Image Credit: www.hiphopdx.com
By: Kai Jones
On this day, November 7th, 19 years ago GZA The Genius dropped Liquid Swords: what some say is the greatest hip-hop album ever. This is considered in the top 2 Wu-Tang Clan members’ solo album, along with Only Built 4 Cuban Linx…While the greatest hip-hop album ever is debatable, if you were to canonize a group of hip-hop albums, I do not know how you could leave this album out.
Liquid Swords is not necessarily a commercial success as no single reached the Top 40 on the Billboard Top 100 and the album never reached number 1 on the Billboard 200 nor the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums. While it wasn’t necessarily a big commercial success, it was critically acclaimed. While Liquid Swords isn’t the greatest album commercially, it is significant because of the lyrics, music, and how well the album is put together.
Liquid Swords is one of the most creative and aptly named album titles in hip-hop history. When you listen GZA his flow is like the water of Niagara Falls flowing through, but it’s sharp like a samurai sword. The greatness about this album is that everything comes together perfectly. From GZA writing perfect dark street poetry, to every Wu-Tang Clan member having a fitting feature, to RZA showing his production prowess. While the album featured all 10 members of the Wu-Tang Clan, it seemed as though all the members stepped into GZA’s world and GZA shined on all of them. While RZA has always been a great producer, this may have been his finest of any solo project production. And of course GZA The Genius gave us some of the best imagery and lyrics on an album that we have ever heard, and also it showed that his lyrical expertise is the finest of all the Wu-Tang Clan members.
GZA was a large part of the amazing run Wu-Tang Clan and the members had from 1993-1997, which in my mind cemented them as the greatest rap group to ever touch a microphone.
Wu-Tang Forever!
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