Step Fourteen: Inspectah Deck: Uncontrolled Substance.

Artist:  Inspectah Deck
Title:  Uncontrolled Substance
Release Date:  October 5, 1999
Producers:  Inspectah Deck, True Master, 4th Disciple, RZA et al.

Review:  Uncontrolled Substance feels more like a Wu-Tang solo release than anything since Ghostface's 1996 debut Ironman.  Destroying the "RZA's Production or Bust" theory that post-Forever haters love to tout, Inspectah Deck's rhymes jab, hook and uppercut on all 17 tracks over beats by himself, True Master, 4th Disciple and others.  RZA does produce the opener "Movas & Shakers" and the slow burner "Friction," but the other songs hold up just fine on their own.  Inspectah Deck actually takes the lion's share of music duty on Uncontrolled Substance, performing on all 17 tracks and creating the sounds for five of them - "Femme Fatale," "Word on the Street," "Elevation," "Hyperdermix" and "The Cause" - and he clearly knows how to match music to his voice.

True Master produces three tracks here, all of which fit like a glove: "Longevity" and "R.E.C. Room" would sound right at home on Forever (especially "Longevity," which is rapped by Inspectah Deck and U-God), whereas "Lovin' You" reminds me of the Ghost Dog soundtrack.  True Master is most famous for co-producing the Ol' Dirty Bastard hit "Brooklyn Zoo," though by the time Uncontrolled Substance came out, he'd been responsible for over 25 tracks across albums by Wu affiliates Gravediggaz, Cappadonna, Killah Priest, Sunz of Man and Method Man (most notably "Torture" and "Sweet Love" on Tical 2000).

4th Disciple is a fitting and logical choice for this album for several reasons.  First, he produced Deck's solo track "The City" on Wu-Tang Forever as well as some of the other tracks on the double-disc release ("Older Gods," "Cash Still Rules," "A Better Tomorrow" and the co-production on the award-winning "Impossible").  He offers "9th Chamber" with a gamut of Wu affiliates on the mic (La the Darkman, Baretta 9, Killa Sin and Streetlife) and the bouncing piano-and-horns "The Grand Prix" featuring U-God and Streetlife.

If the musical credits are a bit esoteric, the emcees are much simpler.  Besides the guest-happy "9th Chamber," Inspectah Deck carries most of the album by himself.  U-God guests on "The Grand Prix" and "Longevity," Masta Killa provides two verses on the RZA-produced "Friction," and Streetlife and La the Darkman bring tight verses as well - but Inspectah Deck is clearly the winner on his first record.  The first several tracks sound great, with plenty of his energetic style to go around, but it's the title track where we catch the first of many classic-sounding INS rhymes.  He kicks off his third verse with these four lines:

"My style's so underground I write rhymes on fossils
Use as directed and wear protective goggles
Shaolin's the borough, rap Picasso
Blow like a hollow-point, foes sure to follow."

It's pure Wu-Tang, and it only gets better.  The whole album is full of bangin' rhymes like this stanza from "Femme Fatale"...

"She froze with the Playboy pose
Centerfold body rose through her clothes
My Love Jones rose
The stereo blow
Scenario: the lights low, the hydro's rolled
Two tokes without the nympho, we went slow."

But perhaps what makes this such a classic Wu solo record is the sheer amount of shout-outs and throwbacks to other Wu-Tang members and releases.  "Hyperdermix" has a hook featuring someone skratching Ghostface's appearance on "Wisdom Body" from Raekwon's Cuban Linx; Masta Killa says that he's like "Iron Lung, be the first to set off shit, last to run" - a reference to Cuban Linx's "Wu-Gambinos."  "The Grand Prix" is an in-character song where Deck, U-God and Streetlife spit rhymes while an announcer narrates them winning a grand prix, calling them "Team Wu-Tang."  "Longevity" opens with an intro from INS, using a classic acronym: "Witty Unpredictable Talent and Natural Game," even before its hook declares "Not many last in the game / Wu-Tang comin' through, breakin' out the same way we came."  I could go on for three more paragraphs.

