In 2009, U-God released his third solo studio album, participating in the Wu-Tang Clan's third wave of solo releases, the one at the turn of the late 2000s and early 2010s. In the summer of 2004, over a year before releasing his sophomore jinx, he made peace with The RZA and went in concert with the supergroup, however, five years later, the producer and creator of Wu-Tang has decided not to produce any tracks on his third album, nor to send any affiliated producers to help U-God. The production is entrusted to unknown guys, they aren't the same as on his second album released four years earlier, luckily, and here, they try to copy the sound of RZA. While in the rapping section, the least-regarded MC of the Clan can take whatever he wants, and receives full assistance from the other Wu-members.
Wu-Tang Land
Teddy Ted & J. Serbe provide a great jazzy boom bap rhythm, dark and dreary, good sample, lean energetic, powerful and hard syncopated drum machine, really nice rhythm. It's His Heighness Mike Tyson who opens the cut with a sensational skit, then mic to Ghost Face Killer which offers a spatial attack after the boxing bell, he annihilates the song with a smooth, slow, almost spoken, clean, dope flow; long hook by U-God and Scotty Wotty, then verse by U-God, delivered with a slow, flowing, crisp, polished, solid style. After the hook, the first track of the disc is closed by Scotty Wotty, a real surprise of the whole project, who proves to be up to all the other Wu-Tang present, dropping his bars with a slow, raw, smoothness and dynamic flow.
The second song is still produced by the duo Teddy Ted & J. Serbe: boom bap jazzy gloomy, drum skinny syncopated and pounding, soulful sample; Cappadonna spits his bars slowly and smoothly, for once he's not sexual in his gangsta-thug and braggadocio verse and is incredibly in time with the beat, he's doing so well that the guys in production decide to joke him and they put a casual (but good) jazzy bridge, while he's dropping his bars, to see if he can continue; the rapper finishes his verse, but provides a trivial and colorless hook, then U-God, quite worthily, the piece is closed by Killah Priest, clearly superior in energy, technique, flow, lyrics, he's fantastic. If I wanted to exaggerate, I'd say his few bars save the entire album.
Third choice. I don't know who these Teddy Ted & J. Serbs are, but these guys don't get anything wrong so far, three out of three right beats, trying to emulate The RZA: they did it, no doubt. The track brings together a historic duo of rappers, Scotty Wotty & GZA/Genius: when the Wu-Tang MC arrives in Staten Island, he meets his peer Scotty Wotty and starts rapping with him. The guy is supposed to be with GZA in the initial supergroup formation, but for some reason he's ultimately kept out of the Clan, remaining an affiliate unknown to the public. Scotty Wotty launches himself in a slow and flowing style, calm and confident, on a jazzy boom bap with a lean, slow, pounding and syncopated drum machine, and dark and stringy samples, U-God is good enough, but is overshadowed by the last verse of GZA, that goes to take the cut with a smooth and slow flow. After three pretty solid and successful tracks, especially thanks to the Wu-Tang artists (Ghostface Killah, Scotty Wotty, Cappadonna, Killah Priest and GZA), the record starts to shake with the arrival of "Lipton".
4th Pyramid is called behind the keyboards and makes a mediocre bouncy alternate boom bap: not a problem, a good MC knows how to handle it. Sadly, here is U-God and Mike Ladd, a dude who offers ridiculous syncopated delivery in this kind of rap-rock crossover. The record seems to be returning to its initial solidity, with "Cocaine": bouncy jazzy boom bap of a guy who has the courage to sign himself as "Beathoven", Raekwon is easily one of the best MCs on the record with his raw, dirty and smooth flow, Ynot hook, U-God for some reason is always the center rapper of the track, with the middle verse, Slaine closes the track, fit, with a smooth and solid flow. Hakim is the beatmaker of "Magnum Force", the sixth song. At this point, I feel like saying these guys are unknowns, but they're not in the same league as "Mr. Xcitement"'s guys, these beats are working: Hakim's boom bap isn't the best of the record, it's cheap and skeletal, bouncy and a little dark, functional to the flows of the MCs: the track sees the union of the giants groups Wu-Tang Clan, Dipset and The LOX, respectively represented by U-God, Jim Jones and Sheek Louch. As I wrote earlier, the MC of the Clan holds the middle verse, so, the track is opened by Dipset rapper, who delivers smoothly and inspired here, spitting out several references to the Wu-Tang, before handing the mic over to U-God. Sheek Louch closes the battle rap with a hardcore delivery, and ending the best section of this record.
Ok. The album is finished. 25 minutes, 6 songs, five solid tracks, a failed rap-rock crossover attempt. It's an enjoyable posse and so much Wu-Tang, it would be a great album if it ended here. Because in the second part the album falls completely.
Filler Land
The record is plagued with an annoyingly club dance production for "Hips", a beat made by Twilite Tone, who was shortly credited as rapper Y-Not Da Best for the track "Cocaine": it's U-God's first solo on the record and it's a huge mistake, he's very mediocre here, he delivers a very similar syncopated delivery to Mike Ladd's on the other crossover, he's lyrically poor and his hook is terrible. Disastrous cut that kills the project. These are the moments when I thank the guy who randomly puts that Babygrande Records tag in the middle of the track. Yes, the album is released by Babygrande, but I'll delve into it later. One of the fun parts of the record is that U-God decides to put a cut called "Wu-Tang" right after his commercial attempt. Who's the man that sequences the tracks? If this song, which has Method Man as a unique guest, had been inserted in the first part instead of "Lipton", there would have been an excellent first section worthy of some of the best solo records of the Clan. Instead, this track has to support a weak second side: alternative jazzy boom bap made by the unknown Andre Clarke, mediocre and cheap samples, U-God does his homework by dusting off his "commercial flow" for this song which is extracted as single. When, after a weak hook, Shakwon gets to perform his verse, also with his "commercial flow", raw and hard, the whole song gains value.
