Step Twenty Seven: Raekwon: The Lex Diamond Story.

Artist:  Raekwon the Chef
Album:   The Lex Diamond Story
Release Date:  December 16, 2003
Producers:  Various

Review:  It may have been four years since Immobilarity, but The Lex Diamond Story made the wait worth it for fans of Raekwon the Chef.  It's an hour of good beats and great rhymes by an emcee who rarely (if ever) falters in front of the mic.

Lex Diamond starts off with an intro skit.  Hang in there; we've got five more before the album ends.  Luckily "Pit Bull Fights" hits the ground running with the energy and ferocity needed to get the album started right.  It's the kind of call to arms that Ghostface would emulate two years later on "Shakey Dog," the opener for FishScale.  A nine-second skit doesn't really detract from the album, separating "Pit Bull Fights" from "King of Kings," featuring a smooth verse by Havoc from Mobb Deep and untouchable rhymes by Raekwon.  The songs go three-for-three with "Missing Watch," which has an admittedly silly premise (Raekwon in a club looking for his watch) but offers Ghostface's first guest spot and a great beat of electric bass and funky guitars over a drumbeat with the drumstick rocking the edge of the snare.

Mercury produces "All Over Again," which utilizes the post-Forever Wu sound of pitch-raised soul vocals over half-clean, half-chunky beats.  Raekwon looks back on life as he talks about talking with his mother on the phone:  "Heard my moms crying at night, we rappin' on the phone / 'I love you; never meant to stress you out, do you wrong / I'm workin', gonna move you from a block to a home.'"  Like "All I Got is You Pt. 2" from Immobilarity and the recently-discussed "Grits" on RZA's Birth of a Prince, it's one of those worthwhile moments that cuts through all of hip-hop's ego and story to bring a sincere look at someone's personal life.  Of course it was Rae's partner-in-crime Ghostface who started up the vulnerable side of the group on 1996's Ironman (which features the original "All I Got is You"), but even here, seven years later, it's a trend I'm happy to see continue.

"Smith Bros." opens with a skit between Raekwon and a (fake) journalist, but it's telling of where his career was at the time in that he gets irritated at the reporter's question about writing "another Cuban Linx."  The song then kicks your door in and sprays bullets across the house for four minutes with a phat bass-driven beat.  Rae's best words so far are in the second verse, bouncing back and forth between two rhymes for the majority:

"Map the laws, runnin' cards, playin' bars
Mask the coke in the cars, twist the ganz, mad, crackin' cigars
Smokin' through Queens, bitches stealin' Guess jeans
Get the scope on our stars, little did we know, we follow they dreams
Now we get around in live limousines, flash stacks in cuisines
Combat get to smackin' the fiends, just max for a minute and lean
All the shit for the moment, slick omens, my opponents would scheme."

So the cards/bars/cars/cigars rhyme is tight, then it sounds like it's done when Rae sets in on the Queens/jeans bit, but he brings one more ("stars") before getting back to the second rhyme (dreams/limousines/cuisines/fiends/lean/scheme).  Not to mention the soft "a" that appears in almost every line (map, mask, mad, crackin', flash stacks, combat, smackin', max), tossing the whole sound up in the air like an Inspectah Deck verse.  I think it's exactly what Chef's fans - myself included - hope for when we buy one of his albums and tear it out the cellophane.

"Pa-Blow Escablow" is the kind of no-nonsense track that helps shake up the flow of the album, only marred by an odd-sounding vinyl pop loop throughout the song.  "Musketeers of Pig Alley," though, is all smiles.  It shares its name with the 1912 DW Griffith film, arguably the first gangster picture in film history.  Masta Killa and Inspectah Deck guest and each bring fire for their verses.  "They started jammin' in the park / Just after dark / Two turntables and the DJ scratchin' / Words seem to have an attraction when they rhymin'," raps MK, followed by Deck's upbeat "Feel what I'm droppin', I spit the ill doctrine / Spy him deep in the Killa Hill poppin'."