Legacy:  Uncontrolled Substance is the first release in what's been a prolific and reliably superb-quality career from Inspectah Deck.  He rapped with the same energy when I saw him this year as he did 15 years ago on this debut, and much of this album is a great foreshadowing for his impeccable sophomore release, The Movement.  But perhaps the most surprising memory the album leaves is its original intent of release in 1995 or 1996 alongside the other first-run Wu solo classics: Tical, Return to the 36 Chambers, Cuban Linx, Liquid Swords and Ironman.  A flood at RZA's studio destroyed over 100 beats, including most or all of his material for this album.  It was postponed indefinitely but reconstructed almost from scratch in '97 and '98 by its final producers.  Many can ask "What if?" in regards to the lost RZA beats, but one listen to this album and I have to wonder "Why bother?"  It stands as one of the best immediate post-Forever releases.

Recommended Tracks:  Movas & Shakers, Uncontrolled Substance, Longevity.

Step Thirteen: Method Man & Redman: Blackout!

Artist:  Method Man and Redman
Title:  Blackout!
Release Date:  September 28, 1999
Producers:  Erick Sermon, Mathematics, RZA, etc.

Review:  On their first full-length collaboration (following tracks like"How High" and "Big Dogs"), Method Man and Redman made it really easy for any reviewer to discuss Blackout! - it's just a damn solid album from start to finish.  The beats thump and groove for its entire 71-minute run time (on the CD, which has three bonus tracks I'll discuss in a bit) and the rhymes never sound awkward or forced throughout.  Some previous steps on the Map of Shaolin have taken a lot of careful verbiage to dissect - mainly Bobby Digital in Stereo and Nigga Please - because there are hits and misses, esoteric tracks and so on.  Others, like Only Built 4 Cuban Linx, have ended up almost as essays because they'll have so many diverse and brilliant tracks it would be a crime not to mention and explain them all.  Blackout! stays pretty congruent for the whole disc, but fortunately it's not so samey that it comes across as repetitive or boring - and there are some definite highlights that shake things up here and there.

Oddly enough, the only crime the album commits is that nobody raps over the beat on the first track, "A Special Joint (Intro)," which is one of the sickest on the album with its bass and slow drums - produced by Redman himself.  Method and Red talk over it, but I'd have loved to hear a Method Man verse over it, considering his amazing flow.  Luckily they kick the album off proper on the title track, "Blackout," giving props to The Fat Boys by interpreting lyrics from "Stick 'Em."  Saul Williams did the same on his track "Black Stacey" many years later.  Next, on "Mi Casa," Redman cleverly mixes metaphors with lines like "It's a cold world, better pack your own heat."  Erick Sermon's phat beats continue with "Y.O.U." and "4 Seasons" - the latter features LL Cool J and Ja Rule.  RZA offers a comically mischievous beat on "Cereal Killer" before one of the album's most lasting tracks, "Da Rockwilder" - which is also my ringtone.

Here, Method Man reminds us this may sound different but he hasn't forgotten Wu-Tang as he rhymes "Microphone checka, swingin' sword lecture / Closin' down the sector, supreme neck protector."  Of course the Wu are famous for their martial arts lyrics and their first single was "Protect Ya Neck," so "swingin' sword lecture" and "supreme neck protector" work well as shout-outs.  Redman shines on this track as well, with a nod to the hip-hop classic film Breakin' ("Suckers break like Turbo and Ozone," two characters from the film) introducing the most intricate rhymes on the album so far:  "When I grab the broom, moonwalk platoon hawk my goons bark / Leave you in a blue lagoon, lost true."  Red is using the scene in Breakin' where Turbo (who helped teach Michael Jackson to dance, hence the moonwalk reference) dances with a broom, then reinforcing the image of featuring in front of his crew before giving another film nod, this time to Blue Lagoon.  The vocal patterns are killer too:  broom, moon, platoon, goon, you, blue, lagoon and true all ring together, interspersed with walk, hawk, bark and lost.  Two lines, 12 words that rhyme.  Damn.

