GZA. The Genius. 'He the head, let's put it that way. We form like Voltron, and GZA happen to be the head.'
Rap is a notoriously competitive genre of music, with MCs claiming to be the best as soon as they step up to the mic, and whilst the respect to the previous generation of MCs as being the greatest is always there, the importance of their role existing in the past cannot be ignored. Rarely will an MC claim they are not the greatest in the moment that they exist. So for Method Man (and the Wu-Tang Clan as a whole) to hold up GZA as 'the head', the apex, perhaps the most important piece in the Wu-Tang puzzle, it is clear that someone special is being revered. The bars from GZA on Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) are often excellent: 'My Wu-Tang slang is mad fucking dangerous/And more deadly than the stroke of an axe/ Chopping through your back *swish*, giving bystanders heart attacks' or 'I gamed Ella, the bitch caught a Fitz like Gerald-/-ine Ferraro, who's full of sorrow cause the ho didn't win/ But the sun will still come out tomorrow'. Yet, in a debut album packed full of now legendary MCs it's hard to truly stand above the rest like Method Man claims GZA did at the time, and so it's not until the release of his 1995 solo classic Liquid Swords that the breadth of his lyrical genius fully flourishes.
The legendary cover of the album sees the Wu battling on top of a chess board; the stars of the universe their backdrop. A battle is perhaps slightly biased against the Wu, for this is no battle, but a slaughter - their cheap imitators are dispatched with brutal ease. At the centre background of the cover is a slightly more mystical figure. Arms crossed, dressed in a cloak rather than a hoody, he does not engage in battle but instead calmly watches over like an ancient war-weary commander. Perhaps it's meant to represent GZA? Perhaps not. The ancient meets the new; violence meets civilisation; the minutia of the chessboard meets the grandeur of the universe; RZA 'meets' GZA. It is this final clash that this is most interesting. Both men symbolise the chess board, the Wu-Tang soldiers, and the central leader.
Discussions about Liquid Swords tend to revolve around a handful of adjectives: dark, gritty, winter, and basement to name the most recurring ones. They point towards a sound and atmosphere of Liquid Swords that it captured perfectly, and whilst these descriptors have been repeated to the point of parody, it's a testament to the quality of the album that they continue to be such a focal point of discussion. RZA's production is indeed emblematic of a musical blacksmith forging his masterpiece in a grimy, dusty, marijuana hazed New York basement. GZA's lyrics, whilst always praised, perhaps sometimes miss out on the credit they deserve in creating the consistent sound of the album. Like the cover, it's an album in perfect balance; GZA's lyrics require RZA's production and vice-versa. For those of us without a musical background, we cannot properly discuss the production of the album outside of somewhat vague emotive descriptors, but getting into the nitty-gritty of GZA's language is a little easier.
[Liquid Swords could be taken through an extensive line by line analysis, but that would take far too long, and RapGenius has already attempted that. Instead, here's a selection of lyrics from that album that I love and wanted to explore further.]
'Fake niggas get flipped/In mic fights I swing swords and cut clowns/ Shit is too swift to bite your record and write it down/ I flow like the blood on a murder scene, like a syringe/On some wild out shit, to insert a fiend' (A return to the cover will quickly show the mirroring occurring here)
From the offset this record is a declaration of rap prowess through the lens of violence - any who attempt to challenge me will be murdered on the mic. The third line is reflective of the intent, with the internal rhymes of 'shit/swift' and 'bite/write' allowing the smooth progression from one syllable to the next so that the line is finished before it can be processed. GZA's flow is at one with the violence he describes; pouring forth from him like blood from a dead body, or like drugs into a user's veins - the near palpable sense of disgust in his voice is representative of a man whose raps aren't simply better than yours, they will physically harm you as well. That handful of adjectives recurs again, but it's simply so hard to escape. Structurally GZA's album is violent from the offset; in its metaphors, its delivery, and its intent, and by the time the first verse is finished, images of 'zodiac signs', 'roundhouse kicks', 'cyclones or tycoons', and 'megaton bombs' have been spat. The physicality of the imagery is so brutally unapologetic that it's difficult to feel as though GZA is not coming after the listener himself, as if stepping into a cold, dark lair where we do not belong.
'Yo, picture blood baths and elevator shafts/ Like these murderous rhymes tight from genuine craft'
In an interview with Neil DeGrasse Tyson GZA talks about how the imagery of 'blood baths' in 'elevator shafts' is in reference to kids that lost limbs whilst playing around in elevator shafts when he was growing up. This graphic detail is indicative of the way GZA builds layer upon layers into just a couple of rhymes, all the while revolving around that thematically consistent imagery. Here this imagery, which is eerily fitting to Stanley Kubrick's horror classic The Shining, is an example of the subtle politics of GZA's raps. This is not an immediate political statement on the minority struggle in America, but a glimpse into the world of the underprivileged, where horrific accidents involving children become normalised in underfunded federal housing. The layers build in the following line, where the imagery is repurposed from a combination of realism with horror core to GZA's violent style of braggadocio rap. There's even an element of black comedy, with the informal introduction of 'Yo' inviting the listener in, only to immediately repel. GZA's ability to pack all these different styles into two lines without any sense of a jarring awkwardness is a technical marvel, and this is just one instance of this level of intricacy that occurs throughout the album.
