Album: Dopium
Producers: Teddy Ted & J. Serbe, etc.
Release Date: June 23, 2009
Review: Just one month after Blackout! 2 and nearly four years after Mr. Xcitement, U-God returns with Dopium. Luckily, Golden Arms has shaken off nearly all the problems that killed Mr. Xcitement and returned to the Wu-Tang fold (as is evident by the cover, which takes the Wu-Tang W logo and makes it a U for his name). And while it may not be in most Wu fans' top five list, it's a really enjoyable and somewhat underrated record.
It's evident from the first track, "Train Trussle," that U-God has bounced back, with an engaging beat by Teddy Ted & J. Serbe (who produce 1/3 of the album by themselves). The beat itself is uptempo and exciting in a way similar to the beginning of DOOM's Vaudeville Villain. Ghostface gets the first verse. It isn't long, though, before U-God's trademark bullfrog bass voice arrives on the scene to ride the music with a strong set of rhymes himself.
Speaking of Wu generals, the Wu-Tang collaborations continue on "God is Love" which features Cappadonna and Killah Priest and "Stomp da Roach" featuring GZA. Just two tracks later, Raekwon appears on "Coke" followed three tracks later by Method Man on "Wu-Tang" (more on this banger later). This makes for Wu guest spots on five of the album's 11 new songs. This is a far cry from Mr. Xcitement, which featured no Wu emcees besides U-God himself - even just one track on Mr. Xcitement was produced by a Wu-affiliate (4th Disciple), the rest standing completely apart from Wu-Tang. It's definitely a step back in the right direction for Golden Arms, who sounds most comfortable surrounded by his fellow residents of Shaolin. In terms of other returning U-God associates, only Lethaface (who appeared regularly on Xcitement) reappears on Dopium, performing the hook on "Rims Pokin' Out." Hak da Navigator (who produced "Pleasure or Pain" and "Shell Shock" on U-God's 1999 debut Golden Arms Redemption) also makes a production appearance here on "Magnum Force." Besides them, there are plenty of fresh new faces - including producers like Twilite Tone and Andre Clarke and rappers Scotty Wotty and Sheek Louch.
'70s strings and horns fill up "God is Love" with verses by Cappadonna, U-God and Killah Priest. It's a listenable retro track but not the strongest lyrics on the record. "Stomp da Roach" follows, and is surprisingly a metaphor for getting shitty people out of your life. U-God comes alive here in a way he hasn't in a long time. "I'm the drill sergeant, I'm the boric acid / The black flag nigga, the biohazard / The economist of the bio-standard / And he sprayed the mist on them flies that landed." Boric acid is, of course, a pesticide; the company Black Flag also produce a range of insecticides.
The next several songs are really good but they don't blow my mind the way much of the rest of the album does. For example, "Lipton" is fun with its insane amount of internal rhymes; "Coke" is very good all-around but without specific highlights to point out; "Magnum Force" suffers from an awkward hook but a high-energy beat helps save it (thank you Hak da Navigator).
It's hard to believe that by the time you get to "Hips," the album is more than half over but it's the first song U-God rocks with no guest stars. That's not a diss, either; he's done plenty before and since by himself that are awesome (especially his purely solo tracks on The Keynote Speaker). It's just surprising. And it's a fun song, but I gotta say the following track is easily my favorite on the album.
"Wu-Tang" has a beat that gets stuck in my head out of nowhere sometimes - a slow burner with piqued drums and big keys and skratching. U-God busts out of the gate unstoppable with some of his best lyrics on the album:
"I'm from the tar pits, the hard target to squash the market
You're brainwashed, watch the starships
I make cars flip, Inspectah bomb atomic, Islamic arms
Kiss the comet, this time he's gone
I grip the don, rip arms out the socket, cock it
Fly logic, now watch me skyrocket, watch it
Hot as the tropic get, bulletproof esophagus
Steel cage confidence, burn it on a floppy disk."
The beat, courtesy of Andre Clarke, also fits like a glove for guest emcee Method Man, who sounds like he's having plenty of fun bouncing back and forth from rhyme to rhyme. Check the bold words here versus the italicized ones. "This is ghetto rap, where the pot be callin' the kettle black / My bullets tryin' to see where they head is at, I'm headin' back / To the slums, back to the block, I got the Clan on my back / And you know we headin' back to the top."
The title track has a great beat by Teddy Ted and J. Scribe, who brought the music for the first three tracks (a good stab at continuity throughout the record) and Golden Arms holds the track on his own with short lines and quick rhymes a la "Lipton." Speaking of "Lipton," "Rims Pokin' Out" has a couple similarly fun and not-too-serious verses, but here about cars. It's a good bumpin' track with fun lyrics like "I'm live on your set, pedestrians sweat / 'Cuz they catch whiplash when they turn they neck / With a multi-disc changer plus cassette / This is for them lowriders that burn the strip." Dopium ends with the short-but-sweet "New Classic," with a beat that could easily have been on a Tricky album and one long verse by U-God. Definitely one of the better songs on the album, but not as much a highlight as some other tracks are.
There are also three bonus tracks, all remixes of songs on the album. It's good to hear different musical takes on earlier tracks ("Dopium," "Stomp da Roach" and "Hips"), but I've never been the kind of listener to hold remixes in the same regard as original songs, so I think this is a good place to stop.
Legacy: Dopium received mixed reviews, but in my opinion it's a marked comeback for U-God. It's no secret Mr. Xcitement fell short almost everywhere, so in a way this is really the first borderline-great U-God album in a decade (since 1999's Golden Arms Redemption). There are a couple songs that don't wow me like the rest, but there are more than a fair share of gems across these 11 new tracks. My personal favorite album of U-God's is either Golden Arms Redemption or The Keynote Speaker, but Dopium is nothing to sneeze at either. Some will say that anything Wu-related that's been released in the last decade or so is a fluke, but I just don't see that. Between Dopium, Cuban Linx Pt. 2 and the Afro Samurai: Resurrection soundtrack, even the year 2009 alone produced three very entertaining Wu-general releases.
Recommended Tracks: Train Trussle, Stomp da Roach, Wu-Tang.
No comments:
Post a Comment