Album: Think Differently Music: Wu-Tang Clan Meets the Indie Culture
Release Date: October 18, 2005
Producers: Bronze Nazareth, Preservation, et al.
Review/Breakdown: In an uncertain time for the Wu, following largely negative reviews for U-God's Mr. Xcitement and Method Man's Tical 0 but serious bangers like Inspectah Deck's The Movement and Masta Killa's No Said Date, the project Think Differently Music: Wu-Tang Meets the Indie Culture emerged, leaving more questions than answers. It's a solid listen for the most part, put together largely by Bronze Nazareth (who previously produced two tracks on RZA's Birth of a Prince after being picked up by Cilvaringz in 2001) and Dreddy Krueger. The idea is to throw away pop-structured rap and get back to long tracks, ensemble songs with no hooks and so on - all featuring Wu-Tang affiliates and hand-picked underground hip-hop emcees. So where the Hell did they all come from and how did the album end up with the cast list it did? It's a bit of a maze, so stick with me. Here's what's up.
This compilation kicks off with "Lyrical Swords" by GZA and Ras Kass. Bronze Nazareth produces, and it sounds excellently disjointed - like every half-beat was copy-pasted together. Horns are cut off before the end of their notes, or enter later than their initial blow. The same goes for the percussion loop. Somehow it still stays focused and makes sense. GZA's lyrics never fail and here he's no different. Ras Kass takes the second verse, his affiliation with Wu-Tang dating back to a guest spot by RZA on Ras's 1998 sophomore album Rasassination.
"Slow Blues" is a head-nodding blues-rock/rap hybrid with Vast Aire, Byata, Timbo King (part of Royal Fam with Dreddy Krueger; Royal Fam appeared on the Ghost Dog soundtrack) and Prodigal Sunn (of Sunz of Man). The music is great, a slow kick-kick-snare drumbeat with harmonica, electric guitar and shrill keys backing it. Solid track besides an awkward bar after Byata's verse that lingers before introducing Timbo King, and Prodigal Sunn outshines the others a bit.
Prodigal Sunn brings another solid verse on the following track, "Still Grimey," with U-God, Sean Price and C-Rayz Walz. Of course U-God is a Wu general and Prodigal Sunn is in Sunz of Man, but C-Rayz Walz seems to have come up as a name affiliated with Vast Aire (from the previous track), guesting on an album by Vast Aire's group Cannibal Ox. It's a decent track, but not my favorite. There's nothing wrong with Preservation's production, but it doesn't stick out to me the way the first two songs did.
After a quick skit, another ensemble assembles to take the stage on the title track "Think Differently." First up is Casual (who may have crossed paths with RZA on the previous year's Handsome Boy Modeling School album White People and is a longtime collaborator with Del the Funky Homosapien, who appears on Think Differently later on). Tragedy Khadafi is an old name in hip-hop, working with Marley Marl, Pete Rock, Jedi Mind Tricks and others. Roc(k) Marciano spits third and kills it with an incredibly intricate verse. Marciano was a member of Busta Rhymes' crew Flipmode Squad back in the day and shared space with Ghostface Killah and Raekwon on the track "The Heist" on Busta's 2000 album Anarchy. Finally, Vordul Mega (partners with Vast Aire in Cannibal Ox) rhymes, referencing Nine Inch Nails along the way.
Jim Jarmusch, still on friendly terms with RZA since they collaborated on Ghost Dog, narrates two commercial-sounding skits on the album. The first leads into the only RZA-produced track on the album, "Biochemical Equation," which features verses by RZA and MF Doom. Doom is a fascinating figure and deserves a running blog of his own, but for now it's noteworthy that this is Doom's first crossover with Wu-Tang, appearing next as a producer on Ghostface Killah's Fishscale in 2006 (although all four songs he produces are based on previous Doom beats). Both artists bring solid verses to the track, and some of Doom's charmingly silly style rubs off on RZA. For example, at one point RZA rhymes "The reason why I pulled you over? / 'Cuz the way you were swerving, sir, you can't be sober." It reminds me of a rhyme on Doom's album Vaudeville Villain where he says to a cop "Uh, it's really none of your business what I'm doing with the knife, sir..." Doom's tongue-twister reputation remains untarnished here, too, with couplets like "You're soft, they say he rhyme like he's starvin' / And sold odds and bodkins to old gods and goblins."
DJ Noize scratches and samples a tribute to Ol' Dirty Bastard, the first on-record mention of ODB's death. It features interview clips, bits of music and lyrics from across the board and a sample of Richard Pryor talking about mourning for the dead. It works, but I'm a lot fonder of the tribute songs to come on subsequent albums - Raekwon's "Ason Jones," Wu-Tang's "Life Changes" and so on.
Del the Funky Homosapien performs the awkward track "Fragments." He sings note-for-note, Hendrix style, along to the music for the hook - which wouldn't be a problem except the beat is so malformed by itself that his accompaniment only makes it stand out more. It's really weird, because Bronze Nazareth's music on every other track ("Lyrical Swords," "Slow Blues," "Think Differently" and the upcoming "Street Corners," "Listen" and "Black Dawn") is fantastic. It ranges from blaxploitation film music to soul and classic RZA-style Wu-beats. Del, likewise, is an awesome lyricist (his album Both Sides of the Brain is a classic and he performed the verses on the explosive Gorillaz debut "Clint Eastwood") but he does better on his next track.