'Look out for these fatal flying spikes, of massive/ Sleep-holds, put strangle on commercial angle/ Microphone cords tangled from being Star Spangled'
Metaphor, assonance, onomatopoeia, rhyming couplets - rolling these lyrics off the tongue with ease, GZA reflects on the state of the hip-hop industry and its increasing commercialisation with a mastery of poetic technique. The internal rhymes build upon one another: 'strangle', 'angle', 'tangled', 'Star Spangled'. Leading towards a crescendo of mockery, as GZA avoids a tangling of the tongue and flaunts his lyrical ability whilst not conforming to the increasing commercialisation that he sees around him. Once again, his braggadocio threats of violence return, and the use of onomatopoeic phrases like 'fatal flying spikes' drive home the fierce intent of his words to actively go against the 'commercial angle'. It's a line that is self aware of its intent, as GZA avoids the pitfalls of commercialisation throughout the album with classic East Coast production and a lyrical sensibility that would leave a white suburban family mentally scarred.
'The plan was to expand, catch seven figures, release triggers/ And live large and bigger than my nigga/ Who promised his mom a mansion with a mad room/ She died and he still put a hundred grand in her tomb/ Open wounds, he hid behind closed doors/ And still organises crime and drug wars'
GZA's storytelling ability is often under appreciated, especially when Liquid Swords came out at a similar time to Wu-Tang member Raekwon's crime epic Only Built 4 Cuban Linx, which is an album renowned for its narrative structure. As with all things GZA he is less explicit than this, and rather than focusing on entire narratives in a song he paints fictional worlds in just a few lines, reminiscent of writers like Kafka and Hemingway. In this example, we see the cyclical destruction in the life of a drug lord. Despite the wealth he accrues, he cannot save his mom from dying and delivering on his promise, instead the attempts at emotional fulfilment by leaving the money in her tomb only add to the sense of desperation. GZA's contrast of 'open wounds' and 'closed doors' subverts the external-internal norms of the criminal underworld, where emotions are hidden and an image of power flaunted about for respect. The damning final line highlights his continued involvement in this lifestyle; unable to escape the cycle of violence his emotional trauma is left to fester. GZA leaves no room for a 'happy' ending, instead the listener is left to reflect on the harsh realities of the drug world, rather than the glamorised perceptions that other rapper's might propagate.
'It ain't hard to see my seeds need God-degree/ I got mouths to feed, unnecessary beef is more cows to breed'
Perhaps less so than any other example from this list, the immediate quality of this line is not as apparent. It's fundamentally a connect the dots of internal rhymes. Starting at 'see' and ending at 'breed', GZA has a total of eight internal rhymes (some para/half rhymes) and it's a fluency of assonance that is rarely seen. To pack so many internal rhymes into two lines and for it to still tell a cogent message is by no means an easy feat, and this fact becomes more impressive when you realise GZA just drops this into a wider verse as a whole, calmly dispatching these impressively and then casually moving onto the next line, as though this poetry is something completely natural. The metaphor of consumption is deftly intricate, with GZA recognising the fact he has to raise his kids alongside a lifestyle that can have dangerous consequences. GZA never relents in his desire to go against the commercialised grain, opting to introduce complex rhyme schemes as and when he pleases. The layers of his talent are rich and rewarding to the observant listener, where even lines that may not seem overtly impressive on a first listen offer so much more hidden depth on repeat - this is but one of these.
'Like my man Muhammad from Afghanistan, grew up in Iran/ The nigga runs a neighbourhood newsstand/ A wild Middle Eastern, bomb specialist/ Initiated at eleven to be a terrorist/ He set bombs in bottles of champagne/ And when niggas popped the cork, niggas lost half they brains'
Another example of GZA's aforementioned storytelling talent, however, this one is focused on darkly comedic imagery alongside perfectly structured rhyming couplets. In just three couplets the story of an Afghani bomb maker is laid out before the listener. Details of his childhood, his current livelihood and his underground activities are revealed, and whilst orientalist cultural stereotypes leer throughout, GZA is able to create another eccentric character in the universe of Liquid Swords. The icing on the cake is the final two lines, with the wonderfully creative murder weapon of 'bombs in bottles of champagne' revelling in a wickedly playful side of GZA's writing that conjures up a wholly unique image. The ostentatious nature of popping a champagne cork only to be met with a shockingly violent response borders on the absurd, and yet in the universe of Liquid Swords that GZA has created it is entirely plausible.
'Kids are slinging in my lobby/ Little Steve and Bobby/ Getting paid but it's a life-threatening hobby/ Yeah, they still play hide and seek/ The fiends seek for the crack, and they hide and let the cops peep'
Playful, political, subversive, comedic, tragic. The adjectives in which to describe Liquid Swords are so much greater than that handful initially touched upon, for it is an album of far greater depth than listeners often give it credit for, even in their flattering praise. The five given at the beginning of this paragraph are by no means a conclusive list either, but they are certainly fitting for the last example on this list. It is political in the reality of the ghetto situation in America, where kids no longer play innocent games of hide and seek, instead these expectations are subverted and the kids' game of hide and seek now revolves around the drug trade. Trapped in a terrifying, near-unimaginable situation for the majority of GZA's audience (myself included), his throwaway line naming them 'Steve' and 'Bobby', names that bounce with rhythm and seem contradictory to the tone, is a moment of darkly comedic relief, only before we are immediately brought back into the tragic reality of their lives, and the lives of many others. On Liquid Swords GZA turns the listener into a piece of blu-tac, stretching and distorting experiences at a break neck speed, but with a deftness that avoids a breaking or tearing in the reality of the listener. The delicate balancing act present in his lyrics allows GZA to cover such a range of themes, tones and topics in mere lines that it's not only difficult to comprehend what's going on, but even more difficult to comprehend just how he created it. A true genius at work, indeed.
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