Pitchfork

[Posted Wednesday, September 24th, 2003 04:00:00 Pitchfork Central Time]

The Wu is coming through! The outcome is critical. According to New Musical Express, Wu-Tang Clan maestro the RZA will be releasing a new album on Britain's Sanctuary Records, a genre-busting indie with a roster boasting everything from Ween to Ashanti to A.R.E. Weapons to The Kinks, Spiritualized® to Kelly Osbourne. Entitled Birth of a Prince, it's the head Wu-banger's first solo album released as The RZA rather than his Bobby Digital persona, this writer inflates with a certain sense of wonder and hope.

The first Bobby D record was tight, a'ight, but the second was execrable, and much of RZA's production and lyrical work since has sounded phoned-in and self-parodying. When he became Bobby Digital, RZA mostly abandoned his fractured, darkly percolating beats (which were IDM before some pompous ass ejaculated the term) for canned, faux-grimy bounce tracks. He forsook his deeply coded and anagram-ridden slang (that "Protons Electrons Always Cause Explosions" and "Positive Energy Activates Constant Elevation" spelled out P.E.A.C.E. was one of my most explosive teenage epiphanies-- yes, I was sheltered) for party rhymes about how badass he was and how girls shouldn't have sex too much, unless it's with him. Perhaps this return to the RZA moniker means that party animal Bobby Digital has returned to the frat house from whence he came, and the master of mind-bending circular logic, dilettante of esoteric doctrine and conspiracy theorist has triumphantly risen again, all phoenix-like.

According to the Sanctuary Records website, Birth of a Prince streets on October 13th. It will feature cameos from Dirt McGirt (née Big Baby Jesus, née Ol' Dirty Bastard, née crazy jailbird) on the first single, "We Pop," as well as from Ghostface Killah (one of the most articulate and vivid narrative lyricists in hip-hop, but frustratingly unable to say anything beyond "'Na mean?" in interviews). The tracklist:

01 Bob 'n' I
02 The Grunge
03 We Pop
04 Grits
05 Fast Cars
06 Chi Kung
07 You'll Never Know
08 Drink, Smoke and Fuck
09 The Whistle
10 Drop Off
11 Wherever I Go
12 Koto Gotan
13 A Day To God Is 1,000 Years
14 Cherry Range
15 The Birth
16 See The Joy

The RZA has been thinking globally and speaking eloquently as of late. He recently told British magazine Bang that "the rest of the world really doesn't get much back from the U.S. I just thought we needed reminding that hip hop is a global culture. And that realizing it is surely the next step for rap: taking on voices that aren't just bling-blinging it, and have more to say than the rapidly dwindling things that American rappers have to say. How many times can you list your riches and your capacity for violence?"

To address this very real and timely rap impasse, RZA recently released The World According to RZA, a collection of international rappers from Sweden, France, Norway, Germany, Italy, and elsewhere, flowing in their own languages on RZA tracks. Aside from working on his solo album and the new Wu-Tang group effort, he's also been working on the soundtrack to Quentin Tarantino's new chopsocky-with-swords epic Kill Bill, which, if it shapes up similarly to his score for Jim Jarmusch's Ghost Dog, should be a fine thing indeed. Ooh... ah... ooh... ah...