K-SCORE: 79
Rapper: Wu-Tang Clan
What, ya'll thought y'all wasn't gonna see me? I'm the Osiris of this blog! Get ready to enter the 36 Chambers of the Wu. There were lots of great choices for me to pick from to have Kyle listen to. Ultimately, I decided to "take it back to '79" and went with Triumph. I'm not sure whether the readers out there listen to the songs before reading the reviews, but for this one I highly recommend doing so. As "the saga continues," let's hear what Kyle had to say.
-Mike
Well, you guys are arrogant and a little crazy, but “Triumph” is undeniably effective. It’s about time Mike tossed me something that has no music, no chorus, and no verse repeated. “Triumph” is raw, for lack of a better word. There’s only rap here for me to comment on, and this is a refreshing change of pace. Therefore, I’m awarding the Wu-Tang Clan a pretty solid score. (I almost wrote just ‘the clan’ as would be my modus operandi for taking cheap shots at rap names, but accidental appearances of racism should be avoided whenever possible. Don’t worry readers and rappers. The Klan would not get a high rating.)
This score is almost higher than I feel comfortable giving for any song that dares to use the word, “ni**aretes,” but I got past it. Each stanza is shockingly thought provoking. Rhymes are mixed, effective, and counter-intuitive, which has me convinced that these guys didn’t outsource their work to third graders. A man who felt everyone should call him ‘Inspectah Deck,’ for whatever reason, starts “Triumph” off very powerfully. Fat Joe, pay attention. Mr. Deck tells me that neither philosophies or hypotheses can define his work. He threatens armed robbery, only lyrically, making the crime into a metaphor for the power of his real talent – rap. ‘Cappadonna’ will later do the same thing by saying his paragraphs contain cyanide. They simultaneously claim to be gifted rappers, while convincing me they have the skill for it, and then it comes together by indicating that rap as an art form speaks to the need of something greater than the individual rappers. Wu Tang, well done for not becoming thugs, who threaten to cut off people’s balls for no reason. It becomes harder to ignore.
Wu-Tang Clan, you guys drop so many references and allusions to pop culture and history that I had a hard time keeping up. And while Tennessee Williams got an unneeded shout out when Method Man tossed A Streetcar Named Desire into his stanza, most of the references supplemented the rap. Socrates was a philosopher, and Sonny Liston was an African American boxer in the ‘70’s. You guys upped your re-listen value significantly albeit at the cost of aging your song more quickly than you’d like. I played Dragon’s Lair, but that game is long dead, and as well it should be, and it probably doesn’t help the thesis of “Triumph” that “Wu-Tang is here forever.”
Props to both ‘Killah’s’ (Master and Ghostface) proving they know the distance from the earth to the sun. A subtle astronomical reference in rap that made me smile.
Group of Wu-Tang, are you wondering where I found fault? Probably not, but nevertheless – in this song about the Wu-Tang Clan’s success finding its immortal place in history alongside Osiris and Grand Central Station, you let a guy named “Ol Dirty Bastard” invent his own racial slurs and tell me he’s gone “rub my ass in moonshine” as he “takes me back to seventy-nine.” (See! That's how I got the score; he takes it back to 79) Also the fade at the end is tacky. I got the message, but your song can have a definitive end without you losing your eternal Wu-Tang bond. I don’t need to feel like the only reason the rapping stopped was because you became too physically distant for me to hear ‘Raekwon.’ (How did you guys name yourselves? I’m leaving it out of my review, but my lord… if I ever need to name an Asian drinking game I’ll call you).