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.