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Genius
Beneath the Surface By Joseph Patel (Cdnow) Of all the Wu-Tang Clan MCs, of all its personalities, it was Genius -- a.k.a. the GZA -- who came across as being the most stable. He didn't flash the dramatics of Method Man, the rap sheet of Ol' Dirty Bastard; he declined the cinematic concepts of Raekwon and the emotional journeys of Ghostface Killa. Instead, GZA let his perceptible lyrics and comic-book-superhero style be his guise. For Wu-Tang's philosophical embodiment of the jaded, good-rapper-done-wrong-by-the-industry seeking reinvention and redemption, GZA was the consummate poster child. For his third LP and second since Wu-Tang's inception, Genius comes off as ol' reliable: perpetuating micro-concepts with tricky, double-entendre lyricism and a vocal flow that can smoothly slice through any beat construct. But also like an "ol' reliable," Genius proves complacent, not making the huge progressive leap you would come to expect, especially considering that his last album, Liquid Swords, was so deftly original. The first salvo Genius fires is "Publicity," a song weaving the names of different magazines into a chip-on-the-shoulder diatribe. Crafty? Check beneath the surface and you realize it's the same technique he rocked for the last album's record-company missive, "Labels." On "Amplified Sample," Genius uses muted and distorted vocal punch-ins as a gritty sonic aesthetic. Genuine? It's a style-accent straight from Divine Styler, a name most Wu fans probably never heard of. And it's these moments of un-originality that anchor Genius from taking ultimate flight. But that being said, nobody quite rides a beat like the Genius, and there are plenty of moments which the former "Pass the Bone" MC shines. The title track is a classic Wu-production, produced, interestingly, by Inspectah Deck: Escalating string samples dance with soulful pianos and deep bass kicks to form a hip-hop/quiet-storm moment Genius drinks up. It's over strings that Genius sounds most in his element, as the plucking swings of "Breaker, Breaker" and "Stringplay" tellingly reveal. "Crash Your Crew," on the other hand, is at the other end of the sonic spectrum, a noisy, momentous journey along the afro-futuristic continuum. And despite its occasional lapses in ingenuity, that song, like the rest of Beneath the Surface, reassures anyone who thought that Genius and the Wu-Tang Clan had maybe diluted their collective creative juice. |
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