Doors opened at 8, with several local acts including COC and Warbucks getting the crowd hyped for Deck's arrival. DJ Spinsane spun the music as emcees from around the way bobbed and rocked rhymes for the audience.
It was after 11:30 before Deck arrived at the club with a small entourage. He moved through the back of the crowd with a silence and patient determination that camouflaged his presence entirely. He walked towards a cordoned-off table in the rear of the room - had a waitress not told me he'd arrived, I don't think I would've realized he was even there. Nor did the rest of the crowd; he must have edged his way through 30 people who didn't bat an eyelash.
Only one large young man walked up to Deck and greeted him as he neared his private table. After he left, I asked him if he thought I could go say hey since he did. "Ah, I used to tour with Deck; I was just saying what's up," he said. "He's so down to earth; I'm sure he'd be happy to meet you after the show but right now is mind is so..." He made the hand gesture for being focused, looking straight ahead, which looks like making blinders of your hands. "Y'know?"
Deck sat at the table for close to a half hour, waitresses serving his friends while he waited for his set to begin. More than anything, I was struck by the zen-like stillness and stoicism of the man. He barely moved. He eyed the opening acts seriously or looked down at his table. In keeping with Wu-Tang's frequent martial arts film imagery, Deck was like a professional assassin waiting to strike - a modern-day samurai, hand on his katana's handle, imagining the killstroke playing out in his head an uncountable amount of times. What the young emcee told me made sense - Inspectah Deck had thousands of words flying through his head and he was here to to lay them all out in a row and make them pop.
This is gonna be a good fuckin' show, I thought.
Colt Seavers was Deck's backup for the night, filling in lines with him and keeping the crowd hyped. Colt got onstage and did a track before introducing Deck, who almost immediately launched into his verses from three 1993 Wu classics in a row: "Protect Ya Neck," "Wu-Tang Clan Ain't Nuttin' Ta F Wit" and "C.R.E.A.M."
By the time he wrapped up "C.R.E.A.M." he said "Fuck the stage" and asked the crowd to make room for him. He performed most of the rest of his set walking through the crowd.
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| Deck wanders the crowd, 4/18/14. |
Perhaps Deck's most famous verse is his opener for the 1997 Wu-Tang single "Triumph." "Triumph" is an amazing song, partially because it manages to fit all 10 members of Wu-Tang (including the quasi-official member Cappadonna) onto a five-minute track, but also because of the rock-solid lyrics from start to finish. Deck's first verse is often called the greatest opening verse in the history of hip-hop, and according to a 10-part article on Grantland, the rest of the Clan heard Deck's verse once it was recorded in the studio and were so impressed (or intimidated) they went back to their notebooks and rewrote some of their own verses. Here are the first few lines [Note: "Killa bees" are a frequent nickname for Wu-Tang and their associated acts].
"I bomb atomically
Socrates' philosophies and hypotheses
Can't define how I be droppin' these mockeries
Lyrically perform armed robbery
Flee with the lottery, possibly they spotted me
Battle-scarred shogun, explosion when my pen hits
Tremendous, ultraviolet shine-blind forensics
I inspect you through the future see millennium
Killa bees sold fifty gold sixty platinum."
So, Inspectah Deck slammed through his verse of "Triumph." He beat it with a brick stick and nailed it to the wall. Admittedly, the one real problem touring solo (when people first know you as part of a group) is when a classic track comes up and the other emcees aren't there to do their parts. Colt Seavers helped pad out some expected hooks in the big hits, but it just wouldn't be right for one member of the Wu to perform a 10-verse song by himself. Instead, Deck opted not to step on his brothers' toes and mostly only do his own lines. This is common enough in hip-hop - it's a tough choice to play crowd-pleasers but skip some of their verses, but one that the audience was wise enough to respect. Unfortunately, that means some tracks (including "Triumph" and "Guillotine") could barely pass the 60-second mark. However, that's the way it is and the alternative is not to play them at all or imitate someone else's style, which would be far worse.
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| Deck performs, 4/18/14. |
Deck also did his verse from "For Heaven's Sake," which, like "Triumph," was released on the 1997 Wu-Tang double-album Wu-Tang Forever. The biggest surprise to me was a performance of "Black Mozart" from Raekwon's Only Built 4 Cuban Linx II - I figured his rendition of his verses on Rae albums had finished after "Guillotine." He also performed a song or two from his last solo album, Czarface, which he collaborated on with 7L and Esoteric. My first thought going into the show would be that he'd pull out more tracks from his own solo records to help lengthen the set. I was surprised not to hear "City High" from The Movement or the title track from his debut Uncontrolled Substance, but that doesn't mean the set was lacking in any way.
INS paid tribute to Ol' Dirty Bastard by doing a version of ODB's "Baby C'mon," which the DJ cut off prematurely and Deck had to yell at him to turn it back on. In fact, the DJ was the only real low point of the night - besides the "Baby C'mon" incident, he played "Triumph" and "Black Mozart" twice each, and Inspectah Deck ended up laughing at him and telling him to play different records to perform. At one point, somebody leaned over to me and said "That's it for that DJ, man - you get one chance and he just blew it." Later, on another one of his blunders, I caught a young woman's eye and she was shaking her head and rolling her eyes at him. I leaned over and said "Somebody's about to fire that DJ!" and she said "Oh he's already fired." I don't know if she had some inside knowledge or was just guessing, but I wouldn't bet against her either way. It went so poorly that INS actually joked "What's that DJ's name? DJ Knife-in-the-Chest? Okay." But he did his best to accommodate the DJ - when "Triumph" came back on a second time, Deck freestyled a verse over it and Colt performed one of his own verses too.
Between tracks, Deck also talked about Virginia being one of the first states outside New York to give Wu-Tang a chance back in 1992 or 1993, which was a nice touch, as well as downplay the rumors about the new Wu-Tang album that may or may not involve Raekwon. He didn't call anyone out by name, but made it a specific point to mention that he didn't have any conflicts with anyone in the family, and people are hyping it up to sound like more than it is.
On his way out, Inspectah Deck thanked us all again and said to look out for Czarface II, which will drop "this fall." Hip-hop is notorious for getting delayed - everything from sample clearance to red tape in the paperwork holds things up - but all we can do is keep our fingers crossed. It's never bad to get another album from one of Wu's most solid and consistent rappers, so whenever it comes, it'll be in my shopping cart.
After the show I met Deck outside and he signed my copy of his second album, The Movement. I told him I saw him I saw Wu-Tang on Maui in 1996 when I was 13 years old and it made a lifelong fan out of me. He raised his eyebrows and said "On Maui? Oh yeah, we had fun at that show." It was the knowing tone my father gave me when he talked about his college days. I have no idea the debauchery the Clan got into back on the islands, but apparently they remember it almost 20 years later.
At the end of the day, it was an airtight performance by Inspectah Deck and Colt Seavers. They had energy, the rhymes were on point, I heard enough INS classics to keep me happy for life and the crowd was all positive, all enthusiastic. Aside from a few issues with the DJ, for whom I honestly feel bad and hope he didn't get in too much trouble, it couldn't have gone much better.
Curious about Inspectah Deck? Click here to listen to "City High" off 2003's The Movement and keep an eye out for our posts about all five of his studio albums in the months to come.
Stay tuned for more posts leading up to the April 30 launch of Map of Shaolin!
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