Step Seventy: Method Man: The Meth Lab.

Note:  This look at Method Man's new album The Meth Lab is the final weekly entry for Map of Shaolin.  We'll continue to cover new Wu-general albums at their times of release, but since we're all caught up on the 22-year history of the Wu-Tang Clan, this is it for awhile.  If you've liked what you've read, please like us on Facebook and think about buying one of my books on Amazon.  I'm jonny Lupsha, Wu-Tang is forever and thanks for reading.

Artist:  Method Man
Album:  The Meth Lab
Producers:  Pascal Zumaque, 4th Disciple, Allah Mathematics, etc.
Release Date:  August 21, 2015

Review:  Method Man has been advertising his solo album Crystal Meth since at least Blackout! 2, so it's a bit surprising that nine years after his last solo album, 4:21 The Day After, we ended up getting this project instead - The Meth Lab, whose heavy focus on guests and co-stars lends it an air of a 'Meth and Co. Mixtape' than a new standalone solo record.  But having said that...it's a pretty solid album and all the talent on it hold their own against the Ticallion Stallion, one of the slickest emcees on Earth.  Heading up the cast (aside from Meth of course), Hanz On appears on 10 of the album's tracks and Streetlife appears on nine, with Carlton Fisk clocking three appearances.

The Meth Lab kicks off with its title track, which took some growing on me.  It's a good opener, but not the weird punches in the face like "Tical" or "Perfect World" were, which started Tical and Tical 2000, respectively.  Up next is the much more favorable "Straight Gutta," with help from Redman and a tight verse from Streetlife.  It may be 20 years on since his first solo record, but Mr. Mef can still shut 'em down with lines like "I'll be gone 'til November, cry me a river / You could die, but I figure I'ma try and be the bigger man / I and my gorillas, gonna fry 'em up for dinner / Like them boys in Cypress Hill said, 'How I could just kill a man.'"  It's good to hear him juggling the two rhyming sounds - river, figure, bigger, gorillas, dinner and "kill a" vs. using "man" at the end of every other line.  And yeah, "man" is the same word twice over, but by making it "bigger man" and "kill a man," the implied bit is extended to the two words that "man" is paired with, so he pulls it off.  Or at least I think so.

"Bang Zoom" dials back the fury a bit for a chiller track with a grooving hook by Easy Get Rite, while "50 Shots" has a Miami-sounding guitar and really laid-back sound.  As I mentioned in the quick review, I love Meth's opening line here - "Y'all don't get the picture before we focus / Facts, look who back, crooked like scoliosis."  It's got an almost DOOM-level humor to it and works a killer double meaning.

Long-time Wu disciple Allah Mathematics produces two back-to-back songs here, "The Pledge" and "2 Minutes of Your Time."  The two balance each other out; "The Pledge" is performed by Hanz On and Streetlife without Method Man at all, then "2 Minutes of Your Time" is one of the only tracks rapped by Meth on his own.  The beat on the former is grimier, while on the latter there's more of a '70s film influence.  "Worldwide" follows, with a great gangsta beat by Pascal Zumaque (who also brought us "50 Shots" a few minutes ago).  It may be Method Man's best verse so far, with his signature untouchable flow - "These rappers rap backwards, I don't rap with them rap dudes / 2pac backwards, pull that ratchet and cap 2."  Later he has an amazing set of lyrics that juggle enough rhymes to shut the hardest critics up.  Check the bold and underlined words for those sick rhymes planted throughout this stanza - "What would Shaq do?  Go harder in the paint / Slap you like a barber / Or the sixth man, thinkin' he's a starter when he ain't / I'm a sick man, but you're smarter than you think / And it's a thin line between the driver and the robber in the bank."  Crazy awesome.

"Soundcheck" is my least favorite track, through nobody's fault, really.  For some reason the rock guitar doesn't work for me.  It sounds more like that video game rock of yesteryear that wasn't half as hard as it intended, which is weird because it's the third Pascal Zumaque-produced track and I love his other two beats.  He's a really good producer but this joint just falls flat for me.  Fortunately, Zumaque's beat on "Water" washes the taste out of your mouth - no pun intended.  This slower jam has a good descending piano line and a darker feel to it.  Meth is relaxed and in control of his rhymes and, for once, I actually like the pitch-lowered vocal tone used on the hook.  Chedda Bang kinda sings and kinda raps his verse, which is smooth but not overly quotable.  It's a good recovery from "Soundcheck," as is "Lifestyles" just after it.

"Lifestyles" puts Zumaque at a four-out-of-five ratio for me up to this point.  It's another great chill beat, brighter than "Water" with another sunset-driving-near-the-beach sound I've been noticing a lot in recent months on The Map.  It's weird how well the rappers here (Cardi, Freaky Marciano and Easy Get Rite) hold their own without Method Man present at all.  When I preordered my copy of The Meth Lab, this was one of the tracks that came with it before its release and I enjoyed it more than I thought I should since it lacks its main rapper.  Freaky Marciano brings a good "lonely at the top" hook a la Eminem's Recovery between Cardi's and Easy Get Rite's verses.

But I have to admit, my favorite seven minutes on the album is the pairing of "The Purple Tape" (ft. Raekwon and Inspectah Deck) and "Intelligent Meth" (ft. Masta Killa, Streetlife and iNTeLL).  "The Purple Tape" may be my favorite beat on the record, charging and engaging with low piano chords and a kick-kick-snare pattern on the drums, produced by J57.  Occasionally, a wild ascending piano riff comes in like something off a video game soundtrack, but unlike "Soundcheck" it's a brilliantly curious "emulating Victorian England" sound reminiscent of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night or Rayark's music games Cytus or Deemo.  Coupled with the short vocal sample, huge bass and slick verses by Meth, Rae and Deck, it's a real winner.  Meth sticks with one rhyme sound for most of his 16 bars, which is impressive, but the flow is even better:  "Lace your boots up, tracks get looped up / The chocolate deluxe gets scooped up, all my pigeons is cooped up / Wu's up, w's up / If y'all ain't with us chuck a deuce up, and let us do us."  Raekwon hits the ground running and doesn't seem to take a breath his whole verse, with his trademark slang style - "Lab with the pole she slide down, I'm in the basement countin' faces / Drunk on the slouch, count the spaceships / Jewelry to my kneecaps, breathe stacks, ho's and sleestaks / HSBC see me gettin' G-packs, herringbones and stones in 'em."  Deck makes a bold changes the rhyme scheme from his usual style.  Where he usually bounces to the end of each line, here he frequently uses two rhymes per line, unrelated to the next line.  And they go inside out, so it's not just two short lines back-to-back.  Here's an example, with one rhyme set in bold and the other underlined.  "The upset talking, I'm 'yes y'all'ing for checks, bossin' the set, you actin' like my ex calling."  If that doesn't convince you, this may: "I dazzle like a magic trick, fabulous swordsmen, sorta like abortion I ain't havin' it."  It's the type of brilliant, odd-flow shit that Masta Killa or Cappadonna would do, but Deck can pull it off really well also.

As I said, next up is "Intelligent Meth."  It kicks off with iNTeLL, who's U-God's real-life son.  iNTeLL can really rhyme, too, and with a style that's partly similar and partly different from his father.  Where as U-God frequently uses his rhymes twice per line, or breaks his lines in half if you look at it that way, iNTeLL uses a similar method on a few lines but leaves less of a breather between the two halves of each line.  He fills each line to bursting before the fourth beat, usually letting it hang alone instead of leaving a gap in the middle and the end like U-God.  It reminds me a lot of Phi Life Cypher's work, especially their collaborations with Gorillaz.  Anyway, he's followed by Method Man and Masta Killa, who sound as good together here as they did on A Better Tomorrow last December.  Masta Killa's verse is smoky and mysterious, representing how he's refined his style over the last 10 years since No Said Date.  He sounds sharper and darker here than his most recent outing, his new single "Return of the Masta Kill," with lines like "Seeing son in my hood, it ain't all sweet / And you haven't earned the respect of those who come, creep and take money / So you just some food that niggas eat / And they don't get no chain back / You might see 'em rocking that / Fuck you looking at?  Problem needs solving / You see that big 357 thing revolving."

As I said in my preview of The Meth Lab, I'm not crazy about "What You Getting Into."  The beat is phat and the verses flow slow and easy like molasses (in a good way), but the hook tries to sound aloof but comes across annoyed.  Fortunately, the last three songs are pretty good overall.  "Another Winter" has a killer Wu beat by 4th Disciple with piqued drums, orchestral stabs and wah-wah guitar.  It helps Meth, Hanz On, Streetlife and Carlton Fisk along the way, and you gotta love a posse hook.  I'm also a bit of a sucker for piano in hip-hop (so long as both are on point) so "Rain All Day" is all smiles for me.  Its beat could find a good home on Tical 2000, which I think is pretty underrated, and Hanz On has some good lines like "Caught without your weapons it gets ugly in a second / Sidearms hover like we bought 'em from The Jetsons."  Then "So Staten" I have to stick with my first impressions:  Solid verses (lyrics and music both) but the hook changes it up so much it really throws me.  It feels like it drains the energy from the rest of the song.

So The Meth Lab is a solid listen but it's not perfect.  As it is, it sits around the middle of the Method Man pile for me.  It's much better than Tical 0 (but what isn't) and Blackout! 2, about on par with 4:21 The Day After (although this keeps my interest a bit more easily) but falls short of Tical, Tical 2000 and the first Blackout!.  Aside from having a voice that's really similar to Ghostface Killah, Hanz On is good company for Method Man, and Meth's longtime collaborator Streetlife is always a competent (if not legendary) emcee.  Having three Wu generals in the middle of the album is a good refresher if you get down on a couple of the lesser tracks ("Soundcheck," "What You Getting Into") but I'd say it's worth the cash and there are a lot of really tight tracks.  It wavers between "good" and "great" for most of its hour and is a welcome addition (and final regular step) on the Map of Shaolin.

