On the heals of the re-issue of GZA's masterpiece Liquid Swords, I felt moved to share why this, among other Wu-Tang family albums, changed my life when I was growing up. I have to admit that GZA was not my favorite member of the Wu in the beginning, as I was a stan for Method Mad and his gravel voiced, grimey sounds, but once Liquid Swords came out, and due to my stan-ism for all things Meth, I checked it out since he was featured on "Shadowboxin'". I spent way too many hours of my life memorizing all of only-Method Man's parts for all Wu songs, but the first time I heard the song "Shadowboxin'" I was floored. The super creepy and grimey soul loops from the RZA, which I was convinced had the bomb sounds from Metroid in it, and the graphic lyrics made me take notice of GZA's ability to paint pictures with words. The combo of Meth and GZA made me rewind the cassingle about 5000 times to memorize all the words from this song. "Check these non-visual niggas with tapes and a portrait" --GZAThese words forever changed how I approached albums and how I appreciated an artist's vision for his work. Liquid Swords was one of the first hip-hop albums I had heard that envisioned the entire album as an entire piece, even weaving the song titles together in some kind of jumbled story on the back of the CD. I was always weirded out how they cut the video track short and flipped "4th Chamber" into the mix, but that song was ill too, and made me bug out at how the GZA could build an entire mood for the album that embraced the grime, wit and soul of the Wu Tang's 36 Chambers, but with enough changes to stand on it's own. If you don't already own this album and claim to like hip hop, you need to march the the store and trade your cash so one of the illest albums of all time. No flashy club hits, no forced features from unlikely artists, just straight Wu-Tang, grimey hip hop for the soul!
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