Cappadonna — The Struggle

In 2000, RZA decides to integrate the faithful affiliate Cappadonna into the Wu-Tang Clan, after having collaborated on the last Clan album "Wu-Tang Forever" and practically all the other solo records: in a few years he will be an official member. With the release of "The W" at the end of the same year, the "featuring Cappadonna" disappears from the tracklist and the boy is as if he were one of the other nine official members. All perfect. Fantastic. A sudden problem arises: Darryl Hill, under whose moniker Cappadonna is hiding, asks for the royalties for his contribution on the album "The W", wanting to obtain a compensation equal to that of all the other members, and RZA, rightly, disagrees, also because his contribution is two out of thirteen tracks, for which he has already been paid. A rift arrives: in his sophomore jinx, Cap arrives on the cover without any Wu-Tang logo — he didn't have it on his debut and won't place one until his 2013 double album — and RZA gives him just one beat from his affiliate True Master, the rest of the production comes from external guys. His record is one of the biggest flops of the year, predictably.

A couple of years later, things haven't improved. Cappadonna lives in Baltimore and, to revive his marriage, decides to go live on the street, and it's no joke: he also tries to convince his wife to go and live life on the street with him, but the woman refuses and she decides to stay with a roof over her head. Cappadonna sells all his material possessions possible, is broke, and to make ends meet is forced to drive a gypsy cab in Baltimore. He literally lives on the street, sleeps on the street with clochards, and sells things, probably in a similar way to what Bubbles will do in "The Wire". He manages to stay away from the sale of crack, and continues to work with his cab, transporting people who recognize him and who don't recognize him: to those who recognize the «I love you like I love my d*** size» kid, Cappadonna asks for an extra few dollars to make a living. After eight months of living on the street, his friend Remedy, who also got out of the Killa Beez experience badly, saves him by going to pick him up in Baltimore and taking him to the studio, to give him another chance and have him record his third miraculous studio album, "The Struggle", by popular demand. During this time, the rapper doesn't go home to his wife and sleeps in the offices of the Remedy company, eating a few casual meals and sometimes going to refresh himself at his mother's house.

See how he keeps it real. This is a true Killa Bee. Cappadonna is real. He does all this as a married man. Idol. He has a wife, money, fortune, fame, things that people pray for every day with no chance of success. This guy has a career in rap. In one of the best groups ever. And he gives up everything, because the world is too materialistic. He wears twenty-dollar shorts on that gypsy cab, do you understand the contradiction? Wonderful. The MTV article arrives and RZA calls his man Cappadonna, who replies that it's all a fiction. RZA is calm, until the television interview arrives, where Cappadonna reiterates that he lives on the street: according to what emerges, the founder of the supergroup wouldn't have paid him enough for his contributions in the albums, RZA, of course, begins to be confused. What is this guy raving about? With the signing of Epic Records / Razor Sharp and the work on the Wu albums, he would have earned at least half a million dolla dolla bills, before also signing with Sony. Only later, Cappadonna admits that he voluntarily gave up the money he earned to return to wander the streets and return to have contact with the streets, leaving to his wive an apartment, Benz and Cadillac, to then reconcile with her and return to live under the same roof, albeit maintaining his daily job as gypsy cab driver. The fruit of his experiences in the strees of Baltimore, should fully spill over into his third studio album, the title of which describes the sufferings he suffered in these years away from the glorious life of the Wu-Tang.

After a short skit, Cappadonna claims he's back: in fact, he doesn't even dare to say it, it wouldn't be believable, and he makes his brother Lounge Mode say it on the hook: this guy tells us that girls, thugs and gangbangers care that Cap is back, what he doesn't say is that nobody in hip-hop cares that this rapper is back, not even the Wu-Tang Clan. And this is strange. Cappadonna is limited to a "guess who's back?" in the intro that I don't understand how to interpret, whether it's a dissing to 50 Cent, a dissing to Eminem himself or, more likely, a bad copy of the intro of Slim Shady's hit that has surely found fans even in his cab in Baltimore. As per tradition, his first verse is bad, ridiculously bad: in short, it contradicts everything he has done and lived in the previous months and years, it's bad from every point of view, especially the lyrical one. This dude spits out more random braggadocio bars with hardcore style over this bad rhythm provided by Calogero, cheap hardcore boom bap, random keys hit on sampler, amateur beat: Charles Amorelli, of clear Italian origins, chose a mafia-sounding name for his producer moniker, being part of the Staten Island hip-hop group Mafioso Chapter. Calogero also produces the following cut: his attempt is slightly better than the previous one, light jazzy boom bap rhythm, with dry and tight drum and too tight looped sample, almost acceptable beat. Cappadonna spits more thug and braggadocio lines, battle rap, he's not saying anything. There's Solomon Childs for the hook: he spits four lines, but he says more here than the house rapper in the whole album, better representing Killa Beez, despite his style, not exactly flawless. The fourth rhythm is one of the least awkward of the project: jazzy boom bap with random sample, it's easily one of 4th Disciple's b-sides, pounding and lazy drum machine, Cap and his brother exchange some bad bars braggadocio, ridiculous wacky hook.

