty and wonderful RZA rhythm, with a great drum, booming bass lines in background. The bridge is beautiful.
4. "Brooklyn Zoo"
The fourth cut is the rapper's first single: is historic, being the first song entirely produced by someone other than RZA on a Wu-Tang album. The production is also credited to Ol' Dirty Bastard, but is mainly made by the producer of Wu-Elements True Master, disciple of The Abbot: it's an event, because until that moment, it had never happened that Bobby Digital gave up a beat. On a raw and excellent dirty rhythm with skeletal drum, tight bass lines and piano samples, ODB provides a dissing cut against an unknown rival — only recently, Buddha Monk revealed that the rapper recorded the track shortly after arguing with some members of his group Brooklyn Zu — spitting straight-hardcore bars with his typical style in a unique brutal verse. It closes a hook extrapolated from Wu-Tang Clan's debut single "Protect Ya Neck".
5. "Hippa to da Hoppa"
It continues the series of fantastic RZA productions: tough drum machine, few piano keys, sample of guitar from "Hip Hug-Her" by Booker T. & the M.G.'s, booming and powerful bass, beautiful rhythm. Braggadocio lyricism by ODB who is dominant on the beat with a very good style of delivery, fluid, calm, correct, outro of "Two on the Road" (aka "Fearless Dragon", 1980 kung-fu movie).
6. "Raw Hide" (ft. Method Man & Raekwon the Cheff)
The sixth choice features first Wu-Tang guests, Raekwon [the double f in "Cheff" is from the back cover of the album, ed] and Method Man: RZA's great, skeletal, raw production, drum dry and hard, tight bass lines in background. Dirt McGirt pulls out two stanzas, Meth knocks down a simple hook, then The Chef & The Meth rounds out this battle rap track with their dope flows. Lex Diamonds is focused on mob bars, while Ticallion raps more around Five Percenters themes.
7. "Damage" (ft. The Genious)
The Genious [credit from back cover again, ed] aka the GZA shows up in the following track, performing the unique verse alongside the BZA in back and forth, on a sinister and simplistic rhythm of the RZA and 4th Disciple.
8. "Don't U Know" (ft. Killah Priest)
The Brownsville MC brings out another classic in the vicious "Don't U Know": on a gaunt and simplistic boom bap by Prince Rakeem, Ason delivers an extra-verse in his light-hearted style, followed by a cautious verse by Killer Priest ["cautious" for the standard of this album, that is not a normal LP], again closes Dirty with one of his most vicious and funny verses ever, performed with such an extravagant style that he seems to be a different MC. Both of his stanzas on this track, as well as the rest of the record, are originally written by his cousins RZA and GZA, but the boy delivers them in an absurdly authentic way.
9. "The Stomp"
Ninth choice of the LP and ends the first guest section: Zu Keeper is credited as a guest, but I've no idea what his contribution here is (maybe a few short shots before the last ODB verse) on a skinny, pounding RZA boom bap in which the rapper is always fit and spits out random nonsense bars for a couple of minutes. From here on, the record goes completely crazy and goes completely to hell: the remaining tracks are fragmentary and more random than the previous ones, you can't even consider them songs, they're collages of sounds joined in an irregular way.
10. "Goin' Down"
This is a solo song, number ten: the intro is crazy and amused, it shows you why this dude is so loved and equally hated also by the Wu-Tang Clan fans themselves. Then RZA brings out one of his best beats of the edition, thumping boom bap with beautiful bass, perfect drum, excellent sample, the production seems to come straight from "Apocalypse Now" (1979), ODB is closer to Colonel Kurtz than to Captain Willard, obviously, and he delivers a few bars that pay homage to "Rapper's Delight", then there's a good bridge where he decides to yell-rattle a couple of lines, before continuing his verse performing between sung, spoken, almost in rapping, but not really in rapping. The rhythm stops to make space for the interlude of her wife, Icelene Jones, uncredited, but the boy doesn't even allow her to play cleanly and chooses to start singing Judy Garland's "Over the Rainbow". Spectacular. Then he closes the cut with a last verse in rapping, with the blessing of the return of the RZA beat.
