Four years after releasing one of the best hip-hop albums ever, GZA releases his third solo album. For about a year, his cousin RZA has stopped producing the Wu-Tang albums, and the production is left to his lieutenants. Bobby Digital, Inspectah Deck and affiliate John the Baptist make a rhythm each, while the rest of the production is equally split between GZA (which deals exclusively with the skits), Mathematics and Arabian Knight, with five cuts each: the latter and John the Baptist both come from Killah Priest's debut album and have never produced a Wu-Tang record. GZA almost completely renounces the Wu-Tang Clan and calls several affiliates in the role of guests: in addition to Ol' Dirty Bastard, Masta Killa, RZA and Method Man from the supergroup, there are Killah Priest, Hell Raizah and Prodical Sun of Sunz of Man, Dreddy Kruger and Timbo King of Royal Fam, Trigga of Coney Island Gankstas, affiliate LA the Darkman, Njeri and RES.
The intro is simple: skit on a sad elegant piano sample, then a taut, dark and very heavy boom bap, instrumental credited to GZA.
2. "Amplified Sample"
It follows is a heavy, generic boom bap made by Mathematics, with skeletal drum and decent sample: the rapper spits bars with a not very confident and uninspired style, slow, cumbersome, practically the opposite of his debut.
3. "Beneath the Surface" (ft. Killah Priest & RES)
The title track has a nice rhythm: taut and dark boom bap, with tight looped string samples and careful, weighted, lean, regular drum machine. Inspectah Deck makes a nice beat, sadly, it's not a phrase you can read often, the guy has often let down behind keyboards. Here it works though: even GZA sounds better, slow, syncopated, it seems almost flowing and inspired. Sample soulful of RES for the hook, then Killah Priest, first guest of the edition: he offers a professional attack and delivers with a calm, relaxed, thoughtful, studied, flowing, dope style. He looks like the Wu-Tang Clan member and GZA the affiliate in this cut, Killah Priest flows fantastically and dominates the track beautifully, excellent work, brilliant. Definitely one of my favorite songs from the post-classic GZA.
In the next minute, however, we notice the complete lack of inspiration that the boy has had in the construction of the disc: two skits, consecutive. The first on oriental rhythm, the second on cinematic one.
6. "Crash Your Crew" (ft. Ol' Dirty Bastard)
It boasts a magnificent production of John the Baptist: tense and cold boom bap that uses a tightly looped heavy jazzy sample in evidence, far beyond the background. On this musical carpet, the Wu-Tang MC offers bars with a syncopated, hardcore, flowing, slow style. Ol' Dirty Bastard is credited as a guest in this song, nevertheless, his contribution is limited to a hook where he literally says six words.
7. "Breaker, Breaker"
The Arabian Knight produces the seventh choice: light, tense, sad and dark jazzy boom bap, essential vibrating drum, honest sample, good GZA inspired delivery, clean, pretty smooth and lively, but not excellent.
8. "High Price, Small Rewind" (ft. Masta Killa)
This choice presents a good delivery of GZA: he still struggles to find the same pace he had on his debut, on a dark, very tense, dreary and heavy Mathematics boom bap, with dry and dirty drums and decent samples. Masta Killa flows crisp, smooth, effortless, well.
9. "Hip Hop Fury" (ft. Dreddy Kruger, Hell Raizah, RZA & Timbo King)
"Hip Hop Fury" is a posse featuring RZA, Hell Raizah of Sunz of Man, Timbo King & Dreddy Kruger, both from Royal Fam: boom bap, dirty and dusty drum midtempo, haunting sample, nice work by Arabian Knight behind the keyboards. Rough and raw hook of a hardcore inspired RZA throwing Hell Raizah, syncopated, hardcore, smooth, confident, he eats the beat with good competent rapping. GZA spits the second verse, takes his time and delivers with calm, smooth, beautiful style. Timbo King enters well and offers some bars at his finest ever, it closes Dreddy Kruger, with a broken irregular rapping.
