Crazy Review of Wu Tang Forever
I knew I had this somewhere - a mental, (possibly somewhat overblown), review of the monumental Wu-Forever. It came from an indy-rockish music mag from the UK. Back when Wu ruled the world. (Love that bit about GZA - 'He might have been wanting to wash the car instead, but he can't. It's simply out of his control. He has been called.') (had to scan it and convert from pdf so a bit jumbled in places)
'THE EPIC story is always told like this. It has its villains, its unseen forces, its hidden evils manipulating the players against their will. It has its moments of love and redemption; its heroes and its bystanders who can only note their valour and receive their wisdom. It has the power to see the big picture but also to scan the small-time, and to turn the apparently insignificant into something of huge importance. And, of course, this being an epic, it will take a long, long time to unfold...
The second album from Shaolin Island, the unofficial sixth borough of New York City, is just such an epic. Thirty songs of heroism, humour, violence and dynastic intrigue from a group with minds filled with the staples of B-movies: mad professors, scientific experiments gone wrong, cross and double-cross, cults, martial arts and secret signs; a sequel to a genre-defining work. Four years in arriving, yet held up as a consistently tantalising prospect through a stream of huge-selling side projects from its members, the second Wu-Tang Clan album pitches itself as nothing less
than the definitive work to embrace those solo chapters, lf albums by Method Mart Genius, Ghostface Killah, Raekwon and 0|‘ Dirty Bastard were the Gospels, then this is meant to be the Good Book. And what it contains is The Knowledge.
Ridiculous, this could easily be. But so wide-reaching is the Wu-Tang Clans extended family (Ol' Dirty has even done a duet with Mariah Carey), so ceaselessly inventive their style, and so uncompromising their business
attitudes, you almost unthinkingly believe all that is trumpeted about their mastery. A little perspective:Snoop Doggy Dogg is a gangsta. The Wu-Tang Clan are 11 interdependent superheroes gifted with Islamic religious fervour,
unquestionable skill in martial arts, numerology and mathematics, with mafiosi soubriquets and a hotline to The Truth. They've thought about this.
They set themselves up as gods, and all we are required to do is heed their wisdom. There's a tape-recorded conversation near the end of the album that simply states their case: “Shorty,” asks a Clanvoice, "why you going to
summer school? Pick up the Wu-Tan double album. It's got all the education you need for a year." Well... close. ‘Wu-Tang Forever’ is both unforgettably huge, and bested in a righteous fervour that proclaims how the Clan can save the world, but also assailed at its fringes by the paranoia that plays on an expanding empire.
Wu-Tang have created new channels for hip-hop: when each member having only one name threatens to restrict their style, they invent new ones; whenever the limitations of personal experience limit a song's point of view, the mic is passed; whenever this bombardment of shifting perspectives threatens to disturb its focus, they have the RZA's
production, and the one set of drums that thumps insistently throughout the album. But this continuity is both gift and poison chalice to the Clan: having made it their own, they were unprepared to have it stolen, and so spend a disproportionately large chunk of their time restating their commitment to destroying all who would steal their ideas.
Meanwhile, the century hurtles to its close. The four years between ‘Enter The Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)‘ and ‘Wu-Tang Forever‘ is branded on the album; the knowledge that the next may not appear ‘til after the year 2000 weighted by the sounds of a band attempting to address the world as they see it in the prelude to the new century, broiled in a suffocating pre-millennial tension. The vibe is pestilential - the Clan almost exclusively described in religious terms throughout, brought in like the
superheroes they emulate, to save the day against unwinnable odds. The fantastic ‘For Heaven's Sake’ sets the tone. "Now all pay tribute to this entity," the GZA intones. "From this elite fleet/l was appointed/To strike the vital nerve". He might have been wanting to wash the car instead, but he can't. It's simply out of his control. He has been called.
What Wu-Tang bring to this situation is, superficially, The Knowledge. 'Superficially' because The Knowledge doesn't really amount to much more than what has been stated in the music of Curtis Mayfield, Gil Scott-Heron, Marvin Gaye's ‘What's Goin' On’, or by Public Enemy: that the vortex of poverty, and the perceived escape of drugs, guns and black-on-black violence substitutes progress for trinkets; for money, mobiles and cars.
What the Wu do, though, is define their terms and deal with stories in a vivid documentary style: seamlessly weaving in political background, conspiracy and as-it-happens action. There's a song called 'lmpossible'. ln the background, a soulful female vocal laments while information is
telegraphed in from a larger perspective. The song then cuts to Ghostface Killah on the ground, next to his friend who's just been shot. He snatches a mobile phone to call 911 for help, but the batteries are flat and by the time the ambulance arrives, his friend is dead. The camera moves away and a voice announces that, "What my friend here is trying to say, is that this is just a story: a story from The Real".
Their eye for detail is as flawless as their style is verbose. lf the Wu-Tang style (the feeling, essentially, of hearing facts from an encyclopaedia, not edited, but simply compressed into a smaller space) has a defining moment on this album, it's ‘Scary Hours/Cash Still Rules’, where Ghostface Killah is in mid-flow and the music simply... runs out, leaving him to continue his high-pitched staccato until RZAfades him out; but elsewhere their eye is cast over eveiything from the stripes on Nike trainers to edible underwear, to coconut oil. Which is, it you were wondering, "The real Body Shop shit".
This is what makes ‘Wu-Tang Forever’ and its quest for peace the more effective. lt never makes its judgement before prowling the area first: making its observations from close-up, then withdrawing to consider, rather than preaching from a safe, sententious distance. The effect is frequently magnificent. Whereas RZA's production on solo albums by Clan members is a display of discemibly individual and complex invention each time, here it is pared down to a simplicity he has described as just "noises with drums", an emptier canvas on which the full complement of the Wu-Tang can exercise their styles. The mellifiuous GZA, smooth and lisping Method Man, jabbering Ghostface Killah... when they set to work over five closely-related tracks (‘The City‘, The Projects‘, ‘Bells Of War’, ‘Little Ghetto Boys‘ and ‘A Better Tomorrow’), their contributions reach new heights of poignancy and eloquence.
The themes for these songs is analogous to the Wu‘s own discipline for ‘Wu-Tang Forever to expand on what you have, you have to consolidate your strengths and take new initiatives. So just as RZA allows his proteges (most successfully 4th Dlsclple on ‘Better Tomorrow‘) a hand in the production, introduces the might of Cappadonna, and squashes the input of OI’ Dirty Bastard, so these songs introduce the idea of family and responsibility; that against the desolation and the poverty, plans must be made for the future.
The rhymes are stunning. "Youths are injected with serums, that lead to skin irritations/Babies are bom with disfigurations”. While in the projects: "It lightly begins to rain/Screams of terror/Are hidden by passing trains".
The epic ends messily. Two hours of further education (with all that implies: some wasted time, some abstract debate, some knowledge absorbed) later, the Wu sit back, happy that they have the world's problems sewn up. They
have sat with the little man, seen his plight and comported themselves like divine beings in his presence, showing him the way forward, knowing that this is all you need.
It isn't quite. The Wu isn't all you need. But for all the red herrings, the confusion, and the periodic offence, ‘Wu-Tang Forever‘ is like that other epic. Yeah, it shows you the war. But it also tries its hand at peace.