On the album's second half, "1, 2, 1, 2" offers some of Meth's best - and most "blink-and-you'll-miss-them" - couplets.  The first is "From debutante down to stripper / I'm too nonchalant, a drink mixed with four kinds of liquors."  The second is "You've just been fitted for them cement shoes / This is bottom of the lake raps, stab you in the back kung-fu."  Next, "Maaad Crew" offers the other sickest beat on the album - this time courtesy of Erick Sermon.  Four-on-the-floor drums and one-chord strummed '70s guitar support an all-over-the-neck funk bass that will never in a million years get old.  It's a solid duet with plenty of back-and-forth between both emcees during the verses and chorus, but nothing tops that bass guitar.

Tical 2000 alumni Streetlife and fellow Wu-general Ghostface Killah guest amicably on "Run 4 Cover," produced by RZA.  After so many densely-packed songs, you'd expect the album to wind down around "The ?" but there are a good six tracks after it (three on the proper album plus those three bonus tracks).  I'd love to say it's too much, or that it's a bloated record, since things wind down a bit towards the end.  But even with the extra previously-released songs ("Well All Rite Cha" from Redman's Doc's da Name 2000, "Big Dogs" from Tical 2000 and a remix of "How High"), Blackout! is reliable as Hell for all 19 songs.  The bouncy update of Das EFX's "Mic Cheka" shows Meth in a much more quickfire style and "Fire Ina Hole" is an airtight closer.

Legacy:  Blackout! was released just one week before both Inspectah Deck's debut Uncontrolled Substance and U-God's debut Golden Arms Redemption.  It was certified platinum three months after its release and remains a staple in the Wu catalog, arguably the best solo release so far after Wu-Tang Forever.  Much like Uncontrolled Substance (and Deck's sophomore release The Movement in 2003), Blackout! is just a tightly-packed hour of classic East Coast hip-hop.  It's a high-water mark in Method Man's solo career, alongside the first Tical, and one of the best Wu releases of 1999.  I've heard many fans boo-hoo Golden Arms Redemption and Raekwon's Immobilarity, both released later that year, but even if one dislikes both those albums, Blackout! is here to remind you that Wu-Tang has survived and will continue to do so.

Recommended Tracks:  Blackout, Maaad Crew, Da Rockwilder.

Next Week:  Inspectah Deck - Uncontrolled Substance.  Technically, Golden Arms Redemption came out the same day, but I want to give them each their own step on the Map so I'm just going alphabetical by artist.  See you next Wu-Wednesday!

Step Twelve: Ol' Dirty Bastard: Nigga Please.

Note:  There's no way to discuss an album called Nigga Please - with songs called "You Don't Want to Fuck with Me" and "I Want Pussy" - without using a pretty fair amount of adult language.  My apologies to anyone offended by the verbiage in here; we'll be back to our regular sparing use of profanity next week with Method and Red's Blackout!.  Thanks for your patience.

Artist:  Ol' Dirty Bastard
Album:  Nigga Please
Release Date:  September 4, 1999
Producers:  The Neptunes (tracks 1, 3 and 4), Irv Gotti (2, 5, 7), RZA (8, 10, 13), et al.

Review:  Where to begin?  With working titles like God Made Dirt and Dirt Don't Hurt and The Black Man is God; White Man is the Devil - not to mention a cover of Rick James' "Cold Blooded" and the Wu's second guest appearance by Chris Rock - it's a safe bet the audience is in for a wild ride for Nigga Please's 47 minutes.  This is clearly ODB at his wildest, his most unleashed - and it basically, more or less, just about, kinda pays off.

Chris Rock goofs on the rapper's name in the Neptunes-produced "Recognize" before the hook, which is the first real draw on the album.  ODB raps and sings the first two lines and The Neptunes come in falsetto for the last two lines, the comically self-aggrandizing "Mr. Courageous ODB / Ya need to recognize he's a P-I-M-P."  This is followed by "I Can't Wait," which features the tag "Big Baby Jesus, I can't wait / Nigga fuck that I can't wait" a full 22 times.  It's a bit taxing, and features some of ODB's most awkward rhymes: "Bitch take off your shoes / Take up the brew / Motherfucker you knew / Fuckin' with the doo / Dirt Dog don't make any room."  Fortunately its sins are washed away by the entertaining cover of "Cold Blooded," because Dirty's singing voice has only ever wavered between unpredictably entertaining and genuinely soulful.

