The RZA-produced track I will be discussing today is New Day from Kanye West and Jay-Z’s collaborative album, Watch the Throne. After listening to Enter the Wu-Tang, I decided it would be interesting to discuss a track that was made a little later in RZA’s career – to see if I could still discern elements of his production style that we’d picked up on in class, in search for an understanding of his production style over a broader timeframe. “New Day” showcases a fascinating evolution of RZA’s production style, with some distinct elements returning untouched and others being brought back in striking new ways.
The key element I’d like to talk about, the one I found most interesting, is the sample of Feeling Good by Nina Simone. On one hand, this choice of sample completely checks out with what we already know of RZA because its a soul sample from the 60’s. However, RZA manipulated this sample in a way that sounds like it comes from a complete different world than Enter the Wu-Tang. In relation to the techological advancement between the two releases, I feel it does. In this track, RZA takes Simone’s isolated vocals and processes them through a pitch correction software that warps her voice into something robotic, becoming almost unrecognisable compared to her natural vocal tone. This sort of sound is entirely absent in RZA’s early work, for the simple reason that it didn’t exist yet.
Moving past the tonal qualities of the sample, what I really find interesting about it lies within the context in which it is used. Intertextuality amongst the samples used in Enter the Wu-tang is abundant and a staple of the album’s sound; in New Day its no different. Feeling Good’s lyrics relate at both surface and a further contextual level to the lyrics of New Day. At face value, Feeling Good’s lyrics paint a picture of freedom and casualness in Simone’s life. However, considering the time that this song comes from and the context comes with that, there’s no casualness at all considering the racial discrimination taking place in the 60’s and hundreds of years before that; lifted or not, there is a massive weight to this song. In New Day, Kanye and Jay-Z both talk about how they envision raising their sons, ultimately to have a better upbringing than they did. A strong theme throughout both of their discographies is this feeling of accomplishment regarding being an African-American and reaching the height of wealth and power that they both have. Before them there had been huge African-Amercian stars (Michael Jackson, Jimi Hendrix etc) but the key difference for them and many of their contemparies is that they got to a point of owning their own labels and being in full creative and financial control of everything. Based on my own personal interpretation regarding it’s context, I sense that Feeling Good is written with a hint of irony. Released in 1965, only a year after the Civil Rights Act was put in place, it was still a horrific time to be black in America despite some progress. Contrasting this, I feel the success of Kanye, Jay and their contemporaries signifies substantial progress despite ongoing modern racial struggles. The lyrics of success and a clear hope for the future in New Day recontextualise the sample’s original undertones, almost as if to say “We made it”. Now having explained the intertextuality, I can tell you why I think the tone is more than just a sonic choice. I feel that processing Nina Simone’s voice through heavy pitch correction puts her words into the voice of contemporary Hip Hop culture, further solidifying the themes of hope in a new age for black creatives.
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