"Mamma" is something fantastic, incredible: Cappadonna wants to imitate Ghostface Killah and his 1996 classic "All That I Got Is You", the immortal single of his debut album. Cap wants to do a song dedicated to his mother, on a jazzy soulful boom bap, with chipmunk soul sample, distant dirty strings in the background, lean economic syncopated drum machine. It's one of the best rhythms of Calogero. And it's one of the less inspired cuts in Cappadonna's career: his lyrics are poor, very weak, and take the hook from the first lines of his first verse, and the lyrics aren't that of a homage to his mother. Seriously, I've listened to better dedication songs to the mothers, written by 12-year old kids who rap in my neighborhood. Around fifteen minutes from the start of the record, the boy is struggling to move forward. To his rescue comes the producer Goldfingaz, who immediately kills every tiny hope this album had, of being at least decent: whimsical attempt to commercial hit, bouncy, simplistic, cheap, poor and weak beat with random sounds, bad lyricism, and a softcore delivery of the Staten Island rapper. If you're on this record, do yourself a favor and skip this song. "Get Away From the Door" is the eighth cut: boom bap jazzy triumphant, after the first few seconds I want to shout "DJ KHAALLEEEEDDDDDD WE THE BEST MIUSEEE", instead it's a rhythm from Remedy. Yes, the friend who saved him from life on the street, the producer, the distributor, the one and only. His production isn't good, but it looks good: it's not even a DJ Khaled rhythm, the drum is bouncy and decent, sounds that want to mimic the mafia-like ones of RZA in '97, but the guy isn't really capable of carry out a rhythm.

Cappa pulls out yet another thug-drug-braggadocio verse and Rebel INS is the guest of the track, he's relegated to the hook, and pulls out meaningless thug bars so ugly they make you think Cappadonna ruined him. "Money, Cash, Flows" is what we've all been waiting for, after twenty minutes: the mediocre posse of Cappadonna and his friends, Remedy, Lounge Lo and Crunch Lo (of Otherized F.A.M). Over a ludicrous, weak, poor, cheap and bouncy soundscape up to the annoyance provided by Soulfingaz, these four dudes, who no one has ever known, they stake their careers before they even begins with an incomprehensible dissing, done only to attract attention, to all of Roc-A-Fella and Jay-Z, including Beanie Sigel, Freeway (Memphis Bleek saved himself!). Obviously, no one answered, a sign that clearly demonstrates the poor sales of the product and the almost zero credibility of the performers, in particular of Remedy, lead author of the random dissing. Calogero produces the tenth song, weak and poor boom bap beat, bouncy, cheap, ridiculous and awkward, clearly done by an amateur for an amateur: the rapper's hook is ridiculous, while the lyrics show that he stayed in '95, when he was dope. We are in o-three, and a lot has changed. Skit, then colorless track, delivered with the brother on a decent jazzy boom bap by Remedy, with lean slow syncopated drum machine and honest samples. Lounge Mode uses over two hundred words to say that if you don't respect him, he doesn't respect you: nine were enough and he didn't even need to drop all the names of the tenants of his building.

"Killa Killa Hill" has its own side of sadness, and the weak side of Cappadonna's soul. In a way, he reminds me of AZ when he tried to use his famous "Illmatic" bars again to build new cuts and new albums. In this case, it's different though: the Wu-Tang affiliate spitter didn't perform the classic "C.R.E.A.M.", he was in prison, Remedy brings out a decent jazzy boom bap, with a good background piano sample and an honest, lean, dirty, underground drum machine. It's a good musical carpet, perhaps the best until now and one of the best of the edition, but it has nothing to do with the RZA original. It's light years away, completely another thing. However, watch how Cappadonna engages: he's spitting like a retired Private Ryan, as if he has to earn it and as if he hasn't earned it yet, he performs hardcore as if he were in the original "C.R.E.A.M.", as he should be there by right, no matter if he completely ruins the hook and jokes it with his version, here he's telling us that he deserved a place in that posse. This cut, which in hindsight, I would say is the best of the edition, there's also Raekwon: the Chef was in "C.R.E.A.M.", he did all the first verse in that classic song, first verse that Cappadonna borrowed here and there for his stanzas, and they're still two of his best verses on this record (and, possibly, one of his best verses ever spitted). And, indeed, it's straight hardcore, aggressive, and even timed with any luck. Raekwon isn't at his level of deep anger, he has already arrived, he has already made the C in C.R.E.A.M., he already has a classic in his pocket, he's no longer angry, he's no longer hardcore, he doesn't need, he played his part, he played his role, and won (along with the other Wu who took advantage of the period): so, what's the use of spitting here, for nothing, he goes to deliver something that we could define as a faded and mediocre copy of his own verse in "C.R.E.A.M.", and something average for his levels, and he performs it with a light-hearted style and weak, never inspired, with the flow with the autopilot, he's detached, he doesn't care. And it's an important difference between Cappadonna's two stanzas, which ends this cut with another hardcore verse. After seeing all the aggression, anger and power of his bars, I'm almost disappointed that the guy couldn't be on that masterpiece hit. Or in "Wu-Tang Forever"'s '97 sequel, "Cash Still Rules", where he could physically be there, what happened there?