The bouncing "Got Your Money" follows and reminds me of some of the best/tightest sounds on Return to the 36 Chambers, as Dirty slips through his verses with the playful upbeat-hitting silliness of Slick Rick.  "You Don't Want to Fuck with Me," produced by DL, provides a real classic Wu sound - it's just a shame it couldn't be used for some of ODB's tighter lyrics.  What we get instead are the album's loosest, most scrambling and X-rated lyrics (that include ODB burping after a line about licking girls' assholes).  The wonky tracks 5-7 are, thankfully, followed by the RZA-produced title track, "Nigga Please."

"Nigga Please" brings a funk-inspired beat with guitar chord loops and big brass to accompany several tight verses by Dirt.  Songs like this are my favorite representation of the late emcee - wild without a doubt and maybe insane, but brilliant.  You can't help but laugh and go along with ODB when he spits lines like "I'm immune to all viruses / I get the cocaine, it clears out my sinuses" and "Kill all the government microchips in my body / I'm the paranoid nigga at ya party."  His drug habits were well known his entire life, and he admitted in interviews that he believed the government had planted microchips in him.

The album loses focus a second time with the forgettable "Dirt Dog" followed by, ahem, "I Want Pussy."  On the latter track, Dirty sings a hook built around the song's title before and after a 15-second "verse," ending with a minute of Dirty saying "My momma cannot protect y'all."  It's not much to work with, and feels more like an outtake than a real song, despite the moody RZA beat.  Just like before, these lackluster tracks are followed by a favorite - this time, it's the cover of "Good Morning Heartache," a duet of ODB and Lil' Mo.

The listed closer is "All in Together Now," which is produced wonderfully by True Master and finds ODB under control and performing comfortably.  Admittedly, its title comes from a song of the same name by a pre-Wu group made up of RZA, GZA and ODB, so some hardcore Wu fans may be a bit disappointed not to hear the former two members on the track, but it's a great ending followed by the Return to the 36 Chambers-esque banger "Cracker Jack."

My lasting impression of this album is that it's ODB loosed entirely from whatever restraints he had in the mid-'90s, which results in seven fantastic songs and six that range from lukewarm to forgettable.  As much as I love those half-dozen tracks scattered throughout the album, I found myself as eager to move onto the Method Man / Redman collaboration Blackout!, released just two weeks later, as I had been to get more familiar with Nigga Please in the first place.  Hardly a love letter to the album.

Legacy:  As the final proper album released before Ol' Dirty's death in 2004, Nigga Please is bittersweet.  Let me explain.  In 2001, Elektra rushed out The Dirty Story (a greatest hits compilation from his two albums with them) to help them escape their contract with the artist, who they found to be more trouble than he was worth.  The year later, in 2002, The Trials and Tribulations of Russell Jones came out and some call it ODB's "third album," but I'm reminded of The Dirty Story because of the content.  The vast majority of songs are skits from MTV interviews, remixes of past songs featuring ODB (like Wu-Tang's "Reunited" and "Dog Shit" and ODB's "Baby C'mon," "Damage" and "Brooklyn Zoo II") and so on - all thrown together while ODB was on the run from the law.  Only three songs of its 18 are arguably "new/original" tracks, so I neither believe it's his "third studio album" nor did I include it on the Map.  Then Dirty died of a drug overdose in November 2004 while in the studio finishing his next LP, alternately titled Dirt McGirt and A Son Unique.  This last album was accidentally released for one day by iTunes and leaked across the internet in years since.  So in the grand scheme of his solo career, Ol' Dirty Bastard's only two properly-released LP's in his lifetime are Return to the 36 Chambers and Nigga Please - the first phenomenal, the second a decent follow-up that lies somewhere in quality between Bobby Digital in Stereo and Beneath the Surface.  I personally found that A Son Unique is so damn good it negates the flaws of Nigga Please just how some of Please's tracks make up for its lukewarm tracks, but since A Son Unique failed to obtain a wide release, the water-treading Nigga Please is the final note of a life cut short.  Like a microcosm of his life, it's an off-kilter and utterly unique image of a man too wild for the everyday world.

