Prompt: "Choose a side: a song that you'd consider 'classic East Coast hip hop' or a song you'd consider 'classic West Coast hip hop'"
Selected by Joe
"I Gotcha Back"
GZA
Liquid Swords, 1995
This is the extent of what I know, which, I'll admit, isn't much: that GZA is a member of the Wu-Tang Clan; that after 1993's Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers), the group's members put out a flurry of classic hip hop albums within the next couple years; that Liquid Swords is one of them, and it was released by GZA in 1995; that I've been aware of the album's existence but never thought to check it out before I started to get into rap generally, and Wu-Tang specifically, and all that really only happened in the past year or so for me; that the album's artist is usually written as "Genius/GZA"; that I've always assumed that they were two different people; that they are, in fact, not two different people; that "Genius" is his nickname; that you can't really blame me, since the album art features two guys fighting; that the term "liquid swords" refers to the idea of a sword so sharp that it cuts one's neck like a sword through water, so clean that the head stays on the shoulders even after being decapitated; that it's more of a mythical idea than a real thing; that the members of Wu-Tang were into martial arts entertainment; that "Wutang" is a subgroup of the Wudangquan style of Chinese martial arts; that you don't need me to explain any of this to you if you've heard even like three Wu-Tang songs; that GZA's album has the explicit samurai themes; that RZA, the Wu-Tang member who produced most of the collective's music and put together most of the beats, said that he imagines that GZA is the samurai of the group, since his lyrics are straight to the point, which mirrors the swords in the movies (one stroke kills); that Liquid Swords samples heavily from the 1980 jidaigeki film Shogun Assassin; that I watched Shogun Assassin the other day because I needed to know the context of all this dialogue that was pulled directly from the film; that Shogun Assassin is actually the edited combination of two different martial arts films, Wolf with Child in Tow: Child and Expertise for Rent, and most of Lone Wolf and Cub: Baby Cart at the River Styx; that the movie was fucking awesome; that it was a good beginner's entry for someone like me who has never really seen a legit classic samurai film; that I recognized some of the (dubbed) dialogue from its inclusion in Liquid Swords; that it was about a samurai who seeks revenge against the Shogun and manages to keep his child safe from all harm in the process; that I won't get too deep into the film because that's not why I'm here but suffice it to say it was cool as shit; that my viewing of the connection between film and music was, I felt, more than just "GZA is an efficient rapper"; that both works of art are, when you think about it, speaking to the idea that we need to do anything we can to survive in a system that is stacked against us from the beginning; that Lone Wolf is upfront with his infant son throughout the movie; that, due to the reality he was born into, he can choose the sword or he can choose death; that this reality is reflected in a slightly different way in "I Gotchya Back"; that this song (last song on the album if you don't include bonus tracks, and I never do) is about the cycle of poverty; that this song is about kids who are still young enough to play hide-and-seek getting involved in the drug game early; that GZA describes those kids as "trying to solve the puzzles to why is life so hard"; that the song provides no solutions, but instead asks all those who can relate to just survive; that GZA has said that he wrote this song for his nephew, whose father (GZA's brother) was in prison; that GZA directed the video for this song; that that same nephew stars in the video; that that nephew eventually did time for the same sort of gun bullshit described in the song; that this was probably the saddest Genius (the lyrics website, not the rapper) notation I've ever read; that I didn't embed the video above because it doesn't include the Shogun Assassin sample at the end; that the sample you heard if you listened to the song above all the way through is a short monologue narrated by a contract killer that the Shogun had hired but who got cut down by Lone Wolf; how the monologue seems to reflect upon the inevitability of death; how the word "ridiculous" seems out of place, both in the sample and in the movie itself; how it's the right word to use anyway; how life really is ridiculous; how bizarre it is that death is something we all fear and yet all will one day experience; how that numbness to the inevitability of death can cause problems; how this guy probably would've lived longer if he was a little more afraid of death; how our numbness to the death that GZA describes in "I Gotcha Back" is fucked up, like how sad but in some respects unremarkable the story of GZA's nephew is; that maybe this song isn't what the prompt is asking of me today; that the implication is that we should be talking about Biggie Smalls vs. Tupac Shakur; that this so-called rivalry is where the "East Coast vs. West Coast" thing really took on a life of its own; that I'd argue that the prompt implies that any song from the genres of "East Coast hip hop" or "West Coast hip hop" would be eligible; that Wu-Tang is definitely East Coast, but different from, say, Biggie's music in the way that the beats are hard and minimal and really let the lyrics do the talking; that the classic story of East vs. West ended in death too, you'll recall; that the myth somehow flattens the cold cruel reality of the situation, that Biggie was so sure of his own death that he named his first album Ready to Die and his second album Life After Death and then was killed sixteen days before that second album's release; that it still strikes me as bizarre and off-putting that Biggie's music is considered party music; that, in most respects, Biggie intended for it to be party music; that I can't shake the feeling that that undercurrent of death and violence and numbness to it all somehow makes it impossible for me to feel good about Biggie's music, ever; that this is me thinking too much about all this, I know; that I don't know what the solution is, no more than GZA did when he sang about the brutal realities of his nephew's peers; that life is all about choice; that the so-called choice of East vs. West today is a red herring; that the real choice is laid out by Lone Wolf in Shogun Assassin and as sampled in "4th Chamber"; that the choice is sword or ball; that the choice is the fight for survival or imminent death; that every day, we need to make this choice; that I know what I choose. This is all that I know.
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