Recommended Tracks:  Straight Gutta, Worldwide, The Purple Tape, Another Winter.

Thanks.

Frequently Asked Questions.

We're at the end of our weekly 18-month run, so I wanted to take this last moment to answer some of the most common questions I get from the three people who have contacted me about it.

Why did you start doing this blog?

My first exposures to Wu-Tang Clan were in 1996 or 1997.  Before Wu-Tang Forever came out, our local record store got some promo cassettes to give to fans to promote it and I tried one out.  I knew it was unlike anything I'd heard, even though I'd hardly listened to any rap music before that, so I made sure to catch them when they came around on tour (to Maui, one of the two Hawaii shows featured in the video for "It's Yourz").  I can honestly say I've been a fan since then, although it took me until much later to collect all their albums.

Meanwhile, I've spent the last 15 years writing what I know.  Since 2000 or so, I always focused on non-fiction.  In 2005, I wrote a story for a third-year Creative Nonfiction college course about driving to Orlando with some of my friends to go see Wu-Tang Clan at the Hard Rock Cafe.  I ended up with an A for the semester after turning the story in and I used the piece, "Celebrating the Life and Death of Osiris," as the opening story in my first book.  The only of their albums I officially owned at that time were Enter the Wu-Tang, Wu-Tang Forever, Only Built 4 Cuban Linx..., Return to the 36 Chambers (The Dirty Version), the Ghost Dog soundtrack and No Said Date.  With apologies to the Wu, I initially pirated the others that were out by then so I could listen to them all.  My plan was to pick up my favorites at some point soon, then grab the others later on.

Then life got in the way.  In mid-2007, thanks in part to my car breaking down, I found myself in $5,000 debt literally overnight while working a $7 an hour job.  So I moved to Virginia and stayed with my parents for a bit while finishing my first book and working retail to dig myself out of the hole.  I'd picked up Fishscale, More Fish and The Big Doe Rehab by Ghostface as well as The W, Iron Flag, 8 Diagrams and the first Afro Samurai soundtrack.  My wife and I got married and had a daughter and it wasn't until 2012 that I finally got financially stable enough to start thinking about buying anything that cost more than $10 at a time.  Coincidentally, Amazon was having a huge rap sale and I ended up getting something like five more Wu solo records for about $30.  Now there was no turning back - I had close to 20 albums.  Every month or two I squirreled away enough to get another three or four albums between bills, necessities and other recreational purchases.  Whenever I bought an album, I'd delete my bootleg of it, rip the new CD in high quality and keep them both for my own listening.  I was a lot more hardcore about supporting artists by this point, so I didn't share my own rips; I instead took some pride in my collection.  Then around Christmas 2013 I realized I was down to within, maybe, five or six albums before having all the Wu-centric records released.  

It was a shitload of albums - about 65 all in.  It seemed like an accomplishment or achievement in some way.  To date the only one I haven't actually paid for is Ol' Dirty Bastard's A Son Unique.  I didn't have iTunes the day it was released and pulled online, so since there's literally no legal way to buy it, I feel less guilty about having downloaded it.  I made it up to the ODB estate by buying a friend a copy of Return to the 36 Chambers.  I was within a couple months of finishing my third book and decided my next project would be a blog.  It would be a weekly music blog.  It would be a Wu-Tang blog.

So I Googled info on all the albums - mostly release dates, but there were some good behind-the-scenes stories too.  I thought it would be a cool thing to trace the evolution of the group as a whole and individually over the past 20+ years, so I made a chart of every one of the albums and put them in order of release date and got to work.  I stacked them all up on my dining room table, took some pictures, Photoshopped in the release dates and the Map of Shaolin was born.  It started out a bit more ambitiously than it ended up - I was certain I'd review most of the movies sampled on the albums (The Killer, Five Deadly Venoms) and other involved films (Ghost Dog, The Man with the Iron Fists, Afro Samurai etc), and that I'd have wild stories revolving around every single album I covered.  The early responses to the blog were good but most feedback I got was actually in favor of more in-depth album reviews, so I ended up going nearly track-by-track for most of the albums and letting the film reviews go.

What did you learn from doing this blog?

It was a much bigger task than it seemed when I started it.  At the same time, I started to really care about each of these nine guys.  There's genuine sadness in some of the albums released in the mid-2000s, after ODB died.  They lost a family member and it's the elephant in the room for awhile in 2005 and 2006.  Another thing in terms of the whole group is, RZA lamented what happened in 1997 after Forever came out and his five-year master plan for the band ended, and I'll concede that there's a definite lack of cohesion from 1998 to about 2003 as each band member learned to strike out on his own, but I think it's led to a big misconception that every album after Wu-Tang Forever just sucks and that's simply not the case.  Every member of the Clan has released at least one incredible album since Forever, in some cases two or three.  Then it's like, one of my first struggles getting someone to try some new music was getting my old-school Wu friends to try out No Said Date and Resident Patient in college and they just wouldn't give them a chance, which drove me nuts when I covered them in the blog and saw such good reviews for them.  I wanted to say "See?  They were awesome and the critics even recognized it!"  I hate for good friends to miss out on good music, so the post-Forever hate is some falseness I've tried really hard to rip apart in the last year or so.

Individually, it's been one of the most rewarding research experiments in my life seeing how each member of Wu-Tang has evolved and changed with the times since they stepped out from RZA's umbrella.  Ol' Dirty Bastard going from a Joker-off-his-leash force of chaos to an endearing folk antihero was a heartwarming and enjoyable history to relive.  I've mentioned Inspectah Deck and Ghostface Killah settling on on comic culture in recent years, which is the most obvious change.  Masta Killa was a slow burn, with just one verse on 36 Chambers then a shitload more on Forever but no solo debut until 2004.  As one of the most popular and successful members, Method Man had a pretty hard backlash against the label-led Tical 0 then he bounced back with 4:21 and The Meth Lab.  Similarly, U-God had an underrated debut with Golden Arms Redemption before the Wu-free and really bad Mr. Xcitement, but I think he came back solid with Dopium and that The Keynote Speaker is his strongest yet - a huge comeback that somehow went under the radar for most.

They're an endlessly interesting group of artists who took the planet and made it theirs for a time, now settling into more long-term plans.

I've also learned that I'm now much less sensitive to rappers using the word "nigga" in their lyrics.  And that among my friends I'm now "the Wu-Tang guy."

What's been the most popular blog so far?

Oddly enough, my advance review of this year's Every Hero Needs a Villain by Czarface got almost double the page views of my next most popular entry.  Go figure.

What will happen now to/with Map of Shaolin?

Now that we're all caught up on Wu-Tang's 22-year history, I'll leave it alone until a new album by any of the members (or the group) is released, at which point I'll make another entry.  I'm assuming the next step will be GZA's Dark Matter but I don't know for sure.  Everyone asks me to make this into a book but would you pay $15 for 70 reviews from my dumb ass?  Neither would I.

What's next for you?

Like I said, I always write what I know, so my first three books were about growing up geek in the '80s and '90s, real-life superheroes and essays on video games, and now Wu-Tang.  I started up a fourth proper book about comic con life, but it's fizzled for me personally so I'll likely release that free as an ebook at some point.

So what's actually next for you?

I'm taking a bold step and working on a sci-fi project.  There's not a huge overlap between rap and sci-fi, so it may not be of much interest, but I'll say that everything in it is completely normal to today's world save for the fact that we've had to build cities on the backs of 2,000-foot tall colossi that emerge from the sea after the land becomes uninhabitable for us.

Who's your favorite Wu-Tang rapper?

It's hard to say.  I think GZA is their best lyricist.  Inspectah Deck and Method Man have the best flow.  My personal favorite is Masta Killa, because he seems the most reflective and humble and his style is really unique.  Also I love his voice.  Who wouldn't?

Where can I find your other writing?  (Ok, I asked this one myself)

Paperbacks of all three of my books (and Kindle versions of the first two) are available by searching Amazon.com for my name, jonny Lupsha.  Even better, my publishing company, A Carrier of Fire, has its own website with links to the product pages on Amazon and their related blogs.  You can also like A Carrier of Fire on Facebook.

Keep your eyes on the Map next Wednesday for our final regular entry, "Step Seventy:  Method Man: The Meth Lab."  Thanks for everything guys.  It's been a trip.

Step Sixty Nine: Ghostface Killah: Twelve Reasons to Die II.

Note:  Next week, the Map of Shaolin reaches the end of its week-to-week run with our review of Method Man's new album The Meth Lab.  Between now and then, please check the Map for a conclusion/summary from me about this project and my experiences writing it.  Until then?  Keep it real, Wu fans.

Artists:  Ghostface Killah & Adrian Younge
Album:  Twelve Reasons to Die II
Producer:  Adrian Younge
Release Date:  July 10, 2015

Review:  Our awesome readers may remember that a few months ago we did an advance review of this record.  I managed to get a copy of it several days before its release so I did my best to give my first impressions and let you know whether or not you should pick it up (you should).  So now we're back up to it properly on the Map of Shaolin and it's time that Twelve Reasons to Die II got a full retrospective.

Years after the Da Luca family kill Tony Starks and he seeks his revenge as Ghostface Killah, there's a new player in town - Lester Kane (played by Raekwon the Chef).  Kane finds Tony Starks's remains (still pressed into vinyls owned by the Da Lucas) and calls upon the Ghostface Killah so the two of them can finish picking off the Da Luca family.  Raekwon guests on five of the album's 13 tracks - one of his strongest per capita presences since Ironman in 1996.  Lester Kane is a good character, as well; as a living and ambitious figure, he's a good counterpart to the seemingly immortal Ghostface.

Adrian Younge (who performs most of the live instruments himself) and Raekwon make a beautiful start to the record on "Return of the Savage."  The tremolo guitar and steady drum loop set the stage for Raekwon to drop his sick flow with storytelling rhymes like "They was slow on the draw so I blammed 'em / Takin' they top off like a convertible drop burgundy Phantom."  RZA returns to narrate again, once again lending to the melodramatic grindhouse feel of the Twelve Reasons saga.  His narration on "Return of the Savage" segues into "King of New York," a quick bio of Lester Kane in which Ghost spits a four-bar so tight I have to quote it a second time.

