When "Wu-Tang Forever" goes platinum for the fourth time in just over four months, the major labels understand being seated on a gold mine and a hunt begins for anyone who was even minimally linked to the double v symbol. The MCA, which has secured GZA's performance in the past, is also signing this unknown group of guys who have just been stolen from the streets of Stapleton, Staten Island, New York.
The group consists of Robert "Pop da Brown Hornet" Briggs, Isaac "Down Low Recka" Booker, Javahn "Rubbabandz" Barry and James "June Luva" Wilson. Originally, it's called Gladiator Posse Wu, but for market needs, the label is said to have imposed the name GP Wu. The group is linked to Wu-Tang both by geography and by the fact that Pop da Brown Hornet is Ghostface Killah's cousin, as well as the fact that they're affiliated with Shyheim and three of them debuted on his 1994 album, "Shyheim A/K/A The Rugged Child".
The cover is... something. Let's forget the cover. From start to finish, this document is quietly forgettable, and it shows you that no other good rappers emerged on Staten Island in the 1990s other than the guys from the Wu-Tang Clan and close affiliates. GP Wu are easily your generic rappers, they spit elementary bars with an amateur style, and leave no impression on you. Their friend Dark Skinned Assassin, the only guest, doesn't add much. The lyrics are battle rap for an hour, "If You Only Knew" is a track where the boys tell stories about girls, then the rhythm switches, and the performers return to the daily battle rap on a dark piano loop. They represent their neighborhood, it's rare to find another tape in which the performers repeat "Shaolin" so many times, but there's little else, a few socio-conscious bars, a few thug bars, a couple of times they mention the Illuminati in a casual way. "Hip Hop" is one of the most interesting choices: the rappers deliver three stanzas in which they look at the current situation of hip-hop respectively as if it were a woman, a friend and finally a patient in bad condition. Basically, it's an "I Used to Love H.E.R.", performed with less personality, little inspiration and much less effective.
The four performers aren't helped by the production. Down Low Recka is the author of over half of the beats, four are made by RNS, while June Luva and Visible perform one each. The rhythms are simple, essential, lean, the drum is dry and hard, falls midtempo, raises some dust and mud, but not as much as you might expect the drum to lift in a record that is released by affiliated artists of the greatest rap group ever. The terrain of the samples is as frighteningly deserted as the Mojave before Bugsy Siegel's arrival: there's a good sample in "Black on Black Crime" and then the void. "1st Things First" uses the sample of "Just Say, Just Say" joint by Diana Ross & Marvin Gaye which is opened by a beautiful piano scale. RNS sampled just that scale, but he match it with a drum that is too rough, bad, rusty, it immediately kills that melody.
I'd like to save a last note for "Hit Me with That Shit": it's still battle rap, with an interesting key. The first two stanzas sound like a dissing to an acquaintance of Stapleton's rather than random invectives, then Rubbabandz compares himself to Barça — who, incidentally, has just fired Cruijff: the merit of this reference by a no-name dude is to be traced back to the Legend himself, who revolutionized the game — then he concludes his verse by announcing that this record will be certified gold in a month, then platinum, then even beyond. To the detriment of the wildest dreams of these young guys, the album doesn't go beyond box number 44 on the rap chart.
In the end, you don't even notice that this LP actually came out under a major, MCA / Universal, and not all Wu affiliates have had this opportunity. If I put myself in the shoes of the label, I don't know which song to choose as a single: "1st Thing First", "Black on Black Crime" and "Party People" are excerpts from the LP, the latter has an unassuming bassline and is the most commercial beat on the record, with a fairly mediocre sample of Chaka Khan. None of these songs ends up in the charts, despite the promotion and the music videos, this leads to the end of the group, disbanded shortly after. The album sounds like a bland and ineffective replica of the Wu-Tang Clan, there are no memorable moments. In 2008, GP Wu dissed the supergroup in order to attract some attention, but the song itself ends up off the rap radar, gets no reruns and immediately falls into oblivion. Not recommended, 5/10.
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