Beatmaker Quasi of True Wisdom produces the beat for choice number 14, the fifth solo for the rapper: decent boom bap, cheap drum, decent sample, smooth and light delivery of Cap on alternative rhythm. Then he gets angry in the outro, all nonsense, with shooting. "Power to the Peso" is another posse track typical of Cappadonna albums, inside him, his brother, Wiggs and Solomon Childs, on a cheap and simplistic alternative boom bap rhythm by Mizza. After a colorless delivery of Lounge Mode, which since the start of the record is on Park Hill and looks like he stays there all day and never moves from there – how much this kid represents? It's massive – there's Cappadonna, decent in his few lines, then Wiggs. When I think he has the best flow on the song, he comes up with what appears to be another dissing to Beanie Sigel: what did this guy do to everyone? The posse is closed by Solomon Childs who offers a good attack and hardcore delivery like a true Killa Beez, with a solid lyrics and a good smoothness flow, clearly superior to all the others, I think it also closes with the verse of the disc, which isn't never a foregone conclusion on a Wu-Tang Clan album. Mizza also remains for the next track, simple skeletal and light boom bap, Cappadonna thinks a track on lesbians is the best way to vent some gratuitous misogyny that was so missing from this scandalous album.

"Pain Is Love" is another lesson from Solomon Childs to Capparello on mediocre and alternative rhythm from Quasi: decent samples, lean slow syncopated drum machine, Lounge Mode opens the song, Cap reserves the third verse in order not to be humiliated, but his lyrics and his performance aren't up to Solomon Childs. D.A. Beats is the author of rhythm number nineteen, for the song "My Kinda Bitch": on what is one of the best rhythms on the record, well done alternative jazzy boom bap, dark and tense samples of strings and snare drums, glossy rhythm, Cappadonna ruins everything and delivers another horrible misogynist song. Calogero returns, he had disappeared for a while, but finally returns to place his last rhythm: his musical carpet is ridiculous as usual, he seems almost born to make a hardcore salsa attempt, he's bad, unbearable snare drum, random elements in the background, above this total confusion they try to get noticed Pike, Lounge Mode and Remedy, who have to spit something with the Staten Island rapper. Pike I don't mind, he pulls out the only "clean" verse of the record, while the others leave a lot to be desired, Lounge Mode in particular proves that he cannot rapping, under no circumstances, spitting out some of the worst bars of the year, any genre. The album is closed by "Struggle with This", Charlie Marotta's alternative and enjoyable light boom bap, with a lean slow drum machine and decent samples, where King Just plays Eminem on Jay-Z's record (if he prefers he does Jay-Z on the record by Memphis Bleek) and dominates. The song includes two bonus tracks, for a total of over 13 minutes: the first one is a kind of forgettable Cappadonna freestyle, the second one is a track where the man starts to sing, he sounds worse than when he's rapping. Very bad, with wacky beats.

21 songs, 66 minutes of performance. The RZA didn't take his statements well and gave him only one weak beat of his affiliate 4th Disciple: for the rest of the production, Cappadonna has to fend for himself. Most of the rhythms are made by Calogero, who if he wasn't an Italian-American pseudonym, could easily be your neighbor or your girlfriend's fat uncle. The other beatmakers answer the names of Soulfingaz, Remedy, Quasi, Mizza, D.A., Charlie Marotta, all amateurs. In rapping, the Wu-Tang almost completely defies: there are Inspectah Deck, with whom he shares a bit of bitterness towards RZA, and Raekwon, who has no great relationship with RZA, but isn't a valid excuse to be on this album. Probably, he owed a favor to Cappadonna still dating back to "Ice Cream", or something else, a favor that has now been repaid, will be one of Lex Diamonds' last appearances on a Cap album. The remaining guests all arrive from Staten Island: the friends Solomon Childs, Remedy, King Just, his brother Lounge Mode, Pike, Crunch Lo & Wiggs (both from Staten Island's group Otherized FAM).

The production is one of the worst music choices on a Cappadonna album, very few beats out of twenty-one are saved: most of the rhythms are ridiculous, scarce, simplistic, unlistenable. It's all outlandish and highly wrong and amateurish, embarrassing to even describe. Cappadonna's lyricism reaches its worst in career, manages to worsen his sophomore jinx, brings generic, violent, redundant and poor g-ish themes, and places a lot of annoying braggadocio, thug, drug, homophobia and misogyny. His performance is even worse, lazy, listless, never inspired, light. Published by Remedy's Red:Code Entertainment, Cappadonna breaks away from Wu-Tang and publishes as an independent: even Inspectah Deck and Raekwon are detached off the record, listless, but still easily superior to the main rapper. In 2003, this album is the furthest thing from Wu-Tang that has ever come out of a Killa Beez, everyone else did better things, Killah Priest, Killarmy, Sunz of Man, everyone, up to this point. There's little material that can be saved: Solomon Childs spots, "Killa Killa Hill" (because I feel pity) and King Just. The rest is to be thrown away, don't waste more than the 5 minutes that this record deserves.

Rating: 1.5/10.