365 Days of Song Recommendations: June 30
Da Mystery of Chessboxin’ — The Wu-Tang Clan
(If this feels like a collection of half-baked thoughts and observations, I scribbled these notes down in my notebook during two different flights. It’s probably better for it. Probably.)
Forget the birth of Christ. Time should now be counted in years after the release of the Wu-Tang Clan’s debut record. AEtWT36C. Which means we’re living in 27 AEtWT36C. It’s not blasphemy because you know Jesus would have been down with Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers).
Insert sample from Shaolin vs. Wu-Tang.
The game of chess is like a swordfight… [sword slasher] …you must think first before you move.
Top to bottom, Enter the Wu-Tang features the most innovative production of any hip-hop record ever made. I’ll consider other options, but I don’t even think there’s a close second. DJ Shadow’s Endtroducing.., Madvillainy, Kendrick’s To Pimp a Butterfly, maybe J Dilla’s Donuts or Kanye’s My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy belongs in the conversation. The rest of the contenders? Produced, at least in part, by RZA anyway. So let’s just focus on the origin, the nexus, the record that forever reshaped East Coast Rap and the genre as a whole.
…and specifically, Track 6…
“Da Mystery of Chessboxin” showcases the best, most focused control over the Wu-Tang collective’s ideal sound. This, the B-Side to “C.R.E.A.M,” showcases the two lesser known Wu-Tang personalities, U-God and Masta Killa, and hits with more precision and energy than anything else on the album. The MVP for the track might even be Ghostface (“That night, yo I was hittin’ like a spiked bat”). All 9 emcees get their moment, no one jockeys for position, and Method Man doesn’t even get a full turn. It’s also easy to overlook or forget the fact that only a couple of these rappers had previously recorded anything.
RZA took a raggle (this feels like the correct term for a group of emcees) and turned them into a rap superpower. Without RZA — the Wu-Tang’s Professor X, I’m not sure we ever hear about these Staten Island rap superheroes.
Sidenote: Wouldn’t we all rather see a Wu-Tang cinematic universe than any more of this hyper-redundant MCU/DCU regurgitation? I’m okay with Ol’ Dirty Bastard being played by a hologram. This would be me to start watching superhero movies again.
Few records come to document a time and place. Unleashed on the scene, time stands still. Images of an otherwise zero-sum 1993 will forever remain etched in my consciousness. Nothing minutes. Throwaway idle time forever cast in stone by music. I listened to Enter the Wu-Tang while sitting outside the Tampa airport while my parents navigated the rental car line. Portable CD player in hand, big headphones over my head. Driving home from a late basketball game, pitch black back roads between my high school and home, “Method Man” blaring at near full volume, stressing the speakers in that green Jeep Cherokee.
It’s impossible to believe this record dropped 28 years ago in 1993. It feels fresh and forever important, but also a time capsule from when the rap collective remained a force in the music business. Money has shifted focus to the individual artist and we’re all worse off for it.
U-God’s first verse attacks like a flurry of attacks in one of the RZA’s favored martial arts flicks.
Raw I’ma give it to ya / With no trivia / Raw like cocaine straight from Bolivia / My Hip-Hop will rock and shock the nation / Like the Emancipation Proclamation / Weak emcees /approach with slang that dead / You might as well run into the wall and bang your head / I’m pushing force / My force you’re doubtin’ / I’m makin’ devils cower to the Caucasus Mountains
The last rhyme kills me. “Doubtin’” with “Caucasus Mountains.” Little shit like that makes me want to fist pump like John Bender. Later ODB name drops Jacques Cousteau, Jim Kelly, Alex Haley and Beetle Bailey all in the same verse.
Gritty, lo-fi, sample-heavy, socially-conscious, playfully referential, and always on-point. Wu-Tang brought hip-hop dominance back to New York City. G-funk had only borrowed it. Wu-Tang forever and ever.
“Da Mystery of Chessboxin’” is the 181st song on the #365Songs playlist!
