I was sooo looking forward to this. In my mind this was already competing for the best release of the year. For good reasons. Imagine the possibilities. Inventive dubstep producers reworking the genius that is Rza. Imagine a dubstep take on C.R.E.A.M, Protect Ya Neck, The Ghostdog theme or really any classic Wu Tang material. And to have some of the worlds best rappers blessing these beats with classic verses. Rza, Ghostface, Raekwon, Method man, Ol Dirty. It could have been classic, it should have been a classic – as they said in the pressrelease:
“…many of the pioneers and practitioners (DJ’s and producers) in the Dubstep world came up in a time when Wu-Tang ruled the international airwaves. Unlike much commercial hip-hop, the immediacy of Wu-Tang’s sound spoke to many outside of the scope of the typical hip-hop fan, across oceans and at home. Their music and style helped to shape an emerging artform that hadn’t yet defined itself. Now, in 2009, as dubstep continues to grow, expand and encompass more styles and subgenres, the Wu-Tang sound is reintroduced into the mix, to spawn a new and unique musical crossbreeding, that is greater than the sum of its constituent parts”
It’s too bad then this isn’t really a Wu Tang album. The tracks don’t come from Wu Tang albums. Most of them come from Raekwons proteges Icewaters release “Icewater: Polluted Water”, or the Bronze Nazareth fronted Wisemens release “Wisemen Approaching. You hear Rza, but it’s not from any Rza release but from Lord Jamars 5% album. The closest you will get to this being Wu is some tracks taken from (the also quite weak) Wu Tang meets the indie culture Vol1, and a few tracks from Gza. There actually seems to be just as many rappers that have nothing to do with Wu Tang as there are actual members; Pimp C, Busta Rhymes and Three Six Mafia don’t really feel like Wu to me.
In some sense i suppose this could have been ok still. Had they chosen the best tracks from the Wu-tang affiliates and lesser known projects it might have worked. Tracks with an actual Wu feel, perhaps more than just a third of a track that was actually produced by Rza. They didn’t. Ive actually heard most of these tracks before, some of them are ok, most of them are just your usual hiphop. Also few of the dubstep producers involed in the project seems to try and combine the two sounds. Most of the tunes, as far as i can tell, have little to do with the original. Which might be ok if they were given crap tunes to begin with. But they also have little to do with any type of Wu feel. As dubstep goes, it is rarely more than ok, it’s current to slightly dated, conventional, routine stereotype dubstep. I thought there could be a risk of this happening if the producers didn’t make proper use of the source material. I didn’t of course expect the source material to be crap to begin with.
There are a few exceptions; Chimpos horror sundtrack remix of “Cinema” is dark and creeping, the Rouge Star remix of “New year banga” has some great distorted 80’s style synths and Scubas remix of Street Corners at least touches on the Wu sound. But the only one to succeed a 100% is Soroka, who takes on three tunes at once; Pencil, My Piano and Firehouse. This is a masterpiece, Wu-tang strings and horns blend seamlessly with dubstep rhythms and basslines. When Ghostface drops a verse it sends shivers down my spine. It really shows what an amazing album and collaboration this could have been, and regrettably wasn’t.
I don’t know what happened here. Perhaps Wu-tang didn’t feel comfortable giving their good tracks to dubstep producers. Perhaps it is some kind of attempt to gain some interest for Icewaters and Wisemens quite unexceptional albums. I don’t know, all i know is someone fucked up, big time.
Caked with dirt 