"A few million-dollar cribs, Liberace jewel box
Gold Ox' ostrich-leather shoes, Egyptian socks
Tailor-made suits, built like a brick house
Six foot nine, son, the god had to duck in his house."

Scarub guest stars on "Rise Up" (and again later on "Death's Invitation"), bringing a good throwback line with "Lester Kane clan ain't nothin' to fuck with" and some other good rhymes.  The music is definitely amped up too, faster and higher energy than the previous two mid-tempo tracks.  "Daily News" clocks in at under a minute, giving us an all-too-brief view of the story from a newspaper's perspective, and it's right here that I realize my one and only beef with the record.   Much like Sour Soul, this is one short-ass album.  I threw some shade at the record length last time around, so I'll just summarize today.  Let's look at some numbers.

You could fit both Twelve Reasons to Die II and Sour Soul onto one CD with about 20 minutes of space left on the disc.  There are actually three tracks out of the 13 on Twelve Reasons II that clock in at less than 60 seconds each, and two more that are shorter than two minutes each.  Grouping them all together makes five songs that play through in five and a half minutes.  Only two songs ("Get the Money" and "Death's Invitation") see the four minute mark on the whole album.  I don't care so much about the individual song lengths, but when you add them up, the record plays start to finish in about a half hour.  It's great shit; I just wish there were more of it.

Anyway, getting back into it, "Get the Money" comes next and it sounds fantastic.  The prog-rock bass, guitar and drum lines may be the closest we ever get to another Mars Volta song.  They're jerky and awkward in all the right places, making you want to listen to the song 10 times in a row just to make sure you can hum the bassline and groove with the drums even before you listen to the vocals.  It's followed by "Death's Invitation."  The intro for "Death's Invitation" has RZA narrating a scene in which Lester Kane breaks into Lou Da Luca's house only to find Ghost's ex Logan (who betrayed him to the Da Lucas on the first Twelve Reasons, which led to Tony being killed) and her son, who is secretly Tony Starks's son.  Ghost kidnaps them both for ransom/revenge, outlining the plan with an a cappella verse before Adrian Younge breaks out with a 5/4 drum beat with steady accompanying bass guitar and occasional keyboard and guitar stabs.  All the guest stars (Lyrics Born, Scarub and Chimp XL) rap fast and furious over the beat, which can be a bit tricky to follow but is still an incredibly unique track on the record.

With "Let the Record Spin," RZA tells us that Lester Kane offers Ghostface his body so Ghost can live again in exchange for Ghost lending his powers to Lester until their revenge is complete.  Younge's wavering church keyboards take center stage on this track, which help build the image of '70s film tension and unease that are set up by the Argento-like cover art.  A bloody brawl ensues on "Blackout," which features awesome Raekwon lines like "Caught up in my spell, smell exotic blend from different trees / Black gloves, bullets will fly when the nine squeeze."  The music pops here as well, with another live jazzy drumbeat and more funk-inspired bass, although the spy movie keyboard is the real star.

On "Resurrection Morning" and "Life's a Rebirth," Ghostface tells Lester Kane to kill himself so Ghost can take his body.  Lester agrees, but as he dies, Ghost decides instead to inhabit his own son's body so he can live again, starting life over with all the wisdom and experience of his old life and the youth and longevity of his son's.  It's a wonderfully dark turn of events and a crazy twist ending, since Lester commits suicide amounting to nothing, Ghost makes the selfish decision to take over his son's body, and the boy has no say in the matter as his own life (or at least his freedom) is snuffed out by his father.

And so ends Ghostface Killah's third concept album.  By the end of the record, it does seem like the journey has lasted longer than its 30 minutes.  I'd like to put both Twelve Reasons albums together and listen from front to back; they're similar enough to flow together and make one epic horror-tinged mobster drama that would likely be as satisfying as it is epic.  Then again, there may be a third chapter to this story...

Recommended Tracks:  Return of the Savage, Get the Money.

Step Sixty Eight: Czarface: Every Hero Needs a Villain.

Hey my readers!  This week's step on Map of Shaolin is the sophomore release by Czarface (Inspectah Deck with Esoteric and 7L), Every Hero Needs a Villain.  However, when I got my early copy of it in the mail, I sought to cover it as fully as possible to give you the best idea of the entire record before it came out.  I feel it would be pretty shitty of me to try to write a whole new blog rehashing everything I said, so instead I'm going to re-link you to my in-depth look at the album.  Obviously I could've just done this for every album on the Shaolin Annex (Wu albums that have come out while building The Map), but with the others I simply wanted to give a quick review.  Since I got Every Hero Needs a Villain close to a week before its release, I really wanted to dive in and give a bit back to everyone who's been kind enough to read the blog over the last 16 months.

So check that link for my track-by-track impressions on Every Hero Needs a Villain.  It's still a really solid album and definitely more rock-oriented than the first Czarface record.  Fascinating and crazy shit to be sure.  Inspectah Deck's career, much like Ghostface Killah's, has found a new borderline-geeky niche to explore, and I mean that in the best way possible.  It's so cool to me to see their careers evolve in the last 22 years, especially to arrive at such different destinations than Uncontrolled Substance and Ironman, respectively.  Both those albums are fantastic; I just respect the artists' evolution along the way.  Cheers!

Step Sixty Seven: Raekwon: Fly International Luxurious Art

Artist:  Raekwon
Album:  Fly International Luxurious Art
Producers:  Various
Release Date:  April 28, 2015

Review:  Raekwon the Chef returns for his first full-length record since 2011's Shaolin Vs. Wu-Tang, keeping in mind that The Tonite Show was only about a half hour.  I'm not crazy about the cover art for this one, but don't judge a book by its cover on this one - the contents of the record more than make up for it.

Fly International Luxurious Art (F.I.L.A.) opens with an intro skit about Raekwon's passport being too full to fly anywhere else, amid fans, press and square white people being excited by his presence.  It kicks off right with the bangin' "4 in the Morning" featuring Ghostface Killah, and Rae wastes no time showing us that he's still got the same skills that made Cuban Linx 2 such a hot record.  It continues with "I Got Money," which is a grower but a rewarding one.  My limit with braggadocio usually ends before listening to a hook that taunts "I got money, nyah nyah na-nyah nyah," but Raekwon, guest ASAP Rocky and producer S1 for making it so listenable.  There are Caribbean-sounding wood xylophones, an effective bassline, simple piano and a good light tone throughout.

But maybe the broad range of the album is first apparent by its follower, "Wall to Wall," with huge drums and piano and synths backing it up.  It has a large, crashing sound that doubles down with the growl of Busta Rhymes, who once again slays his guest spot on a Raekwon record.  Lyrically it's not Busta's best verse ("Difficult to predict, I'm calculated like algebra / 'Cuz the money traced back to them diamond mines out in Africa"), but he has real presence and energy that help keep it afloat and we all know Busta can spit.  Cut straight to "Heated Nights," a wavy, echoing Miami-style late-night track that's all Rae.  He looks back on how far he's come from his early days with good lines like "Dreams and schemes to make a knot / Sat on the stove and wrote 'C.R.E.A.M.,' one blunt 2 o'clock."

Weirdly, "F.I.L.A. World" is one of the only tracks I'm really not into.  The beat is interesting but it's not for me, and the lyrics are alright but there's better elsewhere - "1, 2, 1, 2" for example.  Snoop is smooth as ever with his rhymes - "Glock hot, crock pot on the block with The Chef / Out of bounds on the ground with a hole in your chest" - dropping two 12-bar verses.

Then comes "Sound Boy Kill It," which I could listen to all day.  The production on the verses can get a little minimal (just drums and one two-tone keyboard), but everything else picks up the slack and delivers a killer song.  Raekwon sets the song up with a good first verse, then Melanie Fiona offers a beautiful sung verse with the hot stinger "Raaaekwooon kill it!" before Assassin annihilates us with furious Jamaican rhymes.  Assassin has worked with Kanye as well as Kendrick Lamar before (thanks to genius.com for the info on that) and he really brings some flavor to F.I.L.A..

"Revory (Wraith)" makes up for "Sound Boy"'s quiet verses with big bass synth, guitar, background vocals.  I hate to say the verses range from decent (by Ghost and Rae) to not good (Rick Ross: "Tatted on my back, chest and palms / Then it's me and Diddy, dice games at the Palms").  It's not terrible, but Rae finishes strong with "Nautilus" and "Worst Enemy."  "Nautilus" is dark and violent with some classic scratching on the hook and "Worst Enemy" ends the album on a serious note with excellent singing by Liz Rodrigues while Raekwon expresses uncertainty about a situation he's in.  Maybe it's just storytelling, but it's cool to hear him sound almost vulnerable, talking about getting no sleep and unable to find his girlfriend before turning to some extreme violence.  Is he his own worst enemy, as the hook implies?

I can't say I'm as in love with F.I.L.A. on the whole as I am with Cuban Linx 1 or 2 or Shaolin Vs. Wu-Tang, but I definitely prefer it over Immobilarity, The Tonite Show and maybe even The Lex Diamond Story.  While a couple tracks don't bring the fire the way you'd hope, there are some really great ideas executed here in production and lyrics.  Rae's at his best at the beginning and the end, but he entertains the whole album; his guests are memorable and several tracks are real gems.

Recommended Tracks:  4 in the Morning, I Got Money, Wall to Wall, Sound Boy Kill It.

Quick Review: Method Man: The Meth Lab.

Artist:  Method Man
Album:  The Meth Lab
Release Date:  Aug. 21, 2015

Quick Review:  While The Meth Lab boasts 17 songs, there are 13 with two or more guests - and two that are completely missing Method Man.  It makes sense that the word "mixtape" is never too far from the mention of this album.