Recommended Tracks:  "Got Your Money," "Nigga Please."

Next Week:  Method Man & Redman - Blackout!

Step Eleven: GZA: Beneath the Surface.

Artist:  GZA
Album:  Beneath the Surface
Release Date:  June 29, 1999
Producers:  Arabian Knight (tracks 7, 9, 13, 16, 18), GZA (1, 4, 5, 10, 12), Mathematics (2, 8, 14, 15, 17), Inspectah Deck (3), John the Baptist (6), RZA (11).

Review:  Let's get this out of the way first.  Beneath the Surface isn't quite the album Liquid Swords is.  I get the impression that a lot of Wu fans gave up on the Clan because they heard Bobby Digital in Stereo and Beneath the Surface and decided "It isn't the same as it used to be, so I'm leaving."  However, as we'll see often over the next 55 weeks or so, that's clearly a mistake.  Plenty of (at least) solid Wu albums came out the last 15 years, and a few more legendary ones as well.  Beneath the Surface falls into the former category.

First, the production is primarily handled by Arabian Knight and Mathematics, with GZA producing the intro and all the skits on the album (plus single-track guest production by Inspectah Deck, John the Baptist and RZA).  Mathematics' beat for the first proper song, "Amplified Sample," is classic indie hip-hop ahead of its time, with delayed horn samples and drums that cut in and out, and Inspectah Deck's laid-back soul- and dub-infused title track is typical of what the Wu has produced post-Forever, with sped-up vocals on a loop.  Arabian Knight's first track, "Breaker Breaker," may the be catchiest on the album, with its sampled strings and upbeat tempo.

"Hip-Hop Fury," at the album's halfway point, is the first track that doesn't quite wow me.  Arabian Knight's music is solid, but the lyrics, while competent, fail to amaze.  Nobody could accuse GZA of being a weak lyricist, but the song is crowded with guest spots that meander.  I had the same problem with "Feel Like an Enemy" and "Outro" near the end of the album.  Luckily, between "Hip-Hop Fury" and "Feel Like an Enemy," there are more great tracks.  The RZA-produced "1112" features Masta Killa, Killah Priest and Njeri and it's followed by the sincere ghetto lamentation "Victim," which features a serious and urgent guitar line.  Similar to "Labels" from Liquid Swords, GZA uses "Publicity" to work dozens of brand names into his lyrics.  However, here he exchanges record labels for magazine names with lines like "My group's Nova, remain unsober / And serve High Times with king cobras."

As always, GZA's lyrics are airtight.  "Breaker Breaker" features couplets like "The falconer who flies enough birds for the chase / Strictly excel in what is excellence with grace" and "Track records, ranks us with the exceptional / Extreme complex physics, highly technical."  At this point, GZA's lyrical mastery essentially goes without saying.  Also, Masta Killa offers a tight guest verse on "High Price, Small Reward" - a song that is criminally short - that channels his inner RZA:

"The battlefield haunting, the daunting Wu-Tang dance
Deadly emits six pence
Spiral, rifle barrel pointed, elastic noose
Plastic head wrapped stifle,
Survival tribal, title secret rival."

Method Man turns in a solid performance on "Stringplay (Like This, Like That)," but it's also amid the guest spots that Beneath the Surface has its biggest flaw.  "Crash Your Crew" promises a spot from Ol' Dirty Bastard but only features him performing the single-line hook:  "I'm gonna crash your crew / I'm gonna crash your crew" etc.  Likewise, by the time "Feel Like an Enemy" comes on and we sit through uninspiring verses by the otherwise great Killah Priest, Hell Raizah and Prodigal Sunn, it feels like a song better left off the album.  But maybe the biggest letdown is "Outro," which excites listeners by bringing in the impossibly phat instrumental beat from the intro, then unleashes two verses...but they're from LA the Darkman and Timbo King, sans GZA.  Much like "Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth," which only featured Killah Priest on vocals, GZA stays silent on the last track here, but it's not as effective as Liquid Swords.

