FULL ALBUM:
__________________________________________________
Tracklist:
01 Ruckus in B Minor (Prod. by RZA and Rick Rubin)
02 Felt (Prod. by RZA)
03 40th Street Black / We Will Fight (Prod. by Mathematics and RZA)
04 Mistaken Identity (Prod. by RZA)
05 Hold the Heater (Prod. by RZA)
06 Crushed Egos (Prod. by RZA and Adrian Younge)
07 Keep Watch (Prod. by Allah Mathematics)
08 Miracle (Prod. by 4th Disciple and RZA)
09 Preacher's Daughter (Prod. by RZA)
10 Pioneer the Frontier (Prod. by RZA)
11 Necklace (Prod. 4th Disciple)
12 Ron O'Neal (prod. by RZA)
13 A Better Tomorrow (Prod. by RZA)
14 Never Let Go (Prod. by RZA)
15 Wu-Tang Reunion (Prod. by RZA)
__________________________________________________
http://www.hiphopdx.com/index/edito...-know-about-wu-tang-clan-s-a-better-tomorrow-
Exclusive: HipHopDX attended the Wu-Tang Clan's press conference for "A Better Tomorrow." Here's what we learned.
Let the Wu tell it, and it took a gaggle of challenging yesterdays to create A Better Tomorrow. There were conflicting schedules, conflicting visions, conflicting interests—you name it. So much so that Cappadonna says that the Wu-Tang’s sixth group album was birthed out of hardship. Fortunately all of that is behind "The Clan." Fresh off of a new deal with Warner Music to release A Better Tomorrow, all nine current Wu members were all in as close to agreement as we’ve seen them over the past year and a half. And while all descriptions of this project paint a picture of a Wu we’ve never heard, from a recording standpoint, RZA went analog.
“Some people record in hotel rooms these days—laptops and portable studios,” RZA explains. “Like I was trying to explain to the band and I think it penetrated—it’s like, ‘Yo, we got millions of dollars worth of equipment, kid, with gear that these plug-ins are trying to emulate. You’re buying a digital copy of the real one I got, kid. So let’s go back to the real.’ That means you gotta go to certain locations. You gotta go to a big studio. You gotta go to where music was actually scientifically engineered in an analog way to be captured and multiplied and electrified through voltage. The Rock & Roll guys have went back to this as well. The Foo-Fighters went back to record their stuff on analog tape and I think some bands went back to garages to record their music. But they learned that there’s something different from the sound you get in the analog world. Instead of creating everything digital, you should create it analog and then at the end go to digital—not start digital. And I’m the guy that was Bobby Digital, know what I mean? [Laughs]
“I documented this also and maybe there will be a documentary that’ll come out and you’ll see all these studios,” RZA continues. “All the equipment from the first four-track to the first eight-track to now back into my studio with Ableton Live 9, Native Instruments, Maschine and all these things. I combined all that to make this record—the past and the present.”
That’s the first thing we learned about Wu-Tang Clan’s sixth studio album A Better Tomorrow. Here are 11 more.
(All quotes taken directly from the press conference as well as exclusive interviews with RZA, Raekwon, Ghostface Killah, Method Man, and Cappadonna.)
A Better Tomorrow Is Based On RZA’s Vision:
RZA: The album is called A Better Tomorrow. The simplest way to explain it is that, if you look at all of us whether we’re having a good day or not, we want to have a better tomorrow. Whether we made a million bucks today, we want to have a better tomorrow. But then in some situations, you’ve got people who are oppressed, stressed, or going through a great struggle trying to find themselves and they need a better tomorrow. So throughout this record you’ll find music that relates to an everyman struggle. You’ll find music that relates to just the aggression of Hip Hop. You’ll find music that relates to the idea that we want to aspire to improve the world. As a producer, I traveled from starting in a basement in [Los Angeles, California] then went down to Memphis, Tennessee, connected with a lot of old musicians there—the same guys who we sampled from the Isaac Hayes Band or the Memphis horns. We traveled through Europe through many studios, dropping our lyrics. Then came back to New York and Philadelphia. This is a record that kind of traveled around the world as well, you know what I mean? And each place that we went, I think Wu-Tang inspired that place. Our mission is to inspire a better tomorrow.
