Album: No Said Date
Release Date: June 1, 2004
Producer: Allah Mathematics, True Master, RZA.
Review: With a bit of turbulence in the early 2000s for the Wu, it's my sincere pleasure to discuss Masta Killa's debut LP, No Said Date. RZA let me down a bit with Birth of a Prince, and Method Man's Tical 0 left a lot to be desired, but the entire Wu-Tang Clan come back into razor-sharp focus on this June 2004 record. There are so many high points it's hard to select few enough to fit into a review, but I'll do my best.
The album starts with a dialogue sample from the kung-fu classic Five Deadly Venoms, about a martial arts student who tracks down his master's former pupils who have gone off on their own, potentially doing evil with their skills. There's no more fitting theme for the Wu, who - according to some critics by this point - had dropped the crown. And despite releasing a full decade after Method Man kicked off the solo Wu catalog with Tical in 1994, No Said Date is as classic a Wu album as any pre-Forever debut. Its closest cousin is probably Liquid Swords with the grimy funk and kung-fu film samples and sheer hungry talent poured into the mic from front to back. The spark is simply set by the Five Deadly Venoms sample.
Then, this latest-blooming and most mysterious Wu general lights off with "Grab the Mic," which is one of those rare hip-hop tracks so smooth you can barely tell when it dips into and out of its hook. It's as much a quick-fire mantra or poem as it is a rap track. Even when it does, MK doesn't want to let the listener off that easy: instead, he leaves words out and expects us to stretch our imagination to fill in the blanks: "Drop that shit that make you get... / Down on ya face with a gun to your... / Ladies in the club, they frontin' like..."
The music behind is sexy, bass guitar-filled and a great opener. It paves way for the urgent title track (produced by RZA), which is the latest possible point you can be excused for stopping and trying to understand the insane flow of Masta Killa's lyrics. The most fascinating thing about Masta Killa is how he endlessly sounds as though the beat is about to get the better of him, but he always escapes it. His style is like Jeet Kune Do (more on Bruce Lee later). In this track, though, there are so many rhymes thrown around like a Jackson Pollack painting as to almost seem random, but they all come together in an oddly satisfying way. Here are a few lines from this woodwind-led track for you to wrap your head around. Keep up with the rhymes; they're all over the place.
"Legend of Brooklyn, master craftsman
'Lord, when you droppin'?' - No said date
Thought premeditated, well-calculated
The air's been tested, the people can't wait
So ahh we agreed to send one, to swim from lost and found
See, truth be the life preserver we can't drown
Drunk with the victory, the Wu cavalry
Bomb the seminar, the last hoorah for chivalry
Classical Yo-Yo Ma, laced in the bulletproof fabric
Crafted and mastered in space
What better place of birth than the Earth when a star is born?"
So he rhymes the album title "No Said Date" with "people can't wait," but in between there's a one-two combo of "premeditated, well-calculated." Then he rhymes "lost and found" with "we can't drown" followed immediately by the similar sounds of victory, cavalry and chivalry before name-dropping classical cellist Yo-Yo Ma and making a threepeat rhyme of fabric, crafted and mastered. Those may sound familiar because they ring back to the beginning of the selection with "master craftsman" about eight lines earlier. It closes with the line ending "in space" coupling with the middle of the next line "better place" and the quick turnaround of "birth" and "the earth." It's enough to make your head spin but it flows effortlessly from Masta Killa's notebook. The meaning of the verse itself details the highest aspirations of the Wu: to take any listeners of their music and deliver them from any restless places in their lives ("to swim from lost and found") with the Wu's stories ("truth be the life preserver we can't drown") to a better place.
We get a chance to breathe with the more laid-back but still great "Last Drink" and "Love Spell" before the album's second skit, "The Future." It's cool to hear a couple actual children from the Wu family shine, giving the impression that Wu is no single-generation flash-in-the-pan, but it neither amps up nor detracts from the rest of the album. It isn't until the seventh track, "D.T.D." (Do the Dance) that Masta Killa lets any Wu guest spots share the spotlight, and he kicks them off with the legendary duo of Raekwon and Ghostface Killah. MK starts the track with tongue twisting thoughts ("Cherry cream glean, leather seats lean / Goose in the canteen, dutch leaf green") before Raekwon answers in kind with tight lines like "Radioactive roll that accurate, what? / Roll that backward, flow went back / I stand as a man, the gameplan repped your name / The greatest fam we play in the sand."