All in all, Beneath the Surface is a solid album.  Most of the songs are at least "very good," with only two or three hiccups and a couple unnecessary skits blemishing it, but somehow it almost manages to wear out its welcome by the end, whereas Liquid Swords never did, despite being ten minutes longer.  Some of the magic is lost with the competent-but-not-stellar guest spots, although the solid music does its best to help keep listeners tuned in.

Legacy:  I imagine it's unbearably difficult to follow up one of the most critically-acclaimed albums of the decade, and Beneath the Surface goes a different route - perhaps intentionally - than its predecessor.  It may have turned off some fans for being less than cohesive (with six producers on board), and it's a bit bloated with guest spots, unlike the previous Wu solo releases which mostly featured Wu generals and just a couple tracks with affiliates.  This record proved once again that nobody can touch GZA when it comes to lyrics, but his beats have remained in question since this album.

Recommended Tracks:  Amplified Sample, Breaker Breaker, 1112.

Next Week:  Ol' Dirty Bastard: Nigga Please.

Film Review: Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai.

Title:  Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai
Starring:  Forest Whitaker
Writer/Director:  Jim Jarmusch
Composer:  RZA
Release Date:  March 3 & March 17, 2000

Review:  Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai stars Forest Whitaker as the titular character, a hitman who lives by the code of the samurai as outlined in the 18th-century text Hagakure by Yamamoto Tsunetomo, reciting quotes regularly.  For example, "Taking an enemy on the battlefield is like a hawk taking a bird.  Even though it enters into the midst of a thousand of them, it pays no attention to any of them other than the one than it has first marked."  Hagakure itself is a collection of thoughts about life as a swordsman in ancient Japan, and Ghost Dog extends this philosophy into his career as a contract killer.  At the film's outset, a contract goes wrong and the Italian mafia who employs Ghost Dog ultimately decides to kill him.  Jim Jarmusch subtly contrasts the old-world nobility of the samurai through Ghost Dog and the clumsy, fearful life of the mafia throughout the film, ending on a note similar to No Country for Old Men - that one way of the world is dying out, and the other has no room for it.

Forest Whitaker, as always, is superb.  He's more than convincing as the titular character, reconciling organized crime and pistol-armed hits with a 300-year-old book of the samurai.  Some may find the amount of quotes he narrates from Hagakure to be a bit overbearing, but I thought they were perfect.  The frequency of recitation from the book conveys how studiously Ghost Dog lives by the code, and that when reading the book itself, one finds himself bombarded with ideas and deep thoughts from the author.  We see how Ghost Dog got into the business, as well.  His point-of-contact, a low-level mobster named Louie, intervened and saved a young Ghost Dog from being beaten to death on the streets.  Four years later, Ghost Dog shows up on Louie's doorstep and says that he owes Louie, and from then on is Louie's retainer - a loyal soldier.

This is an awesome movie that turned the notions of criminal - sometimes race-based - honor on its head.  Some of the unspoken ideas - that Louie is responsible for Ghost Dog's life now that he's saved it, that some ideals never fade even when they don't fit with the world of the day - help leave the viewer with thoughts that will stick in his/her head for hours after viewing.

The Wu Connection:  Who better to compose a score about Eastern philosophy meeting American street- and crime-life than RZA?  RZA's group Wu-Tang Clan has long operated under the cultural fusion of East-meets-West, with kung-fu samples interwoven into songs about growing up in poor urban neighborhoods surrounded by organized crime.  It was only a matter of time until someone outside the music industry took notice, and Jim Jarmusch has the honors.  This week's step on the Map of Shaolin was about the soundtrack for Ghost Dog, which RZA produced, populated by Wu-Tang affiliates like Blue Raspberry, Sunz of Man, North Star, Tekitha and the Wu themselves; RZA's score for the film is even more impressive.  Meditative tracks like "Flying Birds" set the scene of Forest Whitaker training his carrier pigeons, and RZA himself makes a cameo appearance in the film.  RZA passes Ghost Dog in the street and says "Ghost Dog - Power, Equality," to which Ghost Dog replies "Always See Everything."  This exchange makes a reworked acronym: P.E.A.C.E., if one exchanges "See" for "C."  An occasional phrase in the Wu lexicon is "Power Equality, Allah Sees Everything," as the group are devout Muslims; here, Jarmusch likely requested to leave the film religiously neutral.  RZA is credited in the film as "Samurai in Camouflage," alluding to the idea that Ghost Dog's way of life is far from isolated to him.

