exactly, the whole "Birth of a Prince" album was a concept album of Bobby Digital transforming into Prince Rakeem by finding knowledge of self. as a concept album, or even as any album, it's far from perfect in its execution but it is an interesting ride to take every once in a while. RZA came up with some absolutely CRAZY beats that way overlooked for this LP, such as "The Chase" (which he kind of fucked up by wack rhyming over it but what A BEAT), "You Never Know" and "Grits". Barracuda's and True Master's joint is HEAT and then there's the inclusion of Bronze towards the end which felt kind of him being officialy knighted into the Wu-Elementz as far as I am concerned. so there's a lot of interesting stuff here both musically and lyrically but some of it also falls flat. the single "We Pop" never did shit for me, "Smoke, Drink & Fuck" felt like an auto-skip every time, and there's some tracks that's so weird in their construction that only RZA would put the samples together like that (e.g. "The Whistle").

after drug deals, living like a slob not giving a fuck about anything, and getting chased and almost pinned by the cops towards the end, Bobby meets a friend who introduces him to 5% teachings. this occurs on track #11, the skit after that song (always liked that one; good atmosphere). from there the album takes a thematic turns and becomes a lot more serious and introspective, while the mood grows more somber. Bronze contributes the amazing "A Day to God..." but i'm always suprised that "The Birth" is never being held up in the same esteem. to me it's even iller than the former. What a sample, what a beat, what a song these two guys made out of that!! And then come the final track, which represents both Robert Diggs physically being born into the world but also Prince Rakeem's spiritual birth after the death of Bobby Digital. I always loved that final song.. ODB's brother plays drums on that, and also on "Babies" from 'Iron Flag'.

After this album it was pretty weird that RZA decided to come back as Bobby Digital for his next album.. especially as that was continuing in a more analoug direction, production wise. it didn't really fit, either spiritually or thematically imo.

All in all I'd give RZA's album a 3/5.