But it's actually a pretty good record.  Hanz On and Streetlife appear regularly throughout The Meth Lab, so it isn't like some other albums where too many collaborators leave you wondering who the hell is in charge and where the album is going (N.A.S.A. or Handsome Boy Modeling School's White People, for example).  On the contrary, having such a consistent trio (including Meth) on board, coupled with the Breaking Bad-tinged theme of the album, helps with its consistency in the way that Raekwon and Cappadonna helped Ghostface along on Ironman.  We've even been familiar with Streetlife since he appeared so often on 1998's Tical 2000.  I do kinda wish Meth had a bigger share of the album, but since he spent most of 2014 saving A Better Tomorrow I think we can forgive him splitting up duties with his collaborators.

Hype for the album started with the video for "The Meth Lab," which featured Method Man cooking in an RV a la Walter White and Jesse Pinkman, but "Straight Gutta" is the early favorite for me, with Redman dropping a phat hook as our main cast of characters rhymes over it.  Streetlife sets it off right and is followed by Hanz On, then Meth.  It's a bit indicative of the album's nature that Streetlife and Hanz On both bring 16 bars and Meth just eight, but that's my last word on the subject.  Things move right along with the unique flow setup on "Bang Zoom" and the chilled nature of "50 Shots," again with the help of Streetlife and Meth's brilliant opener "Y'all don't get the picture before we focus / Facts, look who back, crooked like scoliosis."  The second line is as tight as anything he's done in years with its double entendre - "Look whose back is crooked like scoliosis" or "Look who's back (and I'm) crooked like scoliosis."  Good shit.

"Water" is also great, with mysterious piano backing up Mr. Mef's rapping ("Ridin' dirty got a Luger in your lap / Black suit, 7:30, couple shooters from the trap").  "Purple Tape" (with Raekwon and Inspectah Deck) and "Intelligent Meth" (with Masta Killa) are instant classics, which is no surprise since they focus on Method Man and other Wu-generals.  "Purple Tape" has an amazing charging beat, too, with big bass and fast piano.  Raekwon sounds like he recorded the same day as some of his hottest verses from Fly International Luxurious Art because his energy and flow is off the hook; Deck represents with the same fury as he's had for 20 years which is amazing.  On "Intelligent Meth," guest iNTeLL brings the urgency and last-word-emphasis of Phi Life Cypher before giving way to Method Man, who's much more relaxed.  Masta Killa still has it too, proving that "Return of the Masta Kill" wasn't a fluke earlier this year.

There are quick skits at the end of songs, with a woman asking Mef where the meth lab is and so on.  Killa Sin makes a surprise cameo on "Symphony," then "Another Winter" is a killer track (although Method Man's amazing verse is weirdly missing from the lyrics booklet).  Guest Dro Pesci brings Deck-influenced rhymes on "Rain All Day" and the album ends with "So Staten," which is all good except for a criminally awkward hook by Hue Hef.

The Ticallion Stallion has killed it so much lately, it's easy to see why he'd make The Meth Lab more of a team effort.  Some of the tracks are a bit lukewarm, but the bangers go a long way in saving the record.  "The Purple Tape," "Straight Gutta," "Intelligent Meth" and "Another Winter" are good for offsetting my least favorite tracks like "What You Getting Into" and "Soundcheck."  In the outro, Method Man kicks everyone out of the RV/meth lab and promises that "Crystal Meth is comin' real soon," which lends credibility to some critics' complaints that this is more of a mixtape/segue between records, but there's plenty on The Meth Lab to love.

...Bitch.

Step Sixty Six: Ghostface Killah and Badbadnotgood: Sour Soul.

Artist:  Ghostface Killah & Badbadnotgood
Album:  Sour Soul
Producer:  Frank Dukes
Release Date:  Feb. 24, 2015

Review:  Continuing his "live band" sound, Ghostface Killah collaborated with Canadian trio Badbadnotgood to release the short album Sour Soul this past February.  Here, however, Badbadnotgood trades in Adrian Younge's and The Revelations' funk and old R&B stylings for a stripped-down tone with complex bass lines, slower plucked guitars and clean jazz drums to back up Ghost's flow.

With only one song clocking in over three and a half minutes ("Six Degrees"), Sour Soul absolutely flies by.  Quick note:  I bemoaned the length of some of Ghost's albums when I took my first look at Twelve Reasons to Die II a few weeks ago, and the music and lyrics are so tight that it really doesn't need me bitching about it twice, so today I'm only pointing it out to emphasize that its brevity makes it a little harder to get hypnotized and taken on an epic adventure than others.  But hey, I was also a bit mistaken when, on my first listen to this record, I said it sounded more like the traditional blaxploitation Wu-Tang stuff than I believe it is now, but we all make mistakes right?  Right.  If you've stuck with me this far on the Map of Shaolin (17 months and counting), I'll hope you'll cut me some slack for my quibble with run times and I'll admit my error on analyzing Sour Soul's sound initially.

Fortunately for Sour Soul, it spends its 33 minutes as wisely as Solomon.  Badbadnotgood develops lovely sounds from front to back, from the spy film vibe of the title track and "Raygun"'s epilogue to the ether-huffing Lynchian surrealism of "Tone's Rap."  The gentle guitar tremolo and dreamy keys on "Street Knowledge" are a perfect complement to guest star Tree's gorgeous voice, and on the rare occasions when it leans towards the funk-/soul-on-film Wu sound ("Nuggets of Wisdom," "Stark's Reality") it confidently brings its own bravado to the ever-expanding Shaolin catalog.

As much as I love Ghostface's comic book-esque concept records - the Twelve Reasons to Die series and 36 Seasons - I'm glad he took a break between them so he could put together an album full of raps that don't need to tie together and tell one story.  This gives him more room to focus on imagery and rhyming rather than adding plot into the mix - not that those records lacked either of those.  So with one fewer job to fill on lyrics, GFK delivers some really powerful couplets and verses, occasionally with the explosive power we're used to hearing from Inspectah Deck.  Check out this line from the title track:  "I don't feel, I'm comfortably numb, Stapleton's son / Insomniac charged off the rays of the sun."  Of course there's plenty of Ghost's own angry and distinctive street style throughout the album with lines like ""Tupac's back, my glock's fat / After the gun smoke, you screamin' 'where my block at?'" ("Six Degrees").

In February's preview, I called out "Gunshowers" as an early favorite and that would still stand except that it's hard for me to pick out highlights on an album that's so consistent.  Ghost and his guest Elzhi absolutely kill it, though, with lyrics so nice I'm citing them twice:

"Simple minds get blown, shattered into pieces
My thesis is thick like the Book of Eli
We live, we die, we put 'em in the sky
Free your mind that's a slave like the Fourth of July."
   (Ghostface)

"I flirt with building your empire
Gotta shake the snake in the grass and spark sharks to swim by us
'Cuz every meek head that speak street cred ain't banging heat lead
And probably cut like sweet bread wetting the sheet beds."

There's a great one-two combo of "Street Knowledge" and "Ray Gun" about 2/3 of the way into the album.  Their sounds are so opposing they make a yin-yang of fantastic modern hip-hop - "Street Knowledge" has some of the most relaxing and pulsating music on the record and Tree's voice is like a chanting lullaby over it; then Ghost and DOOM set it off with the lively indie-rap sound of "Ray Gun."  While their verses aren't the best on the record, it's clear that these are two guys comfortable in their own skin, having as much fun with the music as with each other.  Not to mention the dangerous big band sound that cuts in at the end, straight out of a classic James Bond movie.

Ghost seems to reach some kind of epiphany near the end of the album, transitioning from more standard street life lyrics to a couple tracks about Islam ("Nuggets of Wisdom") and trying to reach personal enlightenment and do good in this life ("Food").  Oddly, this third act ends up with the same problem as Eminem's Recovery - the nobler the lyrics seem to get, the smoother they ain't.  I really applauded Em's album for its themes of trying to improve his own life, but I often thought his flow was its most untouchable when he devolved into his usual rhymes about women, drugs and booze.  Ghost - amazing as he is - sometimes has the same problem.  I'm blown away by that four-bar rhyme I quoted from "Gunshowers," which definitely has some braggadocio involved, but when he goes for enlightenment, the flow can suffer a bit.  In "Nuggets of Wisdom" he says "Make sure it's halal, no pork on the fork / No swine in the cupcake filling, we knew it's pork."  It's not my favorite, nor is "Food"'s line "Yoga, deep meditational tactics / You no good, then just practice / 'Cuz practice makes perfect."  However, the sound saves it overall, with Badbadnotgood steadily providing wonderful music even when Ghost stumbles a bit.

So Ghostface Killah makes it a hat trick:  three great albums with live band sounds in a row, each with major claims to fame.  Yeah, there are a couple minor hiccups on Sour Soul, but it's really an album to hear.  Since it was only out six months ago, I think this is where I'll put an end to the Map's Legacy section - in which we analyze how each release affected the artist's career in the long run.  However, I will say again this is proof positive that Ghost is evolving as an artist.  First, he defies genre tropes - and even more specifically some gimmicks made famous by his own legendary group - to expand aurally.  He's really branching out from studio-produced loops and samples into an exciting place.  Second, this leads to him cementing another trademark sound for himself.  He had his Wu-esque debut and sophomore albums, his street albums and now his full band albums.  Ghost is a real chameleon, and whether he sticks with this style or moves on, we're in for a hell of a ride.

I'm also skipping the Recommended Tracks section this week, mostly because it's such a solid listen from start to finish and also due to that length.  There are three instrumentals on the album and I griped a bit about the lyrics on the last two tracks with Ghost, so if I picked four or five songs out of the remaining six that would be a bit of a waste.  Cop this record and witness the testament of Ghostface Killah's enduring career - his second out of three in eight months.

Step Sixty Five: Ghostface Killah: 36 Seasons.

Artist:  Ghostface Killah
Album:  36 Seasons
Producers:  The Revelations
Release Date:  Dec. 9, 2014

Review:  Much like last week's coverage of A Better Tomorrow (and every step on The Map to follow), I did a quick review of 36 Seasons when it came out.  Here's a more thorough look at the record.

