Mathematics - The Problem (June 28, 2005)

Two years after releasing his debut, Love Hell Or Right (Da Come Up), to middling sales, Wu-Element producer Allah Mathematics signed a new deal with Nature Sounds when his previous label, High Times Records, folded (insert lazy joke about stoners running a record label here) and quickly released his follow-up, The Problem.  


As his first project did, The Problem was a production showcase for Mathematics, as he created the musical backing for every track on the album, inviting his friends to come out and play over the beats.  Given the huge Wu-Tang logo that appears on the cover, it's no surprise that the Clan took the bait: what is surprising is that The Problem is one of the few "outside" Wu efforts that actually features appearances from every member of the group, including the late Ol' Dirty Bastard, who had passed away one year prior.

Also as his first project did, Allah Math uses The Problem to spend time with his other friends such as Eyes Low, Buddah Bless, and Allah Real; they, along with a slew of others, occupy huge chunks of The Problem's running time.  Whether or not you believe this to be a positive thing depends on your overall reaction to Love Hell Or Right (Da Come Up).

So.

1. INTRO

Not sure what Math was trying to accomplish with this shit, but whatever it was, he failed.

2. C WHAT I C (FEAT. T-SLUGZ & EYES LOW)

Showing a ridiculous amount of restraint, Mathematics outright refuses to fill the first song on The Problem with Wu-Tang ringers, choosing instead to show love to his weed carriers T-Slugz and Eyes Low (who appeared on Love Hell Or Right (Da Come Up), but whose name now appears to be stylized in the liner notes as "Eyeslow", which makes about as much sense as "Eyes Low"). His instrumental isn't that bad: it's not especially Wu in nature, but Allah Math isn't The RZA: it doesn't have to be. Unfortunately, the actual rhymes evaporate from your consciousness before they even leave the respective mouths of the participants: both T-Slugz and Eyes Low Deliver their street tales competently, but they both also sound boring as shit. A quick word to all the rappers and producers who frequent HHID: not all of your friends are good at rapping.

3. STRAWBERRIES & CREAM (FEAT. ALLAH REAL, INSPECTAH DECK, THE RZA, & GHOSTFACE KILLAH)

Not a bad song when taken by itself, but when seen in a proper Wu-Tang context, things get a bit hazy. Ghostface Killah's verse is the same as from his own “Strawberry” (from Bulletproof Wallets, and coincidentally also produced by Mathematics), which noe makes this song's own title fairly suspect. Bobby Digital lends a more-than-decent verse: hell, both The RZA and Ghost crush it so hard that “Strawberries & Cream” could have easily appeared on a solo project from either man (and I'm not just saying that because, in Pretty Toney's case, it already has). Guest crooner-slash-ad-libber Allah Real gets in the way, but not so much that he fucks everything up, and Math's beat was okay. Which leaves Inspectah Deck, who walks away with the song even though it doesn't seem to fit him at all. Because the guy used to excel in short cameo bursts, you see.

4.  CAN I RISE (FEAT. HOT FLAMES)
I'm not all that familiar with Hot Flames (terrible rap name, by the way), but Mathematics apparently liked him enough to offer him a solo showcase on The Problem, an opportunity he uses to tell various stories about random people in his neighborhood.  He isn't bad, actually: kind of generic, but he throws in enough little details to help you imagine his world, so he could have been a lot worse.  Allah Math's beat was kind of annoying, though, since it never really goes anywhere, leaving Hot Flames stranded by the side of the road holding a mediocre rap song in his cold, dead hands.

5.  JOHN 3:16 (FEAT. METHOD MAN & P.I.)
Although this song isn't all that great, Method Man still managed to impress me by sounding like he still have a shit about what people thought of his rhyme skills.  As an artist, he tends to sound effortless and focused when inspired, making him one of the more underrated rappers in the game.  Yeah, I just wrote that.  So it's too bad that the song, as a whole, sucks.  Math's instrumental is generic, hitting the ground with a soft thud and then just lying there; guest crooner P.I., formerly known as the Panama P.I. who sang the hook on Onyx's terrific "All We Got Iz Us (Evil Streetz)" (which Method Man himself appeared on a remix for - small world), channels Ol' Dirty Bastard's singing voice for some ill-advised ad-libs, and Method Man's own hook is fucking ridiculous.  Still, the verses were decent.

