HIP HOP REMIX WEEK Countdown: #2 The Wu Tang Clan

Since Enter the 36 Chambers, the Wu Tang Clan and, later, Wu affiliates, have been like a guerilla hip hop army. The Wu Tang “brand,” the name recognition, is an immense power source, legitimizing everything from Wu Wear to the least-recognized (or critically respected) Wu affiliates. And don’t think for a minute the RZA didn’t know damn well what he was doing. To build a brand, you don’t only need a product: need to create the brand itself. Music was the product, the Clan was the brand, and the remix was the tool that built it.

I’ve mentioned before that at the Wu Tang Clan’s inception, the RZA made a straightforward demand of the group: give him 5 years. 5 years with the RZA leading the group – in terms of production and business decisions – and afterwards each could proceed as he saw fit. In exchange, he promised victory. By the time his term was up, the Wu Tang Clan would dominate the hip hop world. And, oh, did he deliver. In 1993, Enter the 36 Chambers lit the underground hip hop scene and eventually grew like a wildfire. Having legitimized the crew as a force in hip hop, subsequent solo albums flaunted the depth of the Clan’s lineup and made the pop charts. By 1997, Wu Tang Forever was feverishly anticipated and debuted at number one.

So what does all this have to do with remixes? Think about this: the Clan could easily have released an album like 36 Chambers and used that as a jumping-off point for various independent solo careers. Some may have been successful, some not. Alternatively, they could have continued to release posse albums, each of the individuals subduing their unique styles and personalities for the greater good of the group. Instead, they developed a loose affiliation, put out solo projects, rapped on each other’s solo projects, overlapped everything they did, got in fights with each other, did their own thing, and through it all maintained the integrity of the name of Wu Tang.

The thing that kept the Wu Tang Clan unified in the public eye during the first 5 years was the remix. It was the glue that bonded all the different projects. The “Method Man Remix” appeared on Tical, the first of the post-36 Chambers solo releases. It was a remix of the track on the 36 Chambers and, as such, displayed Method Man’s Clan affiliation. If it hadn’t been for that, Method Man might have been seen by the public primarily as a solo artist, who had merely been involved in some group project the previous year. The fact that other Wu Tang members featured all over this, and subsequent, Wu Tang solo projects is the other main factor in maintaining that brand solidity that RZA perfected.

Another outstanding example of this tactic is the “Can It All Be So Simple Remix” from Raekwon’s Only Built 4 Cuban Linx, the second Wu Tang solo release. It performed exactly the same function as the “Method Man Remix” had on Tical.

This isn’t to say that the Wu Tang Clan didn’t also use the remix in much the same way that everyone else did; that is, to get the name out there and collaborate with different artists. One stellar example of rappers featuring on remixes of other groups’ hits is the 1994 Wu Tang remix of SWV’s hit, “Anything,” which helped propel them into a mainstream that hadn’t necessarily been paying attention to the development of the hardcore hip hop aesthetic.

Not only did the Wu Tang Clan and, particularly, the RZA, make savvy business use of the remix format, they also helped to define it. For the RZA, a remix was a re-imagining of how a track could have gone, an alternative that had enough potential to deserve its own place on an album (think “Brooklyn Zoo” and RZA’s interpretation “Brooklyn Zoo II” on ODB’s debut solo album Return to the 36 Chambers).

The myriad ways in which the concept of a beat could be manipulated, the different interpretations different rappers or different verses could bring to a track: these elements were what the Wu Tang Clan explored through their 90s remixes. A good business move, and a creative artistic approach to the music. These are what place the Wu Tang Clan at #2 in the charts of the hip hop remix. And sometimes they’re #1: both the RZA and Puff Daddy remixed a version of Method Man’s “All I Need” (Tical, 1994) with Mary J. Blige after the album dropped, but the RZA’s version was the one that reached #3 on the charts and won a grammy (yes, we posted this already this week, but it’s worth repeating in context).

http://www.youtube.com/v/JfHsRPdkagg&hl=en_US&fs=1&

SHIT I’M DIGGING THIS WEEK

THE HARD 10!: #10 Onyx – Bacdafucup (1993)

 The HARD 10 are ten of the most graphic albums ever released that all left an indelible mark upon the listener and the industry as a whole. Do enjoy these tales and songs, and carry their power into your life, finding their unrepentant aggression to be as emotionally valuable as tears.

“Bring em up, bring em up, bring em up dead, shine em up, shine em up, shine a bald head, one gun, two guns, three guns, four, yours, mine, we all about crime…ONYX!” – “Throw Ya Gunz,” Onyx

If wanting to be an instant “hard” impact in music, the key is to a successful debut album that literally frightens the American populace into buying records and believing every ounce of your hype. The early 90s were a bizarre time for hip hop. The first wave of mainstream acceptance had come through, and the atmosphere welcomed bright, happy and cherubic west coast faces like MC Hammer, Tone Loc and Young MC, whose happier take on hip hop was commercially viable, but left much lacking in the sense of hardcore street credibility. But, as always, turn to Russell Simmons, Run-DMC and Def Jam to solve pretty much any issue in hip hop music.

