Republican Music Police
Thursday, January 19, 2006
"Triumph" is the best rap song ever
By Chris Wong
I'm sorry to be the one to break it to you, but "Triumph" by the Wu-Tang Clan is the greatest rap song ever written, recorded, performed, etc. etc. This will surely come to a shock to almost everyone. Party people will point to "Gin and Juice" or "California Love," forgetting that G-funk nearly always sounds the same. Backpackers will point out some obscure track by Aesop, Cannibal Ox, or Kool Keith, forgetting that nobody really gives a shit. Revisionist historians will point to "Rappers Delight" forgetting that it's not really that enjoyable a song to listen to. People with half a clue (emphasis on half) might even try to point to a DIFFERENT WTC song , "C.R.E.A.M." perhaps, or Chessboxing. These are closer to being valid answers...however they're all wrong.
The best rap song ever recorded is "Triumph."
This is the Clan at their best. Three years removed from their landmark debut EVERYONE in America (well...everyone who mattered) was waiting for the nine samurais to return to the 36 Chambers. So when the Wu dropped their follow-up, proclaiming WU-TANG FOREVER, we were ready to believe them. Clearly it turned out to be the exaggeration of the century - it wasn't even WU-TANG FOR ANOTHER ALBUM, but that didn't matter. What mattered is we had a double LP (or double CD, right RzA?) and that "Triumph" was the lead single.
You have to consider "Triumph" as a single, but it can't hurt to look at it in the context of the album. Side 2, side B of the double CD started off with Bobby Dig' going off on the industry - on cat in the hat rappers, on Dr. Seuss Mother Gooses (whatever that means), on shark rappers biting the Cuban Linx tip, on playas dressing up and acting like this some kind of fashion show (of course, Rza would later remark on "Duck Season" on the pointy ass caliber of his finger rings and Rae and Ghost still had their Wallabies)..........finally though he concludes his diatribe telling us to "get ready for the Triumph, because the gods are here to take over."
Then the beat drops.
God, what a beat! If you had speakers...if you had subs (like I did)...and you turned that bass up(like I did), you probably ruptured every vessel in your stomach. One of the most minimal beats ever to chart after 1990, Rza drops an eighth note bass kick with a little snare, a little string, and a little bit of angelic choir strains. Consider how multi-layered a Timbo track is, a Mannie Fresh, a Swizz Beats, and Rza's DAT work is all the more remarkable. Despite it's minimalism, this beat hits HARD. A pounding, droning, almost hypnotic beat - no....no one ever DANCED to "Triumph" but they COULD have if they wanted to.
And then ODB...oh Dirty...how sweet of you to want to take us back to '79. But Dirty, what? This song sounds nothing like 1979. But that's ok, because nothing else in the song makes sense. This is just 9 emcees (plus Cappadonna) at the absolute top of their game dropping science (read: esoteric nonsense), proclaiming their superiority at rocking the mic.
The song starts with one of the most memorable quatrains in rap music...with the criminally underrated Inspektah Deck confessing:
"I bomb atomically/ Socrates philosophies and hypotheses/Can't define how I be dropping these/ Mockeries. Lyrically perform armed robbery."
Yes! Yes! Yes! Or as Verlaine said, with much heavier connotations: "Oui! Oui! Oui!" The Wu comes like a thief in the night....and those multiples kill. They kill. There's no deep meaning, there's no message. It's all about getting down. Like Masta Killa says in by far the weakest verse of the song,
"This relentless attack of the track spares none."
This is about killing the beat, about rocking the fucking house. This is real rap music. It's noteworthy to look at some of the more confusing verses and see how very little they actually mean, and compare that to how little you care listening to the song. Like, Cappa raps
"I twist darts from the heart/Try to intrude/ Loop my voice on the LP/ Martini on the slang rocks/ Certified chatterbox/ vocabulary: 'Donna talking/ Tell your story walking."
It's nearly impossible to look at those words and
a.) say they mean something
b.) understand why they sound so good.
We could do a poetic analysis and point to the internal assonanace ("darts"/"heart", "intrude"/"loop", "cHATTerBOX"/"voCABulary DONna"), the meter, or the use of metaphor ("martini on the slang rocks"...ummm) but really it just is what it is....
This song defies explanation...something never more relevant than in Ghost's climactic professions in the song's penultimate verse. Ghostface just drops rapid fire obscurity after rapid fire obscurity in a verse that both invites close reading, but yields nothing. What can you possibly make of lines like:
"Codeine was forced in your drink/ You had a navy green/salamander fiend/ Bitches never heard you scream/ You two faces, scum of the slum/ I got your whole body numb/ Blowing like Shalamar in 81."
Clearly, it's just Ghost showing off how much he understands the euphony of language (although I doubt he'd put it that way) and that's what this song is all about. I haven't even begun to mention U-God's olympic torch, Gza's war of the masses with an outcome disastrous, or even Rza stamping gold like Fleer. And I don't think I need to. If you've heard the song, you know it by heart. If you haven't heard it you need to hear it. It simply is the best rap song ever made and it's unlikely one will ever come around that understands that this is what rap is about - the mastery of flow, beat and language. The Wu might be a lot of things, inconsistent being the most prominent, but they made this piece of pop perfection and it might be the first rap song since "Rapper's Delight" to chart without a chorus. There's a reason for this. Before this article, I hadn't heard this song in over a year, yet I could still remember every word to every verse. That's not an everyday occurence.
From that opening beat drop to when Rae guarantees to make us jump like former Staten Islander Rod Strickland and the song abruptly ends, you're under the influence of one of the best rap groups ever at the peak of their career, and you never really leave that influence.
I hope they play "Triumph" at my wedding.
