Wu-Tang - A Better Tomorrow (12/2/14) - Album Discussion Thread(Stream)

[Billy Ocean]

Cilvaringz said none of the group albums are greater or less than each other...can't take anything he says seriously after that. I suspect this will be slightly above average.

Necklace though

I don't know. He tries to be diplomatic when talking about Wu albums (solo and group) so I expected an answer like that. He tries not to ruffle RZA's, or any other clan member's, feathers. But you can basically tell when he doesn't really like a Wu project though, because he won't really go in depth on his feelings about it. With this album he says, several times, that it's a great album. Which especially surprises me because he's been insinuating, very slyly, for over a year that his Once Upon A Time in Shaolin is the great Wu album Wu fans have been craving for.

 

[Billy Ocean]

RZA reveals some details about A Better Tomorrow:

 

[ℒℴѵℯJay ELECTUA]

ghost on necklace took it for me, damn man..ghost sounded like a grimy dirt hustler on it..

 

[Billy Ocean]

ghost on necklace took it for me, damn man..ghost sounded like a grimy dirt hustler on it..

Shhhhhhh....be quiet. There's dudes on here that swears up and down that he fell off really bad and he sounds fat and out of breath on every verse.

 

[ℒℴѵℯJay ELECTUA]

Shhhhhhh....be quiet. There's dudes on here that swears up and down that he fell off really bad and he sounds fat and out of breath on every verse.

lol..yo ghost can sound a bit throaty at times but this verse and from i heard on his new project is nothing bit ghostastic!!

 

[Billy Ocean]

http://fusion.net/story/25397/wu-tang-clans-new-album-sounds-like-group-therapy/


It’s been a minute since the Wu-Tang Clan put its full weight behind a serious on-brand album. Since 8 Chambers in 2007, members of the Wu haven’t exactly been in one another’s orbit. We’ve seen key members in absentia on Wu-Tang mixtapes, members taking up family squabbles, and even members starting legal action against one another. At the beginning of the year, none of them were on the same creative page.

“It’s like getting the United Nations to all agree on one f**king thing,” Raekwon said to Grantland of Wu’s dynamic in March. “Italy ain’t having it. Japan is on some s**t.”


So it’s a small miracle Wu-Tang seems to have finally gotten it together for the release of A Better Tomorrow on December 2. After months of delay, it’s getting released on Warner Bros. Records.

Luckily for us, the legendary rap group previewed the album (no, not that super-rare artifact one, unfortunately) for the music press last night. And A Better Tomorow sounds like group therapy, with mostly cohesive, positive results. After all the group’s fussing and fighting, you might expect A Better Tomorrow to show some of the group’s stylistic fault lines—and there are some. But not a lot.


Wu-Tang’s resident producer RZA and MC Masta Killa attended last night’s listening party, but stayed mostly behind the studio’s glass between introducing a few songs. It’s important to note that during the group’s downtime, RZA composed music for films like Django Unchained and Pacific Rim, and even wrote and directed his own film. So naturally, he pulls A Better Tomorrow toward evocative cinema and soul on the chipmunked-up sample on the hook of “Keep Watch.”

Then there’s the rest of the Shaolin (Method Man, GZA, Raekwon), who keep it hard-hitting on the album as well, particularly with the track “Felt.” As RZA said last night, the group titled it so “because [they] don’t give a f**k how other people felt” about Wu-Tang’s intra-group drama.

Other notable Tomorrow moments included the hook of “Preachers Daughter,” featuring an interpolation of Dusty Springfield’s “Son of a Preacher Man” and Ghostface Killah’s infrequent verses with no-less-urgent conscious lyrics. Here’s a sample: “I met her on the bus with black eyes/that’s why she said she don’t f**k with black guys” and the particularly timely, “Ebola is killin’ my people/it’s getting scarier.”

The lead-off track for A Better Tomorrow, in particular, puts Wu-Tang Clan’s strongest foot forward in years. “Ruckus in B Minor” feels more like a graceful boot kicking open a door. It’s perhaps the album’s best reconciliation of RZA’s conceptualism and the rest of Wu-Tang’s grit. The screeching aggressive sounds of the rapid-fire posse cut are tempered by gospel-like arrangements of organ and piano, plus a sudden break into a woozy, downtempo, Pink Floyd-like groove.

Given Wu-Tang’s–namely RZA’s– perfectionist inclinations, a lot of what was played on A Better Could Tomorrow could, and likely will, change on the final mix released next month. But if you’re trying to get an idea of what to expect, you can check out A Better Tomorrow’s preliminary tracklisting and sequencing from the listening party below.

 

[Danie84]

fukk whatcha heard RZA still got it and never lost it, I still bump OB4CL and love the old school sample straight spittin shyt as much as anyone but I hyped for this shyt. The RZA knows what he's doing, always has and always will, 8 Diagrams is amazing if you listen to it on a great sound system and that new joint Necklace is serious.

Anyone hating on the RZA or the Wu can gtfoh

I've always been a fan of 8 Diagram too Just hated how Ghost & Rae sabotage the album, weeks before it came out, by openly throwing it in the bushes, instead of keeping their opinions inhouse Also, hated RZA kept Ghost off of Life Changes The Man With Iron Fists soundtrack, was a hundred, thousand, trillion better than the movie If that production style RZA's bringing on A Better Tommorow , we'll all truly be bless with some new Wu Classic Music

 

[Billy Ocean]

Wu-Tang Family Reunion really is a nice track. The whole feel and vibe to it is very apropos.

 

[360dagod]

they might be done as a group

Besides the gza verse, that ruckus in B minor was meh...It just didn't fit...

Im gonna reserve judgment until I hear more, but I dunno

 

[Billy Ocean]

This should be leaking soon...

 

[Billy Ocean]

The Clan will be on David Letterman tomorrow:

 

[Ziggiy]

@Billy Ocean single handedly keeping the Wu-Tang legacy in full swing on the Booth

 

[Billy Ocean]

@Billy Ocean single handedly keeping the Wu-Tang legacy in full swing on the Booth

Zig.

I do it for the people...man, woman and child

 

[SoulController]

Tekitha said she is on it, on twitter. interesting to see how shes worked in

 

[Billy Ocean]

Tekitha said she is on it, on twitter. interesting to see how shes worked in

I think she's the voice I heard on the Preacher's Daughter at 0:41