6.  WINTA SNO (FEAT. EYES LOW, L.S., & ALI VEGAS)
Although perpetual weed carrier Eyes Low performs the first verse, "Winta Sno" is really an Allah Mathematics-produced showcase for Queen rapper Ali Vegas (an already-established artist with absolutely no Wu ties at all, making him an anomaly on The Problem), who unleashes a long-ass verse that doesn't sound terrible over an okay beat, one that is coupled with a goofy L.S.-sung hook that is impossible to take seriously.  Vegas comes off as not that bad: it's obvious that he's better known as a mixtape rapper, given the sheer number of punchlines he throws out there, but he does prove that The Problem may have sounded a bit better had he been a little more involved.

7.  TWO SHOTS OF HENNY (FEAT. BUDDAH BLESS, ANGELA NEIL, HOT FLAMES, EYES LOW, P.I., & ALLAH REAL)
There's an homage to Snoop Dogg's famous appearance on Dr. Dre's "Nuthin' But A G Thing" that is so crude and juvenile that you'll chuckle just because you won't know how else to react, and the whole shebang ends with a goof on Blondie's "Rapture".  It's weird that a posse cut made up of Math's seat fillers from Love Hell Or Right (Da Come Up) (aside from P.I. and Hot Flames, anyway, who are new to the team) would focus so much on reminding the listener that there are much better songs in the world, especially as this particular track is pretty shitty.  Everyone seems to be having a good enough time, but that sense of fun doesn't transfer over to the audience, who, at this point, will be wondering why they're even still listening to this.

8.  BULLET SCAR (FEAT. T-SLUGZ)
If an artist (say, T-Slugz) unleashes a one-verse wonder (such as "Bullet Scar"), and nobody is around to listen to it (due to its overall blandness), did he ever unleash that one-verse wonder to begin with?  Discuss amongst yourselves.

9.  REAL NILLAZ (FEAT. GHOSTFACE KILLAH, EYES LOW, BUDDAH BLESS, & RAEKWON)
That title contains a substitution for the n-word that is so goddamn tacky that I can't even be bothered to censor it as I normally would, as I don't want to give a bullshit false racial slur more power than it deserves.  Also, it sounds stupid.  Try saying it out loud.  It's okay, nobody else is around.  It sounds fucking silly, right?  Anyway, Mathematics builds a beat around a O.V. Wright "A Fool Can't See The Light" sound bite that Wu stans will agree was put to better use on La the Darkman's "Polluted Wisdom", letting Ghost, Rae and for some reason Eyes Low (maybe this was his Make-A-Wish?) spit verses while Buddah "Are You Sure This Isn't U-God?" Bless ends up being the only jackass that says the titular phrase (during the hook), even though he rhymes the fake epithet with the real one, which adds another layer of absurdity to the whole deal.  Wow, this was dumb.  Rae and Ghost miraculously emerge unscathed, though.

10.  COACH TALK (FEAT. BALD HEAD)
Mathematics makes the awful creative choice to implement a sample from The Nite-Lighters's "Damn" onto "Coach Talk", which will draw immediate comparisons with the far superior Dr. Dre track "Lyrical Gangbang" (featuring The Lady Of Rage, Kurupt, and RBX, taken from...shit, if I have to tell you, then you may not actually be a fan of hip hop).  Some dumbass named Bald Head (Math seems to employ only poorly-named weed carriers almost exclusively) delivers a performance that wouldn't sound out of place on hip hop radio today, which is to say that he sounds materialistic, misogynistic, and terrible.  I'm still not sure just what either Mathematics or Baldy was trying to prove on here, to be honest.

11.  RUSH (FEAT. METHOD MAN & GZA/GENIUS)
The Mathematics beat is a simple repetitive loop (until the very end, when it becomes much more experimental, anyway), and Method Man's two verses (and shitty hook) are two verses too many.  But the reason Wu stans may want to check out this track regardless lies with the contribution from GZA/Genius, who usually doesn't show up to these kind of parties.  His verse is as cold and calculates as Method Man's is not (clearly Johnny Blaze was not inspired the day he wrote this song, so as not to contradict what I just wrote about the guy above), and his performance even made the music sound just a little bit better.  Overall, though, you should probably still skip past this, unless you're the GZA's biographer or something: that way you could make a quick note about how the past working relationship between Allah Mathematics and Gary Grice somehow led to this.

