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Wu-Tang Clan,
Wu-Tang Iron Flag
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(Loud
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Release Date:
December
18,
2001
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Reviewed by
Jon Caramanica
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A new Wu-Tang Clan album is always cause for celebration, for logistic as well as artistic reasons. It’s been barely a year since their last effort, the melancholy The W, but miraculously, the Clan is already back (minus the indisposed Ol’ Dirty Bastard) to plant the Wu-Tang Iron Flag. RZA keeps his productions eclectic—check the blaring, stuttering horns on “Uzi (Pinky Ring)” and “One of These Days.” But the verbals are where the Wu shines, and everybody brings the A game: Method Man keeps it comical on “Radioactive (Four Assassins),” boasting, “I’m so focused/Simple chronic halitosis keep my shit funky/When I spit this braggadocious.” Far more devastating is “Babies,” with its spacey guitars and drippy chimes, over which GZA raps, “That’s why I keep the rhyme just as fly as the shot/That won the championship with just ‘0’ on the clock.” The Wu is down with current events, too, as Ghostface Killah lets loose on “Rules”: “Who the fuck knocked our buildings down?…/Fly that shit over my ’hood and get blown to bits.” It’s not just for children anymore; Wu-Tang belongs to the people.
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