Yes, back once again, the Shaolin Wage-Slaves. Some days, the multifarious
troops of the Wu-Tang Clancan sound like word magicians, like agents for
musical change, like the most transcendent rappers on the planet. At other
times, sadly, they make the dissemination of arcane knowledge and the dark arts
of hip-hop appear as inspiring as a soul-sapping nine-to-five job. Fancy a
sandwich? Sorry, no, The RZA has to work through his lunch break: there are lazy
rhymes to write, a few old loops to record sloppily, maybe a little filing to
break the routine.
So it is with ‘Digital Bullet’. Bobby Digital, for those who became
disillusioned with Wu-minutiae a while back, is the alter-ego of RZA, sometime
genius producer and nominal head of the sprawling, irrepressible Clan. Digital,
a kind of shag-happy superhero, has a similar confused relationship RZA,as
Slim Shady has with Eminem. Where does one’s personality end and another’s
begin? Does he have to make it unreal to keep it real? Is the appalling sexism a ‘joke’? And, after 1998’s highly ropey’Bobby Digital In Stereo’ – an album
notable mainly for a guest spot from Lisa I’Anson- who cares, anyway?
On the evidence of that album and ‘Digital Bullet’, RZA‘s main use for the
Digital persona is as a way of flogging a few more sub-standard tracks to his
true disciples. Those expecting a continuation of the Clan’s superb,
phantasmagoric ‘The W’, or even his brooding instrumental ‘Ghost Dog’ soundtrack
(mystifyingly released only in Japan) are in for a big disappointment.
At best,these are semi-finished rejects from ‘The W’, like the sluggish ‘Righteous Way’
featuring reggae singer Junior Reid, and ‘Glocko Pop’, passable, with Method Man
and a couple of minor Clansters dutifully helping their boss out.
Nevertheless, the crudely constructed music and sleepily threatening raps become
hypnotic after a while. Even at his most distracted, the RZA can still create
the muzziest, most oppressive atmospheres in hip-hop and, when one of his
quality mates (GZA, the fugitive ODB) drop round, there’s a glimpse of how
compelling ‘Digital Bullet’ could’ve been.
There are a couple of innovations,too, with the unusually fashion-conscious Latino flick of ‘The Rhumba’ and the
ultra-minimal ‘Bong Bong’, which plants shouty freestyling into a Buddhist
temple garden.
For a purported concept album, however, it’s tremendously half-assed. On the
penultimate track, ‘Build Strong’ RZA hastily flams up a denouement to his
Bobby Digital myth. “Drugs, money, sex, it ain’t fulfilling me,” he repents over
maudlin piano, but compared with ‘The W”s magnificent show-stopper, ‘I Can’t Go
To Sleep’, it’s more crocodile tears than torrential sob. Hardly surprising,
really – after all, how much melodrama can you squeeze out of another uneventful
day at the office?.
John Mulvey