Wu-Tang Clan, "Bring da Ruckus"

Odd as it may sound, few hip hop artists can control violence. I do not mean the content and descriptions; strictly and literally speaking, hip hop explores violence, its boundaries and bleak innards, as thoroughly as any artistic medium. Never shy about toppling the lid of Pandora’s infamous box, these artists are often elbows deep in several profoundly unsettling topics. Yet control, a bite necessarily both delicate and firm, is far from common. Be thankful, then, for the Wu-Tang Clan.

“Bring da Ruckus” is the first song on their first album. As an establishment of tone, of trajectory, it could not achieve more. By the time Ghostface Killah jaggedly bemoans an “Aw, shit” halfway through his verse, they’ve ripped the box wide open. Its splintered sins, the “hearse” they beckon and “head rush” they cause, are repurposed throughout the song - and their discography.

Although Inspectah Deck names their signature style in the third verse, “hectic” hardly suffices. We are dragged from a Steven Seagal reference to a The Shining reference before being given any time to consider the myriad implications that our headpiece is already “hangin’.” Claiming “36 styles of danger” is just the sort of hip hop hyperbole ripe for mockery and dismissal. But “Bring da Ruckus” delivers on its kung fu-inspired introduction. When Raekwon ends his verse by ironically hinting that, thus far, the Clan has only deployed the first “one in the chamber,” it evokes violence’s most frightening specter: What could possibly be next?

Should we find ourselves lost in a “swamp” of hip hop’s violence, be thankful the Wu-Tang Clan brought us there. The song has a piano key’s fading finality - but we’ll be back. Both to further contemplate the brutal history inherent in “slave man boots” and the scientific precision which must be required when destroying a person’s “prism,” but also to wonder at how such a bloodless “temple” could be so beautiful.