11. "1112" (ft Killah Priest, Masta Killa & Njeri)
Skit, then there's another posse: heavy and skeletal rhythm of RZA, here he's already gone crazy, you can listen to it very well. This rhythm is terrible: the drum machine pounds in an obscene way and is so tight and heavy that it doesn't allow the sample to breathe and the rapping of the performers to emerge correctly on the surface. Also, the sample is horrible, I don't know where RZA got it from, but it's unlistenable: this is the worst rhythm of the edition, a sign that already in '99 he was seriously starting to fail. I appreciate the courage of the guys who try to say something about this noise: GZA goes first, quick and flowing style, maybe he has one of his best flows on the record, I'm not sure of it because of the production, but that would be pretty ironic, being on a weak beat. Masta Killa performs with a good flowing, energetic, hardcore, inspired flow, closes Killah Priest, who tears apart the ugliness of the rhythm with an aggressive, hardcore, quick, smooth, dope delivery and tries in vain to save the track alone, mythical. The song is closed by Njeri Earth with the fourth verse in rapping, the MC closes the song with a good inspired and smoothness flow: pity that the rhythm doesn't reward her performance, because I think it's one of the best lyrics on the album.
13. "Victim" (ft. Njeri)
Skit, then Joan Davis brings out a tearful soulful hook, on Arabian Knight's boom bap, with tight drum pounding and tightly looped guitar pinch samples: The Genius delivers calm, slow, decent. Njeri finally has an honest rhythm on which to express herself, and she brings out a second heavy and hard socio-conscious verse, with a resigned delivery style, more energetic and confident than GZA, slow, smooth, thoughtful, honest. She's best suited to the essential rhythm made by the beatmaker: written on the grain of "C.R.E.A.M.", I think it's one of the most interesting stanzas of the disc, perhaps the best.
14. "Publicity"
Mathematics wakes up late and pulls out an excellent rhythm towards the end: excellent dark and taut string sample, vibrant, hard, heavy, syncopated drum machine, essential and cinematic boom bap. The MC delivers determined, confident and inspired, smooth, almost hardcore, with a raw and polished style, at his finest on this CD.
15. "Feel Like an Enemy" (ft. Killah Priest, Hell Raizah, Prodical Sun & Trigga)
This is the last posse of the edition, with Sunz of Man and Trigga of Coney Island Gankstas, but without GZA, which doesn't participate in the song: boom bap created by Mathematics, hard, heavy and essential drum, good samples, energetic, inspired, confident, hardcore, smooth delivery of Hell Raizah. It follows Killah Priest with hardcore style, confident, smooth, unstoppable, dope, he kills the track. Trigga delivers with a syncopated, quick, raw, decent style, struggling to keep up with others, it closes Prodical Sun in a fantastic way, pulling out bars with a hardcore style, quick, frantic, unstoppable, dope, personally, it feels similar to the delivery of Ghostface Killah between Raekwon's "Only Built" albums and his "Ironman".
16. "Stringplay" (Like This, Like That) (ft. Method Man)
The piece number sixteen presents an alternative and essential beat of Arabian Knight, which comes close to pop sounds: Method Man hook, GZA's tasteless, slow, smooth delivery, better Meth after his functional hook, slow, syncopated, smooth, effortless delivery.
17. "Mic Trippin"
The following track features another alternative and essential production, provided by Mathematics, the rapper's delivery is smooth and slow, although not completely convincing.
18. "Outro" (ft. Timbo King & LA the Darkman)
The LP is closed by "Outro", which isn't your generic outro: boom bap alternative, gloomy, dystopian, silenthillian by Arabian Knight, dark drum, pounding in the dark, heavy, pressing, gloomy, great dark samples, dark mood, La the Darkman opens the cut with a syncopated, slow, flowing style, closes Timbo King, in the second track without GZA.
