Masta Killa and "Glaciers of Ice"

I was just listening to this song a bunch earlier today and I’m struck by two things that make this one of the best tracks on Raekwon’s nearly perfect Only Built 4 Cuban Lunx. First, it took some serious audacity for RZA to flip the same sample twice on the same album, but he did just that with the rugged strings that drive “Guillotine (Swordz)” and underpin this song. Second, Masta Killa was unstoppable from his first verse on “Da Mystery of Chessboxin’” through everything he did on Wu-Tang Forever, and this song is no exception. He was unstoppable enough that he could show up between Raekwon and Ghostface in their primes on a song and still be the illest by a wide margin. Inspectah Deck and U-God were similarly astounding during this five year period, and it’s a shame that all three didn’t get RZA-produced solo albums during the five-year plan. A Masta Killa album in 1996 would have undoubtedly been a classic since RZA didn’t make a bad beat during this era and Masta Killa was capable of verses like this. It probably would’ve even surpassed No Said Date.

R.I.P. Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert died yesterday. Across the internet, critics and writers have eulogized him and recalled their experiences with him. Most critics felt his influence even if they never met him personally. Some of my favorite critics including Nathan Rabin, Stephen Hyden, Jim DeRogatis, and Wesley Morris have made excellent contributions to the conversation. For them, his nationally syndicated reviews, his weekly television show At the Movies with colleague/rival Gene Siskel, or interactions with him at film festivals, at the Lake Street screening room in Chicago, or at the Chicago Sun-Times offices were formative experiences for them as burgeoning critics.

I can’t say that I share those experiences. I’ve never been to the Lake Street screening room. I grew up in a Chicago Tribune household so I never read his reviews growing up. I have some vague memories of At the Movies from when I was a kid, but it wasn’t something I consciously watched. Honestly, I can probably trace most of my initial awareness of Ebert to his appearance on an episode of The Critic that my friend Jeff had taped. Until he was featured in an incredible Esquire profile in 2010 that detailed the loss of his ability to eat and speak due to a battle with cancer, I didn’t think about him much growing up, although I was very aware of his importance and his stature as both a critic and a local icon. His presence loomed over Chicago in a way that few of the city’s residents have.

During the 1970s, my uncle Tom Fitzpatrick wrote for the Chicago Sun-Times, and he developed alongside Ebert at the paper. They were friends and colleagues, and they influenced each other as they established their respective voices as writers. Both won Pulitzer Prizes for their work at the paper. By the time I was born, Tom had moved to Phoenix, but I saw him a few times growing up, and I was in awe of his life. He was a great writer and an effortlessly interesting and assured person. When I was in late elementary school, my family visited him and my aunt in Phoenix, and he took me on a tour of the offices at the Arizona Republic. I was over a decade away from realizing that I wanted to be a writer, but that day is still one of my favorite memories from a child. Even though I had no inkling of my future, it was a formative experience for me nonetheless.

When Tom passed away during the summer of 2002, I had just turned 14 and was about to start high school. His memorial service was held at the Tribune Building in Chicago (he also wrote for the Chicago Tribune for a few years), and Ebert was one of the many speakers who showed up to laud my uncle’s life and work. I don’t really remember anything he said when he was up at the microphone, but I remember him being warm and funny and grateful for the experiences he had with Tom in his earliest days as a film critic. Even after decades of establishing himself as the greatest film critic in history, he hadn’t lost the joy that he got from movies or from the people he worked with and counted among his friends. I was extremely shy at the time, but he was so inviting that I managed to build up the courage to go talk to him. Rush Hour 2 had just come out on VHS and I had been watching it at home frequently, and even though I was an awkward, inarticulate, and vaguely surly kid he seemed happy to take a few minutes to listen to my opinion of the film and share his own (he was not a fan of either the movie or Chris Tucker, although he had a lot of nice things to say about Jackie Chan; I liked everything about it, and even though I know now that it isn’t a great movie I still find it immensely entertaining and it’s one of the few VHS tapes sitting on my shelf next to all of my DVDs).

I barely qualify as a critic, and I’m not that good of a writer yet. The one thing I have going for me is a passion for music and culture that has sustained me through my frustration with my too slowly-developing abilities and my difficulty finding paid writing jobs. A small but important part of that came from my chance to talk to a man who cared so deeply for movies and for the people who watched them that he would listen to me as if I was a peer rather than just some kid. Without the respect this titan of a writer and critic afforded me and my ideas even when they differed from his own it is unlikely that I ever would have built up the confidence to begin committing my own opinions on the art that most moves me to paper and putting them out into the ether.