Raekwon: It’s a thousand analogies on how you can perceive this album. RZA got his thoughts. I got my thoughts. To me this was an album of seeing veterans being comfortable at what they do. At the same time, put a little bit more positivity inside the music. That’s what we did with this album. Like I said earlier, to make a gumbo of great music together is the plan. It’s not to just sit here and say, “Yo, we want to sound like 1992 again.” We’re different guys now. There are some things that we’re gonna want to explore. And there are some things that we’re gonna have to keep the signature the way it’s normally been.
Ghostface Killah: This is RZA’s vision. Everything is his vision. He got a theme behind it. He’s The Abbot. I wouldn’t be doing Ghostface things if it wasn’t for him because he’s the one that took us there for me to even be heard. So I have to bow down like, “OK, whatever.” This is his thing. The next one will still be his thing, but we get a chance to go ahead beast mode.
Method Man: Make no mistake; this is RZA’s shyt. This is his shyt.
A Better Tomorrow Took 18 Months To Create:
Raekwon: This album was put together kind of different. This may be the first time that I can say this album was put together far from any other way. Usually we would all disappear somewhere. We’d all be stranded somewhere together for like a month or two. But this one was kind of difficult because of the circumstances of where everybody was at the time. Some guys was out on the road doing what they gotta do. Some guys was home building the foundation of the album. It’s deep when you got nine guys. Real talk.
One thing about us is that we emcees. We’re professionals. We already have our ear set to know if the music makes sense to our world. So a lot of things we done organically. It’s not coming in searching. You don’t want to reach too far. You just want to still hear what’s going on and hear what direction you may want to take it. We always knew that RZA’s a scientist. You not going to run across too many scientists that’s gonna wanna stay on one thing. They want to conquer other metals and see what else is going on, so we always just come in the room and listen. If it makes sense to the ear, we already know it’s coming from the grain. This is the grain so whatever’s coming out of here, a plant is supposed to grow out of here. Some things might not be that big. Some things might grow to be a big plant, a big tree or something. So we just stay at the root and make sure it makes sense.
Ghostface Killah: We had to have timing. I know for me, I’ve been busy on the road and stuff like that. RZA had to email me tracks. While I was going, I’d write to them, lay them down, and send them right back to him. A lot of brothers were out here at first. Remember, this has been going on for a minute. [18 months] Like Rae said, we all got individual things that we be doing. We over here. I’m in Japan. He’s in Taiwan. We in London. We were still trying to get ahead to perform your duties to cover this project. But then again you still had a few brothers chillin. Inspectah Deck, U-God—I heard they been in the studio gettin’ it and you could hear it on the album, too, like that. You just had to get in where you fit in.
Method Man: You can do the math yourself. Pretty much. Actual studio time was never this long. Maybe actual studio time [for Wu-Tang Forever] was two months but we had both studios going at the same time and that was a double LP. Maybe because RZA was a little bit more cautious with this one.
Cappadonna & Mathematics Were First To Work On A Better Tomorrow
Cappadonna: I didn’t really get a chance to speak on my contribution to the A Better Tomorrow album. I feel like I started it off. I set the Wu album off. When we was on tour, we did two months in Europe and it was my first time being in Europe in 12 years. I wasn’t able to go. I had issues with my passport. I was finally able to get out there. I did my two months with the Clan. We had tour buses. We hadn’t been together for a while before that. It was kind of really difficult putting this A Better Tomorrow album together. You know RZA, he had a different state of mind. All of the Clan members, they was in a different state of mind and I was in rhyme time. I was on rhyme time. Mathematics had a lot of beats. RZA wasn’t really presenting any tracks at the time yet. I kept listening to Math’s beats and he kept saying, “They not ready yet. They not ready yet.” I’m like “We gotta make ‘em ready. Let’s rock out. Let me hear something.” [Laughs] He played the beats everyday on the bus and I was in writing mode, spitting. I was going up to everybody like, “How this sound?” I ain’t give ‘em no choice. I put the spirit back in there, so the album really started in Europe.
