i tried so hard to ignore it but felt weak in the knees..and this track bangs..bangs hard!!!
Wu-Tang - A Better Tomorrow (12/2/14) - Album Discussion Thread(Stream)
- Thread starter Billy Ocean
- Start date
that Necklace...
Phew that necklace joint is fire. First leak I've actually listened too.
Burger King
Beefin
as much as i enjoyed the rukus in a b minor track its good to hear that wu tang sound we know and love so well with this one ! hope 4th got another beat or 2 on the album 
*crackSTAR*
Pro
Trying my hardest not to listen to any of the leaks! As a hardcore wu fan I'm asking, is this album gonna be dope?
its shaping up quite nicely. Especially with the last two leaks, B Minor and Necklace.
Think i am going to enjoy more than 8 diagrams.
They've been 3/5 for me so far. Love Ruckus In B Minor and Necklace and I like Wu-Tang Reunion. Not a big fan of Keep Watch and Ron O' Neal and I'm thinking I may not like Mistaken Identity either because I heard that cheesy singing from Nathaniel on one of the Boombot review clips. Let's hope everything else, which would be 9 more tracks, is dope sh!t.
CHAIN
All Star
No troll
But this necklace track needs a Yung Berg verse, it would be so real coming from him ...I'd listen to that.
shyt, prodigy needs to remix this shyt ASAP
I'm dead ass.
Best Wu joint since Babies/Yolanda's House (I know it's ghost shyt)
But this necklace track needs a Yung Berg verse, it would be so real coming from him ...I'd listen to that.
shyt, prodigy needs to remix this shyt ASAP
I'm dead ass.
Best Wu joint since Babies/Yolanda's House (I know it's ghost shyt)
NYK Loyalist
All Star
I've only listened to Keep Watch and I didn't like that at all but I'm still holding out hope that the album is good. I can't lie though my expectations are low
RZA stares out the window of a room at the Soho Grand hotel in New York, looking a little weary. The Wu-Tang Clan leader just got off a marathon conference call with the rest of the group, who are getting ready to release A Better Tomorrow, their first album in seven years. As so often happens when the Wu talk to (or about) one another, gripes flew: Inspectah Deck was irked RZA had told the MCs what to rhyme about on the album; Raekwon refused to appear in the video for a new single. "Making our last album was difficult," says RZA, referring to 2007's 8 Diagrams. "This one knocked it out of the box."
There was a time when it looked like there might never be another Wu-Tang album at all. In the mid-2000s, relations within the Wu-Tang Clan turned especially ugly: RZA faced lawsuits from both Ghostface Killah and U-God for unpaid funds (the Ghostface suit was settled; U-God's was voided, according to RZA), and he was accused of diluting the group's sound with his live-instrument-based production ("shyt is wack," Ghostface said of 8 Diagrams). Even as Raekwon told fans to go out and buy 8 Diagrams, he called RZA a "hip-hop hippie" (not a compliment) and admitted the album "could've been stronger."
Things came to a head after RZA invited the entire Wu-Tang Clan to the premiere of American Gangster, in which he had a key role. Only Inspectah Deck and Method Man showed up. At the next group meeting, RZA says, "There was a strong verbal attack on me. So I told them, ‘You're my brothers forever, but I will never do business with you again.'"
Wu-Tang Clan photographed in London in the late 1990's. (Photo: Steve Double/Retna UK)
But a few years ago, as the 20th anniversary of the group's debut album approached, RZA began to think about reconvening the Wu. Released in 1993, Enter the Wu-Tang: 36 Chambers established the Wu as hip-hop's wildest, most talented collective, a nine-man crew steeped in kung-fu movies, mystagogic symbology and Staten Island's drug trade. The more RZA thought about the anniversary, the more ways he thought of to celebrate it: a world tour, a revival of the defunct Wu-Wear clothing line, maybe even a Wu-themed comic book and video game. Eventually, the group decided to make two different new albums: A Better Tomorrow, as well as a second record that the group would release in one copy and one copy only. (That one – called Once Upon a Time in Shaolin – goes up for auction in the near future; RZA has said the group received a $5 million offer for it.)
In early 2013, RZA began work on new Wu-Tang songs, doubling down on his organic approach to production: Instead of sampling old R&B songs, as he had on early Wu-Tang records, he would make his own vintage-flavored tracks from scratch. RZA worked in L.A. with producer and classic-funk guru Adrian Younge. He also headed to Royal Studios in Memphis, and hired some of the session men who played on the classic Al Green albums that had been recorded there. RZA, himself a proficient guitarist, often led the band through the changes himself.
