Album: Wu-Tang Chamber Music
Producers: The Revelations, Andrew Kelley, etc.
Release Date: June 30, 2009
Review: Of all the albums on The Map of Shaolin, Chamber Music may be the hardest to classify (along with its successor, Legendary Weapons). It can't be said to be a full-on Wu-Tang Clan release, since it doesn't fit any of the regular categories (only one track produced by RZA, four or five Wu emcees missing, etc), nor is it a Wu-affiliate compilation like Think Differently Music (at least one Wu emcee appears on each track, often two). To get a better idea of the album, it's probably best to discuss what it does do, right and wrong.
Wu-Tang: Chamber Music features 17 tracks, but that's incredibly misleading. Every single odd-numbered track is an interview snippet with RZA or his personal recorded thoughts about the typical Wu themes: martial arts, Eastern philosophy, Allah, etc. These are backed by minimal but pleasant music, reminding one of the "Samurai Quote" tracks from Ghost Dog. It's cool to get into RZA's head and hear his opinions on many of the group's tropes, but I imagine plenty of fans were pissed to give it a listen on the way home from the record store and find there are just eight full songs, which clock in at a total of 26 minutes (without the dialogue tracks).
The music for the entire album is performed by The Revelations, a Brooklyn group who perform hip-hop-, soul- and jazz-inspired music. They also produce much of the album. I've read that RZA was impressed by them because they played the type of music live that he'd cobbled together from samples for Wu-Tang since '93, and I don't blame him. They're really great tunes and bring an authentic sound to an often sample-based genre, with the added benefit of not sounding like abysmal '90s rap-rock (I'm looking at you, Limp Bizkit). If The Revelations sound familiar, it's likely because they also performed all the music for Ghostface Killah's December 2014 release 36 Seasons. This is the first collaboration between The Revelations and Wu-Tang, though, so it's good to have a recorded history of their collaborations and to see how it began.
On vocals, we get five Wu-generals: Inspectah Deck on three tracks, U-God on two, Ghostface Killah on three tracks, Raekwon on two and RZA on two (besides his dialogue clips). RZA also plays backup keyboards on "NYC Crack," the album's final proper song. Several of the guest vocalists should look familiar as well, as most of them are legendary New York hip-hop talent (and collaborated with Wu-Tang before and after this): AZ, Masta Ace, Kool G Rap and so on.
So with incredible music and an all-star roster of emcees, Chamber Music comes out the gate with a major head start. In fact its brevity could be its biggest problem. I've always been a music listener who wants to be taken on an adventure, and as long as it doesn't wear out its welcome, I say the longer the better. It's definitely an album I'd listen to for twice as long - 26 minutes is really an EP more than anything. Oh well.
"Kill Too Hard" pops and sets up Inspectah Deck, U-God and Masta Ace to spit some quick verses. Deck rapid-fires some great rhymes, like "These dudes don't want it with Deck, no, my set glow / Hate it or you love it but you're gonna respect, though" and "On the flip side, nigga, it's them hammers and clips / Wanna live in high fashion and rich, so we scramble the strip / Camouflage with they hand on the clip."
Ghost, INS and AZ rock the more grooving "Harbor Masters" and are followed by Raekwon with Cormega and Sean Price on "Radiant Jewels." The music here has lovely live drums and either sampled or keyed strings, and while Chef is always on point, Sean Price nearly steals the show from him. "Listen, giraffe-neck niggas, I blast techs / Alejandro came through with the Mexican Aztecs" is a sweet opening couplet, and later in the verse he fires off "Ain't a problem that the god can't handle / I set it off First Blood, Sean John Rambo." That last line works on several levels. He says when there's trouble he's up and in action before anyone else ("I set it off first, blood") but it also works to say that he fixes problems like in the Sylvester Stallone movie First Blood, the first in the series of Rambo movies (eg "I set it off [like] First Blood"). Then he says "Sean John Rambo," which goes together a number of ways. The first is that he could be calling himself Sean [Price, like] John Rambo, but of course Sean John is a clothing company owned by Sean "Puffy" Combs, so Price is also saying he's like a hip-hop Rambo (a "Sean John [kind of] Rambo"). In rap, I've always loved these mixed metaphors that imply so much while saying so little.
Ghost returns, this time with RZA and Havoc, for "Evil Deeds." Great piano-ish keyboards by Borahm Lee, but RZA's first quatrain slays this track: "Bobby Steels keeps steel concealed, be still / Leave you 50-shot banana clips, free refills / Guns bursting, one person is curtains for certain / Most often fill coffins, no nursing or surgeons."
"Ill Figures" has Raekwon, M.O.P. and Kool G Rap rapping over a midtempo beat with all music (including the mysterious bass guitar) played by Revelations' bassist, Josh Werner. All solid verses, but the music is the hero here for me. The brass-led "Sound the Horns" also engages with its instrumentation, even before Deck and U-God get started with their collaboration with Sadat X. U-God fares better here than he did on "Kill Too Hard," with lines like "Yo, you're hog-tied, I'm roping 'em, bitches I'm gropin' 'em / Open up your veins and cop three bags of Dopium" and "I keep it gloss, I'm suited up for my franchise / Your coins is tossed, manhandle bad guys."
RZA closes it out with "NYC Crack," with hook vocals by now-regular Thea Van Seijen. The music is very 007, Thea's vocals are beautiful as always (see the Afro Samurai soundtracks) and RZA's verses aren't quite as solid as "Evil Deeds" but not bad either.
Legacy: I love that Chamber Music is like a crossroads between the core Wu-Tang group (with over half the original members here), RZA's soundtrack work (Kool G Rap has been on board since Ghost Dog and Thea Van Seijen appeared on both Afro Samurai soundtracks) and what is now established as the modern sound of Wu-Tang: live instruments, diverse musical styles and older-but-wiser lyrics. A short two years later, they'd return with Legendary Weapons, very much in the same vein but with just four interludes instead of nine, leaving 10 songs. The personnel is similar too, adding Method Man and Cappadonna from the core group and familiar faces Killa Sin, Trife Diesel, Bronze Nazareth and Roc Marciano over The Revelations music. Chamber Music was received well by critics, and aside from the sheer number of dialogue clips it's a solid extension of the Wu family and worth your $10.
Recommended Tracks: All. Now, that's not to say this album is stronger than any of the records on which I didn't recommend every song, but with just eight offerings, it seems a bit silly picking a top four/five. They're all good, so take your pick.
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