My review of The Dirty Version by Buddha Monk and Mickey Hess is up at The Fanzine. An excerpt:
The release of Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) in 1992 signaled a shift in the way hip-hop was packaged and produced. While’s Dr. Dre’s blockbuster The Chronic featured clean lines and a performer who never let you forget who you were listening to, the Wu-Tang Clan’s album art featured a group of men in black hoodies and stocking caps, their faces rendered menacingly indistinct. Coupled with their dark, violent lyrics steeped in lore cribbed from Kung Fu flicks and the rhetoric of the Five-Percent Nation, they burst on the scene with the subtlety of a brick through a windshield. Their message was clear: The Wu, whoever they were, were coming for you, and you better protect your neck.