Other nods to Wu-Tang are peppered throughout the movie.

- The mafiosos don't understand the name Ghost Dog, and one comments that a lot of "black guys" like "rappers" have two names.  He cites Snoop Doggy Dogg, Method Man and Flava Flav.  Method Man is an original member of the Wu; Snoop Dogg and Flava Flav both appeared on later Wu albums.
- Ghost Dog drives past a club called Liquid Sword, an homage to the 1995 GZA album Liquid Swords.
- Ghost Dog also sees some young men rapping in a park over an instrumental beat to "Ice Cream" from Raekwon's Only Built 4 Cuban Linx.  Liquid Swords and Cuban Linx are both classic Wu solo albums produced by RZA.  Not only this, but two of the men rapping are Dreddy Kruger and Timbo King, frequent Wu associates.
- One of the songs Ghost Dog listens to while building a silencer for his gun is Wu-Tang's "Fast Shadow," which is a song the Wu wrote for the movie.
- Another is by Killah Priest, a Wu associate.

Bottom Line:  Watch Ghost Dog, read Hagakure and stay tuned next week for our look back at GZA's Liquid Swords follow-up, Beneath the Surface.

Step Ten: Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai - The Album.

"Even if a samurai's head were to be suddenly cut off, he should still be able to perform one more action with certainty.  When one becomes like a revengeful ghost, and shows great determination, though his head is cut off, he should not die."  ---The Hakagure.

Artist:  V/A
Album:  Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai - The Album
Release Date: April 11, 1999
Producer:  RZA

Review:  The RZA-produced soundtrack album for Jim Jarmusch's film Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai is the first of eight Wu-Tang releases of 1999 - more than any other year in the group's history.  1999 includes RZA's first film score and soundtrack production, a video game and soundtrack for the band and the debut solo albums from Inspectah Deck and U-God, plus four more releases.  It could be called The Year of the Wu, and it sure as hell started off with a bang with this album.  Its contributing artists read like a mail-order catalog of Wu-affiliates, so I'll do my best to lay them out in a straight line and save you a plethora of Google searches.

From start to finish on the album's 12 songs (plus seven tracks of Ghost Dog's star Forrest Whitaker reading excerpts from The Hagakure: The Way of the Samurai), RZA's production is simply untouchable.  Anybody who listened to Bobby Digital in Stereo's keyboard-centric production and worried that RZA had lost the plot should feel immediately and indefinitely silenced upon listening to the classic Wu beats on the Ghost Dog soundtrack.  The unmistakable guitars and horns of funk-inspired RZA production surface by the 10-second mark of the album's first proper song, "Strange Eyes."  "Strange Eyes" features members of the Wu-Tang-recruited act Sunz of Man - namely, 60-Second Assassin and Prodigal Sunn - along with a verse by Ol' Dirty Bastard's cousin 12 O'Clock and support vocals by Blue Raspberry.  Blue Raspberry was previously featured on tracks like "Release Yo' Delf"  from Method Man's Tical as well as "Rainy Dayz" from Raekwon's Only Built 4 Cuban Linx... (among other performances on both albums).

The West Coast Wu-related group North Star performs the next track, "4 Sho Sho," leading off with a verse by Christ Bearer (who recently gained notoriety for severing his own penis in a suicide attempt).  North Star used to include the next performers, Black Knights, who split off before recording their Ghost Dog track "Zip Code."  It's easy to see why they found a home under the Wu-Tang umbrella as their member Monk rhymes "Here's a book to read like weed'll leave your brain sparked / Plant seeds, caught three to seam, got dark."  Chock full of tight wordplay and intrinsic slang, reminiscent of Ghostface Killah and Raekwon.