Roger will be missed.

Shady Blaze - "Rest in Peace R.J."

I had to get a late pass when it comes to Shady Blaze. I’m not at all familiar with his solo material, although I just recently started listening to his very good collaborative album with Deniro Farrar (whose music I was also a latecomer to). I really have no idea what his subject matter is usually like, or how polished his music generally is.[1]

A week ago, Shady Blaze released a loose track called “Rest in Peace R.J.” R.J. is Blaze’s son, who was born three months premature, hung on for twenty days, and then passed away. Blaze recorded “Rest in Peace R.J.” three days after his son’s death. There is a great tradition of painful story songs in rap history, from R.A. the Rugged Man’s embodiment of his father’s Vietnam experience in “Uncommon Valor” to Big L’s story of growing up in poverty in “How Will I Make It” to Ghostface Killah’s recollection of a friend dying in his arms in “Impossible,” but this song is the most painful one I have ever heard. The detail is excruciating, the verses rough, sounding almost unfinished, the emotion so fresh that it’s difficult to listen to. But the song’s urgency is its most striking quality. It sounds as if he couldn’t do anything other than rap after losing his son. His art is the only thing that could sustain him in the days after his experience. As he says at the beginning of the song, “this is like the only way I know how to release, you know, my feelings. I don’t know what else to do anymore.”

I can’t begin to understand what Shady Blaze’s life must be like now, but my condolences go out to him and his family.

His mixtape with Deniro Farrar, Kill or Be Killed, can be streamed or downloaded here.

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[1] His association with Deniro Farrar makes me guess that he favors the Keyboard Kid/Ryan Hemsworth cloud rap style of beats, but that’s all conjecture.

RZA and Ghostface Suggest a Few Reasons to Die

The RZA is a musical visionary and his knowledge of kung fu flicks is damn near unparalleled in both the world of hip-hop and among the general public.[1] When the RZA speaks on any topic—but especially when he talks about kung fu or music—he speaks with a wisdom that parallels the abbots in the Shaw Brothers movies he holds in such high regard. Unfortunately, his directorial debut The Man with the Iron Fists was a boring mess of a kung fu movie, too Technicolor bright and half-baked to even be worthy of the temple of Shaolin greats.[2] RZA’s artistic vision proved to be an unfortunately poor fit for cinema, even as his best music has a palpable cinematic feel to it.

Now that he’s gotten his movie out of his system, the RZA has stepped back behind the scenes of the most exciting new Wu-Tang record since Only Built 4 Cuban Linx… Pt. II came out four years ago: Ghostface Killah & Adrian Younge’s Twelve Reasons to Die. The three songs from the album that have leaked (“The Rise of the Ghostface Killah,” “The Sure Shot (Parts 1 and 2),” and “Enemies All Around Me,” the last of which features William Hart of the Delfonics) have all been astounding slices of Morricone-indebted cinematic goon rap. This is due primarily to Younge’s live band instrumentals that reach the potential that was hinted at in Wu-Tang Chamber Music (which featured the Revelations as the backing band). RZA is listed as executive producer on the album—the first Ghostface record overseen by RZA since the genius Supreme Clientele in 2000—and his and Younge’s vision have reenergized Ghost. The featured artists are all from the lesser-known end of the Wu-Tang camp—Masta Killa, U-God, Inspectah Deck, Cappadonna, and a recently released from prison Killa Sin, all of whom benefit greatly from some artistic guidance or executive production.

The trailer for the Twelve Reasons to Die album and 49-date tour (presumably directed by Younge, who has handled the majority of the videos from his previous projects) is more effective in one minute than RZA was with a full hour and a half.

Soul Temple Records will release Twelve Reasons to Die on April 16. A review of the album and of the April 26 show at Chicago’s Abbey Pub will be coming in the next month.

Also as a bonus, here’s the trailer for the six issue comic book miniseries that is accompanying the album’s release. The always great Jim Mahfood and Ben Templesmith are among the exciting roster of artists involved with this project.

 

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[1] For evidence of this, check out the DVD commentary for The 36^th Chamber of Shaolin, where RZA wipes the floor with the other commentator, noted film critic Andy Klein. There is absolutely no reason RZA or anyone else should know who choreographed seemingly every fight in every kung fu movie ever released, but RZA gives the impression that he does.

[2] Full disclosure: when I saw The Man with the Iron Fists in theaters, I was so bored that I fell asleep for a bit, and I’m not sure how much of the movie I missed. Even with this sleep break, the movie still felt much longer than its 96 minute runtime.