New Burk(e)/(s)/Lil Chuuch, dropped via RZA’s #WuWednesday series. Clearly a work in progress (the beat switch at 30 sec is rough), but I like where this is going. I still maintain the theory that a Burk album properly produced (ie not phoned in) by RZA could be the best Wu-related piece of music in ages.
STREET WALKER by RZAWU
Random late Friday throwback post.
This vastly underrated track appeared on Put It On The Line, which was mostly a showcase for Trife with a handful of Ghost rarities sandwiched in. It’s a perfect example of late-era Ghost excellence, go for broke nostalgia rapping over a supercharged heavy funk instrumental. You could consider it as a conceptually simpler companion piece to “Shakey Dog”, or just a continuation of the “Apollo Kids” lineage.
DOWNLOAD: Ghostface Killah – Struggle
More weekend catch-up. Had to post this, The Pillage is still the shit. Big LOL at Cappa’s dance moves. Also, this is as good an excuse as any to revisit the og slightly different version of this song, called ‘Another Riddle’.
DOWNLOAD: Capadonna – Another Riddle
HERE’S A CLASSIC HIP HOP SONG FROM DEEP IN THE ARCHIVES FEATURING RZA AND REV. WILLIAM BURKS DONE A FEW YEARS AGO AND BORN TO REMIND PEOPLE OF GENUINE VINTAGE HIP HOP IN CELEBRATION OF BLACK MUSIC MONTH….
RZA’s #WuWednesday series has been very hit or miss, but I’m diggin this one. Burke(s? still don’t know how to spell it right) is the shit as usual, RZA does a pretty good job too. It’s a shame this seems completely unmastered, that beat probably sounds much worse than it could/should.
Random find from the Wutang-corp board. Ghost looks like got very emotionally involved here, see around the 2.50 mark. Cappa in back, just happy to be there but not sure what to do with himself. Tekitha’s hair is a miracle of geometry.
Today’s (pretty decent) Rick & Rae team up got me thinking about this far superior Rick & Rae combination. As a friend of mine always points out, starting at around the 1:50 mark Rae breaks into such a heady stream of free associations and non-sequiturs that Rick has no choice but to cheer him on with stunned ‘yeah yeah yeah yeah’ from somewhere in the background.
Then of course there’s this, even more appropriate since Molasses also features Ghost.
DOWNLOAD: Ghostface Killa – The Sun ft Slick Rick, Raekwon, RZA
BONUS FEATURES: I always wondered where this ‘so-so beat’ that Slick Rick made monstrous originated. Turns out it samples a piece of Bill Conti’s OST from For Your Eyes Only. The sample is at about 20 seconds in.
This felt like an appropriate time capsule to dust off in light of today’s post-OFWGKTA-on-Fallon-appearance mania.
So blah blah Game mixtape blah getting sued blah blah RZA whatever… I don’t really care about the Game one way or the other, nor this lawsuit nonsense. What drove me to post this song is the following:
1. This might be the best new RZA beat I’ve heard in some time. If he chooses to pursue the hiphop hippy route, this is the way to do it. Incidentally, I got nothing against Grand Funk (the original G.Funk if you wanna get dumb-clever), but there are buttloads of phenomenal obscure heavy blues and blues-rock records he could draw on without getting into sticky copyright beefs. For the hell of it, video for a duly bong-rattling live version of the problematic sample is embedded at the top of the post.
2. Burke is the shit, as previously noted here
DOWNLOAD: Game – Heart Breaker ft Rev Burke (prod by RZA) NO DJ
After listening to Ghostface’s In Tha Park feat. Black Thought, first posted on T.R.O.Y., I have come to realize it might be impossible NOT to include Black Thought among the 5 best rappers today. Follow me on this one, go back to ’94 when A&R extraordinaire Wendy Goldstein signed them to Geffen Records. Months later (Jan ’95) they dropped their major label debut Do You Want More?!!!??!.
Many consider that very album to be a true blue classic with stellar tracks such as Proceed, Silent Treatment, Distortion to Static and The Lesson, but it wasn’t until later in his career that Black Thought truly developed into one of the best all-around emcees in the game. Like vintage wine, he got better with age. It happened to Steven Tyler, Phil Collins to even rappers like Lil Wayne and MF Doom.
Ghostface Killah -In Tha Park feat. Black Thought
First single from Shaolin Vs Wutang, holy shit this is good. This song alone is kinda better than the entirety of Wu Massacre. Honestly, if somebody told me it was some unreleased rarity from the 90s, I might believe them.
Just for the fuck of it, a trailer for the kungfu classic from which the album takes its name is above.
DOWNLOAD: Raekwon – Butter Knives (prod by Bronze Nazareth)