With fresh tracks came fresh acrimony. As the anniversary of 36 Chambers came and went, A Better Tomorrow was only partly finished. RZA publicly called out Raekwon and Ghostface for lack of commitment, and said he needed "more energy" from GZA. In April, after Wu-Tang put out the single "Keep Watch," Raekwon – a master of grimy drug-rap and the biggest hold-out from A Better Tomorrow – took aim at RZA in an interview with Rolling Stone. "I hate that fukkin' [song]. It ain't the gunpowder that my brothers are spitting. It's the production." Raekwon said. "It's like being a coach and you won rings back in the day, but now your team is in ninth place."
Raekwon wanted to bring in outside producers, like Dr. Dre; he also wanted more cash upfront before appearing on the album. RZA agreed to the second demand, paying the requested sum out of his own pocket. Then he met with Raekwon and Ghostface, playing some proposed tracks for the men who were (arguably) Wu-Tang's two finest MCs. According to RZA, "Raekwon said, "I see your vision. I see a cinematic mind here.'" Both Ghostface and Raekwon ended up making key contributions to A Better Tomorrow. "I told Rae, ‘You'll be like the guy who came on my movie and stole the show," says RZA.
"This is RZA's album," Raekwon says now. "I decided to get in line like a soldier and do what I needed to do." As of mid-November, Raekwon still hadn't heard the finished version of A Better Tomorrow, though he had concerns about the production. "I hear the organicness of everything. Of course, I wanted it to be a little bit more grimier," he says. "RZA wants to give you a gumbo of melodic treats - music being played from a band and shyt. He wants to make a marble cake of an album. Personally, when I think of the Wu, I think of bloody shyt."
Wu-Tang Clan at a press conference at Warner Bros. Records on October 2nd, 2014 in Burbank, CA. (Photo: Kevin Winter/Getty)
A Better Tomorrow mixes classic-Wu science (kung-fu movie clips, references to criminal pasts) with RZA's marble-cake funk and touches of warmth and light – the change-the-world positivity of the title track; the nostalgia of "Wu-Tang Reunion," where Ghostface does a sweet impression of Ol' Dirty b*stard, who died in 2004. Especially given its difficult birth, the album hangs together well.
Of course, even without public rancor, achieving Wu-cohesiveness is no easy task. The group is spread across L.A., New York, New Jersey, Atlanta, Arizona. The members, all in their forties, have solo careers and families to attend to. (RZA has seven children; Cappadonna has eight kids and a grandchild.) Method Man just shot a movie with Adam Sandler. U-God is working on a memoir that proudly delves into his rap sheet – "I got the most fukkin' criminal record of anyone in the Wu," he claims.
When GZA isn't working on his chess game, he's giving lectures at high schools and colleges about the cosmos and the importance of science education. "Supernovas, black holes, craters, galaxies – it's all interesting," he says. "I visited Neil deGrasse Tyson at the Museum of Natural History. We kicked it."
RZA keeps building on the acting career he launched in the Nineties. He was superb as the villain in Brick Mansions, Paul Walker's last full film, and he recently translated a lifelong martial-arts obsession into his directorial debut, The Man With the Iron Fists. When he gets home to L.A., he plans to ask his buddy Quentin Tarantino to screen the super-obscure 1976 kung-fu flickThe Big Boss 2 for him. "He has the only American print," says RZA.
And yet, RZA is well aware that his artistic future will be linked with his world-changing past. "My brother told me, ‘The Wu is your legacy! You probably helped get Obama the presidency because your music attracted multiple cultures,'' RZA says. "On Staten Island, you couldn't even walk to some neighborhoods without your gun. Now those kids and their childrens are our friends! Mike the Italian, John the Italian – they with us."
http://www.rollingstone.com/music/f...ood-on-comeback-lp-a-better-tomorrow-20141120
There was a time when it looked like there might never be another Wu-Tang album at all. In the mid-2000s, relations within the Wu-Tang Clan turned especially ugly: RZA faced lawsuits from both Ghostface Killah and U-God for unpaid funds (the Ghostface suit was settled; U-God's was voided, according to RZA), and he was accused of diluting the group's sound with his live-instrument-based production ("shyt is wack," Ghostface said of 8 Diagrams). Even as Raekwon told fans to go out and buy 8 Diagrams, he called RZA a "hip-hop hippie" (not a compliment) and admitted the album "could've been stronger."
