Album: Pro Tools
Release Date: August 19, 2008
Producers: Bronze Nazareth, Arabian Knight, RZA, et al.
Review: At this point I'd be a lot more surprised if GZA's lyrics weren't above and beyond rather than being as compelling and diverse as they always are. He's set a high bar for himself that he nearly always meets and seldom barely misses, and it's the same result here as we've come to expect. I definitely have my favorite verses compared to others (which I'll get into in a bit), but worried fans can rest assured that as of this album - GZA's latest solo effort, released in 2008 - The Genius still hasn't fallen off.
Overall, there are a lot of questions to answer. Does RZA produce at all? Yes, two tracks: "Paper Plate" and "Life is a Movie." Any guest spots by Wu affiliates? Indeed. Masta Killa and RZA guest star on the first proper song ("Pencil") while True Master guests on the mic on "Colombian Ties" and RZA returns for "Life is a Movie" - GZA's son Justice Kareem also appears on "Cinema" and "Groundbreaking." Is there the staple category/list track? Hell yes there is. Five for five, GZA uses car names to tell a street story on "0% Finance" on Pro Tools. This gimmick started with naming record labels on "Labels" from Liquid Swords, magazines on "Publicity" from Beneath the Surface, celebs on Legend of the Liquid Swords' "Fame" and, most recently before Pro Tools, "Queen's Gambit" on Grandmasters ran through a gamut of NFL team names. Are there any major red flags on the album like Beneath the Surface's lukewarm experience or Legend of the Liquid Sword's self-censored profanity? No; it's a really solid release besides one caveat with some of the music.
See, the music is solidly produced in plenty of places (see highlights below), but - likely owing to Pro Tools, the software after which the album is named - it just barely has a "too cleanly separated" or sterilized feel that persists through much of the record. It's not as grimy or chunky in most places as you'd hope, especially since that dirtiness has largely stuck with the Wu in one form or another over the years (as closely as Fishscale and More Fish before it and Dopium afterwards).
Wu-producer Mathematics sets up the three Wu emcees who appear on the album with "Pencil," a lively beat with pitch-raised vocal samples and fast and smooth delivery by GZA, Masta Killa and RZA. Definitely a solid latter-day Wu sound, the only hiccup "Pencil" has is its strange balance of verses: GZA raps for about 45 seconds, Masta Killa another 30 then RZA for a full two minutes. They all kill it, but I'd have loved to have heard a solid 60-second or minute and 15 verse from each of the Wu generals.
"Alphabets" (produced by fellow Wu-affiliate True Master) is the most immediately recognizable beat on the album as being a Wu-Tang-related track. It's piqued drum loop and soulful guitar could've come from the Wu-Tang: Shaolin Style and Ghost Dog era 10 years before it. GZA's hook is mighty clever as well, successfully implementing in order all 26 words assigned to the alphabet in Islam's "Supreme Alphabet." In the Supreme Alphabet, the culture of the Nation of Islam assigns one or two words to represent each letter. D is for Divine, Z is for Zig-Zag-Zig (the journey from knowledge to wisdom to understanding), etc. Here's what I mean (check the capital letters for the alphabet, and the Supreme Alphabet's wiki page for its representations and differences between cultural Islam and religious Islam):
"Allah Be or Born, Cee Divine Equality
Father, then after that comes the G-o-d
He or her, I islam, then Justice
King of kingdom, Love hell or right, we still exist
Master, Now in cipher*, Power's the Queen
Rule or rulers, Self or savior, the Truth or the square, the same
Universe, Victory, unknown*, [Why/Y]
Zig-Zag-Zig and now we're back home."
* In the Supreme Alphabet, O stands for "cipher" or a complete circle and X stands for the unknown, so although GZA doesn't offer words that start with those letters, he still represents them properly in "Alphabets."
Looking at the Supreme Alphabet, you also learn that R stands for Ruler, Z for Zig-Zag-Zig and A for Allah, hence why RZA uses one, two or all three words to refer to himself in the third person ("Ruler Zig-Zag-Zig Allah"). Also, C stands for its phonetic "see" (or to have vision) but its word is spelled Cee; L is "Love Hell or Right" which is similar to saying "Love, come Hell or high water." I personally am not religious (nor an Asiatic black man as the Wu-Tang say their Five Percent Nation of Islam represents), but I still find the assignment and re-appropriation of symbols to the alphabet interesting. If nothing else, it took three paragraphs of cultural/philosophical/religious discussion to unravel just one chorus on one of this album's 16 songs, so kudos to GZA for getting us talking.