11. "Drunk Game"
"Drunk Game" is a strange stumbling block for ODB: skeletal rhythm with an excellent sample made by Ethan Ryman (the first producer outside the Wu-Tang to produce a cut in a Wu-Tang record) and Ason Unique, amazing keyboards, a light-hearted intro by Dirt Dog, who then sings the entire verse. Random orgasms, outro.
12. "Snakes" (ft. Buddah Monk, Killer Priest, Master Killer & The RZA)
The song number twelve is the first Wu-Tang posse on the record: simple soundscape with tight drum machine by Bobby Digital, a sample from 1978 kung-fu movie "The 5 Deadly Venoms", it opens Killer Priest with a calm and quiet, spoken style, rapping about a murder; second verse of RZA, he spits with a rough, uncoordinated and disordered style on his rhythm, better interpreting the mood of the track; third verse to Master Killer aka Masta Killa (at the debut in a Wu soloist album), to confirm that his presence in "Enter the Wu-Tang" wasn't a random appearance, he performs with a discreet delivery, that seems almost a cross between the raw one of RZA and the spoken one of Killah Priest, then ODB. The Brooklyn rapper delivers one of his most grotesque performances ever, he has fewer bars than previous rappers, but, first of all, he performs every single word in a different way from the previous one, and, second of all, he spits out random things ending up wheezing untranslatable sounds, always finding a rhyme in some way, almost by coincidence and randomly, paying homage to whoever happens, in this case Method Man, Killah Priest and his brother 12 O'Clock. Then he returns to gasp at random, the man credited for placing those samples of the movie "Five Deadly Venoms" is a genius, those sounds manage to cushion the senseless brutality of BZA's random gasps, just before Buddha Monk's final, short verse, partly overshadowed my a contestable mixing and a looped sample that was created to soften the uncontrolled explosiveness of ODB, this guy is still basically never mentioned for his contributions in this LP. Here Buddha Monk spits hardcore, raw, quick, metrically timed. In summary, he does what ODB should have done himself. The icing on the final cake, is the ODB outro: he thanks the individual members of the Wu-Tang Clan, all eight, the fact that Cappadonna isn't there, gives me great joy and immense sadness at the same time.
13. "Brooklyn Zoo II" (ft. Ghost Face Killer)
The following track is "Brooklyn Zoo II (Tiger Crane)", sequel to the fourth cut, on the dark and dusty beat of RZA: BZA picks up on the stanza he and GZA pulled out together in "Damage". Dirt McGirt repeats this verse because it took him so long to record the entire LP, that he didn't realize he had already used some verses for the other tracks, including this one. Then he leaves the scene for Ghost Face Killer, who kills the cut with a rough, tearing, hardcore delivery. Then, there's a series of samples of previous songs featured on this same album, and a simple hook-outro that homage "Protect Ya Neck" (again) and precedes an ODB live.
14. "Protecy Ya Neck II the Zoo" (ft. Brooklyn Zoo & Sunz of Man aka Lord Buddah Monk, Zoo Keeper, Murdoc, 12 O'Clock & Shorty Shit Stain of Brooklyn Zoo, Prodigal Sun, Killer Priest & 60 Second Assassin of Sunz of Man)
This song is a sequel to "Protect Ya Neck", and is a deadly posse that features the Sunz of Man (Killah Priest, Prodigal Sunn and 60 Second Assassin) and the Brooklyn Zu (Zu Keeper, Buddha Monk, 12 O'Clock, Murdoc and Shorty Shitstain), two of the most renowned Killa Beez groups: on a lean and raw rhythm of RZA with dry drum and criminal bass lines, there are nine rappers, for almost all of them it's the debut in the rap game. Killah Priest is the only one to have taken part in an LP before this one, that of Gravediggaz ("6 Feet Deep"). Crazy ODB intro, a couple of raw hardcore lines, then a few bars by Lord Buddha Monk, maybe at his best in career, dusty, rough, aggressive, hardcore flow. A similar speech can be made for Prodigal Sun, which is personally even better: he attacks well and delivers his killah lines with a raw and hardcore style, lethal and smooth, raw and aggressive. P Sunn and Buddha Monk, together, in this track offer some of the best performance of the whole project. Zu Keeper doesn't say anything, practically; Murdoc spits few bars but is a great forerunner for Killah Priest, who loses energy in the course of his verse; that energy is brilliantly recovered by Ol' Dirty Bastard's brother, 12 O'Clock, who delivers hardcore and going to quote "Shame on a Nigga", the BZA classic in the debut of the Wu Tang Clan that with one thing and another, the Ol' Dirty Chinese Restaurant hadn't yet mentioned in these first 14 tracks (if I'm not mistaken). Shorty Shit Stain spits out inspired hardcore rhymes, then the Ol' Dirty BZA arrives and takes the track back powerfully, with one of his typical eclectic performance, before the hardcore closure of 60 Second Assassin.