Things came to a head after RZA invited the entire Wu-Tang Clan to the premiere of American Gangster, in which he had a key role. Only Inspectah Deck and Method Man showed up. At the next group meeting, RZA says, "There was a strong verbal attack on me. So I told them, ‘You're my brothers forever, but I will never do business with you again.'"
Wu-Tang Clan photographed in London in the late 1990's. (Photo: Steve Double/Retna UK)
But a few years ago, as the 20th anniversary of the group's debut album approached, RZA began to think about reconvening the Wu. Released in 1993, Enter the Wu-Tang: 36 Chambers established the Wu as hip-hop's wildest, most talented collective, a nine-man crew steeped in kung-fu movies, mystagogic symbology and Staten Island's drug trade. The more RZA thought about the anniversary, the more ways he thought of to celebrate it: a world tour, a revival of the defunct Wu-Wear clothing line, maybe even a Wu-themed comic book and video game. Eventually, the group decided to make two different new albums: A Better Tomorrow, as well as a second record that the group would release in one copy and one copy only. (That one – called Once Upon a Time in Shaolin – goes up for auction in the near future; RZA has said the group received a $5 million offer for it.)
In early 2013, RZA began work on new Wu-Tang songs, doubling down on his organic approach to production: Instead of sampling old R&B songs, as he had on early Wu-Tang records, he would make his own vintage-flavored tracks from scratch. RZA worked in L.A. with producer and classic-funk guru Adrian Younge. He also headed to Royal Studios in Memphis, and hired some of the session men who played on the classic Al Green albums that had been recorded there. RZA, himself a proficient guitarist, often led the band through the changes himself.
With fresh tracks came fresh acrimony. As the anniversary of 36 Chambers came and went, A Better Tomorrow was only partly finished. RZA publicly called out Raekwon and Ghostface for lack of commitment, and said he needed "more energy" from GZA. In April, after Wu-Tang put out the single "Keep Watch," Raekwon – a master of grimy drug-rap and the biggest hold-out from A Better Tomorrow – took aim at RZA in an interview with Rolling Stone. "I hate that fukkin' [song]. It ain't the gunpowder that my brothers are spitting. It's the production." Raekwon said. "It's like being a coach and you won rings back in the day, but now your team is in ninth place."
Raekwon wanted to bring in outside producers, like Dr. Dre; he also wanted more cash upfront before appearing on the album. RZA agreed to the second demand, paying the requested sum out of his own pocket. Then he met with Raekwon and Ghostface, playing some proposed tracks for the men who were (arguably) Wu-Tang's two finest MCs. According to RZA, "Raekwon said, "I see your vision. I see a cinematic mind here.'" Both Ghostface and Raekwon ended up making key contributions to A Better Tomorrow. "I told Rae, ‘You'll be like the guy who came on my movie and stole the show," says RZA.
"This is RZA's album," Raekwon says now. "I decided to get in line like a soldier and do what I needed to do." As of mid-November, Raekwon still hadn't heard the finished version of A Better Tomorrow, though he had concerns about the production. "I hear the organicness of everything. Of course, I wanted it to be a little bit more grimier," he says. "RZA wants to give you a gumbo of melodic treats - music being played from a band and shyt. He wants to make a marble cake of an album. Personally, when I think of the Wu, I think of bloody shyt."
Wu-Tang Clan at a press conference at Warner Bros. Records on October 2nd, 2014 in Burbank, CA. (Photo: Kevin Winter/Getty)
A Better Tomorrow mixes classic-Wu science (kung-fu movie clips, references to criminal pasts) with RZA's marble-cake funk and touches of warmth and light – the change-the-world positivity of the title track; the nostalgia of "Wu-Tang Reunion," where Ghostface does a sweet impression of Ol' Dirty b*stard, who died in 2004. Especially given its difficult birth, the album hangs together well.
Of course, even without public rancor, achieving Wu-cohesiveness is no easy task. The group is spread across L.A., New York, New Jersey, Atlanta, Arizona. The members, all in their forties, have solo careers and families to attend to. (RZA has seven children; Cappadonna has eight kids and a grandchild.) Method Man just shot a movie with Adam Sandler. U-God is working on a memoir that proudly delves into his rap sheet – "I got the most fukkin' criminal record of anyone in the Wu," he claims.