"Ice Cream Pt. 2" can't quite touch its namesake in classic Wu quality but it does find the original's light-hearted summer, girl-chasing spirit.  On first listen it's easy to see why he named it how he did, but that does set a pretty high standard to surpass.  Things wind down afterwards, with the good-but-not-great "Planet of the Apes" and "Wyld in da Club," ending on a stronger note with "Once Upon a Time" featuring lovely singing by long-time Wu associate Tekitha.

Legacy:  The Lex Diamond Story is proof positive that a Wu general can bounce back strong after one less-than-amazing album.  Only Built 4 Cuban Linx is one of the best rap albums I've ever heard, and Immobilarity is decent but clearly the least impressive of Raekwon's oeuvre.  Lex Diamond is a real comeback, with some amazing tracks, a lot of great ones and only a couple lukewarm songs.  It would be another six years before Cuban Linx Pt. 2 hit stores, but it's also one of his best, nearly matching his debut.  In the meantime, Raekwon proved what he had to prove here and on subsequent guest spots - that as usual, The Chef is cooking up some marvelous shit.

Recommended Tracks:  Pit Bull Fights, Smith Bros., Musketeers of Pig Alley.

Step Twenty Six: RZA: Birth of a Prince.

Artist:  RZA
Album:  Birth of a Prince
Release Date:  October 7, 2003
Producers:  RZA, Megahertz ("We Pop"), True Master ("Fast Cars"), Barracuda ("Chi Kung"), Bronze Nazareth ("A Day to God is 1,000 Years" and "The Birth")

Review:  A RZA album, only half of which is produced by RZA.  Lines like "All we wanna do is drink smoke and fuck" and rhymes about promiscuous women vomiting semen.  The first appearance by Ol' Dirty Bastard - just on a hook - since "Conditioner" on The W three years prior.  Typos on the tracklist and countless incorrect lyrics in the booklet, multiple songs missing lyrics entirely.

This is RZA's third album, Birth of a Prince, and it's a pretty tough pill to swallow.  "Bob N' I" opens the album with a Bobby Digital freestyle, and any follower of RZA's career up to this point knows that Bobby seems to bring out his worst.  "You superficial, nigga, buck and I'm a superhero / My super pistol will turn you into a super zero."  "The Grunge" comes after, with an awesome uptempo blaxploitation beat for its first half then regressing into '80s hip-hop minimalism like "Bob N' I" did 90 seconds prior.

"We Pop" is the third song in under five minutes, and contains a verse rhyming "Jersey" with "Jersey" four times in a row, pairing "pills" with "pills" and "still" with "still."  If Megahertz's beat weren't so damn addicting, I can't say I'd be a fan of this track.  Thankfully it's followed by "Grits," a bittersweet remembrance of growing up poor in New York featuring Masta Killa in his first of three appearances on Birth.  "Grits" is as sincere as Raekwon's "All I Got is You Pt. II" on Immobilarity - not my favorite album, but a song with striking emotion.  "Grits" follows suit with sad imagery of poverty by RZA - "Four seeds to a bed, eight seeds to a room," where "seeds" means "kids" - and Masta Killa - "Young shorties in my hood started hustlin' / Packin' bags at the neighborhood Associate / Growin' up not as fortunate to have the fly shit / I'm too young, no jobs to hire me legit."

"Chi Kung" offers the most classic Wu beat on the album - but is produced by Barracuda.  For every solid lyric in it - "The word of God always intervened with sin / From insight my inner light beams within" - there's an id-driven drawback - "Love, love, thugs, thugs, is in your club, club / Nigga pass the motherfuckin' drugs."

"You'll Never Know" has some great music and is a lyrical high-water mark so far, but that's not saying much.  Is this really the same producer and emcee who brought us "Samurai Showdown" single-handedly?  This same frustration permeates the rest of the album - the next and last notable song (in a positive context) is the beat on "Koto Chotan," experimenting further with picked electric guitar, but by the time it comes up, I've mostly checked out, especially while it suffers from rhymes like "A to Zigzag, you get smacked, thrown in the shitbag / Bust like the spermbag."