Final Thoughts
The production is acceptable and robust: while GZA is credited to the beats of the skits and therefore not part of the actual production of the album, the beatmakers duo of Arabian Knight and Mathematics create a musical landscape that sounds the most similar to that of RZA and to the Wu-sound established by the founder of the Clan in previous years. In part, they succeed: the rhythms are minimal, skeletal and rough, composed of dirty and slow, dry and dusty drums and decent, glossy strings and good jazzy samples, but never excellent. Music is never impressive and in the course of listening, there's a possibility of running into poor choices: Bobby Digital has decided to retire from keyboards, while choosing to receive part of the royalties that each Wu-Tang member gets from their solo albums by crediting themselves as an executive producer, and here places a single rhythm ("1112") throughout the record, unfortunately, I want to repeat myself one more time, it makes a complete disaster with his beat. John the Baptist does better than him, and so does Inspectah Deck, while the beats made by The Genius for his skits are decent. Arabian Knights and Mathematics find some noteworthy rhythms in the second part of the tape, but at the same time, it can be said that they both regret The Abbot of the best times.
Lyrically, GZA writes intelligent and crisp lyrics, overshadowing the socio-conscious in favor of metaphysics, battle rap and braggadocio: the man proves to be a competent lyricist and one of the best on the circuit, but he hardly ever excels here between lyrics and execution. Even in his best moments, he feels uninspired and his lyricism no longer has that initial capacity to entertain the listener, to dominate the rhythm, to suffocate the track, being deprived of the quality and substance with which the MC had been able to color the debut: he's the most experienced statesman of the Wu-Tang, and he releases this effort at 32 y/o, he still has a tight and good style, but he begins to feel the fatigue in his flow, slower and less lively than in the recent past, even giving up the performance of two tracks ("Feel Like an Enemy", "Outro"). In rapping, Maximilian relies mainly on Killa Beez, preferring them to the MCs of the Wu-Tang Clan: it's here, for example, that you can find some hidden signs of the first disagreements between the boys of the supergroup. In this album, GZA takes revenge on those who have wronged him in the past: Raekwon didn't want it too many times in his debut "Only Built 4 Cuban Linx..." (1995), Ghostface Killah put everyone in his "Ironman" (1996) except him and ODB, then U-God, Cappadonna and Inspectah Deck (whose album is released after this, but registration ended in 1998) didn't call him on their respective debut albums.
By a curious coincidence, none of these guys are featured on the second GZA album and they're all replaced by affiliates: Killah Priest is the main guest of the LP and does everything possible not to regret the previous ones. Hell Razah (aka Hell Raizah) & Prodigal Sunn (aka Prodical Sun), the other two MCs from Sunz of Man, are present with two and one appearance respectively, Masta Killa, Timbo King of Royal Fam and Njeri Earth have two spots each, while the other guests boast only one presence. Some guys aren't particularly inspired and lower the quality of the project, reciting verses with a bland, uninspired or generic rapping style and mundane, annoying, rnb or pop hooks. On the other side of the coin, Killah Priest proves to be at the level of the best Wu-Tang MCs in this project, Hell Razah is doing quite well, Prodigal Sunn brings the right energy to his song, and Njeri stands out among the best performers of the entire project, with two dazzling moments: this girl in two appearances has proven she can stay on the same level as GZA, and [practically] no one seems to have considered her yet on this incredible record.
Produced by MCA, the disc is distributed by Universal, achieving significant commercial success: it reaches the top of the rap chart and the top ten among pop records, being certified gold by RIAA in one month. The comparison with the debut is impossible: the comparison between his debut and 95% of all the other hip-hop albums released before and after would be equally impossible. This LP is another thing, forget it: sure, yes, it comes exactly after that record, but it's another thing. Composed of 18 tracks, including 5 skits, for a total of 49 minutes of listening, it's a solid and good effort, despite its irregular and messy nature, with several generic and insipid moments and trivial, but rarely bad choices: it disappoints, it can't do anything else as a follow-up to an immortal album, however, I believe that the serious fault of this underrated tape from GZA lies in its absence of classics and bangers, something hard to expect from him. Enjoyable listening for any Wu-stan, even better for Killa Beez fans.
Highlights: "Beneath the Surface", "Crash Your Crew", "Breaker, Breaker", "Victim", "Publicity", "Feel Like an Enemy".
Rating: 7.5/10.
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