So why is GZA’s Beneath the Surface on this best 1,000 albums ever thing?
Like the brilliant title track off of Liquid Swords (#117 of the best 1,000 albums ever), “High Price, Small Reward” features peak sinister, staccato production (from Mathematics in this case). Wu-Tang alum Masta Killa shares the credit on this one, and the pairing is perfect.
“Beneath the Surface,” which brings Killah Priest into the mix and produced by Inspectah Deck, meets the Wu-Tang-verse ideal of meshing smooth, nearly hypnotic soul with punchy and crispy hip-hop flow.
You’ll find very few rap tracks that leverage string samples more effectively than “Breaker, Breaker,” and GZA is in top form here.
Like his guy RZA, GZA’s lyrics are far more intriguing and worthy of parsing through than your average rap MC.
To check fault in oneself is pure loveliness
You break the mirror that remind you of your ugliness
Speaking of RZA, “Crash Your Crew” brings in the Wu-Tang mastermind along with Ol’ Dirty Bastard for good measure (who sounds as wonderfully deranged as ever on the chorus), which employs a dark and heavy funk groove.
“Victim,” credited to GZA along with Njeri and Joan Davis, is an intriguing changeup, bringing in a mysterious acoustic guitar groove, while it also deftly mixes in both female vocals and rap stylings.
“Stringplay (Like This, Like That),” yet another collab with Wu-Tang alums – Method Man in this case – is a swinging number and I’m tempted to call “lighter” by GZA standards, but like all of Beneath The Surface it holds a slight but persistent menacing vibe.
Some stats & info about GZA – Beneath the Surface
- What kind of musical stylings does this album represent? Rap, Hip Hop, East Coast Rap, Old School Hip Hop
- Rolling Stone’s greatest 500 albums ranking – not ranked!
- All Music’s rating – 4.5 out of 5 stars
- When was Beneath the Surface released? 1999
- My ranking, the one you’re reading right now – #96 out of 1,000
GZA’s Beneath the Surface on Spotify
A lyrical snippet from GZA’s Beneath the Surface that’s evocative of the album in some way, maybe
Move swift as light, a thousand years in one night, in flight with insight.
What does the “best 1,000 albums ever” mean and why are you doing this?
Yeah, I know it’s audacious, a little crazy (okay, maybe a lot cray cray), bordering on criminal nerdery.
But here’s what it’s NOT: a definitive list of the Greatest Albums of All-Time. This is 100% my own personal super biased, incredibly subjective review of what my top 1,000 albums are, ranked in painstaking order over the course of doing research for nearly a year, Rob from High Fidelity style. Find out more about why I embarked on a best 1,000 albums ever project.