From there, by the time RZA got the spirit, he opened up the studio because me and Math started creating that energy. He opened up the studio and me and Math would go there everyday. So I had the first seven songs. Then eventually everyone else started coming after a while. Not even everybody. Deck started to come. U-God was there, mostly. Me and U-God was going all the time. He was hungry. Then Meth was coming. RZA started coming. Masta Killa came, too. That was the height of it for the whole European experience.
By the time we got to New Jersey, I didn’t really have to do too much work. I probably laid one verse in Jersey. Rumor has it I’m on one of the illest songs. I got an ill verse in there. Big up to RZA. Big Up to the whole Clan, but big up to RZA for solidifying and letting people know that I’m one of the official members of the Clan. He gave you a date and a time so you don’t gotta wreck your mind trying to figure out who the kid is. It never mattered to me whether I was a member or not. A lot of my brothers came up under my deadly rap influence, too. I inspired brothers and we all got stories of how we took from each other.
A Better Tomorrow Incorporates Live Instrumentation:
RZA: On the music side, Wu-Tang has definitely been a band that has toured around the world and we’ve found ourselves touring with the likes of The Black Keys or Jack White—just many festival type of arenas. If you bring our classic catalog of Hip Hop, there’s also a side that’s not reached by us because there’s a stereo mix of our music coming out instead of a live band performance. This album has incorporated that sound. This is a record that actually any band that can actually play, it’s been written out and charted out so that you can pass it to any house band. [If] you’re going on [David Letterman], “Here, pass it to the house band and they can play it.” That’s very different than the old Hip Hop that was too many dissonant chords that couldn’t really be translated because of sampling. So I found a way to translate the Wu-Tang sound in the proper progressions so that a band can play it now.
Songs “Ron O’Neal,” “Never Let Go,” & “Necklace” On A Better Tomorrow
RZA: “Ron O’Neal,” we recorded that song on the East Coast. Method Man was one of the first members to come to the studio. Masta Killa used to come to the studio a lot. The first seven songs, he had a lot of presence there. One of those songs was “Ron O’Neal.” It’s really just an homage. The title goes back to the movie Super Fly and everything that he represented which was that 1970s coolness—the big Cadillac, the fur coats, all of the things that Ron O’Neal represented. This song to me had that vibe about that. It was something that was fly—super fly. Something that was unique, iconic. That’s why I named the song “Ron O’Neal.” It came together lovely. Meth went first with, “Coach put me in the game.” From there, Deck dropped his. We emailed it to Ghost. He checked it out. He threw his “Bobby Brown / crackhead” line in there Ghost only could do.
There’s a record on our album called “Never Let Go.” In this particular song, each rapper takes time to give you inspiration on things you shouldn’t let go. GZA says “Never let go of your mind / It’s easy to lose but it’s difficult to find.” He says, “We must touch hearts and tune souls.” U-God says, “Never let go of your dream / Never let go your hope / When you in jail / Never let go of the soap.” It’s pragmatic. Each rapper will give something that you can take and go home the next day and reflect on it. It’s funny but it’s real.
Of course this is Wu-Tang and this is Hip Hop so we definitely didn’t shy away from giving you that rough, rugged, smack you in the face type music that you’ll find on this album as well. I mixed a song last night called “Necklace.” A lot of rappers wear those chains but your necklace could be causing you more problems than you think. I love how Raekwon, Ghostface Killah, Cappadonna, and the GZA lyrically assault this track and put that threatening Wu-Tang flavor back out there.