Birth of a Prince is as maddening an album as I've heard from the Clan (up to 2003, anyway).  RZA is, as I repeatedly say, one of the best music producers on Earth.  He's also an amazing rapper when he wants to be, as has been repeatedly evidenced on other albums.  He uses magic and alchemy to brew delicious beats and he writes lyrics with an almost eerie religious and medical wisdom.  That's why it's so confusing that Birth of a Prince is full of songs like "Drop Off," with is monotone beat and atrocious lyrics ("Music blastin', she orgasm like a singer / Sweet wet pussy all over my fingers / Now I'm sniffin' my hand").

Legacy:  I could go on, but why bother?  Birth of a Prince is RZA's third solo album during his time in the Wu, and easily his most troubled.  Bobby Digital in Stereo was forgivable as a failed experiment with about five solid tracks on it; Digital Bullet was markedly better - if not exactly a classic.  With Birth of a Prince, RZA seems to suffer an identity crisis:  To Be Bobby Digital or Not to Be?  There's enough player-centered, sex-seeking, drug-dealing violence to fuel two more Bobby Digital records and only a few sincere or Wu-sounding tracks, resulting in a 4:1 song ratio of losers to winners.  Fortunately RZA brought it back for most of his non-solo work since this.  Both Afro Samurai soundtracks - and The Man with the Iron Fists - sound phenomenal, and 8 Diagrams is a wildly different direction for Wu-Tang but admirable and respectable in most ways.  Despite the haters decrying the Wu by now, it's worth noting that Birth of a Prince lies comfortably between the stellar The Movement (Inspectah Deck's sophomore album, discussed last week) and Raekwon's bounce-back album The Lex Diamond Story.  Hang in there, readers; there are some serious highlights coming up.

Recommended Tracks:  Grits, Chi Kung, You'll Never Know.

Step Twenty Five: Inspectah Deck: The Movement.

Artist:  Inspectah Deck
Album:  The Movement
Release Date:  June 10, 2003
Producers:  Phantom of the Beats, Ayatollah, Arabian Knight

Review:  The cover for Inspectah Deck's sophomore release The Movement perfectly depicts what the album is: no frills, no bullshit, just straight New York hip-hop.  From the upbeat opener "City High" to the despondent "Cradle to the Grave," Deck offers an hour of airtight rap with no skits, no protracted intro (just a 49-second clip declaring the death of commercial hip-hop), no out-of-place guest spots (just a verse each by Killa Sin, Kool G Rap and Streetlife) and most importantly, no weak tracks.

Where to begin?  The horn-and-vocals funk beat for "City High" sets the stage lovely for Deck to hit the ground running - "We dance with the wolves, wrestle with the pitbulls / For fistfuls of dollars and cents we empty pistols."  "That Shit" is a fun-loving track of self-promotional lyrics on top of palm-muted guitar and swaggering brass; "Get Right" offers some solid call-and-response lyrics and descending keyboards.  The title track follows, a wake-up call that references comics ("So far from the norm my code name's Doc Strange" and "Make 'em wig out, Spider-Man still on the web") and hip-hop culture itself ("My groups cross seas, they call us junglin' thugs / And it's sure to move ya feet like a gun in the club"), which makes sense since it utilizes basic skratching and old-school hi-hats on the drum machine.

"Shorty Right There" is another fun track, with INS and Streetlife mind-boggled at how hot some ladies look.  For example, at the end they go back and forth admiring women:  "Yo look at shorty right there with the six-pack / Lookin' like a fruit snack with the shoe strapped to her kneecaps."  "Nah, shorty right there, the amazon / Six foot three with the glasses on, built for a marathon."