36 Seasons is Ghostface's second concept album following his previous outing in 12 Reasons to Die.  This album is unrelated though he keeps his alias of Tony Starks to portray the main character.  This time around, Tony comes home to New York after an unexplained nine-year absence.  He doesn't like what's happened to his neighborhood of Stapleton: nobody remembers him, his old familiar faces are gone, kids are standing on the corner smoking pot and there's a drug cartel pushing blow and lowering the quality of life of the hood.  Tony, the drug kingpin Future (portrayed by Kool G Rap) and Tony's childhood friend Rog (AZ) introduce their sides of the story on "The Battlefield," which is a killer opening track with a lively beat by The Revelations (Chamber Music, Legendary Weapons).  Kool G delivers my favorite metaphor of the album when he talks about dealing coke, calling himself "the neighborhood blizzard flooding the streets with snow."  AZ also turns the image of "joining the life of crime out of desperation" on its ear, explaining that when he was a kid the cops stole his stash and threatened jail time for him so he decided the best way to keep making a crooked living was to become a cop.  "Salute to the enforcer, call me an officer now / Supporter of paraphernalia, I toss it around / The link to the cartel, the costs is down / It's that Denzel in Training Day shit, caution my grounds."

"Love Don't Live Here No More" follows with a lovely hook by Tony's past love Bamboo (Kandance Springs).  Tony stops by her house expecting her to drop everything and come running, but she tells him nine years was too long and she has a new man.  They leave on peaceful enough terms despite both being a little disappointed in the other's attitude about the situation - a progressive step for Ghost's usual objectifying lyrics.  Tony decides to visit his old friend Rog who tells him they could clean up the 'hood and make some cash to boot if Tony could handle the illegal/murderous side of taking down Future's gang.  Tony agrees while Rog promises a low-risk, high-reward end.  Both songs have soulful music, with "Love" leaning more towards R&B but more successfully than Ghostdini.

As Tony rides to take out Future's gang, he searches on the car radio and finds "It's a Thin Line Between Love and Hate," covered beautifully by The Revelations.  And I mean they really do a hell of a job with such this classic by The Persuaders.  In terms of story, it's pretty cool that the last symbol before the boys face likely death is Tony's love for Bamboo.  He and his young friend Mig (Shawn Wigs) go in and ice Future's gang in "The Dogs of War," but Tony takes a chemical burn to the face and Mig gets him to a private physician, the mysterious Doctor X (Pharoahe Monch in "Emergency Procedure") to perform a life-saving operation on Tony.  First, Ghost describes the situation well, balancing narrative with evocative rhymes like "The mask release the gas that simmers the soul / So my adrenaline stays level, not out of control."  Second, Pharoahe Monch builds dramatic images and mad scientist fervor with his Wu-esque verse about the mask and its purposes ("The brilliant Doctor X, no scientist is colder / The mask'll specifically protect ya from Ebola / Its destruction is impossible, totally irrelevant / The compounds are not found on the periodic table of elements").

For a while, Tony will need a gas mask to breathe through a la Bane in Dark Knight Rises (see the cover for this album posted above) but he's barely back on his feet before the cops arrest him and throw him in jail ("Double Cross").  Kandance Springs returns for "Bamboo's Lament," wondering if she made a mistake not waiting for Tony - could she have saved him from his cell, his mask, his return to a life of crime?  Meanwhile, in jail ("Pieces to the Puzzle"), Tony bides his time and realizes Rog set him up to clean out Future's gang so Rog could be the new kingpin who runs - and ruins - Stapleton while letting Tony take the blame for the gang war.  He also clarifies at this point that Rog is Bamboo's new man, although Rog had said so earlier to himself while implying he's abusive towards her ("Where's Bamboo? She needs an ass-whoopin'").

Things come to a head in "Homicide" as Mig is killed by Rog's gang as a warning for Tony to leave them alone, but Tony avenges Mig and himself in "Blood in the Streets."  AZ has some really tight lines once his verse gets going here, angry at what happened to their friendship but ready to kill or be killed to end this feud - "You grew a lot but I schooled you how to do drops / In my tube socks spraying from the rooftops, '92 props / Banging for my blue tops / It's you and me, Biggie versus Tupac / You forgot I'm the one who let you rock."  Tony lures them all into one spot and blows them up, the sole survivor of the massacre.  36 Seasons winds down with "Call My Name," in which Tony and Bamboo make amends as he takes up residence in Mig's house and explains that he has to clean up all of New York and stop the drug flow destroying the city.  The Revelations perform an instrumental cover of "I Love You for All Seasons" and the album ends.

Since the album's release last December, I've really been impressed with the balance of narrative and rhyming.  The first few times you hear it, you'll want to make sure you give it your full attention to soak up the story and the plot points, but once you know what it is and where it's going, it's easier to lean back, relax and enjoy it as a solid rap album with infectious hooks, high energy, sweet rhymes and gorgeous music.

Legacy:  Between both Twelve Reasons albums, 36 Seasons and Sour Soul, Ghostface proved four times in about two years that the Wu-Tang sound can successfully evolve and sound groundbreaking and unique without relying on the mid-'90s sound of the first wave of Wu albums.  RZA remains one of the all-time great music producers, but by working with live bands and sounds that are less immediately hip-hop, Ghost has been vital in helping develop the Wu sound of the 2010s.  Of course The Revelations were brought in by RZA for Chamber Music and Legendary Weapons initially, and Ghostface Killah worked with Badbadnotgood and Adrian Younge, so they're both due plenty of credit for where the Wu seems to be going.  Critics received 36 Seasons well, some calling it a superior album to A Better Tomorrow.  GFK is continuing to spread his wings and try new sounds and ideas and this recent iteration of his (his last four albums) is a great fit, experimented with initially on Twelve Reasons and cemented with 36 Seasons.

Recommended Tracks:  The Battlefield, It's a Thin Line Between Love and Hate, Blood in the Streets.

Step Sixty Four: Wu-Tang Clan: A Better Tomorrow.

Artist:  Wu-Tang Clan
Album:  A Better Tomorrow
Producers:  RZA ("Ruckus in B-Minor" co-produced by Rick Rubin; "40th Street Black / We Will Fight" and "Keep Watch" co-produced by Mathematics), 4th Disciple ("Miracle" and "Necklace").
Release Date:  December 2, 2014

Review:  Hoo boy.  Now we get to the tricky shit.  I knew when I started Map of Shaolin that more group or dolo albums would be released in the 14-16 month period that I was writing.  I figured I'd do my best to talk about them at their release then come back to them at their proper space on the Map, and now here we are.

So for starters, please look back at my first/quick review of Wu's sixth group LP, A Better Tomorrow, by clicking right here.  If you'd rather not, here's the summary.

In 2012 or so, rumors started buzzing that Wu-Tang would release another LP for the 20th anniversary of their debut Enter the Wu-Tang.  Unfortunately, a very public rift between Raekwon and RZA seemed to dash hopes for bringing the full group back together.  It reached the point where RZA stated that they'd do the album without Rae if they needed to, but their conflict resolved in mid-late 2014 and Rae ended up putting in verses for five of the album's 15 tracks before its release on December 2nd, 2014.  In the year or so leading up to the album, Wu put out several tracks - "Wu-Tang Reunion," which started its life as "Family Reunion;" "Keep Watch" and (premiering on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart) "Ron O'Neal" all debuted well before the release.

So what's on it?  Musically, the sound expands on RZA's post-Iron Flag love for live instruments that we've seen on 8 Diagrams and their collaborations with The Revelations - we hear some of the full band motif in "Ruckus in B Minor" and "Preacher's Daughter."  The album covers a wide tonal range, from the positively bright and glowing old soul sounds of "A Better Tomorrow" and "Wu-Tang Reunion" to the darker "Pioneer the Frontier" and "Necklace."  A couple of those bold choices don't quite pay off.  For example, the Wu get a pass on making a rap ballad in "Miracle" since everyone else seems to get to do it without taking shit (I'm looking at you, "Stan"), but its rock-solid verses clash with an ending that ventures too close to nu-metal or '00s rap-rock territory for my tastes.  I love it right until the end, and then I fake it.  Lyrically, I think the Clan are all on point.  U-God has struggled a couple times in the past but not here, and I was surprised at myself for how pleased I was with the tracks that Cappadonna leads off on.  RZA also picks up the slack from his "bitches and blunts" Bobby Digital persona, which is a big relief.

Now a bit more on the album.

Every emcee gets several chances to shine throughout the record.  RZA's tightest appearances may be his quick verse/bridge on "Crushed Egos" and "Ron O'Neal" while Rae kills "Crushed Egos" as well.  GZA's best may be "Ruckus in B Minor" although his other verses aren't to be taken lightly.  Inspectah Deck is an extinction-level-event opener for the album; U-God makes his mark the strongest on "Pioneer the Frontier" while Ghost spits bold lines in-character on "Necklace" and "Preacher's Daughter."  Masta Killa brings "Felt" to life as well as slaying his verse on "Miracle."
  Method Man is as fun as he's ever been on "Keep Watch" and "40th Street Black / We Will Fight," but he's got great life and energy on "A Better Tomorrow."  Cappadonna, who I've often bemoaned as hit-or-miss, really tightens up most of his appearances on the album, especially "Keep Watch" and "Necklace."  For specific lyrical quotes, check the quick review link up top.

By the numbers, here's how everyone checks in.  I didn't count hooks since so many are provided by samples and non-Wu vocalists.

Masta Killa and Method Man - 10 verses and one bridge each.
Cappadonna - Nine verses.
Inspectah Deck - Eight verses.
Ghostface Killah - Seven verses.
GZA, Raekwon, U-God - Six verses each.
RZA - Four verses, three bridges (plus production on 14 tracks).
Ol' Dirty Bastard - Hype lines on three tracks, taken from samples.

