The RZA delivers the dark, brooding beats he’s known for. Thea’s songs add a nice melodramatic flair, reminding you that this is indeed a soundtrack. RZA also works with two female singers Stone Mecca adds her soulful voice on several hooks, and Thea Van Seijen has several solo tracks that feature her voice, which is a little Billie Holiday and a little Erykah Badu. I hated “My Heart Gently Weeps,” but the source material is better suited to hip hop, and “Blood Thicker Than Mud” is a much more successful song. There are moments when the concept is fully realized, like on “Arch Nemesis,” and “Bloody Samurai.” RZA seems to be trying pull the same trick he pulled with “My Heart Gently Weeps” (reinterpolating a popular 60s song and reimagining it as hip hop) on “Blood Thicker Than Mud.” The song reworks Sly and the Family Stone’s “Family Affair,” complete with guest appearance by Sly Stone himself. The rappers attempt to recreate the plot of the show on their verses, which seems perfectly suited to the Wu’s kung fu take on street life. “Whar” is basically a reworking of the beat from “Clan In Da Front,” and the verses from both the RZA and Ghostface took me straight back to “Enter the 36 Chambers.” As tarnished as the Wu brand might be, they have moments when they remind you just what a potent force they can be. Several, like Black Knights and Rah Digga, hold their own, while others are not quite ready for prime time.
While Wu-Tang Clan members GZA, Inspectah Deck, and Ghostface show up to deliver verses, most of the rapping here is by Wu also-rans, members of the ever-expanding Wu Empire. Whatever the cause, the vocals on “Afro Samurai: Resurrection” seem like an afterthought, and not just because of the way they sound. I don’t understand how someone who is such a genius with the boards like RZA could end up producing record with such a janky sound. Vocal levels were a minor issue on “8 Diagrams” and “Bobby Digital,” but it is so bad on this album that it detracts from the listening experience. Maybe it has to do with the RZA pulling a rock star move and making his beats louder than the MCs. I’ve noticed this issue of vocal levels on several hip hop albums lately, and I’m wondering if it is due to how ultra-compressed all music is these days, or if it’s a product of the pieced-together nature of hip hop “collaborations,” where each rapper’s verse is recorded on different equipment. On several other tracks the vocals are mixed too low, and as a result they sound muted and buried underneath the beats. The vocals on the opener, for example, sound blown out and distorted, and this is on three different stereo systems. It’s the vocals that prove to be the problem.įor one thing, something seems to have gone wrong with the mixing. Thankfully, the RZA delivers on the beats. Jackson, I approached “Afro Samurai: Resurrection” with caution.
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So as excited as I might normally be by the prospect of the RZA doing the soundtrack to an anime series about a samurai voiced by Samuel L. RZA’s always been dark, but “8 Diagrams” seemed to be suffering from Seasonal Affective Disorder. More worrying was the public squabbling over the direction the RZA took on the production on “8 Diagrams,” and then the actual production itself, which tended to be depressing, grey, and lethargic. Both Ghostface Killah’s “Big Doe Rehab” and the Wu Tang Clan’s “8 Diagrams” were disappointing, and the RZA and GZA’s most recent solo outings were solid but not essential. It must be said, however, that the Wu brand has taken a beating in the past few years. He’s sort of like a Bob Dylan or John Lennon of hip hop, someone whose creativity might ebb and flow, but who always maintains a position of revered royalty. His solo work doesn’t always excite me, but he never makes craven attempts to cash in on the latest trend. The way he and the fellow Clan members engineered their empire was brilliant, and I admire how he has tried to develop as an artist. He has produced some of my favorite music, and several of the best hip hop albums of all time. I have a lot of respect for Robert Diggs, AKA the RZA.
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