The beats so far would work on any early Wu-Tang record - "4 Sho Sho" and "Zip Code" especially remind the listener of Tical - but when Kool G Rap and RZA face off with verses on "Cakes," the upbeat '70s drums and bass guitar earn the music a real spot in first-gen Wu-Tang country.  Then things take another pleasantly surprising turn with the Suga Bang Bang track "Don't Test/Wu Stallion."  Suga Bang Bang would later return for guest spots on Wu-Tang's Iron Flag, the Afro Samurai soundtrack and Raekwon's Only Built 4 Cuban Linx Pt. 2, but this is a landmark debut performance.  Here, the rapper spends five hypnotizing minutes singing in a heavily reggae-influenced style and Jamaican accent over a slow soul beat.  I was impressed by this step taken so far outside the hip-hop genre by RZA, especially as the first track in a one-two combo followed by "Walking Through the Darkness.  "Walking Through the Darkness" is an interpretation of Bobby Womack's "Across 110th Street" as sung by Tekitha (who provided the chorus on Wu-Tang's 1997 single "Impossible").  Its lyrics get occasionally repetitive, but Tekitha has a beautiful singing voice and these songs make a great breather at the album's midway point.

Next up is "The Man," performed by Masta Killa and Superb (aka Lord Superb).  Most interesting is that this marks the first Wu guest spot by Superb, who was recruited by Raekwon for his group American Cream Team and later had a falling out with the Clan that resulted in him claiming to have given Ghostface his style and releasing a mixtape called Superb Clientele as a response to Ghostface's critically-acclaimed sophomore release Supreme Clientele, on which Superb also appeared.  The following three proper songs are listenable - by artists Royal Fam & La the Darkman, Melodie & 12 O'Clock, and Jeru & Afu-Ra respectively - but they're not as great as the album's first half nor as utterly explosive as the last two songs.

RZA ends on a high note for the last two songs of the album.  First is the brand-new Wu-Tang song, "Fast Shadow," which boasts appearances from Method Man, Ol' Dirty Bastard, RZA, U-God and Masta Killa.  Over a fast-paced, subwoofer-busting beat, Method Man moves through his verse with a Bruce Lee level of impact and flow:  "Iron Lung, boy me can done, army of one blaze yo' bun / I'mma get you none, accept challenge / Ran a mile with a racist, they iced it, I aced it / Placed it right up in they face 'til they faced it / Hard to the dome like a chrome microphone, I'm b-b-b-b-bad to the bone to the bone."  RZA returns from the id-driven Bobby Digital to his insane vocabulary as well with lines like "My third eye electronic dragonfly spiral observe / Can record your words and your lies and approach you."  Masta Killa closes with a verse that glides from top to bottom and could be called his breakout performance with the group:  "Duffle bag his head for the price of nothin' / He's a glutton / What I'm manifestin' each day is a lesson / Y'all faggots came to the School of the 36 Chambers / Copied on papers of scholars that earn dollars."

Finally, the album closes with "Samurai Showdown (Raise your Sword)" by RZA.  The beat is considerably slower than "Fast Shadow," but as addictive as heroin-dipped tobacco.  A keyboard that sounds like the press of a touch-tone phone, plodding drums, swelling string samples and more lay the background for RZA's incredibly strong lyricism.  "Hailin' from the slums of Shaolin, golden claw talon twirlin' / One swirl of the fatal sword splits your eyelid / Wu killa bees' stingers back on the swarm again / [Buzz sound] the alarm again, six direction weapon deflectin'."  There are simply too many fantastic lines awaiting the listener:  "Kept his mind focused, meditation position half lotus / Abbot's sword novas couldn't match his magnum opus."  The last lines make a promise that the Wu isn't going anywhere after delivering this extended family compilation:  "I get the verbal weapon, won't hesitate for one second / To break your back like Big Jack from Tekken."

Legacy:  Ghost Dog was called one of the finest rap albums of the year, and it was proof that even after RZA's five-year plan of dominating the Clan's endeavors came to an end, they were far from finished.  If anything, this regrouping of some of their discovered acts was proof that the Wu's influence was spreading and becoming its own sovereign nation in the music industry.  It was a much-needed signal to raise, as some of their hardest times lay ahead.

Recommended Tracks:  Strange Eyes, Don't Test, Fast Shadow, Samurai Showdown.