On the second half, "Framed" stands out with a reggae-sung hook between verses by Deck, Kool G Rap and Killa Sin about the police framing them for crimes.  "Vendetta" offers engaging music and an infectious hook as Deck rhymes "You hear the rockets red glare?  The bombs burstin' in air?  / Gave proof through the night that I stood through the fight / Yeah the rebel's still here, what?"  "The Stereotype" is an upbeat, uptempo funk piece with a sung hook promoting what sounds like a blaxploitation hero called The Stereotype, and "Big City" makes the journey go out with a bang before settling into the somber "Cradle to the Grave."

The biggest problem with The Movement is that it's so consistent and cohesive from beginning to end - without ever getting repetitive, boring or monotonous - that it's difficult to talk about.  And that's a Hell of a problem to have.  Every single track has live rhymes and great music; almost every song has funk-inspired horns blaring.  Up to this point (June 2003) it could very well be the best solo album released by a Wu-general since Liquid Swords.  For its entire hour runtime, it never missteps or falters, never loses focus - it sounds like Deck on a mission.  When I saw him live this past spring, I was almost as encouraged to get The Movement signed by him as I was to see him perform at all, and he didn't disappoint on either front.

If you buy one Deck album, buy this one.  It's in my top five post-Forever solo releases.  It's actually so good that I've played tracks from it for no fewer than a half-dozen friends who don't like rap and they unanimously told me they loved it.  The Movement is the reason I started the Map of Shaolin - to help promote some of the most underrated Wu releases while looking back at the band's history and catalog, which also meant I got to blast this CD out of my car for a week straight.

Legacy:  Inspectah Deck made lightning strike twice, following his smash debut Uncontrolled Substance.  He would later release The Resident Patient, Manifesto and Czarface, and though some fans find Manifesto to be a bit lacking, overall Deck proves himself time and again to be one of the most reliably top-notch solo artists in Wu-Tang.  The Movement is a straightforward but flawless rap album about New York, the streets, the hip-hop movement and more in a package that's so listenable it's hard to turn off.

Recommended Tracks:  Every single song on this album is utterly brilliant.  YouTube the entire tracklist and tell me I'm wrong:  City High / That Shit / Get Right / The Movement / Who Got It / It's Like That / Shorty Right There / You Wanna Be / Framed / Bumpin' and Grindin' / Vendetta / The Stereotype / That Nigga / Big City / Cradle to the Grave.  I highly recommend every single track.

Step Twenty Four: The World According to RZA.

Artist:  Various (RZA et al)
Album:  The World According to RZA
Release Date:  April 28, 2003
Producer:  RZA ("Ich Weiss" co-prod. by Jose Reynoso and "I've Never Seen" co-prod. by Xavier Naidoo and Michael Herberger)

Review:  For this Europe-exclusive release, RZA lends his name and production skills to over a dozen European emcees from different countries.  In theory, it's a great idea: take one of hip-hop's best producers and send him across the Atlantic to get verses from some of Europe's hottest rappers.  In practice, it's almost as great an idea, with a couple caveats.

The first thing to sort out is what we really get from this compilation.  With a title like The World According to RZA, one may expect team-ups of various rappers spanning the globe from Brazil to Russia, from China to Istanbul; beats akin to RZA's Ghost Dog score; guest spots from GZA and Inspectah Deck and Method Man; maybe one RZA verse per track.  What we get instead is 70 minutes of Bobby Digital-style beats from about 15 rappers exclusively from six countries in Western Europe, two RZA verses and guest spots from U-God and Ghostface Killah.  And that's not to say it's a bad record - it's actually really enjoyable and a very different part of RZA's plan for world domination than we usually hear.  It's just the title that throws us off, but then again I guess Western Europe Produced by Bobby Digital doesn't have the ring to it that The World According to RZA does.

Having said that, once the listener adjusts to the final product, it's actually a really good album. The artists come from...

