Why Bronze should produce the next Clan album

[jaydee3]

As far as I see it, there was a vision with these first albums. And also for Supreme Clientele. A certain message or story being played out. Which made the thing work as a coherent piece. This vision was most of the time led by RZA. (Correct, me if I'm wrong.) Which also mixed and put together the whole album as one piece. And not a a collage of sorts with different kind of snapshots from a roadtrip of the last years. IN that sense it would not matter much who you have to produce. As long as that vision is there, as long as all these tracks are stitched together as one set piece. And I think that is what everybody is longing for.

Also, what the fuck do you have to show for if you have been touring non stop for the last X years. Sit down, go on a sabbatical, and go look at the world for a bit. I think that would give you a lot more inspiration than the pretty closed circuit of shows shows shows.[/QUOTE]

True Rza had a vision when it came to the first rounds of wu releases. After that everyone became stars on their own and been questioning hes visions for wu albums since iron flag. Wich I see is their weakest group album and for me came out of nowhere.

Nowdays everyone seem to have their own vision when it comes to albums thats why you saw all that drama with mostly Rae and Ghost being vocal about the big vision of their last two albums.

I think the touring isnt really the biggest issue in this its that they all grew up and moved away from eachother. They got their own things that they run and they got kids now aswell.

As I wrote in a earlier post. Rent a mansion i a calm area sit down and throw ideas at eachother. Go party with eachother and find that spark. And we might get another banging album.

I read that a few songs that was ment for cl2 ended up on 8 diagrams for example so imagine how cl2 would sound with those songs instead of the filler songs we got.

[David Daniel Davis]

The bullet thing is he got shot a couple of different times within the past few years.

[jbckort]

i agree with jaydee3 , RZAs vision and was 100 percent dedicated to production all in
Since he is a busy man kinda in Hollywood thats not a good thing for his production style & vision
To me the worst clan album is A better Tomorrow , Theres beats on that album RZA made that are for a Movie OST type
and not a hardcore Wu Tang clan group album, also he wanted to experiment with live instrumentals with the beats , Iron Flag at least also 2nd worst but at least
the beats were hard.
But like jaydee said the vision has to be right , Bronze could definetely produce tracks, i dont agree that hes boring but an Entire clan album would be more of a Bronze Nazareth vs Wu Tang (Like Mathematics album) .
Daringer could do some tracks , Mostly what i heard are slow tempo beats I dunno if that would be good for an Entire clan i dont think so
4th Disciple should be involved,
To me the last two albums felt like it was rushed put together.
Maybe the best thing is to pick a team of good producers and sit down or something , Let the clan members also pick the production and RZA be involved in some way . Not rush it

[Cilvaringz]

All of them are cool, but Cilvaringz is for the children. I keep saying it.

[CL2coming]

For me personally, there are a couple of key elements that need to come together to make a great hip-hop/Wu-tang ALBUM (as opposed to just a collection of tracks).

1) Production cohesion. Bronze produced albums always sound like albums. The tracks usually complement each other. Similar sound palette. High quality. Rarely a dud. This is music at the end of the day - so if the beats suck, just quit.

2) Features/A&R. Obviously Wu fans usually want to hear fam members only on Wu-tang albums. I get that. But the direction the game is moving, and the way in which verses are being monetised through brokering (see M-Eighty's hustle), it's easy to end up with labels/A&Rs placing random verses on tracks that the artists have never heard. The result is a "copy and paste" feel - and you can often spot them a mile away, just by looking at the track list and features (Ghostface X Big Ghost Ltd for example - another M-Eighty creation).

Cilva - from what I understand, this is kind of what you did with OUATIS (i.e. collecting verses over time and splicing together a project). We never heard it, so I can't comment on whether or not it hurt the end product. But the fact is, tracks and albums will always sound better if a group of people are in the studio together, building, sharing ideas and feeding of each other's energy to create the end product.

Get the production right. Get the right people in the studio. 2 key elements, which people struggle to get right these days. But I get it - it's not easy to pull off with an older crew who have their own separate lives.

And if I was in Cilva's position (or even M-Eighty's or Remedy's) I can't say I wouldn't be collecting those verses myself. If it's the difference between a project not existing or existing, I think I'd still take the spliced Frankenrhymes.

[Cilvaringz]

OUATIS is definitely NOT random verse placements. All verses were recorded specifically for the tracks, sometimes with more members present. There's back n forth tracks, line for line. There's skits where everyone plays a role. If you wree to ever hear it, you'd hear a far more cohesive vocal pattern than most of their later work. Now the new one I worked on, that's far more copy n paste. And you can ask Hal, Buddah Mac and Radioactive Man how that sounded.