In 1991, Onyx, as scouted by Jam Master Jay, signed to Def Jam. By 1993, the group had morphed from a jazz based lyrically strong act into the bald headed, Timberland boot wearing, gun waving, grimy, “mad face invasion.” Carved directly from Russell Simmons’ image of what hip hop music was missing, Onyx was crafted word for word, line by line into the answer for all of the supposed ills of the smiling faces and juvenile content of the era.

http://www.youtube.com/v/mQmfzGf9904&hl=en_US&fs=1&color1=0xe1600f&color2=0xfebd01

 
Bacdafucup is produced by Jam Master Jay with assistance from Chyskillz and is a stark landscape of boom bap and intense, aggressive sampling. It’s the prototype of East coast gangsta rap that barely (by literally eight months) predates the Wu Tang Clan, a large, commercially viable sound that sounded nothing like anything on radio at the time. “Throw Ya Gunz,” a track literally advocating a call to arms against anyone and everyone is the lead single. When Sticky Fingaz advocates that he wants someone’s “money or their life,” nobody’s really in the business of dancing to house and disco inspired beats or drinking “Funky Cold Medina” to that. The image is perceived in the context of the song as honest, and the video’s visuals, literally an army of aggressive, bald headed young black males waving guns and threatening violence, well, that’s taking NWA’s “Niggaz4Life” stance and amplifying it the the nth degree. For mainstream America, that mix of imagery and wordplay has never equated to acceptance or indifference, but it has caused fear. Apoplectic and palpable fear. And as NWA proved, fear, even without mainstream radio or video, sells records. Onyx, as if created f0r the explicit purpose of media manipulation and financial gain, soon would have the same.

http://www.youtube.com/v/7ADgCeYJMN4&hl=en_US&fs=1&color1=0xe1600f&color2=0xfebd01

Second single “Slam” is one of the hardest mainstream hit hip hop singles of all time. “Not watered down and dying of thirst,” grimy, ornery and bitter, and again featuring a video filled with a large mass of black males acting like unrestrained criminals. This works. “Slam dancing,” long a construct of predominately white punk rockers, when put into the hands of pistol waving African-American gangbangers and as Sticky Fingaz says, “b-boys, standing in a b-boy stance” is a completely different visual to the average person. There’s an enhanced perception of danger and violence at play. Advocating violent slam dancing with dudes drinking 40s sounds like a recipe for the violence contained on this record. “Slam” works because of the excellent lyricism of Onyx, as well as what they’re promising lyrically. Onyx “is the inspiration for a whole generation” Sticky Fingaz says as well, and if telling the youth of Generation X that taking an aggressive stance, not backing down, and battering anyone and everyone in your path with unrepentant violence isn’t hard, then I don’t know what is.

Throughout the rest of the album, the band advocates shooting bootleggers of their album (Bichasbootleguz), slapping the semen out of a cheating girlfriend’s mouth (Da Nex Niguz), stabbing bouncers at nightclubs (Da Bounca Nigga), violent and forced sexual acts (Blac Vagina Finda), and all sorts of various and sundry threats lobbied against anyone and everyone in their path. The album is a gritty path of rage against the universe levied by four maniacal emcees who were clearly tasked with scaring the shit out of the universe. In succeeding, the album went platinum, and “Slam” hit #4 on the Billboard Top 100 chart, which, at the time, hardcore rap singles just didn’t do.

In many ways, Bacdafucup opened the door up wide for “hard” content from East coast emcees.

Before Onyx:

http://www.youtube.com/v/bDT8OOkS_dc&hl=en_US&fs=1&color1=0xe1600f&color2=0xfebd01

After Onyx:

http://www.youtube.com/v/IwWWUsHRZ6k&hl=en_US&fs=1&color1=0xe1600f&color2=0xfebd01

Any questions? Onyx. Pioneers of “hard.”

BE_GULLY presents… CLASSICS 101 – HIP HOP AT ITS FINEST: Wu Tang Clan – "Da Mystery of Chessboxin’"

“My hip hop will rock and shock the nation/like the Emancipation Proclamation.” U-God’s lines in the first verse of “Da Mystery of Chessboxin'” were not an exaggeration. Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) is one of the most important albums in hip hop history. The raw, simple beats and aggressive rhyming style made it a true game-changer, strongly influencing New York hip hop throughout the mid-nineties. “Da Mystery of Chessboxin'” wasn’t released as a single (although they did make a video), but it’s a really good example of what 36 Chambers is all about. And totally falls somewhere among my 12 favorite tracks from that album.

http://www.youtube.com/v/kl6jwab3HWk&hl=en&fs=1&

I’m fairly certain that the Wu Tang Clan were the major culprits for my obsession with old-school kung fu movies. “Da Mystery of Chessboxin'” opens with a sample from Shaolin and Wu Tang (“The game of chess is like a sword fight. You must think first before you move…”) and The Five Deadly Venoms, two of the best movies ever. In Shaolin and Wu Tang, an evil lord decides to steal the secrets of the two kung fu schools, and then preys on their traditional rivalry to have them destroy one another (leaving him the master of both styles by default). In the end, of course, the star students team up to combine their powers, finding that both styles work best in tandem.