Legacy:  Now that I've gotten eight months hindsight on the album, I stand by most of my first impressions from last December.  I still think it gets a bit awkward somewhere between "Felt" and "Hold the Heater," but I warmed up to those tracks (and "Never Let Go," which I was iffy about) over time.  Some will argue that no song should ever need "warming up to," but I vote for the reward from that effort every time.  I love instant classics, but if something takes me awhile to appreciate, I tend to dig it a lot more.  Now, I will apologize for saying that Method Man is the "clear hero" of A Better Tomorrow, since I counted verses (as I do) and realized Masta Killa is on the album just as much as Meth  - sorry MK!  I recognize that Meth is one of the most popular Wu members, so it makes sense for some reviewers to praise his involvement - which they imply glued the album together - but I'd hate to sell the other guys short.  I was also mistaken thinking that MK was on "Hold the Heater," so my apologies.

Also, my opinions on the Raekwon/RZA beef have changed in light of Rae dissing the album as "soft" since its release.  I think Rae's a brilliant rapper, from flow to rhymes to style to presence, but I'm not sure about him disapproving of ABT, then appearing on five tracks, then dissing it again.  Then again, I think it's important to have the whole Clan on the album and his appearances are great so I can't say they'd be better off without.

A Better Tomorrow was received with mixed reviews.  Adjusted to a scale of 1 to 10, the album was given about a 6 by The Guardian, Pitchfork, A.V. Club, Spin and Slant Magazine.  Rolling Stone wasn't as kind, rating it as just a 5.  On the other hand, AllMusic, Robert Christgau, The Independent and NME all rated it between a 7 and 9.  I personally think the album succeeds as a whole, with some standout tracks (listed below) balancing out the least impressive songs.  It seems like Wu-Tang's inevitable last record together has been questioned since ODB died between Iron Flag and 8 Diagrams, if not sooner.  I for one hope to see more great albums by each member of Wu-Tang even if A Better Tomorrow (or, optimistically, the odd-release Once Upon a Time in Shaolin) is the last group album we get.  Ultimately their future is up to them at this point.  A Better Tomorrow is not without its cracks in the armor, but it's an armor that can only be pierced by the Wu-Tang sword.

Recommended Tracks:  Ruckus in B Minor, Keep Watch, Pioneer the Frontier, A Better Tomorrow, Ron O'Neal.

Step Sixty Three: U-God: The Keynote Speaker.

Note:  This is the last album listed on the original Map of Shaolin last year April.  For info on what else is coming, check out this blog post about the remaining releases and upcoming albums.  We'll finish catching up then review future albums upon release.

Artist:  U-God
Album:  The Keynote Speaker
Producers:  Various
Release Date:  July 23, 2013

Review:  Maybe I've been a little kind on some of the least impressive Wu albums while writing this blog.  In hindsight, I hope I haven't turned into The Fat Guy Who Cried Wolf since I didn't rip apart some of these CD's the way other critics did.  I hope not, because today I'm making a serious statement that The Keynote Speaker is highly underrated and undervalued.  Babygrande Records, GZA's label (responsible for this year's Keynote Speaker re-release) even have the whole album streaming on YouTube if you haven't checked it out yet.  I may not put it as high as a Cuban Linx album or The Movement, but this is a damn good joint from U-God with only a couple stumbles near the beginning.  It's easily his best since Golden Arms Redemption if not his best solo album ever.  Here's what's up.

U-God's solo career has been troubled from the get-go.  I've seen bloggers unfairly call his debut Golden Arms Redemption the worst Wu-Tang release ever, or rate it a 2 out of 10.  After that came his actual worst release, the indefensible Mr. Xcitement - which stemmed partly from his brief departure from Wu-Tang and almost entire lack of involvement from any Wu staff on it.  Even U-God himself expressed disappointment in Mr. Xcitement.  I personally think he bounced back with some really cool tracks on Dopium, especially "Train Trussle" and "Wu-Tang."  It was another four years before he brought us The Keynote Speaker, in the meantime keeping himself busy with quick appearances on other albums.  Most notably, U-God appeared on the Wu-Tang/Revelations collaborations Chamber Music and Legendary Weapons and "Rivers of Blood" and "Six Directions of Boxing" from The Man with the Iron Fists.

Now back with his fourth solo release, Golden Arms opts for quick delivery on each song.  The Keynote Speaker boasts 19 tracks (including the final two "bonus tracks") but only runs a total of 48 minutes.  That means each song averages out to two minutes thirty - only one song on the disc sees the four-minute mark ("Fame" with Styles P).  This will tie in a lot with my thoughts on the album overall, so I'll get back to it.

The title track kicks things off for two minutes of fury with bleating horns and a catchy hook.  I like his rhyme "My nest is blooming, my heart is fuming / What you expect man?  The God is human."  It's a great way to start the album, as U-God tends to turn the focus on himself and talk about his triumphs as well as his troubles.

Next up is "Heads Up" with Jackpot and GZA.  Jackpot holds his own, U-God delivers an admittedly hit-or-miss verse ("The way I hear you talking to me is irrelevant / My laser sharp speech makes me relevant" isn't his strongest line) and GZA drops some solid science poetry on us with lyrics like "Mic masters, hip-hop's hallmark / The Big Bang of rap and the center was all dark / Then came the spark and we began to rhyme / And shine light on the world in the form of art."

If I have one real beef with the album, it's the hook on "Fire."  It's some seriously repetitive shit.  Check it out:

"The God said to put the fire on it
The God said to put the fire on it
One match, we set the world on fire
One match, we set the world on fire
The God said to put the fire on it
The God said to put the fire on it
One match, we set the world on fire
One match, we set the world on fire."

We actually hear the line "One match, we set the world on fire" fourteen times in under three minutes.  It's a bit too much.  It reminds me of the hook on Beastie Boys' "3 the Hard Way" - "We gonna rock this motherfucker like three the hard way / We gonna rock this motherfucker like three the hard way / We gonna rock this motherfucker like three the hard way / Three the hard way, three the hard way."  But once we get away from the hook, "Fire" is pretty good.  Jackpot (aka Scotty Wotty) is back, having previously collaborated on "Stomp Da Roach" from Dopium.  U-Godzilla comes back from his stumble on "Heads Up" with a respectable verse here, especially his opener "It's the art of war combat, every move is high tech / Human Terminator, nigga, plug me into SkyNet / Red bone, hot head, burnt down my projects / I turn sound into killing flying objects."  It opens with a nice Terminator reference and closes with a throwable CD/ninja star image, not to mention it's got flow and timing.  Method Man guests here and is really smooth - he doesn't spin his most brilliant lyrics but they bounce like Muhammad Ali and flow like water.

Moving on, "Fame" introduces (or reinforces what "Keynote Speaker" introduced) the exact brand of retro that U-God utilizes the rest of the album.  It's a much lighter old sound compared to the usual soul sampling Wu-Tang does, its treble contrasting in tone with U-God's bass-filled vocals.  The hook is a sample of someone singing the word "fame" and a bright Temptations-like string loop - it's a big departure from the gritty mid-'90s Wu but a good one nonetheless.  It's a bit reminiscent of the chances Ghostface took on Apollo Kids.

"Skyscraper" repeats the retro vibe, this time trading in the strings for buzzing '70s/'80s synthesizers.  Lyrically, the highlight is U-God's more wary side - "It's one of them nights, wish upon a star / That the hood might settle and peace may start."  This is also good foreshadowing for the more vulnerable singer-songwriter attitude of the album's back half.  In the meantime, "Heavyweight" is decent but my favorite line is "Roll the tour bus to the finest cities / Rock the whole Europe, touched the finest titties," which always makes me laugh.  I know it's probably being sincere in its braggadocio, but the rhyme and Zilla's excitement come close to some ODB ridiculousness.

I've often wondered why some of the Wu albums put my favorite tracks up front while the back half suffers or treads water.  This is definitely not the case here; After the halfway skit "Colossal Cosmos," U-God switches up his fame-riding crazy nights with more personal laments and worries lyrically while presenting unique retro sounds by the truckload.  First up is "Stars," which sounds like it's been locked in a nightclub in Miami for 30 or 40 years.  I love the spacey keyboard line and vocal harmony on the hook, with the simple optimism of "Reach for the stars!"  Not only is "Stars" one of the catchiest tracks on the album, but it's hard to stop talking about it.  The interlude is a pitch-raised sample of someone singing "Take me to the stars."  This is as pop as pop gets but somehow it all works.  Even U-God's lyrics are as happy and light-hearted as it gets.  "Good time lovin's and some good laughs / Kicking your feet up, first class / Good kid on a good path."  Just crazy.  It leaves you wanting more, as it's in and out in well under three minutes.  And this happens throughout much of the album, but they work great as quick visits into the mind of one of Wu-Tang's most low-profile members.  I've heard Wu tracks that go on two minutes too long and you damn sure won't find them here.  Every track drops the bomb and ducks out and not one overstays its welcome.

Then comes "Golden Arms," in which U-God looks back with noted sadness on the way his life used to be.  I always respect a rapper showing that they made mistakes and have vulnerabilities.  U-God says he "Got bread in the streets from the rawest addiction / Made a 180 turn with the Lord's conviction."  In other words, when he was a kid he hustled some drug money in his neighborhood and even enabled the most hardcore of drug addicts, but he turned his life around and found remorse and repentance for his acts, partly with religion.  This isn't the first time he's touched on that; even on Mr. Xcitement he has a pretty good verse or two about his own drug use and what it cost him.

