Remedy is finally back to releasing something after seven years of disappearance from the music scene. Between the release of his previous record and this effort, Remedy completed and financed Cappadonna's comeback with "The Struggle" (2003) and participates in the debut album of Cappadonna's younger brother Lounge Lo's "Drop City S.I.M.P.SON (Staten Island's Most Popular Son)", guy who was one of the main guests on the last CD released by Remedy and was also present on Ross Filler's debut. Originally, this is a promotional mixtape for Remedy's subsequent third studio album, which however is no longer released, which is why this mixtape is often also considered as the artist's third actual LP: in fact the boy doesn't have the rights to use all these samples and rhythms from other artists, there's no way this thing is even remotely official, it's a whole mix of short freestyles, unreleased extracts and snippets from his unreleased future studio album.
For this product, Remedy credits his name in six out of twenty-one productions and the rest of the time he rests on his laurels, just stealing other people's beats: the rest of the musical choices are credited to RZA, with three beats, to producers close to Wu-Tang such as True Master, Godzwrath and Falling Down, and who have worked for double v-related artists such as J Glaze, Big Earth, Mizza and Tek n Clips. Most of the performers are related to the Wu: Killah Priest and Hell Razah of Sunz of Man, Trife Diesel, Shawn Wigs and Solomon Childs of Theodore Unit, Lounge Lo of Othorized FAM, King Just of Shaolin Soldiers and JoJo Pellegrino. Added to these are also external guests Blaq Poet, RA the Rugged Man, AC and Heart.
The tape opens with an introduction of less than a minute: Remedy freestyles with a slow style over a somewhat generic boom bap credited to Falling Down (Wu-related beatmaker who has produced for Killarmy, Dom Pachino, Inspectah Deck, 9th Prince, Fes Taylor, Dr. Armor, Warcloud and Solomon Childs so far). This insert isn't an intro or a track, it's nothing. Leading rapper tries to redeem himself with “Streets Are Watchin”: good boom bap, good sample, poor drums, the beat is credited to RZA. This piece features an original Bobby Digital beat for a song that is one of the ones chosen for Remedy's new album, he's inspired here and for two minutes it's fine. "Saturday Night" coincides with track number three and also features the first guest of the edition, Trife Diesel, rapper affiliated with the Wu-Tang Clan and historical collaborator of Ghostface Killah who's part of both the TMF group and the Theodore Unit group. Over some decent boom bap production from Remedy, with a nice sample and a dry uptempo drum but still not as good as it should on a Wu album, Remedy sounds creditably with an honest style while Trife does his best Tony Starks impression and rips the cut.
"You Ain't a Hustler" is Remedy's awkward attempt at a club banger: on a production by J. Glaze (who produced for Inspectah Deck), a commercial cut is born that begins with autotune and follows up with a rap that attempts to be ambiguous and sensual, it could easily be the worst song in this guy's catalog. This is also the second tune from Remedy's next studio album. The tape continues to show all its inherent irregularity already in the next track, which returns to being of good quality. "Transporting" is a Godzwrath production (production team that worked with Black Market Militia, Killah Priest and Hell Razah), solid and dirty boom bap, snowy, candid Christmas samples, good bass, slow midtempo drum. Inside Remedy and JoJo Pellegrino in a Staten Island cut that works and is robust, also thanks to inspired rapping by the performers. This piece is also included in the compilation "The Swarm 3" by Killa Beez.
The sixth choice is "2010 Re-Emergence", probably the best in this rambling mixtape. Remedy steals True Master's beat straight from Ghostface Killah's "Fish" from his 1996 debut album "Ironman", one of the best albums of any genre ever. Remedy spits over this wonderful beat together with King Just, another Wu-Tang affiliate and former member of the Shaolin Soldiers — unknown hip-hop group from Staten Island formed by King Just himself together with Leatha Face (later member of U-God's Hillside Scramblers), Baby Pa, Profes (later member of Inspectah Deck's Housegang), Star (somehow guest on Method Man's second studio album "Tical 2000") and Papa Ron (who went on to manage the Wu-Syndicate in the early years). Obviously neither of them is Anthony Starks, Lex Diamond or Don Cappachino, therefore the result doesn't equal that proposed by the Wu-Tang Clan fourteen years earlier, but it shouldn't be thrown away either, True Master's work deserves to be appreciated again even in a forgotten tape like this if, due to some trick of Spotify's algorithms, you end up listening to one of these tracks.
“Black and White Millionaires” is another RZA beat, not the last one, by the way. The boom bap sounds average, the samples work, King Just also remains a guest on this track alongside the key rapper of Othorized FAM Lounge Lo, already guest on previous Remedy albums: the performers don't take the song upstairs, despite King Just making an effort here. The loop is unfortunately too tight to be acceptable, even if the tune as a whole isn't bad. "Mob Pirates" opens with violins in the background, good boom bap, honest loop, sparse drums, Remedy takes his time building this tune and the result comes with a slow execution. Good musical carpet chosen by Tek n Clips, producer who worked with Hell Razah of Sunz of Man. "Sinnin" is an unobtainable piece that I haven't been able to listen to at the time of writing this review. This is a three-way collaboration between Remedy, JoJo Pellegrino and Shawn Wigs, another progenitor of Othorized FAM and hidden weapon in the Theodore Unit: Wigs is one of the most underrated of the many Killa Beez in the Wu-Tang universe and collaborated on many Ghostface Killah songs on records later considered among the best of the period. The production is done by Mizza, a guy who has produced for Raekwon, Cappadonna, Fes Taylor, Icewater, Othorized FAM, Phil Anastasia and Ghostface Killah.