Sweden (Feven, Petter)
Norway (Diaz)
France (Saian Supa Crew, Bams, Passi, Iam)
Germany (Curse, Nap, Xavier Naidoo, Afrob, Sekou, Fuat, Bektas, Germ)
England (Bronz n Blak, Blade, Skinnyman, Mr. Tibbs)
Italy (Frankie HI-NRG)

Enough of the lyrics are in Swedish, French, German and Italian that it's hard for me (a native English speaker) to pick up on too many favorite lines or rhymes, but some of the emcees sound especially at home over RZA's electronic-based beats throughout the record.  Feven, a Swedish female rapper, dominates on her track "Mesmerize" with lines like "See ya eyes bleedin' and envy Allah in Sweden / Britain Bahamans beamin' hatin' on my achievements, schemin'."  Swedish-speaking Petter has a bumping track that follows Feven, and the two team up with Diaz (who features solo on a later track) and RZA on "On tha Ground," over a very Wu-Tang-sounding beat with strings and vinyl pops.  It's one of the best early cases for the whole project.  Here, RZA has two brief verses between the rest of this Scandinavian crew.  RZA returns to do the hook on the following track, Diaz's "The North Seas."

Ghostface has a verse on Saian Supa Crew's "Saian," and U-God follows in an uncredited performance on Bams's "Please, Tends L'oreille," both of which would sound at home on The W or Iron Flag with their very uptempo "Gravel Pit"-esque music.  Curse's "Ich Weiss (On My Mind)" is another highlight musically and lyrically, blending the newer Wu sound with rapid-fire rhymes.  "Black Star Line-Up" samples Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake to provide the backdrop for some phat German- and English-language rap by Afrob and Sekou; and the last high point on the album comes in the form of the back-to-back songs from the English rappers Blade, Skinnyman and Mr. Tibbs on "Boing Boing" and Bronz n Blak on "Make Money, Money."

Without seeming to have a central place in any Wu general's career (lying just on the fringe of RZA's career six months before his next album, Birth of a Prince), The World According to RZA knows what it is - a great-sounding tour of European emcees corralled by RZA - and it does exactly what it sets out to do.  It's an entertaining and refreshing break from the usual New York-dominated Wu-Tang catalog that's perfect for frequent casual listening at home or while driving.  There's not as much to say about it as most steps taken on the Map of Shaolin, since 95% of the verses are from rappers not even remotely connected to the Wu besides their appearance on this album, but that's not a complaint.  These are top-notch hip-hoppers piquing in their own careers who earned spots on a RZA-produced compilation, and a series of beats somewhere between Digital Bullet and Ghost Dog to keep us nodding our heads along.  This is a confident and worldly 73-minute collection to add to your library that - while night and day from usual Wu outings - never wears out its welcome.  It's really a great album to hear, even if it doesn't immediately inspire a more lengthy discussion.

Legacy:  The World According to RZA foreshadowed the Wu-Tang-related compilation projects to follow over the next decade - like Dreddy Krueger's Think Differently: Wu-Tang Meets the Indie Culture, RZA's Afro Samurai soundtracks and the Wu-affiliate albums Chamber Music and Legendary Weapons.  Each have had their individual focuses (from Think Differently's hand-picked indie hip-hop acts and Legendary Weapons' and Chamber Music's use of live instruments by The Revelations) and this sets the stage: Europe's exploding rap industry.  Its striking talent and Wu-Tang seal of approval make it and the aforementioned comps resemble mixtapes made for the world by RZA, which is never a bad thing to hear while waiting between albums.

Recommended Tracks:  On tha Ground (Ft. Scandinavian All-Stars), Black Star Line-Up (Afrob & Sekou), Ich Weiss (Curse).

Next Week:  Inspectah Deck's The Movement, one of the main reasons I started The Map.  Give it a few listens before I review it next week, kids; it's an instant classic and every song on it is dope.

Step Twenty Three: GZA: Legend of the Liquid Sword.

Artist:  GZA
Title:  Legend of the Liquid Sword
Release Date:  December 10, 2002
Producers:  Arabian "Q-Base" Knight, et al.