I'm also really fond of "Room Keep Spinning."  I think live acoustic guitar parts are underused in genres outside of rock, so on the rare occasion that I hear one (here and on Skinny Puppy's "Junkyard" for example) it adds some texture and variety to whichever album it's on.  Not only is it wise instrumentation, but it's genuinely sad strumming as Golden Arms talks about his frustrations with his and his girlfriend's poor life choices.  "She took my car, brung it back in three parts / Late night call to come to the ER" and "I done told her not to drink and drive / Now the judge slammed the hammer and she might do time" highlight her story.  U-God's own shock, receiving a letter from his ex and learning he's a father, spins his own tale.  "Got a letter from L.A., it was from my ex / Said she had my baby, ain't seen her yet [...] She said she can raise it all on her own / She said 'send me money and leave me alone / Stress is a killer' then she hung up the phone."  It's clear that this is genuine worry, not bragging about himself or his current girlfriend, because the hook is all about how the room keeps spinning.  Of course a spinning room is a fitting, if on-the-nose, metaphor often used for when you have an emotional shock and get dizzy or anxious.

Then there's "Get Mine."  I'm amazed by this track.  It's about as much a rap song as "16 Tons" is, only offering a few quick rhymes sporadically.  The music is straight from a David Lynch movie, taking a dark turn on cool nightclub jazz, and U-God sings as much as he emcees.  Sure, there are some rhymes and they're awesome and angry ("Life's full of drama, secrets and lies / If you get screwed in the end don't be surprised"), but the musical focus is very old-school.  U-God's singing voice is like Leon Redbone on some parts and deep Barry White or Isaac Hayes crooning on others.  And it does have that classic, finger-snapping, downtrodden "16 Tons" feel throughout.  It's a brilliant way to break up the flow of the album (not that it was getting monotonous) and always a treat to look forward to when I listen.  I could actually use a little more of it, since it clocks in at two minutes 39 seconds, but I think it's better for a song to leave us wanting more than take too long and become boring or uniform.

Inspectah Deck slaps us back to alertness on "Mt. Everest," which is followed by "Tranzform."  Keeping with the diverse retro motif yet again, "Tranzform" uses electric guitar and tambourine and even has a hook similar to Jethro Tull's 1974 "Bungle in the Jungle."  Compare U-God's hook - "Have you seen your friends turn to snakes? / Then tranzform into rats? / Well, running through the jungle / I can tell you all about that."  to Tull's hook -  "Let's bungle in the jungle / Well that's alright by me / I'm a tiger when I want love, but I'm a snake if we disagree."  They both successfully use metaphors of people turning into different kinds of animals to serve their own purposes as we journey through the wild jungle of modern life.  Even the album's proper closer, "Journey" (which features the legendary Kool Keith) boasts open-note '80s synths and clean pop-rock singing on the hook ("Here I go / I'm on my way...").

Legacy:  Somehow, The Keynote Speaker received really mixed reviews.  If we translate reviewers' scoring systems to a "one-to-10" scale, it mostly scored between a five and a 6.5.  This is a case where I agree with some of the criticisms and disagree with others.  Some reviews claimed the album lacked cohesion of any kind, and I can't see that.  The liner note is a classic ghetto blaster and Keynote Speaker revels in various old-school inspirations from the '70s and '80s from front to back, which I find pretty cohesive.  As I mentioned, the almost-humorously white sounds of tracks like "Stars" and "Golden Arms" as well as the light-headed spacey vibes of "Fame" and "Journey" take us through a comprehensive trip of yesteryear while providing plenty of enjoyable modern hip-hop sewn together with them ("Keynote Speaker," "Zilla" etc).  I'll be the first to admit that some of U-God's verses aren't his strongest ("Heads Up" and "Heavyweight" don't do much for me), and that would bump it down a few points if I scored these reviews.  However, this is as easy to listen to musically as anything in recent memory and a lot of the verses are really cool.  I heard him say that with Keynote Speaker, "this'll either put my in your top five emcees or your top five underrated," and I definitely agree with the second part.  U-God may not have Method Man's flow or GZA's vocabulary, but he's got a voice and plenty of sincere stories to tell if you'll listen.  Do yourself a favor and take the time to do so.

Recommended Tracks:  Keynote Speaker, Stars, Room Keep Spinning, Get Mine.

Shaolin Annex (More for the Map).

Hey readers!  If you're here for the regular scheduled entry on the Map, don't worry - my look back at U-God's The Keynote Speaker will be up by the end of the day Wednesday.  In the meantime, there's one quick thing we need to discuss.

If you've ever looked all the way back at the beginning of Map of Shaolin, maybe you noticed the last thing on it was tomorrow's U-God album.  This is because when I made the map last spring, it was the most recent thing that had come out.  Since then, six more Wu-related albums have been released:  Wu-Tang Clan's group album A Better Tomorrow, Ghostface Killah's 36 Seasons and collaboration album Sour Soul (with Badbadnotgood), Raekwon's Fly International Luxurious Art, Czarface's Every Hero Needs a Villain and Ghostface's Twelve Reasons to Die II.  As if that's not enough, it looks like Method Man is about to drop his next solo album, The Meth Lab, and I'm sure more albums will be released in the future.

So what do we do?  For now, I've made an extra map for the six albums that have come out in the last year - from A Better Tomorrow to Twelve Reasons to Die II, check out the new map!

I'll continue this blog project for the next six or seven weeks, keeping our look at the Wu-Tang catalog going until we run out of albums.  After that, I'll make a new entry whenever a new album is released.  A couple things:  First, it would probably be pretty stupid to make a new map every time a new album is released, so just bookmark MapofShaolin.blogspot.com and check back whenever you hear about a new Wu-family record.  Second, since hip-hop albums suffer from more delays than LaGuardia, I won't be hyping anything or promising any dates on reviews until I have an album in my hands.  That's why the new Method Man album isn't on the new map above - you never know when some shit's gonna get pushed back a week or two.  Third, the long-standing "Legacy" section of map entries - where I talk about the album's reception and impact on that artist's career since its release - is going to disappear in a few weeks.  It's hard to say how Twelve Reasons to Die II affected Ghostface in the long run since it just came out about three weeks ago, right?  Finally, whenever I get caught up completely (mid-September maybe?) I'll be writing a summary and "thank you" blog about this whole god-damn project.  So keep an eye out for that.

Alright!  Thanks for your continued readership everybody.  Keep it tuned here for more discussions about the remaining/recent Wu-family releases, more reviews to come etc.  See you for the next several Wu Wednesdays.

Step Sixty Two: Ghostface Killah: Twelve Reasons to Die.

Artist:  Ghostface Killah
Album:  Twelve Reasons to Die
Producer:  Adrian Younge
Release Date:  April 16, 2013 (The Brown Tape released April 23, 2013)

Note:  This album was released alongside a short comic book series that helped tell the story, similar to the included comic in Ghost's subsequent release 36 Seasons.  I couldn't get my hands on a copy of the comic before this review; my apologies.  However, a week after Twelve Reasons to Die's release, they released a musically alternate version of the album, Twelve Reasons to Die: The Brown Tape, which I'll cover briefly at the end of this entry.  Thanks for your support!

Review:  Ghostface Killah has always been the type of rapper to tell a story, from his award-winning verse on Wu-Tang's "Impossible" to the present day.  On 2013's Twelve Reasons to Die, he takes it a step further by enlisting composer/producer Adrian Younge to serve as the musical counterpart to his first official concept album.  Ghost has had themed albums before (Ghostdini is almost entirely R&B-based rap), but this is the first album to stick with one story from start to finish.  Adrian Younge has called the album "the score to a vintage Italian horror film," which sounds pretty accurate in my opinion.

The story that Twelve Reasons tells is about Tony Starks (Ghostface) and the DeLuca mob family.  I'll fill in the story as we go along.  The album opens with "Beware of the Stare," a funk overture of what's to come.  It introduces Tony and features a foreboding hook about his impending murder.  Big props to Adrian Younge for writing this track for Ghost to rap over; the fusion of dynamic prog-rock time signatures, an old-school bassline, Wu-Tang slang, a small Shakespearean women's chorus and soul keyboards are an amazing way to kick off this album.  When I first bought it, I told one of my boys it was Ghost's most musical album at the time, and I stand by that.  He's released others since, but that's another story for another day.

On "Rise of the Black Suits" we look back at Tony's early days over jazz drums and '70s church keyboards supporting a simple piano progression that ascends and descends a half a scale on the seventh and eighth beats.  At times, when the other piano bit kicks in (three chords), it sounds like a solid candidate for the first Broken Bells album.  Tony worked as an underling for the DeLuca clan, rising through the ranks until, in his words, "Tryin' to make me a made man, they fucked up the game plan / I blacked out on them and started my own clan."  Virtually all of the album is story in rhyme, and it almost always serves both with a perfect balance.  The song ends with Ghost telling us the DeLucas claimed to support his success but would've started a war with him if they weren't too chickenshit.

Masta Killa guests on "I Declare War" (on which Tony decides - you guessed it - to declare war on the DeLucas) as a long-time friend and member of Tony's mob.  MK references "Wu-Gambinos" from Only Built 4 Cuban Linx... to depict how tight their family is ("It's non-stop hustle and flow of their casino, RZA Tarantino / It's Wu-Gambino for life, you know how we go").  RZA pads things out with a narrated outro that reads like an intro text box for a comic book, which I hope is intentional.  "Born into a world with violence, death and destruction surrounding him at every turn, Tony Starks took control of his own destiny and aspired to become one of the foremost leaders of the criminal underworld..."

It leads directly into "Blood on the Cobblestones," which has some similar instrumentation that Younge likely utilized to show how fast it's on once Tony's made the decision to go to war.  It's quicker than any track so far and utilizes turntables to promote a sense of urgency.  U-God and Inspectah Deck guest here, fighting on Tony's side, and each have some really entertaining rhymes.  U-God opens his verse with "How you prepare for war?  Grab your guns and hardware / Never close your eyes in the barber chair," alluding to mobster movies where someone gets killed sitting at the barber's.  INS uses his trademark bouncing flow to outline his own plan for taking down their rivals:  "Greet 'em with open arms, beat 'em with no regards / Feed 'em .223's freeze 'em, leave 'em with no resolve."