Choice number ten is "Tonites Still the Nite": the piece steals from a classic that for whatever reason I can't place, although Remedy decides to credit the beat to himself, then the man goes freestyle for a minute spitting random bars. "Behind Those Eyes" features a guy called AC along with Remedy: the loop is terrible, the rap isn't essential, perhaps it's no coincidence that this is the only track not to have a production credit out of the twenty-one proposed by Remedy in this mixtape, he skips this stuff and goes straight to pick number twelve. "Testimony" puts one of the best Wu-Tang affiliates ever and Remedy on the same track: there's Killah Priest on the mic next to Filler. Even this rhythm has no credit, but being a track included in Wu-Tang Killa Beez's "Swarm 3" compilation (the second and last after the one with JoJo Pellegrino previously mentioned), it's easy to trace it back to IzReal, an unknown beatmaker. Heart is also there as a guest for the hook. Beautiful uptempo rhythm, boom bap with dark violins, good samples, good drums, smoothness delivery from the Sunz of Man emcee and the main rapper. What follows is a clipping of Remedy's best-known track which is present on every one of his albums.
"I Love My Land" dramatically steals the beat from Nas' "I Can" ("God's Son") created by Salaam Remi and which for whatever reason Remedy credits itself, and drops bars for a minute. After stealing from Esco, Remedy also steals a piece from Jay-Z, even if this is marked as the third of the three songs that Ross Filler offers in this tape and which are taken directly from his new album: "All a Dream" takes its title from a cut of "Blueprint 2" where Hova pays homage to Biggie by reciting the famous "Juicy". In turn, Remedy delivers bars for a minute doing his version of the first verse of "Juicy" over a Frank Dukes beat — like many Wu-Tang Clan rappers, his moniker comes from the protagonist of a martial arts film, "Bloodsport" (1988); at the moment he produced for Ghostface Killah among the Wu artists, and then in the following years became one of the most famous producers on the hip-hop and pop scene. Dukes is a tour DJ for Ghost and Cappadonna, and it's precisely the collaboration with Tony Starks that launched his career.
"StupidDumbRetarded" boasts an excellent True Master beat: shiny boom bap, dusty dirty drum, good bass. I had to go back and listen to Wu-Element's discography from the beginning to find this damn beat, which is "Milk the Cow" from Cappadonna's debut album "The Pillage" in which the Staten Island emcee trades bars alongside Method Man. Here, Remedy brings in King Just and Cappadonna's younger brother Lounge Lo for the piece, keeping things in Shaolin: the result isn't comparable to the original, also because in there you have Hill Sr. and Smith, while here you have Hill Jr. and Angevin, it's not the same thing even if this piece partly works.
A third and final production of True Master follows. Remedy steals another beat from a classic by looking back at "Wu-Tang Forever" and taking "Heaterz": originally, there are Raekwon, Inspectah Deck, Ol' Dirty Bastard, U-God, Cappadonna and Dom Pachino of Killarmy who recites a long outro, while Remedy offers Solomon Childs and keeps King Just on the mic for the second time in a row in order to tame this raw boom bap together with him. The boys choose to go hardcore accompanied by a limping drum and Landsknecht samples that come and go continuously, dark and tense strings, good bass. Their rap is honest, this excerpt could be better than it is.
Big Earth, which has so far produced for Fes Taylor and will produce for Shabazz the Disciple (Sunz of Man), is credited for beat number eighteen, "Posse Cut (Remix)": decent rhythm, cheap boom bap, poor drums, ok bass, ok samples. The performance of the emcees is decent, but the piece isn't as strong as it should be. Inside are Blaq Poet of PHD, Hell Razah of Sunz of Man, JoJo Pellegrino and RA the Rugged Man. "Ambush Revisted" takes the song released by Remedy about ten years earlier and sees the boy spit for a minute on a beat that doesn't deserve special attention and that Filler himself created. “The Duelist” is the third and final RZA-produced beat on this mixtape: it's actually the 1997 Wu-Tang banger "Triumph" from their double album, I don't know why it took me longer than it should to identify it. Excellent work by RZA, one of his last, unfortunately: Remedy spits on it for half a minute. The final track coincides with Remedy's sixth production in this mixtape, a sort of one-minute outro.
21 extracts, only one exceeds three minutes, for a total of 40 minutes of material. There are interesting choices, good beats stolen from RZA and True Master and a few other noteworthy beats. The rapping is solid, thanks only to the guests, King Just probably goes down as MVP of the mixtape ahead of JoJo Pellegrino and Lounge Lo: I don't know what deal he had with Remedy, but King Just, who I recall was the second Wu-Tang affiliate ever to release a solo studio album after Shyheim, is found three times on three different beats of True Master, the fourth time on an RZA beat and he never disappoints, legitimizing his figure as a solid Killa Beez equal to the members of the Wu-Tang Clan. The other guys are cool too, you can't go wrong when you put Killah Priest and Hell Razah, which allow Remedy to get both some of his best songs on this release and in his career. “Testimony” is an easy winner.
The tape slows down when the author takes over the reins of the product: Filler doesn't have the strength, personality or talent to carry an album through on his own, his lyrics revolve around typical and generic topics of gangsta rap and thug rap, drug dealing, ghetto life, weapons, crime, hip-hop game, and the interpreter recites his elementary texts with a soft, light, bland, weak, soporific delivery style, being paved over by every single guest who comes to join him. Released by APRC Records, at the expense of rare excerpts, is a project not worth listening to the Wu-stans. In retrospect, Remedy was right to put this thing out, wait for the public's response and see that the eventual release of the real album would not be welcomed positively by fans. 6/10.
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