Review:  Wow.  In terms of record labels, the Wu could not catch a break in 2002.  Loud Records, who put out every Wu-Tang album to date, was dissolving, and MCA Records made Legend of the Liquid Sword their next-to-last release before Geffen bought them out.

Legend of the Liquid Sword turns its namesake on its head immediately, offering a child's monologue about his father's journey - but instead of sampled dialogue from the classic film Shogun Assassin, a boy reads a script written by GZA about hip-hop.  The first proper song is "Auto Bio," detailing GZA's early days.  Its lively strings and staccato piano loop provide an ample background for The Genius's lyrics, which - surprising no one - are top-notch as always.  I've heard plenty of people declare that GZA is the best lyricist in the Wu, and I wouldn't argue against it.  Not to knock the other Wu generals, but the man has just never turned in the phoned-in verses that have plagued other rappers' careers.  I've always loved Wu's 1-2 combos of sharp couplets and GZA fires one off in his first verse, describing his subway commutes with RZA to hip-hop parties and clubs:  "Myself and RZA made trips to the BX / A mass of ferocious emcees and talent t-rex."

Next, GZA offers "Did Ya Say That?" It's a sequel of sorts to Liquid Swords' "Labels," the classic track that name-dropped record labels and described GZA's distaste with record companies' policies.  According to the lyrical interpretation at Rap Genius, it starts with a reference to a record promoter who tried to sue Wu-Tang and GZA for getting trampled on at a show by fans, but his case was thrown out by a judge: "The herds start stomping the promoters that be frontin' / They sue for Cash Rules but the courts they give 'em nothing."

Ghostface and Wu-affiliate Streetlife have guest verses on "Silent," which is a decent track but is followed by the much stronger "Knock, Knock."  Now here's my biggest problem with Legend of the Liquid Sword - I triple-checked my copy of this CD when I bought it to make sure I had the explicit version.  I do, and I know because Ghostface Killah drops an F-bomb in "Silent" and I'd also heard "shit" and the n-word several times up to this point.  So why then, why, why, WHY is the hook for "Knock, Knock" (and "Fam (Members Only)" which I'll get to later) censored?  I don't believe in "bad language."  I believe there are words that can offend other people, but if an artist wrote a "curse word" into a song, I want to hear it.  It's their intended representation of the song, right?  So apparently GZA intended to edit the hook here, leading to the awkwardly-silenced bits we used to hear when MTV played music videos.  "Knock knock, who the ... is bangin' at my door?  Is it abstract, commercial or hardcore?  Better know who the ... they lookin' for."  I want to hear "who the fuck is bangin' at my door?"  It's a hook that expresses the ballsy confidence I expect from one of the world's best emcees, so it's a shame it's cut out where it punches.

The best answer is the opening pair of lines:  "I'm the obscene slang kicker with no parental sticker / Advisin' y'all that wise words is much slicker."  Ok, I agree that sometimes we resort to "parental advisory" type words (aka cursing) because we don't know what else to say, but if that's the case Genius is making, why not ask Ghost not to say "fuck" in "Silent?"  And the album actually DOES have the parental advisory sticker in the top right, so...?  Not calling GZA a hypocrite by any means, just not feeling the arbitrary censorship.  Had he left the "fucks" in this track, it would be making the case that language is free and using profanity isn't the same as falling short of a good vocabulary.

Ok, beef aside, "Knock Knock" is still tight.  A great double entendre in the second verse reads, "I gift-wrap the sawed-off, the DJ pump it / March to the sounds of Armstrong's trumpet."  Concise lines like this encompass the place of hip-hop in culture, especially Wu-Tang.  GZA often tells us he wants his lyrics to enlighten and spread wisdom, so he uses the metaphor of his lyrics having the impact of a shotgun with music the DJ "pumps," but also embodying the spirit of classic Black-American culture by referencing Louis Armstrong as a fellow force of culture.