__________________________________________________
Tracklist:
01 Ruckus in B Minor (Prod. by RZA and Rick Rubin)
02 Felt (Prod. by RZA)
03 40th Street Black / We Will Fight (Prod. by Mathematics and RZA)
04 Mistaken Identity (Prod. by RZA)
05 Hold the Heater (Prod. by RZA)
06 Crushed Egos (Prod. by RZA and Adrian Younge)
07 Keep Watch (Prod. by Allah Mathematics)
08 Miracle (Prod. by 4th Disciple and RZA)
09 Preacher's Daughter (Prod. by RZA)
10 Pioneer the Frontier (Prod. by RZA)
11 Necklace (Prod. 4th Disciple)
12 Ron O'Neal (prod. by RZA)
13 A Better Tomorrow (Prod. by RZA)
14 Never Let Go (Prod. by RZA)
15 Wu-Tang Reunion (Prod. by RZA)
__________________________________________________
http://www.hiphopdx.com/index/edito...-know-about-wu-tang-clan-s-a-better-tomorrow-
Exclusive: HipHopDX attended the Wu-Tang Clan's press conference for "A Better Tomorrow." Here's what we learned.
Let the Wu tell it, and it took a gaggle of challenging yesterdays to create A Better Tomorrow. There were conflicting schedules, conflicting visions, conflicting interests—you name it. So much so that Cappadonna says that the Wu-Tang’s sixth group album was birthed out of hardship. Fortunately all of that is behind "The Clan." Fresh off of a new deal with Warner Music to release A Better Tomorrow, all nine current Wu members were all in as close to agreement as we’ve seen them over the past year and a half. And while all descriptions of this project paint a picture of a Wu we’ve never heard, from a recording standpoint, RZA went analog.
“Some people record in hotel rooms these days—laptops and portable studios,” RZA explains. “Like I was trying to explain to the band and I think it penetrated—it’s like, ‘Yo, we got millions of dollars worth of equipment, kid, with gear that these plug-ins are trying to emulate. You’re buying a digital copy of the real one I got, kid. So let’s go back to the real.’ That means you gotta go to certain locations. You gotta go to a big studio. You gotta go to where music was actually scientifically engineered in an analog way to be captured and multiplied and electrified through voltage. The Rock & Roll guys have went back to this as well. The Foo-Fighters went back to record their stuff on analog tape and I think some bands went back to garages to record their music. But they learned that there’s something different from the sound you get in the analog world. Instead of creating everything digital, you should create it analog and then at the end go to digital—not start digital. And I’m the guy that was Bobby Digital, know what I mean? [Laughs]
“I documented this also and maybe there will be a documentary that’ll come out and you’ll see all these studios,” RZA continues. “All the equipment from the first four-track to the first eight-track to now back into my studio with Ableton Live 9, Native Instruments, Maschine and all these things. I combined all that to make this record—the past and the present.”
That’s the first thing we learned about Wu-Tang Clan’s sixth studio album A Better Tomorrow. Here are 11 more.
(All quotes taken directly from the press conference as well as exclusive interviews with RZA, Raekwon, Ghostface Killah, Method Man, and Cappadonna.)
A Better Tomorrow Is Based On RZA’s Vision:
RZA: The album is called A Better Tomorrow. The simplest way to explain it is that, if you look at all of us whether we’re having a good day or not, we want to have a better tomorrow. Whether we made a million bucks today, we want to have a better tomorrow. But then in some situations, you’ve got people who are oppressed, stressed, or going through a great struggle trying to find themselves and they need a better tomorrow. So throughout this record you’ll find music that relates to an everyman struggle. You’ll find music that relates to just the aggression of Hip Hop. You’ll find music that relates to the idea that we want to aspire to improve the world. As a producer, I traveled from starting in a basement in [Los Angeles, California] then went down to Memphis, Tennessee, connected with a lot of old musicians there—the same guys who we sampled from the Isaac Hayes Band or the Memphis horns. We traveled through Europe through many studios, dropping our lyrics. Then came back to New York and Philadelphia. This is a record that kind of traveled around the world as well, you know what I mean? And each place that we went, I think Wu-Tang inspired that place. Our mission is to inspire a better tomorrow.
