I had a bit of a Wu-Tang phase going on in my second year of university. Can’t remember how it started. I think I listened to Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) just a few times, and that opened up a hole which led to me watching masses of interviews (of the group and respective members) and listening to their solo projects.

The story is that when 36 Chambers did its thing and got a lot of success and essentially made Wu-Tang a household name in ’93, the group’s producer and mastermind RZA made a plan for all the members to make their own solo albums before coming back for a full group effort later on. This resulted in what is seen as RZA’s (and Wu-Tang’s really) golden period with a run that gave us Tical; The Dirty Version; Only Built 4 Cuban Linx…; Liquid Swords, and Ironman.

Now, out of all of those Liquid Swords is my go-to choice. All of them have their own styles which a lot of people will prefer more than others. But it’s Liquid Swords that got me when that beat kicked in. After a long introduction taken from the film Shogun Assassin – which, although was good to listen to the first time, now gets a skip when the track plays on shuffle – GZA and RZA come in on the track’s hook in which they make it clear that they want to school the listener to the art of hip-hop. GZA then goes on to do so, in only two verses, with a mass of wordplay, metaphors and other literary devices delivered in a slick and laidback style. There are actually too many lines I could try and dive deep into, but that’s what Genius is for. And for an album that was released 25 years ago, it doesn’t sound as dated as you think it would.

Other things I’ll thrown in here to close this out. The main sample used throughout is taken from OG producer Willie Mitchell’s cover of ‘Groovin” by the Young Rascals. A music video was also made for this track, I’ll put that down below. I also wish I could have written about ‘B.I.B.L.E. (Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth)’ which is also on this album because that track is great too. Got into it way after starting this though.