Increasingly, it seems, hip hop is about appellations and labels, identity and artifice. Characters are layered on top of one another, meanings folded into contexts that are complex, interconnected and often frustratingly obtuse. If you're Eminem, you're hailed as a genius for doing this. If you're The Rza, however, you're probably just confusing.
Robert Diggs, aka The Rza, aka Prince Rakeem, aka The Rzarector, aka Bobby Steeles, aka Bobby Digital, has long been found laying these difficult games. As the production mastermind behind the Wu-Tang Clan and the majority of their affiliated projects, his sure hand at the mixing desk helped alter the course of hip hop history.
As a lyricist, his trademark style of cascading syllables, delivering a slurred torrent of portentous conspiracy theory-ridden observations, are often couched in the slang and mysticism of the mathematics-based teachings of the 5% Nation Of Islam. He has recorded as each alter ego without seeming to divert too far from a central core of style innovation and subject matter, and while Bobby Digital is his current focus, you get the feeling that he'd have similar things to say if he was back with the Clan, or stalking the stage as one of the Gravediggaz.
And therein lies the problem. As he's up there delivering the still shocking 'Domestic Violence', the need to reduce the number of layers to make it work simply means the song is more disturbing even than it is on 1999's 'Bobby Digital In Stereo' album. Instead of Bobby throttling a mic stand that plays the role of the battered woman in the song, it's Rza standing there, prefacing it with a depressing monologue about the difference between "strong women" - those who've turned up, and others like them - and "bitches", who evidently deserve a kicking for not making their fella's tea on time, or something.
Still, one shouldn't be too hard on Rza. Unlike the canonised Mr Mathers, his alter egos aren't psychopaths; in fact, in the pantheon of evil on vinyl they're comparatively tame. His points may be made better on record and translate less successfully to the live arena, but he's in good company there too. And much of tonight's show is fine enough, especially where Rza drops a scratchier, more up-tempo Wu-Tang beat, or during the anthemic bump of set-closer 'Throw Your Flag Up', or when he invites recently signed UK rapper Skinnyman and his crew on stage for a short freestyle spot.
No, it's not the labels that are the problem. It's the fact that there are so many of them we can't see what lies beneath. In art that prides itself on "keepin' it real", this is deeply troubling.