Raekwon: It’s a thousand analogies on how you can perceive this album. RZA got his thoughts. I got my thoughts. To me this was an album of seeing veterans being comfortable at what they do. At the same time, put a little bit more positivity inside the music. That’s what we did with this album. Like I said earlier, to make a gumbo of great music together is the plan. It’s not to just sit here and say, “Yo, we want to sound like 1992 again.” We’re different guys now. There are some things that we’re gonna want to explore. And there are some things that we’re gonna have to keep the signature the way it’s normally been.
Ghostface Killah: This is RZA’s vision. Everything is his vision. He got a theme behind it. He’s The Abbot. I wouldn’t be doing Ghostface things if it wasn’t for him because he’s the one that took us there for me to even be heard. So I have to bow down like, “OK, whatever.” This is his thing. The next one will still be his thing, but we get a chance to go ahead beast mode.
Method Man: Make no mistake; this is RZA’s shyt. This is his shyt.
A Better Tomorrow Took 18 Months To Create:
Raekwon: This album was put together kind of different. This may be the first time that I can say this album was put together far from any other way. Usually we would all disappear somewhere. We’d all be stranded somewhere together for like a month or two. But this one was kind of difficult because of the circumstances of where everybody was at the time. Some guys was out on the road doing what they gotta do. Some guys was home building the foundation of the album. It’s deep when you got nine guys. Real talk.
One thing about us is that we emcees. We’re professionals. We already have our ear set to know if the music makes sense to our world. So a lot of things we done organically. It’s not coming in searching. You don’t want to reach too far. You just want to still hear what’s going on and hear what direction you may want to take it. We always knew that RZA’s a scientist. You not going to run across too many scientists that’s gonna wanna stay on one thing. They want to conquer other metals and see what else is going on, so we always just come in the room and listen. If it makes sense to the ear, we already know it’s coming from the grain. This is the grain so whatever’s coming out of here, a plant is supposed to grow out of here. Some things might not be that big. Some things might grow to be a big plant, a big tree or something. So we just stay at the root and make sure it makes sense.
Ghostface Killah: We had to have timing. I know for me, I’ve been busy on the road and stuff like that. RZA had to email me tracks. While I was going, I’d write to them, lay them down, and send them right back to him. A lot of brothers were out here at first. Remember, this has been going on for a minute. [18 months] Like Rae said, we all got individual things that we be doing. We over here. I’m in Japan. He’s in Taiwan. We in London. We were still trying to get ahead to perform your duties to cover this project. But then again you still had a few brothers chillin. Inspectah Deck, U-God—I heard they been in the studio gettin’ it and you could hear it on the album, too, like that. You just had to get in where you fit in.
Method Man: You can do the math yourself. Pretty much. Actual studio time was never this long. Maybe actual studio time [for Wu-Tang Forever] was two months but we had both studios going at the same time and that was a double LP. Maybe because RZA was a little bit more cautious with this one.
Cappadonna & Mathematics Were First To Work On A Better Tomorrow
Cappadonna: I didn’t really get a chance to speak on my contribution to the A Better Tomorrow album. I feel like I started it off. I set the Wu album off. When we was on tour, we did two months in Europe and it was my first time being in Europe in 12 years. I wasn’t able to go. I had issues with my passport. I was finally able to get out there. I did my two months with the Clan. We had tour buses. We hadn’t been together for a while before that. It was kind of really difficult putting this A Better Tomorrow album together. You know RZA, he had a different state of mind. All of the Clan members, they was in a different state of mind and I was in rhyme time. I was on rhyme time. Mathematics had a lot of beats. RZA wasn’t really presenting any tracks at the time yet. I kept listening to Math’s beats and he kept saying, “They not ready yet. They not ready yet.” I’m like “We gotta make ‘em ready. Let’s rock out. Let me hear something.” [Laughs] He played the beats everyday on the bus and I was in writing mode, spitting. I was going up to everybody like, “How this sound?” I ain’t give ‘em no choice. I put the spirit back in there, so the album really started in Europe.