Teddy Ted and J. Serbe return, wonderfully, for "Dopium", the title track: boom bap jazzy, gloomy, soulful dope sample looped in the background that also performs the hook, U-God finds himself alone, in his second solo song. This time he doesn't disappoint, well he can't afford it, and delivers three straight verses, with a slow, decent, syncopated flow. "Rims Pokin' Out" pairs with "Hips", as horrible as it is: I didn't understand what is the role of Twilite Tone a/k/a Ynot in this record, maybe he has to kill it, because everything he does or says reduces the quality of the whole product. He creates the production, like that of "Hips", and this too is almost unlistenable: another dark alternative rhythm, full of ridiculous and annoying sounds, which don't support U-God's weak delivery. Here is Leathafase to perform the hook, he's the friend who was the protagonist, in negative, of the previous U-God LP. The guy completes his record with "New Classic", yes, the title is lying to you, you are on a U-God solo track on a U-God album, what classics do you expect? Nonetheless, the beat is one of the best of the edition, dark and fresh jazzy boom bap provided by Large Professor, who's also credited as guest rapping, and instead there's simply a sample from his 2008 "Classic Emergency" song, in which he says only one word repeated in loop for the hook: U-God delivers a single verse and ends the album.
Tomorrow Land
Or better, he puts an end to this section of the album. When you think U-God has created a decent new credibility within the Wu-Tang Clan, that he can no longer be the poorest spitter of the group, perhaps Cappadonna is worse, when you begin to doubt even the position of Masta Killa, here comes this boy's stroke of genius: three commercial hits attempts for the club on eleven tracks, it means 27.8% of the whole record, we're close to 1/3, well, that's not enough, I want to place another three additional euro-house remixes to complete my disk. Wow, yeah, what a choice, homies. This is no joke, unfortunately, and they're not bonus tracks, at least, not until the 2014 edition, when Babygrande Records re-releases the album together with Switchblade Music and decides that these three remixes are bonuses and that there are also two bonus tracks additionally, the remix of "Cocaine" with Raekwon alone and the remix of "Wu-Tang" with Method Man.
"Stomp da Roach" is the first song to be remixed: the beat is provided by The Bloody Beetroots who decides to create a heavily synthesized and cumbersome boom bap, has a Swizzbeatzian matrix, and is obviously ridiculous, completely ruining the original song: they're all unfit here. Yuksek offers the remix of the title track, and even his attempt is pretty weak. Felix Cartal has the task of making "Hips" listenable, and fails miserably: who thinks this kind of remixes? The two of 2014, those of Rae and Meth, are both produced by beatmaker DZ, and are both still for the club: they sound very bad, even if the remix of "Wu-Tang" has the best beat of these five, it also samples "Real Hip Hop" by Das EFX, I don't recommend you to go and listen to it, because this guy creates a badly thought cross between boom bap and dubstep, also inserting a tense bridge over the verse of Meth. These five remixes are so badly done that, at some point, if your ears are still holding up, you might even want to laugh.
Final Thoughts
About 50 minutes of listening, 14 songs. The production is a simple but successful copy of the typical sound of The RZA, not being able to have either him or some of his disciples, I'm thinking of Bronze Nazareth, 4th Disciple and Mathematics. I have already praised Teddy Ted & J. Serbe, there's Large Professor, the others don't make much sense to mention them. Unlike his previous record, U-God here raps alongside many MCs directly from Shaolin Land: Ghostface Killah, GZA, Raekwon, Method Man, Killah Priest, Scotty Wotty, Cappadonna, as well as Jim Jones, Sheek Louch, Slaine and the friend Leathafase. To stay on the same level as these guys, the rapper improves his pen game, and the results are seen: "Dopium" is a great improvement and one of his best albums, thanks to all these elements.
It's unnerving to have to put a nevertheless in this paragraph as well. The album is patchy in its cohesion, I mean that these 14 songs can easily be divided into three different sections and that they're far apart from each other: U-God is strong in the first side, thanks to the guests, weak in the second one, due to the absence of the guests, and the third part it's difficult to describe. What's going through your head for wanting to put three dubstep techno-house tracks in your hip-hop record? The only possible justification is that the boy thought that hip-hop hadn't yet arrived in the old world and that these songs were the only way to sell copies also in the European market.
At the end of the day, something must have happened with RZA. The Clan has a dozen different labels, but U-God finds himself signing with Babygrande Records: the choice rewards him, because the disc is covered by critics and gets a decent promotion, managing to enter the Billboard hip-hop album chart. As a Wu-Tang fan, I believe that the remixes are a foreign body to the record and I keep them out of the final evaluation: so, it's a good record, solid in its first part, recommended to fans of the Clan and of the East Coast, there are many good times here. You know where to stop though.
Highlights: "Train Trussle", "God Is Love", "Stomp da Roach", "Cocaine", "Magnum Force", "Wu-Tang".
"Wu-Tang Land": 7.5/10.
"Filler Land": 6/10.
"Tomorrow Land": 1.5/10.
Final rating ("Wu-Tang Land" + "Filler Land" a/k/a 2014 version): 6.5/10.
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