Album: Bobby Digital in Stereo
Release Date: November 24, 1998
Producer: RZA (except "Love Jones" produced by King Tech and "Kiss of a Black Widow" produced by Inspectah Deck)
Review: Bobby Digital is a hedonistic superhero alter-ego of RZA - an original invention of a character, knee-deep in honey-dipped blunts and a conspiracy theorist's obsession with all things binary. RZA has stated in interviews that he invented Bobby as an outlet for all of his basest urges. Unfortunately, this idea is the key to understanding just why Bobby Digital in Stereo is the first Wu-related album that can possibly be considered a misstep.
Now, I have an enormous amount of respect for RZA. He's one of the best producers in the music industry, the ingenious mastermind behind the Wu-Tang Clan and a rapper with an incredible vocabulary that he molds into tight, interwoven rhymes on a regular basis. Hell, even his work for the incessantly commercial Dr. Pepper-sponsored EP Only One Place to Get It at least sounds terrific, if one can ignore the catch phrases and fizzing sounds of the soda giant strewn throughout its four tracks. Having said that, perhaps it's this bar, that he raised to Everest-like heights with his first seven steps on our map, that leads Bobby Digital in Stereo to inevitably disappoint at times. One the one hand, kudos to RZA for trying something different. He discards the expected chunky beats and kung-fu samples almost entirely, instead composing a keyboard symphony to score Bobby's 17-song journey. He mostly sheds his skin of Five Percenter and biology-based rhymes to make himself a commercialized, stereotypical rap character. It takes real brass to throw away practically everything tried-and-true that led to his success and put out an album completely out of left field.
However, this works better in theory than in practice.
The album starts off fine with "B.O.B.B.Y.," which has strong lyrics and a catchy beat. "Run your commissary, attack your coronary / I'm very revolutionary / Honorary is sonic electronic brain like Johnny Mnemonic / Get boosted from the sorrow and went Wu-tonic." Lovely. "Unspoken Word" follows, which is mostly noteworthy for kickstarting the still-present Wu trend of raising the pitch on sampled soul vocals to a near-Alvin and the Chipmunks level (which would appear on Think Differently, No Said Date and many more albums). "Airwaves" is a criminally short track dependent on a stuttering vocal sample that could use extra verses both by Raekwon and Inspectah Deck to match its upbeat music. For reasons I'll never understand, RZA then interpolates "Love Jones" before eventually settling into the album's second great track, "Mantis." "Mantis" features a guest spot by Masta Killa and uses the classic Wu sound to (accidentally?) remind us of what's been missing from the record so far.
Guest emcee Holocaust utterly slays on a track named after him, "Holocaust (Silkworm)," with rhymes including
"Holocaust: black man whose veins (littered with thorns)
Back-smack you so hard all your seeds will be born deformed
Swarm dorms, sting birds, fling verbs like mean curves
Strike three, mics flee, I infect 'em with green germs, ringworm
'Cuz I'm filthy and guilty, dastardly, mastery
My felony melody has to be a bastard's masterpiece"
over music that includes an electric guitar with a trip-hop delay pedal.
Speaking of trip-hop, the next notable track is "Kiss of a Black Widow," which samples Portishead's "Over" in spectacular fashion. RZA and Ol' Dirty rap about dangerous women while Portishead singer Beth Gibbons sings "This uncertainty is taking me over" in the background. Big props to Inspectah Deck and RZA for forming this track. "My Lovin' is Digi" at last brings the classic Wu sound to the album with intro vocals by The Force M.D.'s and 1970s soul music, but it seems wasted as they sing a less-than-brilliant hook: "Sometimes I find / Someone fuckin 'with my pussy / My money and my ride / Tuck my 9 inside my hoodie." For all the genre-bending, image-shattering sounds of the previous five years of the Wu revolution, is this stereotyped gangsta chorus the strongest that RZA could muster for his first solo endeavor? I don't know. The proper album wraps up with "Domestic Violence," in which one of RZA's girlfriends derides his personal life and career while he spits verses about her unsavory womanhood. This uncommon turn of events emotes in me a genuine empathy for him - he sounds like he's at the end of his rope, or that despite his supposed grandiose deeds as superhero Bobby Digital, he still comes home and catches unending flak from his woman. Is it then satire? Could RZA be making an hour-long statement about how desperately powerless children grow up and want to make a difference, only to be whipped back to reality by their loved ones? Again, I don't know. However, by the end of "Domestic Violence," I can honestly say I'm really only genuinely wowed by 24 of the album's 55 minutes.
After this are "Four bonus RZA tracks," according to the jewel case. The liner notes further differentiate RZA from Bobby Digital. Is this where we'll be blown away by an EP's worth of RZA-controlled, RZA-centric material? Not exactly. The beat for "Project Talk" could fit on Wu-Tang Forever just as the music on "Lab Drunk" foreshadows future Wu like "Unspoken Word" does, but only "Daily Routine" flirts with RZA's lyrical range with lines like "Amplify the sound of the earth rotation / That's why knowledge is the basic foundation of / All things and creation, like man is the foundation of / His family and the sun's the foundation of the solar system / Wisdom is the manifestation when words and actions are put into activation / Escape this captivation."
Of the 21 tracks on Bobby Digital in Stereo, I only find six of them to be very favorable. The rest range from good ("My Lovin' is Digi" and "N.Y.C. Everything") to acceptable ("Handwriting on the Wall," "Lab Drunk"). Given his full portfolio, I truly hate to talk any shit about RZA, but this album tends to misfire more than it strikes gold. It still finds its way into my rotation on occasion, but more for my favorite half-dozen tracks than anything else.
Legacy: At the very least, Bobby Digital in Stereo works as RZA saying to the world, "Guess what? Wu-Tang is about a lot more than just kung-fu samples and funk-inspired beats." Perhaps the most amazing legacy that Bobby Digital in Stereo leaves behind is that RZA at one point prepared to become a real-life superhero, or vigilante, akin to the lifestyle I examined in my book Penny Cavalier. According to RZA...
"I decided to become Bobby Digital for real. I had the car and I had the suit. I was getting ready to go out at nighttime and right some wrongs. That was my plan - like on some Green Hornet shit. I had this suit built for me that's literally invulnerable to AK fire. The car was a black Suburban that I had made bulletproof and bombproof up to government-security-level standards. [...] I was really on a mission; I really felt compelled. I spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to get Bobby Digital up and online - to keep it real. That's how seriously I took it."
Recommended Tracks: "Airwaves," "Mantis," "Holocaust (Silkworm)" and "Kiss of a Black Widow."
Next Week: Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai Original Soundtrack
RZA. The Wu-Tang Manual 90. Riverhead Freestyle, 2005. Print.
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