From there, by the time RZA got the spirit, he opened up the studio because me and Math started creating that energy. He opened up the studio and me and Math would go there everyday. So I had the first seven songs. Then eventually everyone else started coming after a while. Not even everybody. Deck started to come. U-God was there, mostly. Me and U-God was going all the time. He was hungry. Then Meth was coming. RZA started coming. Masta Killa came, too. That was the height of it for the whole European experience.
By the time we got to New Jersey, I didn’t really have to do too much work. I probably laid one verse in Jersey. Rumor has it I’m on one of the illest songs. I got an ill verse in there. Big up to RZA. Big Up to the whole Clan, but big up to RZA for solidifying and letting people know that I’m one of the official members of the Clan. He gave you a date and a time so you don’t gotta wreck your mind trying to figure out who the kid is. It never mattered to me whether I was a member or not. A lot of my brothers came up under my deadly rap influence, too. I inspired brothers and we all got stories of how we took from each other.
A Better Tomorrow Incorporates Live Instrumentation:
RZA: On the music side, Wu-Tang has definitely been a band that has toured around the world and we’ve found ourselves touring with the likes of The Black Keys or Jack White—just many festival type of arenas. If you bring our classic catalog of Hip Hop, there’s also a side that’s not reached by us because there’s a stereo mix of our music coming out instead of a live band performance. This album has incorporated that sound. This is a record that actually any band that can actually play, it’s been written out and charted out so that you can pass it to any house band. [If] you’re going on [David Letterman], “Here, pass it to the house band and they can play it.” That’s very different than the old Hip Hop that was too many dissonant chords that couldn’t really be translated because of sampling. So I found a way to translate the Wu-Tang sound in the proper progressions so that a band can play it now.
Songs “Ron O’Neal,” “Never Let Go,” & “Necklace” On A Better Tomorrow
RZA: “Ron O’Neal,” we recorded that song on the East Coast. Method Man was one of the first members to come to the studio. Masta Killa used to come to the studio a lot. The first seven songs, he had a lot of presence there. One of those songs was “Ron O’Neal.” It’s really just an homage. The title goes back to the movie Super Fly and everything that he represented which was that 1970s coolness—the big Cadillac, the fur coats, all of the things that Ron O’Neal represented. This song to me had that vibe about that. It was something that was fly—super fly. Something that was unique, iconic. That’s why I named the song “Ron O’Neal.” It came together lovely. Meth went first with, “Coach put me in the game.” From there, Deck dropped his. We emailed it to Ghost. He checked it out. He threw his “Bobby Brown / crackhead” line in there Ghost only could do.
There’s a record on our album called “Never Let Go.” In this particular song, each rapper takes time to give you inspiration on things you shouldn’t let go. GZA says “Never let go of your mind / It’s easy to lose but it’s difficult to find.” He says, “We must touch hearts and tune souls.” U-God says, “Never let go of your dream / Never let go your hope / When you in jail / Never let go of the soap.” It’s pragmatic. Each rapper will give something that you can take and go home the next day and reflect on it. It’s funny but it’s real.
Of course this is Wu-Tang and this is Hip Hop so we definitely didn’t shy away from giving you that rough, rugged, smack you in the face type music that you’ll find on this album as well. I mixed a song last night called “Necklace.” A lot of rappers wear those chains but your necklace could be causing you more problems than you think. I love how Raekwon, Ghostface Killah, Cappadonna, and the GZA lyrically assault this track and put that threatening Wu-Tang flavor back out there.
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The WU still bringing that hype and anticipation
