Birth Of A Prince

10/06/2003 10:00 PM, LAUNCH
Dan Leroy

The decline and fall of the Wu-Tang dynasty has sent its mastermind back to the life raft. The RZA's third domestic solo album ditches the Bobby Digital persona that intrigued and baffled fans while the Wu franchise burned, and focuses his production skills on the sound that launched a thousand hip-hop groups a decade ago: the late-night ambience and unforgiving beats of the Clan's debut. There's some bet hedging; "We Pop" is a chart sop with a crippled G-Funk gait and a cameo from Dirt McGirt, a.k.a. Ol' Dirty Bastard, and at times the disc is confusingly schizophrenic. (Originally advertised as a Bobby Digital effort, it also seems autobiographical, as its title implies. In "The Birth," our hero demands, "Don't even call me Bobby no more. My name is Prince Rakeem," his original alias.) But whoever's behind the mic has the Rizza's old abstract philosophizing down cold on "A Day To God Is 1,000 Years" and "See The Joy," which sympathetically narrates a sperm cell's journey. In short, the RZA's eccentric genius remains undiminished, needing only a full-scale Wu reunion to flower fully again. Bet on it.