12.  U.S.A. (FEAT. GHOSTFACE KILLAH, MASTA KILLA, TODD, P.I., EYES LOW, & HOT FLAMES)
A fairly interesting mash-up between Allah Math's weed carriers and his day job, as killers Ghostface and Masta (no relation) share space with some other guys over an instrumental simple enough to be conducive to a posse cut, but decent enough to keep your attention regardless.  Panama P.I.'s off-beat contribution was pretty dull, since the Wu already has an Ol' Dirty Bastard (or, to a lesser extent, a Buddha Monk), but everyone else seem to be oddly energized by the idea of appearing on the same song as two actual real-life members of the Wu-Tang Clan.  For their parts, Ghost and Masta Killa sound good, but they both understand that this is Math's showcase for his boys, so neither of them outshine the rookies, which was awfully nice of them.

13.  TOMMY (FEAT. ALLAH REAL, EYES LOW, ANGELA NEIL, & BALD HEAD)
That sure is a lot of people on the guest list, and yet the track barely merits a "meh".  Oh well.

14.  BREAK THAT (FEAT. OL' DIRTY BASTARD, MASTA KILLA, & U-GOD)
The production seems half-assed: Mathematics lets a sample (which makes this sound like an absurd remix to Medina Green's "Crosstown Beef") loop around itself, instead of, oh, I don't know, trying to be creative, while letting three members of the Wu-Tang Clan run wild.  However, one of those guests is Russell Jones, whose contribution is so entertaining and contagious that it rubs off on Masta Killa and U-God (who delivers one of the finest verses of his career, no lie).  And then the production doesn't seem quite as half-assed anymore: indeed, it comes across as simple enough to not intrude upon the proceedings.  And then you applaud the end result.  How the fuck did that happen?

The following track isn't labeled on the back cover or in the liner notes of The Problem.

15.  UNTITLED TRACK
This is merely an instrumental outro.  Not sure why it warranted its own audio track if nobody was going to acknowledge its existence.

The final song on The Problem is labeled as a bonus track for some reason.

16.  SPOT LITE (FEAT. METHOD MAN, CAPPADONNA, U-GOD, & INSPECTAH DECK)
Were you intrigued by the song playing in the background during the intro to The Problem?  Apparently Math was hoping you would be, as he presents it as a bonus track at the end of the album.  However, for some fucking reason he doesn't present it in its entirety: the Method Man verse you heard a bit of in the background of the intro is truncated, reduced to a couple of bars presented in low-quality audio before the mastered version of "Spot Lite" kicks in.  Yet he warrants a song credit anyway.  (The full version of this song is readily available online: it took me all of two seconds to find it on YouTube.)  This was a curious creative choice, as Meth's verse was the only interesting one: U-God, Inspectah Deck, and Cappadonna all turn in workmanlike verses, punching the clock and performing the bare minimum to get by over Allah's not-awful instrumental.  I know Johnny Blaze had already made a couple of appearances on The Problem, but that's no reason to trim him from a song he so obviously contributed to.  And then the song cuts off at the end prematurely.  Is this a running theme with the final tracks on Mathematics albums?

FINAL THOUGHTS:  In the grand scheme of things, The Problem fares about the same as the first Mathematics album did.  His extended focus on his friends, some of whom don't deserve the showcase in the first place, instead of on Wu-Tang Clan members will cause a lot of listeners to skip ahead, and the actual songs featuring the Clan aren't must-haves.  Production-wise, Allah Math has improved slightly from his debut, but people tend to do that when they've been performing an action for several years: they get better at it.  The Problem attempts to introduce some new elements to the recipe (the appearance of Ali Vegas was surprising, both in 2005 and today), and it hints at a possible direction for future Mathematics projects, none of which have actually made it to store shelves as of yet.  There's proof that he's trying on here, but ultimately there's no need for anyone but Wu stans to care in the first place.

BUY OR BURN?  There's no need to spend the money on this.  Look for the tracks listed below and go about your day normally.

BEST TRACKS:  "Strawberries & Cream"; "Break That"; "U.S.A."

-Max

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