Unlike my thoughts on "Chrome Wheels," a great sung hook (by Santi White) sews together "Stay in Line," followed by some of the most "classic Wu" music on the album on "Animal Planet" - slow-paced, old-school soul sampled from Isaac Hayes.  Mathematics pokes his head up to produce "Fam (Members Only)," which would likely be my favorite track on the album but it's once again censored.  The odd thing is, n-words and "shit" are edited out here, though they weren't on "Silent."  RZA's and Masta Killa's appearances are great - RZA rhymes biological with "True-I-Master-Equality / God body be flowin' like chi energy inside your artery" and Masta Killa brings lyrics like "Prepare for the mic onslaught swift with the sword / Slick lord, holding my weight, homing abroad."  But here, not only are the curse words taken out, they're actually replaced with sound effects like in the classic Wu videos from Enter the Wu-Tang.  I had hoped the version of the same song on the Masta Killa mix The Next Chamber would be uncensored, but it appears to be lifted straight from this album (though it cuts out RZA's first verse).

Sporadically, there is plenty to love across the second half of the record.  On some tracks, though, it's minimal - a hook here, a beat there.  Having said that, if you don't raise the bar to the original Liquid Swords standard, it's more than listenable.  GZA continues to provide strong lyrics, some shining brighter than others; and the music has its ups and downs.  Here's a quick rundown of the next few tracks.

I could do without Anthony Allen's "Shaft"-like hook on the title track, but the music is the real standout here.  Descending staccato keyboard chords over full drums and the occasional orchestral fill help counteract things like the cartoonish "Gee...Zee...Ayyyyyy" moaned in the background.  "Fame" follows the tradition of wordplay based on specific groups of the entertainment industry.  On "Labels" it was name-dropping record labels; "Publicity" on Beneath the Surface listed magazines and here we get celebrities.  "Tom Cruised the boulevard, Chris Rocked the song..."  "Highway Robbery" features some great Jamaican-style hooks by Governor Two's but distracts with - yet again - censored lyrics.  "Mix that shhh, y'all niggas can't do shhh..."  Perhaps the most foreshadowing track on the album is DJ Muggs producing "Luminal," which likely led into their collaboration DJ Muggs and GZA: Grandmasters (review to come).  Lyrically its closest thematic cousin is "Cereal Killer" on Method and Red's Blackout!, detailing a murderer and his methodology.

"Sparring Minds" is like a sudden wake-up call with fantastic music by Arabian "Q-Base" Knight and a guest spot by Inspectah Deck.  Both emcees rock great rhymes on this track, too.  Inspectah Deck rhymes "Find out what I'm about, know the legend / The slight disrespect of his name provoke tension / Known threat, bringing the force like Boba Fett / The old vet whose presence alone control the set."  GZA closes with "I thought of this tune / On a blackout guided by the light of the moon / On a campout, the kerosene lamp out / To rewalk the road that we paved / With trails that left vinyl footsteps engraved."  Sadly, the album closes with two uninspiring tracks:  the only RZA-produced song on the album, "Rough Cut," only features GZA on the hook between verses by 12 O'Clock, Prodigal Sunn and Armel; whereas "What You Know About?" is GZA on vocals and production but doesn't hold a candle to the earlier tracks.

Legacy:  Legend of the Liquid Sword fares better than Beneath the Surface - but fails to live up to its namesake.  The grimy sounds and kung-fu samples from Liquid Swords are mostly absent here, and while The Genius proves his might as a lyricist once again, GZA's problem with finding producers to live up to his lyrics lives on throughout the record with a couple happy exceptions.  Released a full year after the alienating Iron Flag, GZA's Legend of the Liquid Sword was followed by the European-only The World According to RZA, meaning that the June 2003 release of Inspectah Deck's stellar sophomore album The Movement is the brightest spot on The Map since probably The W almost three years before it.

Recommended Tracks:  Fam (Members Only), Sparring Minds.