Bronze Nazareth's first vocal appearance is on the first verse of the old-school-inspired "Street Corners" and he holds his own next to Solomon Childs (formerly of Ghostface's offshoot group Theodore Unit, who released their debut album 718 in 2004) and Byata (who also had a verse earlier on "Slow Blues"). It's a slow jam that could've had a comfortable home on the Ghost Dog soundtrack.
Quick recess. If your head's spinning from all the associations, links and back stories of the contributing artists on this record already, I don't blame you. I personally find it fascinating to see the crossroads and histories of albums come together, and one that's so personnel-heavy as Think Differently Music demands some explanation, hence the footnotes so far. At the same time, you may notice that so far this is almost exclusively extended Wu-Tang family members working with the indie rappers like Cannibal Ox, Byata and so on. If there's one real beef I have with this record, that's it. GZA is on two tracks, RZA is on one, U-God is on another and there are some samples on the ODB tribute from the main group, but the subtitle Wu-Tang Meets the Indie Culture is a bit misleading. "Street Corners" sounds like an ideal beat for Masta Killa and the upcoming "Listen" is perfectly upbeat for an emcee like Inspectah Deck or Method Man, even sounding like something from INS's 2006 The Resident Patient or Method and Red's Blackout!. As it stands, anyone who may have bought the album without closely examining the tracklist on the back likely missed that the core members of Wu-Tang only appear on four of the album's 19 tracks.
Mobb Deep manager Littles performs with Khalid and Planet Asia (who collaborated with Ghostface Killah on his 2004 album The Grand Opening) on "Listen," with a classic RZA-style beat that could've easily blended in on anything from Cuban Linx... to Supreme Clientele. It's another great track that helps rinse out the sour taste of "Fragments."
Next up is the second collaboration between Ras Kass and GZA, "Verses," which also features La the Darkman (who co-wrote "Walk the Dogs" with Royal Fam on the Ghost Dog soundtrack) and Scaramanga Shallah, often known as Kool Keith's protege. Its quick looped keys and soul strings are right at home with the aggressive verses by all four rappers. Props to Ras Kass for devoting much of his verse to calling out the George W. Bush administration's links to Halliburton and their role in the world economy.
Preservation makes up for any of the misgivings from "Still Grimey" with the bawdy jazz piano and horns on "Preservation," making room for Aesop Rock and Del the Funky Homosapien to slay the listener. Del also redeems himself for "Fragments" on this track. Aesop sets it off with "Riff raff, alley, when I boom slang, drip draft / Venom with a new twang, same swagger, new thang" and Del returns the volley later with the airtight "Map your route, 'cuz Aesop is absolute / Del? He practice shoot basket hoops, capture fools with lasso hoops."
CCF Division (featured on RZA's Birth of a Prince) bring the most explicitly gangsta rap-sounding "Cars on the Interstate," produced by longtime Wu producer Mathematics. Decent track, but nothing to write home about.
On the other hand, R.A. the Rugged Man and J-Live perform on "Give It Up," and R.A.'s verse is some of the most intricate and mind-bending rap I've ever heard. Here are a couple samples. First he sets the scene of himself watching sexploitation films before they get him for the song:
"Give it up, bust you up, no fuss, blood gush
Cuss much, Russ Meyer bust nuts, crunch crush
Guts bust, what's what? The white King Tut
Out in Suffolk, look who they dug up, yup it's the Rugged."
Then he addresses how fans react to the crazy rumors and stories about him (his mental illness, violent heritage etc):
"Pamphlets from the '80s, library, lies buried
TV tells lies visually, kid you with me?
Hostility, humility, 'Hillbilly gorilla, he mentally ill, he silly
Is he actually? Will he kill me really?'"
...before closing with the same extended metaphor of himself and grindhouse films:
"Ammunition spittin' isn't missin', ain't you listenin'?
Slithering, ridden in sin, slipping, sin-delivering
I'm sicken it with sin and sizzlin' rhythm, verbally hit 'em
'Did he did it or did he didn't admit it?'
Pretend he ain't offending the men and women
Every minute he in it
Only every illiterate ignorant critic will diss it
Every idiot that ain't live it, they talkin' shit
I'm RA the Rugged Man, get off my dick."
It's the type of high-speed linguistic pattern that has to be heard to be believed, like the chanting of a possessed man. Of course J-Live is nothing to scoff at either, but there's just no following that Rugged Man verse.
Bronze Nazareth closes with "Black Dawn," rapping and producing.
Legacy: Think Differently Music: Wu-Tang Meets the Indie Culture is a very listenable compilation mostly put together with extended Wu affiliates and indie rappers. It shows that the Wu haven't forgotten where they came from and are willing to give the spotlight up to other emcees struggling to make a career. Most of the rappers here didn't feature again on future Wu compilations aside from obvious second-gen Wu family like Sunz of Man's Prodigal Sunn (Sean Price and Roc Marciano are the exceptions).
This did help further Bronze Nazareth's career though, producing later for Masta Killa, GZA, Raekwon and 60 Second Assassin. He also started the group Wisemen, whose second album featured guest appearances from both Raekwon and Planet Asia. Killah Priest started the group Almighty that has included contributors from this compilation like Bronze Nazareth, C-Rayz Walz and Planet Asia.
Dreddy Krueger has since become an A&R rep for many of the core members of Wu-Tang and releasing a double-disc Wu-family compilation called Wu-Tang: The Lost Anthology in 2007. He also released a dubstep remix of this album - which is not only not a part of the Map, but also something we'll just pretend never happened.
Recommended Tracks: Lyrical Swords, Slow Blues, Preservation, Give It Up.
How's that Lost Anthology?
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