"Groundbreaking" includes a guest spot by GZA's son, Justice Kareem (aka Young Justice) and is the first in some time to be produced by Bronze Nazareth, not to mention a hook that references the classic Raekwon track "Wu-Gambinos" ("I call my brother [Son/sun] 'cuz he shine like one").
On to the extended metaphor track, "0% Finance" talks about people from around the way, using car names to tell the tale. Check the bold words. "Had a strong accent, but a beard like Lincoln / He hated the golf course but he loved drinkin' [...] He wore blazers where he used to hide the Ruger / For encounters with the Jaguars and the cougars."
RZA produces "Paper Plate," but don't jump the gun - this isn't "4th Chamber." What it is is an effective blend of one-chord keyboards and straightforward staccato percussion that, together, remind me of "Flying Birds" and "Dead Birds" from RZA's Ghost Dog score. It's a bit hindered by the clean/separated sound I mentioned earlier, but still a beat you enjoy. The other side of this track is GZA's rap, which is a diss against 50 Cent and G-Unit. If this sounds familiar, it's because the Wu-Tang vs. G-Unit feud dates back to Ghostface's Supreme Clientele eight years earlier when a voice-disguised Raekwon called out 50 on the skit "Clyde Smith." GZA opens with a nod to 50 Cent's friendship with Floyd Mayweather Jr., then takes advantage of Floyd's boxing career to set up a pugilistic insult, saying that 50 "got a few hooks but no jabs." In boxing a hook is a type of punch and a jab is another - the jab being the foundation of boxing itself - and in rap a hook is a chorus. So 50 has a few catchy choruses but no effective or damaging verses. That's a damn good metaphor using the same word used by both industries.
GZA goes on to talk a lot of well-informed shit about 50 Cent and G-Unit. First, he says "Never try to play the hottest one out your camp / He might step off and take half the juice from your amp," which is a reference to 50 Cent having a falling out with one of G-Unit's rappers, The Game. After their friendship ended, G-Unit noticeably dipped in quality (thanks to Rap Genius for the info). Later he spits "I step on your 'gators and lizards / Raise the lynx that was killed for your minks, you be rockin' them blizzards." This first line means GZA steps on (or disrespects) 50's alligator- and lizard-skinned, overpriced shoes. 50 is notorious for his fashion and material obsessions. GZA follows it with the line about the lynx, which is a wild cat whose hide is used for fur coats, saying he'll "raise" it - whether in intelligence, away from being a slaughtered beast; or raise it literally, saying that the clothes 50 wears are a result of GZA's hard work (50 is stealing the NYC mobster image from early '90s Wu-Tang albums like Only Built 4 Cuban Linx... and using it to buy himself nice stuff). So it's a warning from GZA that 50 will be left out in the cold, literally or metaphorically, for being shallow and commercial and not recognizing the predecessors to whom he owes much of his fame.
The rest of the album holds its own, but it's hard to get over such a crazy track as "Paper Plate." GZA steps back and lets Ka do three verses on "Firehouse," but he returns on "Path of Destruction" to rock rhymes like "Heavy as the hammer of Thor / You know he suffer from the consequences of broken vows and law." RZA produces the proper closer "Life is a Movie" and lends his voice to do plenty of rhyming along with GZA. The music is very unlike RZA's usual forte past or present, but it works wonders. Charging, energetic, action-film drums give the track some drive but the fuzzy electric bass and keyboard strings really rile things up. It's hard to explain but easy to listen to. The final song on the album is a live track, "Elastic Audio." It has a beat similar to "Pencil" but with more staccato strings, and GZA raps over it for about a minute and a half before the music cuts out and he rhymes from Grandmasters' "General Principles" a capella for several more minutes.
Legacy: Pro Tools was generally well-received, although some criticized its lack of cohesion musically. I can understand their opinions, since it doesn't have the airtight consistency of Liquid Swords or even Grandmasters, but I still think it sounds at least relatively cohesive. Some of the music may be lacking in energy or soul or anger here or there, but Pro Tools is a good reminder of the quality of rhymes and music that the Wu-generals could still dig up from within at the time - which is a welcome thing indeed, as it was released between Digi Snacks and Blackout! 2, both of which were considerably more troubled than this record.
As of March 2015, GZA has yet to release his next solo album, although he's been said to have been working on his science-based album Dark Matter for the past several years. A student at the University of Toronto captured the end of GZA's lecture on consciousness and the universe's origins on a cell phone, in which he read lyrics from a song intended for Dark Matter about the Big Bang. Check this link but be wary of the accompanying in-video lyrics whose accuracy is questionable.
Recommended Tracks: Alphabets, Paper Plate, Path of Destruction, Life is a Movie.
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