"The Center of Attraction" slows it back down with Tony meeting a girl named Logan who Cappadonna warns is a DeLuca spy.  It starts with the female singers from "Beware of the Stare" before Tony talks about himself and Logan being like peanut butter and jelly - made to go together.  Cap tries to open his eyes, responding with "She's not your peanut butter!  More like a fuckin' nutcase," which I think is hysterical.  I've listened to it 20 times and I laugh every time I hear it.  But I'm not laughing at Cappadonna; he's just delivering a great response to Tony's metaphor in a way that sounds funny to me.  Musically, it's all ride cymbals and hitting the edge of the snare drum with strings and slow, reverberated keys.  Very mysterious, very old soul.

Tony doubles down in his trust for Logan at the end, as well as on "Enemies All around Me."  He says his gang doubts him now, and that his boys tell him "Bitches are sneaky, trifling and not to be trusted / A weak link in the team and the chain will get busted," but he decides "That's my lady, she would never backstab or double-cross me."  William Hart provides the hook here, which he sings some of in falsetto, reminding me of Handsome Boy Modeling School.  Same drumbeat as "The Center of Attraction," cleverly following up since this is Tony's internal monologue responding to Cappadonna's concerns.  Then comes "An Unexpected Call (The Set Up)," in which Logan calls Tony to come to her house and, on his arrival, is ambushed by DeLuca gangsters and killed.  They melt him in a pot of hot vinyl and one of his boys (Inspectah Deck) tells the rest of the family to look for Logan so he can get some answers.

Around the midway point on the album, on "The Rise of the Ghostface Killah," Tony Starks is dead but his spirit is preserved into 12 vinyl records pressed from the vat that the DeLucas lowered him into.  Whenever one of the records is played, shit happens - namely, the Ghostface Killah seeks revenge.  This may be the point of the story where some check out, but it's a great record even if you're not a fan of the comic book/grindhouse/horror aspect.  I'll be honest, the story takes a back seat for much of the rest of the album, with only occasional references to characters or Ghost's new immortal status.  Instead it leaves room to breathe and have fun with its rappers spitting verses about revenge and murder.  Back to "The Rise of..."  With an almost Portishead quality to the music, Ghost recaps the last few tracks and outlines some gruesome murder scenes ("Colombian neckties from a black gambino / Bodies get dumped in the black El Camino" and "Hogtie the capo all up, behead the driver / Left the bitch in the back with no tongue as the survivor").  Tremolo guitar and a turntable sampling ODB's classic "Ghost - face - killahhhhhhhhh" are used as well.

"The Catastrophe (Revenge is Sweet)" keeps that theme going as well, with guest spots by Killa Sin and Masta Killa.  The murder spree continues on..."Murder Spree," which is not to be confused with "Killin' Spree" by Defari.  "Murder Spree" is an all-out posse cut with seven verses and no hook. Mostly eight bars apiece, each emcee is only on for 20 seconds at a time. Inspectah Deck, Masta Killa, U-God, Killa Sin and Ghost all rap about ways to kill people, with Ghost and MK each getting two verses.  Deck and U-God get grisly with dismemberment: Deck rocks "Dahmer style, cut up and stuffed in the fridge / And maybe washed up ashore and found under the bridge," and then U-God spits "First things first, I chop your head to your fingertips / Butcher knife your torso, chop up your ligaments / Make sure it's legitimate, conceal all my fingerprints / Chop chop your body up then get rid of it."

"Murder Spree" and "The Sure Shot" both bring an acid-rock feel to them, the instruments hyped and popping.  "The Sure Shot" especially has fast jazz drums with the ride cymbal and snare alternating pure energy.  Ghost spits rhymes faster than he has in years,..for the first 90 seconds.  Then it slows up and gets phat again, Ghostface seems to have hit a turning point - his revenge is complete, catching stray DeLucas and killing them, but what does he do now?  He doesn't know whether or not to kill Logan for her betrayal, run his business or let his partners do it and so on.  The album ends with a title track that features a brief RZA epilogue voiceover, promising that Ghost's story lived on for generations and served as a warning not to double-cross a man like Tony Starks.  It also leaves the door wide open for a sequel, which was released in July 2015.

The Brown Tape Factor:  Just one week following the release of Twelve Reasons to Die, an alternate version of the album was released, called Twelve Reasons to Die: The Brown Tape.  It's hard to define it, because the closest description is a remix album but that's being really unfair.  The Brown Tape is more like a musically-alternate version of Twelve Reasons, taking all the final master tracks of vocals and laying them over completely different music, this time by Apollo Brown.  It's like a movie remake more than anything.  Vinyl pops persist throughout the album, but the live soul band feel of Twelve Reasons is replaced - sometimes with more obviously looped and sampled material, other times with darker instruments.  "Rise of the Black Suits" has picked blues guitar while "I Declare War" is built on a loop that sounds like a latter-day track by one of RZA's disciples.  "Blood on the Cobblestones" utilizes a fast jazz piano, and "The Center of Attraction" uses a slow descending piano that's too beautiful to describe; "Murder Spree" sounds like a genuine Wu-beat as well.  Even "The Sure Shot," which was straightforward acid-rock on the first release, is replaced with pure 1970s blaxploitation film funk.  It's a pretty great alternate take on the album and I can't imagine owning one version without the other.  The feeling listening to each is like watching an old film in black and white then watching it in color - it's hard to tell which is better but you'd hate not having both.

Legacy:  Twelve Reasons to Die springboarded Ghostface's current concept album-based career.  Since it was released just two years ago, he's put out a total of three:  Twelve Reasons to Die, 36 Seasons and Twelve Reasons to Die II.  Critics responded well to Twelve Reasons, mostly giving it between 7 and 10.  Tiny Mix Tapes gave it a 4.5/5, raving both about Younge's vintage American soul production and the sheer violent fun of the album.  Considering the equally warm response his follow-up, 36 Seasons, would receive, Ghostface is giving new meaning to the question "How can hip-hop be dead if Wu-Tang is forever?"

Recommended Tracks:  It's hard to listen to one piece of this story alone - it's like watching one scene from a movie - so do yourself a favor and just hear it from front to back.

Step Sixty One: Raekwon: The Tonight Show.

Note:  We're quickly approaching the end of the originally-planned Map of Shaolin.  Since making and starting the map - which originally ended with U-God's The Keynote Speaker - six or seven more albums have come out.  In another week or two we'll be introducing an added map to outline the remaining albums' timetable of review.  Thanks for sticking with us!  It's been a crazy year.

Artist:  Raekwon
Album:  The Tonight Show
Producer:  DJ Fresh
Release Date:  March 5, 2013

Review:  Almost two years to the day after releasing Shaolin Vs. Wu-Tang, Raekwon the Chef comes back with The Tonight Show, a short collaboration album with DJ Fresh.  Clocking in at just 27 minutes (four of which are skits), it's a bit surprising that Rae enlisted so much help from guests here - Mean Doe Green appears on three of the songs; Sunny Valentine and Fashawn also each appear once.  This leaves just three songs where The Chef appears totally dolo, but as long as it's banging, there's no real problem, right?

And the opener, "Culinary School," is really badass.  It's as driven and engaging and mysterious as anything from Cuban Linx 2, specifically reminding me of tracks like "Sonny's Missing" or "New Wu."  A melodic piano line (played identically on a backup bass) dances over a basic kick-kick-snare drum, but as keyboards come in to play along the same piano part and Rae busts F-bombs like shots, something about the song just picks you up and takes you for a ride.  Mean Doe Green growls like U-God and brings it home, ending a near-perfect three minutes.  The flow continues on "Mic Flips," with an equally energetic and engaging beat, while Raekwon takes his time getting to his verse but rapid-fires it once he gets there.  "The resume's the rifle, my uniform's a trifle / Ha ha, I pull my burner out I'm goin' up on Michael / Whiz kid, high profile the model / Rep like the VS the Chef's got his hatchet on every bottle."

"Yin & Yang" slows it down for the first minute before interrupting itself and dropping an old '90s gangster beat.  It and "So Much on Your Body" (definitely a sexy/club track) go by without hooking me as much as the first couple songs.  "So Much" actually sounds like it belongs more on Immobilarity or The Lex Diamond Story than anything else.  They're not shitty tracks, but they don't do much for me personally - no offense Rae!

"Double Dragon" brings it back with an infectious keyboard-and-guitar blues bit and a vocal sample behind Raekwon and Mean Doe Green, who go back and forth with solid verses.  I like Raekwon's "Major unbalanced flavor / Neighbor, promotional navigator, throw tapes you're throwin' vapor."  It's one of his quick rhymes that has that classic Rae style.

"Real Niggaz" is an all-around tight song.  It's hard to pinpoint what sticks out about it but it's just a good listen.  The last proper song is "Holes of Hell," and the beat and rhymes are also really good but it throws me off because - I don't know if it's my CD or the recording - it sounds so piqued it's hard to get past.  I tried it on my surround sound (a Denon 5.1 setup) and on my headphones (Beats Solo HD's) and it's not one or the other.  Damn.

Legacy:  This came out and flew under the radar almost entirely - it's the first album on Map of Shaolin to not even have its own Wikipedia entry.  Not that Wikipedia is a great source for trustworthy info, but since almost everything has a presence on it, it's just bizarre to see something without its own space.  I didn't see any major reviews on it, and to date there are only six customer reviews on Amazon.  All in all, a pretty quiet entry into Rae's discography.

So at the end of the day, The Tonight Show is pretty listenable for the most part but doesn't quite stand up to Rae's legendary albums like the Cuban Linx series or Shaolin Vs. Wu-Tang.  Short as it is, I enjoy it more than Immobilarity, but at such a brief runtime it's hard to look at it in the same light as those top-tier records or even his latest, Fly International Luxurious Art.  However, if you're hungry for more Raekwon (as most of us are), this is a good place to get your fix.  The really high-quality tracks just about even out with the less impressive ones, and we end with a good short record that really soars at its greatest heights and just coasts at sea level at its lowest.  Give it a shot, but don't overpay.

Recommended Tracks:  Culinary School, Mic Flips, Double Dragon.