Word: tanged
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...members of Wu-Tang are streetcorner scientists, experimenting, theorizing, pushing back the limits of what's possible in hip-hop. The phrase "experimental music" usually suggests that the work in question is somehow hard to enjoy and impossible to understand. Wu-Tang's lyrics and intentions can be perversely oblique, but their music manages to be both experimental and populist at the same time. Wu-Tang's songs have the loose but intricate feel of late-night jazz jams - they're artfully crafted but emotionally...
...band's 1993 debut album, "Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)" was rough and rambling, combining ragged street beats with lyrical imagery and audio samples drawn from Hong Kong martial arts flicks. At a time when West Coast gangsta rap was dominating the hip-hop scene, the arrival of the Staten Island, New York-based Wu-Tang announced that the East Coast was not to be ignored. The group's last major album, the ambitious 1997 double album "Wu-Tang Forever," was a challenging, complex work of urban sprawl, spilling over with rude wordplay, goofy ideas, bad attitude and mumbled...
...Tang's new release, "The W," finds the group at its most focused. It's an unusual place for them to be. Wu-Tang revels in its own unpredictability, its own inscrutability and its own ungainly nature. Wu-Tang is a conglomeration of rappers that includes RZA (the mastermind and main producer), Method Man (the star MC), Masta Killa, U-God, Raekwon, Inspectah Deck, GZA, Ghostface Killah and Ol' Dirty Bastard. A tenth rapper, Cappadonna, is regarded as an honorary member. While other groups rage and split and fall apart when members look to release solo work, Wu-Tang...
...With numerous Wu-Tang Clan members popping up on various tracks and all those guest stars, The W becomes a terrifically varied album, full of differing vocal textures and provocative rhythmic and lyrical ideas. Guest star-heavy albums sometimes burst apart like overstuffed grocery bags. RZA's solid guidance keeps everything together. The streetcorner scientists of Wu-Tang have come up with another winning formula...
...There's the larger question about whether this form of mini-media conglomerate can survive. The artist-as-mogul trend (see Puff Daddy and Madonna) has had a bumpy ride. Whether or not Wu-Tang winds up challenging the media giants, and whether or not the world domination thing pans out, the band has built something it may be able to live with. "Sometimes I wake up and say, 'Man, we came from nothing and look at what we've got,'" says Diggs. Clearly, he's seen the mountaintop, and he likes the view. Now send up the accountants...