The album 36 Chambers was actually conceived as having a “Shaolin Sword” half and a “Wu Tang Sword” half. Shaolin is a Buddhist temple, while Wu Tang, named for the mountain where the school is located, is a traditional Daoist style. Because Shaolin was an actual temple and the practitioners of its style were/are monks, Shaolin is frequently portrayed in movies as being the more humble, simple, and internal school while Wu Tang is seen as prouder, harder, and flashier. Keeping these associations in mind while listening to 36 Chambers, one can understand how the RZA decided on the order of the tracks.

“Da Mystery of Chessboxin'” is the first track on the “Wu Tang” side of the album. That fits in nicely with U-God’s aggressive opening lines “Raw I’ma give it to ya/ with no trivia/raw like cocaine straight from Bolivia.” This track has some excellent examples of the Wu Tang Clan emcees’ fierce mic skills, and definitely showcases the fresh hardcore style of rapping they were instrumental in creating. Every verse in this song is on point, and so even though it has seven emcees on it (Method Man sings the hook), and is structured like a posse cut, with no real binding theme (remember what we talked about last week?) I think it’s fair to consider the lyricism as a whole. We have U-God on verse one, two is Inspectah Deck, third Raekwon, fourth is Ol’ Dirty Bastard, fifth is Ghostface Killah and last we get Masta Killa.

Throughout this track you can find examples of what the Wu Tang Clan was really trying to do – which was basically create their own unique brand of hip hop. The RZA had a vision of the Wu Tang Clan dominating the hip hop world, and guided the group for their first several years towards that goal. He refused to “sell out” their music, and it took a while after they completed the album to find a label that would release it on their terms (most problematic, allowing the individual members to release solo projects on other labels – Wu Tang has always been more of a collective than a solid group). In “Da Mystery of Chessboxin'”, the emcees clearly have this pride in their own music in mind. Inspectah Deck says “I’m mad vexed, it’s what the projects made me/rebel to the grain, there’s no way to barricade me” and Raekwon “got beef with commercial-ass niggas with gold teeth/lampin’ in a Lexus eatin’ beef.”

There is no question that Wu Tang was successful in digging out their own niche in the hip hop world. 36 Chambers was one of the most influential albums of the early 90s, helping to bring New York back into prominence in the world of hip hop, after being eclipsed commercially by the west coast. It was at the forefront of a series of albums that came out circa ’93-’94 that represented a new aesthetic in hip hop. The beats in this trend sampled the records the artists grew up listening to, the soul and funk of their youth, and blended these with hard, simple bass and drums designed to get your head nodding. Another hallmark of the style is the frank, uncompromising way in which lyricists addressed the realities of their times. This was not “gangsta rap,” but an honest, informed and politically charged depiction of urban life.

36 Chambers paved the way for several albums that would follow hard on its heels adhering to these new ideals. Between the RZA’s elegant beats and the lyricists’ aggressive attacks on their situation, the industry and the life they live, the Wu Tang Clan were at the forefront of a new era in hip hop, one they helped mold, thereby earning their debut album a place in music history. Well, because of that, and because songs like “Da Mystery of Chessboxin'” will never stop banging.

if you don’t know, now you know…

The title Enter the Wu Tang (36 Chambers) is a reference to the single best movie ever made, Shaolin Master Killer or The 36th Chamber of Shaolin – another reflection of the Wu Tang-Shaolin dichotomy inherent to the principles of the album! This movie stars the brilliant Gordon Liu (Even if you don’t like kung fu movies, ever seen Kill Bill? He plays the leader of the Crazy 88s – they’re his fight choreography team – and Pai Mei, a legendary character he fought in movies when he was younger). The 35 chambers are the 35 training levels of the temple, and the 36th is the one the main character eventually establishes to take the secrets of kung fu beyond the circle of monks to the wider public.

Gordon Liu is also the star of the movie Dirty Ho, which Ol’ Dirty Bastard references in his verse on “Da Mystery of Chessboxin'”.

Ghostface Killah’s stage name derives from the movie The Mystery of Chessboxing. The Ghostface Killer in that movie is of course the villain of the tale. It’s a really, really good villain. I hope you’ve already figured out where Masta Killa’s name comes from.