Album: A Better Tomorrow
Producer: RZA (except "Ruckus in B Minor" prod. by RZA and Rick Rubin, "40th St. Black / We Will Fight" and "Keep Watch" prod. by Mathematics, "Miracle" and "Necklace" prod. by 4th Disciple).
Review: Since we won't be reaching A Better Tomorrow on the Map of Shaolin until sometime next fall, I wanted to give a good quick look at it now, closer to its release, and touch more on its legacy once we get to it in 2015 and have had a chance for the reviews to roll in and for it to cement its place in Wu-Tang's legacy. For now, here's a track-by-track glimpse.
The best background to give is that in 2012, people started hyping up the 20th anniversary of Wu-Tang's debut album Enter the Wu-Tang and the Clan slowly, systematically came back together to bring out one more album. Unfortunately, there was some beef between Raekwon and RZA, with as many as two or three songs released from the album before Rae got involved. It likely came after several emcees initially blamed RZA for the poor public reception of the group's previous album, 8 Diagrams, which largely moved from samples and loops to live instruments. Even after releasing "Keep Watch," Raekwon Tweeted "Keep Dreaming," dissing the song and the project. They managed to squash their problems in time for the Chef to bring several verses to the album, and this is the result.
The first Wu album in seven years, A Better Tomorrow starts off with "Ruckus in B Minor," opening with a callback to Enter the Wu-Tang and hype lines from ODB before launching into a great first verse by Inspectah Deck. U-God follows, uptempo and on point: "Killa bees 20 years yeah we hold the pendant / On the cover of the magazine with my co-defendants." Cappadonna, Ghostface keep the track live before a slowed down lovely verse by GZA and an interlude by RZA. Method Man offers the hook (but don't worry - he'll be back for much more later) and the track ends with a solid - though admittedly "added in post-production" - verse split between Raekwon and Masta Killa. In other words? Every Wu general (including the quasi-official Cappadonna) makes an appearance to set the fuse.
"Felt" follows, a ponderous acoustic guitar-led remembrance of classic hip-hop. It's good to hear Masta Killa give a shout-out to "Protect Ya Neck," asking the listener to remember how s/he felt on his/her first listen. I like it because I saw an interview with him years ago in which he revealed that he dropped out of school after hearing "Protect Ya Neck" the first time, opting instead to work hard to get into Wu-Tang (only appearing on "Da Mystery of Chessboxin'" on Enter the Wu-Tang). Method Man airs his first verse here.
"40th Street Black / We Will Fight" is next. I definitely respect and appreciate the idea of the track, but the music (a high-speed brass-led march with a choir of vocals) sounds more like GI Joe than Wu-Tang. Fortunately, Masta Killa, Method Man and GZA turn in a hat trick of fast and furious verses to keep the track alive. Cappadonna holds his own, but still offers what I've always questioned about him: his rhymes are so loose and all over that some of it gets lost in translation. U-God and RZA pick up the slack after him and end it strong. I have a strange feeling that it will be the "Gravel Pit" of the album.
The fourth track is "Mistaken Identity," and by now it should be apparent that the musical direction of the album is an evolution of the live instruments on 8 Diagrams, frequently working better here than there. I don't think the electric guitar during Method Man's verse comes across as badass as intended, but the keys, drums and bass are more than competent. Streetlife guests, and although nobody outright sucks on the track, it's not my favorite, ending with a long 90-second musical outro (as does "Preacher's Daughter" later). Kung-fu samples are also back, at the end of several tracks from beginning to end.
"Hold the Heater" brings it back into focus with a phat sound and verses by all involved, sampling Johnny Mathis's version of "Come to Me." This is the fifth straight track to feature both Method Man and Masta Killa, though that streak is broken next by "Crushed Egos," which is essentially the featured solo Raekwon track (with a hook and third verse by RZA). The music on "Crushed Egos" would sound just as comfortable on records by Portishead, Nancy Sinatra or The Revelations. Though it's the second track to feature Raekwon that sounds like it was recorded separately from the rest of the album, I still have to say "Better late Chef than no Chef." It's a solid track, no denying it.
"Keep Watch" was released months before the album, and some have badmouthed Nathaniel's hook, but Method Man lights the track off so lovely it's hard to see much else. "Too much marijuana's got me p-noid / I'm killing instrumentals with that 'All So Simple Can It B'-Boy," twisting up the title of their track "Can It Be All So Simple." Meth is as tight a lyricist as he's been the last 20+ years. Inspectah Deck brings some classic Wu slang too: "Trying to Break Bad, you catch bad breaks / Like I own a bake shop how I stack cakes." Cappadonna's rhymes are tight too, leading into another wise verse by GZA, whose rhymes speak so much about astronomy, light and energy that I hope he hasn't absorbed his project Dark Matter into this album. Only time will tell.
