Six Degrees of Enter the Wu-Tang
It used to be easier to pretend that an album was its own perfectly self-contained artifact. The great records certainly feel that way. But albums are more permeable than solid, their motivations, executions and inspirations informed by, and often stolen from, their peers and forbearers. It all sounds awfully formal, but it's not. It's the very nature of music — of art, even. The Six Degrees features examine the relationships between classic records and five other albums we've deemed related in some way. In some cases these connections are obvious, in others they are tenuous. But, most important to you, all of the records are highly, highly recommended.
The Album
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Enter The Wu-Tang is the Velvet Underground & Nico of '90s hip-hop a glorious muddle that made it safe not to merely color outside the lines but to scribble in the margins. Like a punk-rock response to Dr. Dre's baroque gangsta-pop arrangements, the raw-no-trivia Wu-Tang Clan emerged from out of nowhere at the tail end of 1993 or seemingly out of nowhere, as their home borough of Staten Island hadn't contributed much to rap beyond the pillow-soft Force M.D.'s. Hip-hop was becoming lush enough to sample the THX woosh, but Wu-Tang producer Robert "RZA" Diggs was dead-set on keeping it ugly, borrowing dust-worn VHS clips of kung-fu flicks. The Wu was equal parts cinema and free-association mind-bending poetry and skits that detailed drug sales, crime narratives and blood on the hot concrete so the sonics had to be grimy, lo-fi, flickering, grim, real. The sound of their drums alone, rusty thwomps mutated by distortion, would push once-popular rollicking James Brown breaks into the old school, setting the gnarled tone for a half-decade of New York rap. And, oh yeah, there were nine nine! phenomenal MC's without a bit of deadweight in the bunch, each one with style as unique and realized as the comic book characters they worshipped: Method Man's hissing drool-suck, Raekwon's effortless word-tumble, Ghostface's nasal scattershot, GZA's musky matter-of-factness and the screeching, atonal dementia of class cut-up Ol' Dirty Bastard. Not to mention RZA, Inspectah Deck, U-God and Masta Killa thorny wordsmiths, each strong enough to be stars in their own right, though quickly overshadowed by the crew's more oversized personalities. Raised mostly in the Park Hill and Stapleton projects of Staten Island, the Wu-Tang Clan were isolated from Manhattan by a 90-minute ferry-and-subway trek. In response, they created their own universe. They redubbed their borough "Shaolin," and by the time they released their debut, the crew had built an entire mythology: a swirl of kung fu flicks and mobster lore, Five Percent Nation teachings and Eastern philosophy, dozens of colorful nicknames, slang so impenetrable that even the most classic tracks need annotated notes (see RZA's book The Wu-Tang Manual). And, of course, there's a hazy blend of samples taken from records RZA pillaged from East Village record store Beat Street and sidewalk sales. Classic soul, funk, jazz, even the Underdog theme, were dragged across his smudged-microscope slides. RZA's ear for the moody and unprocessed created an ethereal vibe that turned hardcore street narratives into film noir.
The Foundation
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"Hey, you know everybody's talkin' 'bout the good old days right? Everybody the good old days, the good old days. Well let's talk about the good old days" That narration kicks off Wu-Tang's "Can It Be All So Simple," the misty-eyed Wu track that launched 1,000 nostalgia raps. It's Gladys Knight, whose brassy alto induces instant nostalgia pangs for any child of the '70s and children of the '90s as well, since she also provides the chorus to the timeless Wu Tang joint. This VH1-curated Behind The Music best-of comp covers the massive chart run of Knight and her Pips. From her doo-wop-inspired early '60s singles (the creeping "Giving Up" was flipped by Wu for 1997's "Heaterz"), to her fiery Motown run (represented by a live version of "I Heard It Through The Grapevine") and settling mostly on their mid-'70s ballads for Buddha Records including their chart-topping rumbler "Midnight Train To Georgia." Their 1975 cover of the Streisand hit "The Way We Were" added a soulful lilt to the syrupy ballad, a celebration of nostalgia itself, with Knight perfectly cooing "Can it be that it was aaaall so simple then" with a sense of drama and reflection.
The Motor
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A cascade of Thelonius Monk's unmistakable piano on "Black & Tan Fantasy" tumbles through the center of "Shame On A Nigga," but the bebop pioneer provides more to Enter The Wu-Tang than just his nimble keywork. RZA's detuned piano noises in "Da Mystery Of Chessboxin'" were influenced by observing Monk's no-rules approach in the documentary Straight No Chaser. Says RZA in the Wu-Tang Manual, "That's all from me watching Thelonious Monk with a joint in my hand, just playing." In any RZA production, you can hear the influence of Monk's playing on records like Plays Duke Ellington: Monk's love of dissonance, his staccato pokes, his ill-timed silences, his bittersweet textures. They all come barreling through in his imitable playing style fingers flayed, stabbing the keys in percussive whacks. By tackling Ellington's tunes Monk produces a mix of pop, aggression and gloom; the spiritual ancestor of Enter The Wu-Tang.
The Narrator
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Wu-Tang created their unique universe by absorbing whatever they touched: the kung fu flicks on 42nd Street, their comic book collections, mob flicks, chess. So why not Hall and Oates? For his eponymous star turn on "Method Man," the rapper rewrote the sing-songy chorus of H&O's 1985 hit "Method Of Modern Love," an unavoidable top 10 Billboard smash around the time the Ticallion Stallion was just starting high school. Fresh off the success of a stream of blue-eyed synth-soul hits like "Maneater," Hall and Oates leaned toward a more rhythmic sound for 1984's Big Bam Boom, trying to update their music to fit to the changing post-Madonna dancescape. Working with Afrika Bambaataa producer Arthur Baker, Hall and Oates composed 10 songs that mix their classic harmonized croon with electro-influenced beats taut enough for a quick spin on a breakdance mat especially opener "Dance On Your Knees," a straight bite of Grandmaster Flash And The Furious Five's "White Lines (Don't Do It)."