When GZA isn't working on his chess game, he's giving lectures at high schools and colleges about the cosmos and the importance of science education. "Supernovas, black holes, craters, galaxies – it's all interesting," he says. "I visited Neil deGrasse Tyson at the Museum of Natural History. We kicked it."
RZA keeps building on the acting career he launched in the Nineties. He was superb as the villain in Brick Mansions, Paul Walker's last full film, and he recently translated a lifelong martial-arts obsession into his directorial debut, The Man With the Iron Fists. When he gets home to L.A., he plans to ask his buddy Quentin Tarantino to screen the super-obscure 1976 kung-fu flickThe Big Boss 2 for him. "He has the only American print," says RZA.
And yet, RZA is well aware that his artistic future will be linked with his world-changing past. "My brother told me, ‘The Wu is your legacy! You probably helped get Obama the presidency because your music attracted multiple cultures,'' RZA says. "On Staten Island, you couldn't even walk to some neighborhoods without your gun. Now those kids and their childrens are our friends! Mike the Italian, John the Italian – they with us."
http://www.rollingstone.com/music/f...ood-on-comeback-lp-a-better-tomorrow-20141120
New RZA interview:
The rapper and actor talks with Jon Caramanica about wrangling the Wu-Tang Clan and a cure for recurring nightmares.
The new Wu-Tang Clan record, “A Better Tomorrow,” is the first time all of the group’s members have been together on an album in years. It sounds very grown-up.
I gotta take the blame for that. I always felt it was our duty to express hip-hop from a grown man’s perspective. The brothers give me what I ask for. Sometimes they don’t agree.
But they understand that part of being in the Clan is following your vision?
Yeah, give RZA a shot. Now when they finish and they don’t like the vision, they’re gonna voice that, too. It’s like, Yeah, I was in that movie, but I don’t like it.
What percent of your work is psychological? I imagine that for every hour you’re in the studio, you probably put in three more on the phone wrangling the group.
Today we had a conference call. Inspectah Deck was like: “You’re telling us what to write about, you’re telling us how to rhyme. I got nothing but respect, but I’m a grown man.” I said: “You’re right. But you can’t just plant the seed and expect it to grow; you gotta nourish it. If you don’t nourish it, it may grow, but it’d be a weak crop. If you do plant, nourish it and it grows, and you don’t harvest it, the crows eat it.”
Not all the members and affiliates have had lucrative solo careers. A while back, Cappadonna was driving a cab for a living. I assume that’s gotta pull on the heartstrings. Yeah, pull on my heartstrings.
But Cappa, one minute he’s driving a cab, next minute he’s driving a Benz. He’s going to figure it out because he is not a normal guy. He has talent.
You’re paying for a lot of this record out of pocket, right?Studio time, musicians, everything?
Everything. And I won’t recoup. I’m already overbudget. Maybe I’ll net out a half-million-dollar loss.
Some people with half a million dollars, they buy themselves two fancy cars, or maybe a house. What did you buy yourself for half a million dollars?
I invested in the album. Look, if I never did anything again in music, it wouldn’t affect my life materially. I live a very satisfying life. Not because I’ve made a few dollars, but because I have a wife who loves me and children who wait for me to come home. And that is beautiful. I think that’s the American dream: to be at peace at home.
You’re 45. Are you a better parent now than you were in your 20s?
I think I’m better. Parenting is something that I got early, because when you grow up without a father being there and you see a single mother struggle to feed the kids, you do not want to put your own blood through that.
What has it been like for you cultivating interests away from music, like acting?
I got a chance to act in a film, “Derailed.” I was having a recurring nightmare, and after doing that film, the nightmares stopped. That character gets killed in that film. And the fear of the way he died, getting shot, left me.
The recurring nightmare that you were having was that you would be shot?
Exactly, and it happens in the film. That helped a lot, psychologically.
You’re also not in charge on the film set.
All I do is get up in the morning, I don’t even gotta really wash my face because they’re going to do that in the makeup chair. You just go downstairs, and the car guy, he’s waiting. So that life gave me something different to think about. A servant sometimes need to be served.
Wu-Tang has another album, “Once Upon a Time in Shaolin,” that no one has heard. The plan is to sell the only copy to one person for $5 million. How did you come to that figure?