Shadowboxing,
cw
I'm sorry to be the one to break it to you, but "Triumph" by the Wu-Tang Clan is the greatest rap song ever written, recorded, performed, etc. etc. This will surely come to a shock to almost everyone. Party people will point to "Gin and Juice" or "California Love," forgetting that G-funk nearly always sounds the same. Backpackers will point out some obscure track by Aesop, Cannibal Ox, or Kool Keith, forgetting that nobody really gives a shit. Revisionist historians will point to "Rappers Delight" forgetting that it's not really that enjoyable a song to listen to. People with half a clue (emphasis on half) might even try to point to a DIFFERENT WTC song , "C.R.E.A.M." perhaps, or Chessboxing. These are closer to being valid answers...however they're all wrong.
The best rap song ever recorded is "Triumph."
This is the Clan at their best. Three years removed from their landmark debut EVERYONE in America (well...everyone who mattered) was waiting for the nine samurais to return to the 36 Chambers. So when the Wu dropped their follow-up, proclaiming WU-TANG FOREVER, we were ready to believe them. Clearly it turned out to be the exaggeration of the century - it wasn't even WU-TANG FOR ANOTHER ALBUM, but that didn't matter. What mattered is we had a double LP (or double CD, right RzA?) and that "Triumph" was the lead single.
You have to consider "Triumph" as a single, but it can't hurt to look at it in the context of the album. Side 2, side B of the double CD started off with Bobby Dig' going off on the industry - on cat in the hat rappers, on Dr. Seuss Mother Gooses (whatever that means), on shark rappers biting the Cuban Linx tip, on playas dressing up and acting like this some kind of fashion show (of course, Rza would later remark on "Duck Season" on the pointy ass caliber of his finger rings and Rae and Ghost still had their Wallabies)..........finally though he concludes his diatribe telling us to "get ready for the Triumph, because the gods are here to take over."
Then the beat drops.
God, what a beat! If you had speakers...if you had subs (like I did)...and you turned that bass up(like I did), you probably ruptured every vessel in your stomach. One of the most minimal beats ever to chart after 1990, Rza drops an eighth note bass kick with a little snare, a little string, and a little bit of angelic choir strains. Consider how multi-layered a Timbo track is, a Mannie Fresh, a Swizz Beats, and Rza's DAT work is all the more remarkable. Despite it's minimalism, this beat hits HARD. A pounding, droning, almost hypnotic beat - no....no one ever DANCED to "Triumph" but they COULD have if they wanted to.
And then ODB...oh Dirty...how sweet of you to want to take us back to '79. But Dirty, what? This song sounds nothing like 1979. But that's ok, because nothing else in the song makes sense. This is just 9 emcees (plus Cappadonna) at the absolute top of their game dropping science (read: esoteric nonsense), proclaiming their superiority at rocking the mic.
The song starts with one of the most memorable quatrains in rap music...with the criminally underrated Inspektah Deck confessing:
"I bomb atomically/ Socrates philosophies and hypotheses/Can't define how I be dropping these/ Mockeries. Lyrically perform armed robbery."
Yes! Yes! Yes! Or as Verlaine said, with much heavier connotations: "Oui! Oui! Oui!" The Wu comes like a thief in the night....and those multiples kill. They kill. There's no deep meaning, there's no message. It's all about getting down. Like Masta Killa says in by far the weakest verse of the song,
"This relentless attack of the track spares none."
This is about killing the beat, about rocking the fucking house. This is real rap music. It's noteworthy to look at some of the more confusing verses and see how very little they actually mean, and compare that to how little you care listening to the song. Like, Cappa raps
"I twist darts from the heart/Try to intrude/ Loop my voice on the LP/ Martini on the slang rocks/ Certified chatterbox/ vocabulary: 'Donna talking/ Tell your story walking."
It's nearly impossible to look at those words and
a.) say they mean something
b.) understand why they sound so good.
We could do a poetic analysis and point to the internal assonanace ("darts"/"heart", "intrude"/"loop", "cHATTerBOX"/"voCABulary DONna"), the meter, or the use of metaphor ("martini on the slang rocks"...ummm) but really it just is what it is....
This song defies explanation...something never more relevant than in Ghost's climactic professions in the song's penultimate verse. Ghostface just drops rapid fire obscurity after rapid fire obscurity in a verse that both invites close reading, but yields nothing. What can you possibly make of lines like:
"Codeine was forced in your drink/ You had a navy green/salamander fiend/ Bitches never heard you scream/ You two faces, scum of the slum/ I got your whole body numb/ Blowing like Shalamar in 81."
Clearly, it's just Ghost showing off how much he understands the euphony of language (although I doubt he'd put it that way) and that's what this song is all about. I haven't even begun to mention U-God's olympic torch, Gza's war of the masses with an outcome disastrous, or even Rza stamping gold like Fleer. And I don't think I need to. If you've heard the song, you know it by heart. If you haven't heard it you need to hear it. It simply is the best rap song ever made and it's unlikely one will ever come around that understands that this is what rap is about - the mastery of flow, beat and language. The Wu might be a lot of things, inconsistent being the most prominent, but they made this piece of pop perfection and it might be the first rap song since "Rapper's Delight" to chart without a chorus. There's a reason for this. Before this article, I hadn't heard this song in over a year, yet I could still remember every word to every verse. That's not an everyday occurence.
From that opening beat drop to when Rae guarantees to make us jump like former Staten Islander Rod Strickland and the song abruptly ends, you're under the influence of one of the best rap groups ever at the peak of their career, and you never really leave that influence.
I hope they play "Triumph" at my wedding.
Shadowboxing,
cw
posted by Chris W # 9:45 AM 
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Considering that was posted at 6:45 in the morning, I'm going to assume you were drunk when you wrote it.
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