The song that really got me into the album is "Whatever," featuring Streetlife (whose many appearances on Method Man's albums long ago earned him a place in the Wu family) and Prodigal Sunn (of Sunz of Man). Its upbeat brass and addictive verses (brought to us by Mathematics, who also produced "D.T.D." and "Last Drink") deliver from the first line (Streetlife's "I got the drop on you don't flinch / Pop niggas like John Lynch") to the last (MK's "Ghetto life had to rough up in the housing / They only make 'em like us every 25,000"). There are rooster calls and braggadocious hooks ("We all in this together, forever and ever, down for whatever, whenever") and it's just a blast every second of the way.
Method Man appears for a solid verse and to help hype MK and a verse by Killah Priest on "Secret Rivals," which offers a hell of a drumbeat. It's said that Masta Killa narrowly beat Killah Priest out for the ninth spot in Wu-Tang back in 1992, so it's good to hear them complementing each other so well here. The last skit on the album (another quick kung-fu sample to keep the motif from "Born Chamber" and the intro to "Last Drink" as well as the upcoming "Masta Killa") precedes the only lukewarm song on the album, "Digi Warfare," which features U-God and RZA on backing vocals. It would've been great to hear U-God do a proper verse on "School" or "Silverbacks," but the album still hasn't disappointed so far.
And if you're afraid those are the only tricks No Said Date has up its sleeve? "Old Man" features Ol' Dirty Bastard, in his final performance before his death, repeatedly trying to order a Big Mac in-character as Fred Sanford (missing ingredients, calling someone a "big dummy") - and the song is based on the theme from Sanford and Son, with Dirt doing an instrument line a cappella ("Dun dun dun DUN daaaaaa..."). It's RZA's second production effort on the album (the third being the darker "School") and it's a fun laugh with killer verses - RZA raps "My daily toil is to protect the Earth so the seeds won't spoil / Your Frankenstein-type mind like Peter Boyle."
Speaking of RZA's lyrics, he's more on point than he has been in years on "School." Check it:
"Phat shoelaces and tri-colored sneakers
I stood like a man then I questioned my teacher
'Why don't we speak about the wisdom of the sages?
And how did Europe black out in the dark ages?
And when they got the light did they whitewash the pages?
And the Inquisition - Why was Christians thrown in cages?'"
The A-game brought by other Wu-Tang members ends successfully on the airtight "Silverbacks" featuring Inspectah Deck and GZA spitting masterful rhymes over flanged guitars, wavy keys and thick drums. "Silverbacks" has music by True Master, who also produced "Secret Rivals" and "Queen" on this album. It's interesting to note that the three most common producers (Allah Mathematics, True Master and RZA) on No Said Date are also responsible for the vast majority of Wu-Tang's highest-selling album, Wu-Tang Forever. It shows in the consistency of the album, being both listenable and unmistakable.
The album closes with the Chinese-influenced "Masta Killa," which finds the artist making classic analogies between lyricism and martial arts, sprinkled with Bruce Lee quotes about being as adaptable as water is to its container. The music features traditional-sounding Chinese vocals and a zheng (a tabled Asian stringed instrument) in a pretty perfectly-balanced realization of hip-hop and Wu-Tang's Eastern roots.
In short? What an album. What a fucking album.
Legacy: In the midst of some of the wildest ups and downs the Clan has seen, Masta Killa released his debut 10 years after the first solo Wu release (Tical) and five years after the previous solo Wu debuts (Uncontrolled Substance and Golden Arms Redemption). There are classic chronological milestones there (not to mention the final living performance by Ol' Dirty Bastard), but more than anything, No Said Date is a call to the Wu to return to their roots, as is evidenced by the samples, sounds, guest spots and overall feel of the album. It's criminally underrated besides the fact, and sheds a bit of light on one of the least-known Wu generals. It's a great sign that in the middle of some rocky times (Cappadonna and U-God were both about to have major fall-outs with the group), the Wu can still bring classic albums with maximum ease. No Said Date and Inspectah Deck's Uncontrolled Substance are two of the albums that made me want to pursue Map of Shaolin in the first place, so I can't stress enough how badly you need both in your library. No Said Date is an oasis in the midst of some of the least impressive albums in the band's catalog (Tical 0 we already discussed, but Mr. Xcitement and Ghostdini are tough pills to swallow as well), so enjoy and take it as evidence that Wu-Tang is forever.
Recommended Tracks: Listen to this entire album as soon as possible. But here are some I really love: Whatever, Grab the Mic, Old Man, Silverbacks.
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