When we made the announcement, emails came in. People just started — “Yo, I want it.” My boy from London, 1.2. The biggest offer that came in was, “Yo, five million.” Whoever pays five million for this, I don’t know what they’re going to do with it. There’s potential to make much more, but I don’t think it’s a commercial thing.
You don’t?
No, I think this is an art thing. You don’t buy the “Mona Lisa” to sell it.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/23/magazine/the-rza-a-servant-sometimes-needs-to-be-served.html?_r=0
The rapper and actor talks with Jon Caramanica about wrangling the Wu-Tang Clan and a cure for recurring nightmares.
The new Wu-Tang Clan record, “A Better Tomorrow,” is the first time all of the group’s members have been together on an album in years. It sounds very grown-up.
I gotta take the blame for that. I always felt it was our duty to express hip-hop from a grown man’s perspective. The brothers give me what I ask for. Sometimes they don’t agree.
But they understand that part of being in the Clan is following your vision?
Yeah, give RZA a shot. Now when they finish and they don’t like the vision, they’re gonna voice that, too. It’s like, Yeah, I was in that movie, but I don’t like it.
What percent of your work is psychological? I imagine that for every hour you’re in the studio, you probably put in three more on the phone wrangling the group.
Today we had a conference call. Inspectah Deck was like: “You’re telling us what to write about, you’re telling us how to rhyme. I got nothing but respect, but I’m a grown man.” I said: “You’re right. But you can’t just plant the seed and expect it to grow; you gotta nourish it. If you don’t nourish it, it may grow, but it’d be a weak crop. If you do plant, nourish it and it grows, and you don’t harvest it, the crows eat it.”
Not all the members and affiliates have had lucrative solo careers. A while back, Cappadonna was driving a cab for a living. I assume that’s gotta pull on the heartstrings. Yeah, pull on my heartstrings.
But Cappa, one minute he’s driving a cab, next minute he’s driving a Benz. He’s going to figure it out because he is not a normal guy. He has talent.
You’re paying for a lot of this record out of pocket, right?Studio time, musicians, everything?
Everything. And I won’t recoup. I’m already overbudget. Maybe I’ll net out a half-million-dollar loss.
Some people with half a million dollars, they buy themselves two fancy cars, or maybe a house. What did you buy yourself for half a million dollars?
I invested in the album. Look, if I never did anything again in music, it wouldn’t affect my life materially. I live a very satisfying life. Not because I’ve made a few dollars, but because I have a wife who loves me and children who wait for me to come home. And that is beautiful. I think that’s the American dream: to be at peace at home.
You’re 45. Are you a better parent now than you were in your 20s?
I think I’m better. Parenting is something that I got early, because when you grow up without a father being there and you see a single mother struggle to feed the kids, you do not want to put your own blood through that.
What has it been like for you cultivating interests away from music, like acting?
I got a chance to act in a film, “Derailed.” I was having a recurring nightmare, and after doing that film, the nightmares stopped. That character gets killed in that film. And the fear of the way he died, getting shot, left me.
The recurring nightmare that you were having was that you would be shot?
Exactly, and it happens in the film. That helped a lot, psychologically.
You’re also not in charge on the film set.
All I do is get up in the morning, I don’t even gotta really wash my face because they’re going to do that in the makeup chair. You just go downstairs, and the car guy, he’s waiting. So that life gave me something different to think about. A servant sometimes need to be served.
Wu-Tang has another album, “Once Upon a Time in Shaolin,” that no one has heard. The plan is to sell the only copy to one person for $5 million. How did you come to that figure?
When we made the announcement, emails came in. People just started — “Yo, I want it.” My boy from London, 1.2. The biggest offer that came in was, “Yo, five million.” Whoever pays five million for this, I don’t know what they’re going to do with it. There’s potential to make much more, but I don’t think it’s a commercial thing.
You don’t?
No, I think this is an art thing. You don’t buy the “Mona Lisa” to sell it.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/23/magazine/the-rza-a-servant-sometimes-needs-to-be-served.html?_r=0
Unfortunately it seems that most of the members were toeing the company line a few weeks back. They seemed pretty much in harmony and happy with the project around the time they had the Warner Brothers press conference, but now we're hearing about lil gripes from Deck and Rae. And Meth did not look happy at all at that press conference.
Elevated ATLien
Pro
They didn't have to do RZA like that though
Lol. Yea, I remember that. From the outside, it seems like he puts up with ALOT of bullsh!t from the other members but still keeps it together for the sake of the Wu-Tang name and their fans.