Spark the Brain: Genius/GZA’s Liquid Swords Turns 30

Wu-Tang Clan — whose final show ever in Philly this year was fucking awesome — had a remarkable surplus of personalities.

Not only was their nine-man army simply incredible from a that-many-dudes-on-stage perspective, all bellowing “Wu-Tang Clan Ain’t Nuthin’ To F’ Wit” in unison, but at least six of them stood out from the pack. There was Ol’ Dirty Bastard, of course, the loose cannon prone to breaking into drunken singsong that charmed even Mariah Carey. Method Man, the deep-voiced crowd-pleaser who extolled weed, secured even more pop collabs from Mary J. Blige to Limp Bizkit, and scored several acting gigs. Raekwon, one of the most vivid gangsta storytellers in the genre, and Ghostface Killah, who is bar none the most vivid, which means his lyrical conquests extended beyond his spellbinding true-crime narratives.

Then this next pairing is key: Where Ghost and Rae frequently gave hip-hop the bloody R-rated movie that hard rap always promised, Liquid Swords masterminds RZA and GZA served the counterbalance of mystagogy, the Clan’s biggest connoisseurs of nerdy shit: Martial arts and samurai flicks, scientific and philosophical applications of the Qu’ran. “Da Mystery of Chessboxin’?” That came from these two even if neither of them actually had verses on the song.

Liquid Swords eventually did surface in an anniversary edition that came with an actual chess set, though. So it’s no surprise that it’s largely considered the Wu’s finest album ever by the most mystagogical of heads: the backpackers, stoners, message-board frequenters. And critics. It’s not. But it’s a real good album and help differentiated the Clan from Nas and Mobb Deep as a necessary counterweight to the beatdown threats and dealer tales by fogging them in smoke, extended metaphor and a sagier vibe.

At 59, GZA is the Clan’s oldest member, and Liquid Swords had a built-in, world-weary vintage to it. He was the only one in the group put out a whole album before 36 Chambers — Words From the Genius on Cold Chillin’ — which was produced by Easy Mo Bee of eventual Ready to Die fame. It was uncharacteristic; funky though. “Pass the Bone” was an early RZA production back when he was Prince Rakeem and that beat will stay in your head as long as anything from Liquid Swords, whose catchiest song is “Cold World,” with a spacey beat and addictively tuneless R&B hook.

The title track comes close though, following its spooky Shogun movie intro with two iconic, relentlessly alternated palm-muted guitar plucks one interval from each other.

“A lot of them had a grimy, rock-like feel to them,” he recalled of the beats RZA was giving him at the absolute height of Wu-Tang’s powers. “I just remember absolutely loving them.”

There’s even a blown-out fuzz bass on “4th Chamber” that gives it a Black Sabbath feel long before Yeezus or Death Grips carved out a real lane for that kind of noise and disturbance.

As for his prior experience, well, there’s a reason he’s the MC who did a song called “Labels,” infamously punning off of record companies in one-liners like “Tommy ain’t my motherfucking boy” and “I’m holding more weight than Columbia.” The most contract-conscious member of the group (try 2002’s “Did They Say That”) was one of the quickest to embrace the indie world, performing all of his classic LP at the 2007 Pitchfork Festival and being the first to put on the late, great Ka (on 2008’s underrated Pro Tools).

While ODB was sort of an uncontrollable nutcase, GZA was maybe the most subversive of the group, even handing over most of the highlight “Shadowboxin’” to Meth or Swords’ entire (beautiful) closing track “B.I.B.L.E. (Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth)” to then-associate Killah Priest.

 

VIDEO: GZA feat. Inspectah Deck “Cold World”

Liquid Swords opened up a lane for Wu-Tang to be more impressionistic, filmic, flat-out stoned, and helped by what analysts termed to be one of the largest vocabularies in all of rap, which is how phrases like “water soluble” and “a gaseous element” ended up in a classic like “Duel of the Iron Mic.” Like his even more frenzied compatriot Ghostface, GZA was an artisan prone to tucking internal rhymes and neat literary rhythmic devices into his verses like secret explosives. Or as he puts it, “picture bloodbaths in elevator shafts / Like these murderous rhymes tight from genuine craft.” Sounds like Rakim, right? He also wasn’t above his own mafioso talk over the infectious throb of “Hell’s Wind Staff/Killah Hills 10304.”

GZA’s Wu-official debut is the definition of a fan favorite, an out-of-focus phantasmagoria of RZA’s beats at their oddest (the fuck is that oscillating synth-whine riff on “4th Chamber” anyway?) and deep talk for basement-dwelling codebreakers whose hobby was unpacking stanzas like “because my powers is refined / Through the truth, which manifest through eternal minds / Purified gasses and masses / The same elements that helped spark civilization classes.”

That awesome comic book album cover is for them.