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Ask and ye shall receive.
"Special technique -"
"Fuck 'dat."
"Special technique of shadowboxing!"
So let's talk about the GZA/Genius.
He's the one who appeals to the college/backpacker crowd. I'm not sure how exactly this happened, since so much of Liquid Swords is made up of crime narratives, exactly the kind of thing that got other rappers at the time labeled as gangsters - they're probably criminals in real life too! and they're proud of it! etc - and still does. It must be the way he tells them. It's the gravitas and authority in his voice: GZA arguably has the best voice in the Clan, he has this rally cool New Yoirk drawl and sounds like his voicebox has been carved out of very old wood - if he ever retires from rapping he should get a job doing the voiceovers for movie trailers - "it was a time of heroes", etc.
It's the way he tells 'em - he has a knack for inspired simile and wordplay, "unbalanced like elephants and ants on see-saws" being the one I always like to quote. He's an amazing storyteller - "I'm not an actor but the author" as he has it - check out 'Killah Hills 10304', in which GZA connects the dots between "A wild Middle Eastern bomb specialist, initiated at eleven to be a terrorist" to judges who are "sent photographs of they wives takin baths, along with briefcase filled with one point five, that's the bribe: take it or commit suicide" - it's this whole world of corruption that spans the golbe - nobody gets out clean... There's always this sense of moral weight with the GZA - always this palpable intelligence too, which I guess is his blessing and curse. With some other Wu members, and rappers generally, you don't realise how clever they're being until you hear the song 4 or 10 or 100 times... with GZA, it's unmistakeable, but the thing is, it can get a bit wearing. The main problem with GZA is that Liquid Swords was so good - all the guest spots are brilliant, some of RZA's best beats, simultaneously accessibly funky and creepy and strange - and nothing he's done since has really come close (although I've not heard more than tiny bits of his new album, Legend of the Liquid Sword - bit put off by the name though, STOP COASTING ON PAST ACHIEVEMENTS, GZA!). There's the odd verse like on the last track on Ghost's Supreme Clintele or the one on 'Pinky Ring', but generally, he's just sort of faded a bit. And he keeps rehashing the 'Labels' stick-proper-names-into-sentences trick ('Publicity', 'Fame') so that it seems like a gimmick. Plus it's got easy to take the piss out of his po-facedness - like the way his bit of the video for the latter is him sitting in a dark room on an uncomfy looking throne, with lightning flashing - grr! Scary! No girls allowed in the Genius' room!
However, he was my first Wu love, so I still give him props. Plus, I've always wanted this jacket:
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