The conception of the song and the creation of the Brooklyn Zu group was born before the construction of the Ol Dirty album: in awe of the work his cousin RZA had managed to do with the boys of the Wu-Tang Clan, ODB proposes to follow his example and create his own group together with the friends of the ghetto, that are his brother 12 O'Clock, and three cousins, Buddha Monk, who has been following in his footsteps since the creation of the historic first Wu-Tang Clan album, Murdoc aka Merdoc, Raison aka Raison Allah aka Zu Keeper and Shorty Shitstain. Dirt McGirt decides to call his group Brooklyn Zu, a name Raison used to identify his friends, leaving a phonetic connection with the Wu. BZA intends to launch its group on the hip-hop circuit with its debut album, and the opportunity comes with this Wu-Tang style mega-posse track, in order to introduce his group Brooklyn Zu before it releases its album.
15. "Cuttin' Headz" (ft. RZA)
The album is originally closed by the "Cuttin' Headz" cut, a back n forth track between RZA and BZA with two verses on a simple rhythm with piano samples and dusty thumping drum machine, a song already present in the 1992 "Wu-Tang Demo Tape".
16. "Dirty Dancin'" (ft. Method Man)
"Dirty Dancin'" is the first bonus track of the project. RZA's skinny pounding boom bap, booming bass, good drum. Ason intro, his first verse, then in the second verse the initial wish of Elektra Dante Ross's A&R comes true: back n forth verse of Meth & ODB, four bars each, but I don't think it sounds like the result Ross expected it to found, while Meth looks on, Osirus is practically sleeping here. Third verse solo by Method Man, closes an ODB outro.
17. "Harlem World"
"Harlem World" is the second bonus choice and last track of the project, over six minutes: Big Dore's rhythm, it sounds as dirty and dusty and pounding as RZA's, he's yet another beatmaker among the first to make a beat on a Wu-Tang album. Long intro executed by the Brownsville MC with Shorty Shit Stain, two long and extravagant stanzas performed with a spoken and chanted style, long outro.
Final Thoughts
Debut album by Russell Jones, rapper of the Wu-Tang Clan known under a dozen different pseudonyms, the most famous is certainly Ol' Dirty Bastard, with whom he signs this project. In so many ways, it's a crucial album, a must-listen for any non-casual hip-hop listener, and a must-have for Wu-Tang stans. It's the second solo album by a Wu rapper, after Method Man's debut the year before. It's the first Wu album of '95, perhaps the best year for the Clan, which at the end of the season will produce three out of three classics. The album features a minimal, skeletal, raw, hard and pounding production of a RZA at the peak of his era, and for the first time in three albums, the Wu-Tang founder decides to leave some beats for the others: True Master produces "Brooklyn Zoo" alongside Ol' Dirty Bastard, who's credited as lead producer on "The Stomp", co-produced by RZA, and "Drunk Game", produced along with Ethan Ryman, while 4th Disciple co-produces "Damage", and Big Dore gets the exclusive production of "Harlem World". The guests of the disc gravitate exclusively to the Wu planet, with MCs coming from the Wu-Tang Clan like Raekwon, Method Man, The Genius, RZA, Masta Killa and Ghostface Killah, from Sunz of Man like Killah Priest, Prodigal Sunn and 60 Second Assassin and, above all, from his group Brooklyn Zu, which he reports entirely on the disc with spots for Buddah Monk, Zu Keeper, 12 O'Clock, Murdoc and Shorty Shit Stain. The performance of most, but unfortunately not all of these dudes, is worthy of a Wu-Tang album: it sounds like a casual phrase, but there aren't that many albums with at least fifteen different performers where you can make a similar statement.