I like your 'similar sound palette' note though. I think it's true for all the first albums... but do you feel it's the same for Forever and Iron Man?

[Contraband]

I think I missed this, but what's this "new one" album in the works?

[CL2coming]

Ironman - yes to an extent.

Forever just opened up whole new chapters to the sound.

In terms of people who really create great albums with a cohesive sound today - you've got Bronze, Muggs and Roc Marciano. Others too I'm sure - but off the top of my head, those guys.

[Buddah_MAC]

And you can ask Hal, Buddah Mac and Radioactive Man how that sounded.

Sounded really damned good.

I like your 'similar sound palette' note though. I think it's true for all the first albums... but do you feel it's the same for Forever and Iron Man?

Those albums RZA & elements were showing off the length & breadth what they could do as opposed to the earlier albums where he'd make them cohesive with an overall dominant instrument as a theme (guitars on ODB's, strings on OB4CL, keys on LS).

Ironman is my favorite overall RZA produced album for that reason. RZA takes all the various pieces of the Wu sound to that point and condenses it down to have the sequencing and the emceeing coalesce the songs together. Like, going from the laid back breathy Camay to the buzzing frenetic Daytona to the plodding mournful keys of Motherless to the uptempo orchestral Black Jesus should be jarring and schizophrenic but because of what they established and how they transition into each other with intros & skits it all flows seamlessly.

I love that album front to back & will often even play the instrumental w/ all those extended tracks w/ extra RZA noodling with the beats (Do you know the story behind that at all Ringz? I've never heard anyone speak on it.)

Forever was similarly a showcase for what Wu could do production wise but it always came across a collection of songs rather than a sculpted album. I love that collection of songs, don't get me wrong, but it doesn't feel like the time was taken to have flow together and that's why the sharp turns with different sounds from song to song were more jarring while still having top notch production throughout. (Which, by the way, does fit a Wu album very well. Expressing 9-10 plus different personalities on an album should feel more schizophrenic while a solo should pare down to one aspect of that chaos.) And, next Wu album, RZA went back to his emphasizing an instrument throughout technique like the 95 solos in pushing the drums to the forefront to give that a cohesive feel in the production.

[Rev Jones]

The Cilvaringz album is heat rocks front to back and side to side. Really, it's that good.

[ForensikZ]

What the hell was that Forenzik rant about hahahahaha?

A atep by step manual noone can refute. Basically, wu need to be originators not trend chasers. Thats what RUINED them in 2000s.

theres no point in saying “wu beats will be wack, but them rhyming on new producers will make their songs better”

wus weakness has been songwriting for a long time. No new producers are going to help them get over that and everyone with any semblance of knowledge of their history knows it aint happening in a group that size where every dollar counts.

whos replaying the last 2 raekwon albums? The last 6 ghostface copy and pste jobs? Meth lab etc etc

new producers. Same result just even worse. Last rae solo i can remember loving is butter knives which reenforces the point of wu needing wu production.

and that noone can name more than maybe 5 great (not even classic) songs on any release griselda has, so to sayvtheyve earned the RIGHT to produce a wu album is fucking insane. The beats on 8 diagrams, the w, iron flag >>> all their albums production and people bitch about later rza shits cuz they not the first run. Rza didnt even peak until 99-00’s ghostsog, supreme clientele, the w, bpw production styles but have these guys tell it , it ended in 97.


To say rza is wack for wu right now yet new artists have been using his beats where hes still doing sessions like earl sweatshirt - mollasses, nas - tanasia and highly favored, the kanye tracks, the rnb tracks for snow alegrah - emotional, tanashe - doctor, asap mob - what happens

yet im supposed to be excited for some mediocre knock off shit cause rzas beats on ONE ALBUM were totally wrong (minus 3-5 tracks) im good on that. Ill wait another 88 years before i want to see that happen.

[zooruka]

wu need to be originators not trend chasers. Thats what RUINED them in 2000s.

I agree


How the hell did they go from 93-97 to the W and all the other subsequent stuff they released after that?

[Cilvaringz]

So lets analyze.. What is it exactly you guys think went wrong and when did it start to go wrong for you?

[Rev Jones]

[zooruka]

So lets analyze.. What is it exactly you guys think went wrong and when did it start to go wrong for you?

97/ Peaking on Wu tang Forever/ The Rage Against The Machine Tour?