Dead People Party II

The RZA: I don't feel myself. I'm not saying "I don't appreciate myself," rather, I don't feel as though this corporeal frame which contains my blood-filled veins is me anymore. I'm better off -- both spiritually and financially -- now than I was 2, 4, 6, and 8 years ago, but something's missing. And I'd do almost anything to get it back.

Truth be told, I've got more beats and rhymes than the bible's got His and Thines; everybody knows this. I ran the 90s hip-hop scene like the hoppers did Hamsterdam. But just as the Bmore brass prematurely put an end to Bunny's experiment, I feel that my innovations in the field of beats that make you wanna say damn! are these days criminally either forgotten or overlooked.

Part of that is my fault, I will concede. After Wu-Tang Forever I left the baby birds to fly on their own before they were ready, and I pretty much hung Deck (Deck!) out to dry like a cuttlefish.

I'm not making excuses, but juggling 8 artists -- I'm not including Cappadonna, who, notwithstanding his blazing verses on "Ice Cream" and "Winter Warz," is a complete cock biscuit -- is taxing. You try that shit. It was like Danny Tanner without uncles Jesse and Joey.

Still, when I wasn't concentrating my efforts toward half-baked Bobby Digital albums (and if you mention Birth of a Prince I will kick you somewhere dark and sweaty), I tried my best to save face as far as the Clan was concerned. I produced some tracks for Masta Killa, like Nino Brown giving Christmas turkeys to the poor; I donated a few cans of mediocrity to the food drive that was Meth's last album; and I even found time to pretend that Cuban Linx II is going to drop sometime this century. Yay me!

__________________

I feel sorta guilty right now. A Wu-Tang album used to be something special. (The first one was, at least.) Nowadays I'm just going through the motions, and I dread the day reviews for 8 Diagrams hit the web. They are going to murder me.

I've gotten older and a hell of a lot wiser (read: the 5% Nation is pretty fucked up), but still I dream of a day when I and my fellow clansmen can sit at a table -- like Sonny, Michael, Clamenza (aka U-God), and the rest of those guys (the names escape me for the moment*) -- and talk about how hard we're about to bring it. How badly we plan to blast off -- like Napoleon's army -- the Sphinx's nose.



* Deck!