Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.Discounting – as the group themselves do – 2011’s makeweight Legendary Weapons offering, it’s been seven long years since 8 Diagrams, during which time the Wu-Tang Clan appear to have drifted further apart.
Certainly, A Better Tomorrow – surely the hip-hop collective’s final testament – has had a tortuous gestation over the past three years, with producer RZA struggling to get the group focused – key member Raekwon, in particular, only agreeing to participate late on in the process.
For all that, it’s a pretty decent album, with their trademark melange of rap stylings at their most spikily effective, each track switching between self-promotion, street-crime narrative, social commentary and cosmological speculation as different members take the mic. Ol’ Dirty Bastard even appears from beyond the grave, heralding opener “Ruckus in B Minor” with his engagingly berserk charm, before the others set out to “strive with an army of winners and no pretenders”, as Raekwon puts it. Harking back to “Bring Da Ruckus” – the opening track of their debut, Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) – it brings their career full circle; although RZA’s prog-hop backing track shows how far he, at least, has developed since then. Elsewhere, marching-band brass and choir drive “40th Street Black/We Will Fight”, while the resentment of “Mistaken Identity” is bracingly evoked by the distorted guitar and noise-collage dropout section.
Dusty’s “Son of a Preacher Man” furnishes the slinky groove for “Preacher’s Daughter”, each rapper creating their own reminiscence about the imaginary girl. It’s in stark contrast to “Miracle”, where the idyllic opening male/female duet is rudely crushed by a dystopian mafiosi rap; but in general, the album becomes more philosophically relaxed as it proceeds, with a Martin Luther King speech and O’Jays sample underscoring the family values of “Never Let Go” and “Wu-Tang Reunion”, which closes the album – and their career – in the right spirit.
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments