#TBT: Wu-Tang Clan's GZA

GZA will be 50 next year, and while the MC might spend more time working on his chess game than writing rhymes, he certainly paid his dues while releasing tons of classic material.

GZA is the only Wu-Tang Clan member to have released an album before 36 Chambers dropped. Always ahead of the curve, he doesn't get the nickname 'The Genius' for nothing. He spits straight knowledge on his beats, and never succumbs to the ignorance we see in modern rap (or even occasionally in ODB's rhymes!).

The GZA played a huge role on 36 Chambers, but also did a massively successful and widely acclaimed solo album in Liquid Swords. What is largely considered a 'perfect hip-hop' album, Liquid Swords furthered along the Wu-Tang style by combining Kung-Fu samples with raunchy rap. The GZA always played the intelligent counterpart while the others were wylin' out.

So today we take a look back at some GZA material, and some of it is classic and some of it is a little more obscure...but it is all enjoyable. So do just that!

The Wu-Tang Clan's debut album set the whole hip-hop world on fire, and it's still blazing a path in 2015. GZA added some strong bars to the album and closed up the opening track with this:

"I'm more rugged than slave-man boots
New recruits, I'm fucking up MC troops
I break loose, and trample shit, while I stomp
A mud-hole in that ass cause I'm straight out the swamp" 

RZA and GZA are cousins, and they demonstrate their chemistry by taking the reins on "Clan In Da Front." RZA handles the production and introduction madness, while GZA slays the verses and the chorus.

A largely unknown cut off a largely unknown record, "Rush" definitely sticks out on Return of the Wu & Friends, an album produced by Mathematics. 

GZA, along with the rest of the Clan, went super-hard on their sophomore LP. The music video for "Triumph" is as classic as each verse the Clan drops.

On 1999's Beneath The Surface, GZA may not have reached the legendary status he did on Liquid Swords, but it's still a solid album with some cool cuts. "Breaker, Breaker" is one of them.  

GZA goes full genius on this one:

"I'm the obscene slang kicker with no parental sticker
Advisin' y'all that wise words is much slicker
Under circumstances label advances
Ample opportunity, infinite chances
The rhyme, the unrelated beef I don't stress
I seen many killed for inifinte-e-less
Ya raps need a clips that packed with lies
Cowardlessly ya shot up those innocently wise
In extra long verses hundred bars the lim'
The percentage of the truth in the rhyme is one tenth
A solid mass of minerals, easily broke down
Hard rock MC's ya nothin but compound
Sparked by the endless greed of CEO's
In the videos with those questionable flows
Take it twenty-six, cut it down to four bars, make it a hook
If it's not I'm sure to send a book"

Mathematics, RZA, Masta Killa and our subject link up for an '08 cut called "Pencil." Spitting knowledge over a sweet beat, "Pencil" is a deeper cut that not all Wu-Tang fans may know. 

And now we get to the most legendary album GZA ever released, Liquid Swords. While the entire thing is essential listening, we'll cap off our list with three joints from the album that made the man.

These four go HARD on an epic beat. This is 90s hip-hop at its darkest and, frankly, it's best.

The final cut on Liquid Swords spits straight knowledge over a smooth beat. Peep Killah Priest's opening lines...

"Knowledge this wisdom, this goes back when I was twelve
I loved doing right but I was trapped in hell
Had mad ideas, sad eyes and tears
Years of fears, but yo my foes couldn't bear
I searched for the truth since my youth
And went to church since birth, but it wasn't worth the loot
That I was paying, plus the praying
I didn't like staying cuz of busy-bodies and dizzy hotties
That the preacher had souped up with lies
Had me cooped up lookin at loot, butt, and thighs
Durin the service, he swallowed up the poor
And after they heard this, they wallowed on the floor"