"Miracle" will be the song that divides fans on this album. The opening music and sung hook sound straight from a book of showtunes, with solemn swelling strings played by RZA and melodramatic vocals. Luckily, hip-hop drums set in and Deck brings it back down to earth. By the time we hear the hook again, this time in context, it makes much more sense. I'm actually fine with it (and the smooth verses by Masta Killa, Raekwon and Ghostface) with the exception of the end, at which point the vocals turn a bit nu-metal, belting the hook out with an extra bar of music between each line. It comes across as questionable as Evanescence or latter-day Killswitch Engage, but fortunately it doesn't ruin the whole track.
"Preacher's Daughter" genderbends "Son of a Preacher Man," with the music made livelier by fuller drums and bigger horns. "The only girl that could ever please me / Was the daughter of a preacher man." Method Man, Masta Killa, Cappadonna and Ghostface offer verses about their imagined preacher's daughter girlfriends, but although it's a great track, it ends with nearly two full minutes of music, which is just a bit too long.
"Pioneer the Frontier" may be the most Wu-sounding track on the record. Dark and grimy like The W, with instrument and ODB samples from Enter the Wu-Tang, RZA growls the first verse over kick-kick-snare drums and bad guy horns. U-God comes back for the first time in several songs to kill it: "Watch how the pitbull lock his jaws then lock ya doors / Feds watch the boards, hip-hop spills out my pores." Deck brings the third verse and Masta Killa closes it in his classic evasive style. It's just a solid damn track any way you listen.
For only the second time on the album (?!) Raekwon has a verse that doesn't sound recorded separately on "Necklace," which is another great dark-sounding Wu-Tang song. And he brings his solid busy rhymes with him - "I keep my neck frozen, .45 loaded, please don't approach this / Rope is so ferocious, diamonds that shine in oceans." The echoing drums and flanged guitar chords and gun foley sounds complement Ghostface's and GZA's verses well.
RZA wisely dropped the hook from the beginning of "Ron O'Neal," launching straight into Method Man's verse instead. When the song debuted on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, it got off to a slow start like "Miracle" does here with its sung hook, here performed by Nathaniel (of "Keep Watch"). Spy movie guitar and funk back the track, energetically charging subsequent verses by Deck, Ghost and RZA, and hype lines by Masta Killa. RZA's verses on "Ron O'Neal" and "Crushed Egos" sound tighter and more intelligent than anything recently on the Map (especially his outings as Bobby Digital), so it's a huge relief to know that he had a lot more to do on the mic.
The title track opens with the album's clear hero, Method Man, over jazzy soul piano, building to a crescendo and Masta Killa's verse, also sampling Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes' "Wake Up Everybody." It's a bright, optimistic track whose music and hook could've closed Jackie Brown or had a home in Bobby Womack's discography. Raekwon pops in his rhymes about police brutality, citing Malcolm X along the way. It may be the type of rap your parents could get behind, but that doesn't make it a bad track.
"Never Let Go" takes a similar approach, sampling the "I Have a Dream" speech by Martin Luther King over jazz drums and trumpet. Masta Killa, probably more prolific here than any other Wu album, sets it off and leads GZA, Method Man, Inspectah Deck, U-God and RZA through the track. Bass guitar, piano, more horns and keys all come in early on. Admittedly, it fumbles a bit, the instrumentals sounding more like a jam - and the hook only appearing after the fourth and sixth verses.
Finally, "Wu-Tang Reunion" (formerly "Family Reunion") closes, envisioning the humble days of yesteryear, kids playing in the backyard and barbecue on the grill, heavily sampling the O'Jays song of the same name. Masta Killa, Method Man and Ghostface take turns with whimsical rhymes of their hometowns. It's a good "end credits" style song, but it leaves me with a question. I'm 99% certain I remember feeling let down after reading one of the Wu generals say that he knew when RZA released "Family Reunion" over a year ago, it wasn't meant to be a "real/new" Wu-Tang song, but more of a stop-gap between albums. I wish I had the article on hand where I read that, but I don't. I kinda hesitate even to mention it, but I wouldn't unless I were so nearly positive. If that's the case, though, why is it the closer on A Better Tomorrow?
So how does it all end? On the one hand, we've heard for years that once RZA released ABT, he'd probably hang up the mic and only produce from now on; it also took such an effort to get this out that it's been almost a given that it's Wu-Tang's last album - with emcees using phrases like "one last time" to describe the writing process. There was the beef between RZA and Raekwon, the Sisyphean ordeal of actually putting the album out, the the much-promised but ever-so-slight "unreleased Ol' Dirty vocals" on the album and the divisive tracks like "Miracle." Then again, some of the verses are as tight as Wu-Tang have ever sounded, Method Man and Masta Killa take charge throughout the record, RZA's focus on live instruments is now a fully-realized and mostly-excellent dream, and the Clan still sound like they're all in together now. Despite a couple hiccups, A Better Tomorrow is a really good album. I have no doubt we'll see plenty of solo records from the Wu in years to come, but if ABT is their swan song, it's at least a B+ graded testament that Wu-Tang is indeed forever. And that can be good enough.
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