Grant JonesAfter this video dropped a couple of months ago, fans of the legendary Wu-Tang Clan were rightfully anticipating a new album. Like a lot of recent Wu-Tang Clan news, it’s best to curb your expectations (particularly after the poor Ghostface album last year) and true enough, there was no Wu-Tang Clan album. Instead, we saw an album released under the “Wu-Tang” brand, much like fans witnessed in 2009 with “Chamber Music”, and then in 2011 with “Legendary Weapons”; 2017 also saw “The Saga Continues” which was fully produced by long-time Wu-Tang producer Mathematics. 2025’s “Black Samson, the Bastard Swordsman” is also produced by Mathematics, highlighting how strong the Wu-Tang brand remains, while names like Mathematics would have released albums in the past under his name.
My biggest reservation with the video for “Mandingo” was that it was created with AI tool Veo2. The Wu are no strangers to adapting and adopting the latest technological innovations, whether it be videogames like Wu-Tang: Taste the Pain, CGI special effects in their videos for “Triumph” or “Gravel Pit”, or even their official website being built around a community forum (Wu-Tang Corp); recent ventures have felt noticeably dirtier. Shifting from releasing an album with only one copy in 2015 to making it an NFT in 2024; releasing exclusive music on Bitcoin, and now embracing generative AI for creative purposes. It’s a far cry from RZA’s rant at the start of 1997’s “Wu-Tang Forever” where lines like “stop biting my shit, ya know what I’m sayin’? Come from your own heart with this shit” and “Wu-Tang gonna bring it to you in the purest form” feel like a lifetime ago. Despite this, a Wu-Tang album is always welcome no matter how underwhelming it inevitably ends up being, and “Black Samson, the Bastard Swordsman” is worth checking out for some of the individual performances.
After being hit with some verbal abuse by Tha Dogg Pound’s Kurupt, the aforementioned “Mandingo” song kicks things off nicely with a Raekwon/Method Man/Inspectah Deck combination. The Chef sounds like he cooked up his verse on a Fisher Price microphone, so he is immediately forgotten about once the other two take over. The most impressive member of the Wu on this whole album is easily Cappadonna; he’s borderline vitriolic, as if someone pissed in his cornflakes the colour of Sunny D. The lengthy tirade on “Executioners from Shaolin” demonstrates this:
“Catch you coming out the gate and swinging my sword
I cut rappers in half choke ’em with the cord
They’ll never try to step to my written dimension
I smash your whole set, kick your head in the trenches
You know I’m fit n****
I slapped you out your flip-flops
You flow on the ground I dragged you for six blocks
You can’t escape from the king of this hip-hop
Rappers can’t avoid my spit, they just get chopped
36 chambers, killing the vampires
N****s suck dick, your whole camp is liars
Fake ass n****, your beard is fake
You wear tight clothes, wear a skirt for the devil
You don’t know wearing that, you search for my level
Stupid motherfucker, you ain’t nothing but an idiot
Cartoon character, all your shit illiterate
Should’ve stomped you before, but I was considerate
It’s that man, my alligator jumped your homeboy
Violate n****s, smack ’em with the chrome toy
Keep talkin’, put the hammer on your teeth
Pitbulls eating your balls, you little thief
Can’t fuck around, n****s’ll get slumped
Throw you off the roof, hit your dog with the pump
Your little posse, just a room full of roaches
You leader a bitch, he just food for my vultures
As soon as you come out the building, you dead meat
Drown in the water, n****s is lead feet
I ain’t finished with you, I’m just getting started
Your mother a tomboy, your father’s retarded
Your big brother, he always wearin’ Pamper
Your little sister, got her head in my hamper
I’m the king in this shit, don’t you ever try and spit
I heard you do it before, you sound like shit n****”
Given there’s only an 8-bar contribution from GZA, he didn’t want any part of Cappadonna that day. U-God holds down “Roar of the Lion” over an authentic Wu-Tang style instrumental that is ripe for the whole crew to stomp all over, but instead we get Kool G Rap and RZA. I never found RZA’s scruffy flow ever warrants being the final verse, particularly when you have flippin’ Kool G Rap on there. It happens again on the aptly titled “Let’s Do It Again”, which sees RJ Payne, 38 Spesh and Willie the Kid sparring over the Ghostface classic “Mighty Healthy” before Bobby Digital enters to derail the momentum.
I liked the slower style of “Claudine”, with vocalist Nicole Bus supplying the killer hook, and it’s clear Method Man and Ghostface Killah are masters of the R&B guest verse because their contributions here are pitch perfect. Meth’s flow is as tidy as his shape-up, describing the stages of a relationship before Ghostface goes for the emotional jugular, detailing the raw pain of his mother’s death, crying out for her to “come back for a couple of days so we can hug and kiss you”.
Masta Killa’s horizontal stance lends “Cleopatra Jones” a similarly satisfying blend of soulful, almost retro rap that’s not far off of the blaxploitation vibes that ran through records like “Iron Flag”. Before you think the album is leaning too far into the vulnerabilities of the crew, the last few songs on the album remind us what the Wu originally stood for: hardcore cyphers.
It’s been a while since I’ve enjoyed Benny the Butcher, as there was a time when you simply couldn’t move without hearing another Benny verse. His schtick became a little diluted, but his brief appearance on “Warriors Two” was just enough, before Method Man duly manhandles Mathematics’ moody beat. “Dolemite” with U-God, Masta Killa and Cappadonna should be B-tier, but Cappadonna’s still reeling from the cornflakes incident, and sounds energised compared to his lacklustre solo output of late. U-God’s playful with his flow, Mathematics came with some lively horns, and Masta Killa actually teases a verse but immediately steps aside because Cappadonna remains on the warpath. In fact, MK gets faded out for inexplicable reasons, one of the album’s continued shortcomings: mishandling the final verse.
After a brief interlude from the singer Kameron Corvet, we get a slick duet between KXNG Crooked and Cappadonna. The fact that “Black Samson, the Bastard Swordsman” ends with Cappadonna is an apt metaphor for this album – he’s the main thing you’ll remember from this surprisingly good 39-minute LP. What’s here is better than I thought it would be, and other than a verse from ODB, you’ve got the whole crew here. It could have done with more GZA, because it feels wrong that guests have more time on the mic than a core member, and one Ghostface verse (as good as it is) feels like it’s not enough to please the more casual Wu-Tang fan. Method Man is on fine form as ever, Inspectah Deck has never really dropped his levels, Raekwon (when he has the right mic) puts in a solid shift; I enjoyed the U-God and Masta Killa verses too, but it’s Cappadonna that lifts this album from decent to good, and it’s worth the price of admission just to hear him let loose on anyone that has doubted him in recent years.