RZA :: The RZA Hits

Even though the Wu-Tang Clan had not even been around (commercially at least) for a full decade by 1999, they had forever changed the landscape of rap music, thanks in large part to the signature production style of Robert “RZA” Diggs. It could scarcely come as a surprise that people were already ready for a retrospective of his best work, and Epic Records/Sony Music were more than happy to oblige with “The RZA Hits.” Now if you want to be cynical and say this was just a cheap excuse to repackage existing songs and sell them to the Wu’s fans a second time, I wouldn’t deny you that cynicism. In fact I was plenty wary of this album going in for that very reason.

The intro to the album seemed phoned in — figuratively and perhaps LITERALLY. RZA seems to have recorded his thoughts on the album’s first song “Wu-Tang Clan Ain’t Nuthing ta F’ Wit” on a smoke break over a pay phone. The quality wouldn’t even have been suitable for RealAudio streaming back then let alone the MP3 format that had quickly come to dominate file trading services. It also seems like he recorded them all in one session at one time, because the intro he does before “Method Man” is no better than the one that preceded it. His volume changes, his vocals pop, and it’s about as un-mastered and unpolished as it could possibly be.

I’m of two minds about this. On the one hand there’s an inherent “rough take” quality to classic Wu-Tang Clan songs RZA produced. That’s part of the charm. It made them sound like the most rugged group of rappers to invade the music industry in ages. Perfection would have been LESS perfect. When GZA proclaimed himself “the dirtiest thing in sight” he epitomized a strong part of Wu-Tang’s appeal. It wasn’t supposed to be clean or pretty at all. On the OTHER hand the Wu had graduated far beyond those grimy early days. The rough sound became an intentional rather than an accidental choice, and if that’s what RZA was aiming for with these interludes, then I’ll have to respect the architect for his vision. The problem is that he doesn’t really go far enough. He could have recorded his thoughts for EVERY song in a similarly grimy manner instead of picking just a few to speak about here and there. All of the songs here deserve to be on an equal footing.

There’s also the minor matter of one of “The RZA Hits” not being a RZA hit at all. Now the inclusion of “Brooklyn Zoo” can be justified from a Wu-Tang Clan fan’s song any number of ways — RZA and Ol’ Dirty are literally family (cousins), True Master was a protege of RZA in terms of production, and as such a TM and ODB produced song could be called RZA-esque. Even if that’s too flimsy of a connection for you, fine, but the song still fucking thumps hard. It was a classic on day one and it still is now. If this album was called “Greatest Wu Songs — Collectively or Solo” we wouldn’t even need to discuss the issue at all.

Unfortunately this just raises another unavoidable issue, and this isn’t one we can make any reasonable excuses for. Perhaps “The RZA Hits” would’ve needed to be a double or triple album to accommodate how many classics he had made by 1999, but a lot of certified bangers he DID produce before this album came out aren’t in the mix. Where’s “Daytona 500” by Ghostface Killah? “Shadowboxin'” by GZA? “Triumph” from “Wu-Tang Forever” just two years earlier? Why include a relatively mediocre song like “Winter Warz” instead of any of these three let alone a few dozen more I could name? The selections here do not seem to have been carefully curated.

At the most generous I can possibly be, “The RZA Hits” would be a great starting point for introducing somebody to the Wu-Tang Clan in general and RZA’s production style specifically. Unfortunately this album not only fails to be RZA’s hits, it fails to be the aforementioned “Greatest Wu Songs — Collectively or Solo” either. As a collection of songs best thought of as a Wu-Tang mixtape (and Lord knows I made plenty of them back in the day) it’s aight. As a commercially released compact disc or vinyl record, it falls way short of whatever mark they were aiming for, provided you assume they were aiming for anything other than a quick buck.