Russell "ODB" Jones was born in Brooklyn, but by growing with his cousins Robert "RZA" Diggs and Gary "GZA" Grice of Staten Island, he approaches kung-fu movies and hip-hop. With them, choosing "Ason Unique" as his moniker, he forms the rap group Force of the Imperial Master (which later became All in Together Now), which at the beginning of the nineties welcomed six other members in its formation (Inspectah Deck & U-God are the only ones not present here). Jones is initially a GZA dancer and hype-man, but here he has the opportunity to shine on his own: his lyricism is completely casual, most of the lyrics are stolen from GZA, RZA and Method Man, which is why maybe he's not the most original lyricist of the period, but he's one of the most original performers, impossible to imitate and equal. He alternates braggadocio, hardcore, thug, sexual, violent, raw and meaningless shots, with battle rap for most of the listening, dropping a lot of quotables. Jones aka Ol' Dirty Bastard proves to be fifty years ahead of everyone, at least, he has a real talent for entertainment, spitting bars with a raw, crazy, incoherent style, sometimes too slow, sometimes too urgent, and with a completely irregular flow that critics and fans define as "drunk" and, given the supergroup's passion for martial arts, they compare to the technique of drunken boxing. For most of these seventy minutes, he delivers in a completely mad and defiant way, and against all convention: he does what he wants when he wants it, flows in spoken word, sings, shouts, mumbles, whispers, sometimes even performs in rapping, proving to be the sickest MC of his times. He makes straight-hardcore cuts and rnb songs, and seems to be both drunk and on drugs throughout the whole record. His edgy, fun and hardcore, incredibly sick bars hardly ever rhyme and when they rhyme, it feels like he's completely random and lucky: sometimes, he's neither rapping nor singing nor talking, you don't understand what he's doing, often he's incomprehensible or his bars barely reach. When it's rapping, he's excellent, delivering extraordinary performances. In everything ODB does here, there's a lot of improvisation and experimentation, which creates a wild and unique style, with many absurd, ridiculous and urgent moments: he's at times brilliant and mind-blowing, at times scary and disturbing, often freaking out, delivering his lyrics in a sickly style that's embarrassing and off-putting to the casual listener.
It's not an easy or a good listening, and it's really possible that something like this won't come back very soon, everything is wrong here and it should never work. Instead it works, amazingly. The whole LP shouldn't exist in theory and is really complicated to describe: there's everything and, at the same time, there's nothing. If I described it with the same noises, gasps, screams, random insults and bizarre moans present in it, a more coherent and understandable tale would come out than I can commit myself to do. It's certainly one of the most extravagant, dark, and least understandable listening ever released by a major label, being released by Elektra Records. The record celebrates Wu-Tang, is rightly considered one of the best and funniest albums of the genre, and is in turn celebrated: is nominated for a 1996 Grammy for Best Rap Album, losing to Naughty by Nature's "Poverty's Paradise", and sells half a million copies in two months, being certified gold. It's second among rap albums, seventh on the Billboard 200. In March 2020, the RIAA finally certified it platinum. The album is a chaotic mess, uncoordinated, confused, rough and dusty, it's so grubby and dirty that it's impossible to clean: it's definitely avant-garde, still underrated, an extraordinary classic.
Highlights: "Intro", "Shimmy Shimmy Ya", "Brooklyn Zoo", "Raw Hide", "Damage", "Goin' Down", "Snakes", "Proteck Ya Neck II the Zoo", "Cuttin' Headz".
Rating: 9.3/10.
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