The 12 Days of Wu-Mas #12: Zu Ninjaz - Now Justice (2005)

The final day of the 12 Days of Wu-Mas this go-round is dedicated to the type of weirdness that I easily could program for the full stunt next time (if there is a next time, hint hint, better up those page clicks): Zu Ninjaz’ Now Justice, a Wu-affiliated album from friends of friends of Ol’ Dirty Bastard that likely slipped under many a radar, mostly because one has to treat it like eight full-time jobs to keep track of everything the Wu-Tang family tree manages to release.

Fair warning: Now Justice is far deeper into the Wu forest than anything else I’ve written about over the past eleven days, not unlike that Moongod Allah project from last time, so proceed at your own risk, lest you get “rap nerd” on your clothes that can’t be washed out.

The Zu Ninjaz are a New Jersey collective that had originally banded together prior to the Wu-Tang Clan’s explosive debut under the name Kaotic Clan, which, honestly, I kind of like better. The original iteration of the group included rappers K-Blunt, 5 Foot Hyper Sniper (what a fucking great rap name), D.L., Celo, Hooks & Traps, Knuckles, Weggie, Rambo, and Raw (shouts to the Zu Ninjaz website for still having the group bio active), expanding their numbers to include spitters Black Lantern, Popa Chief, and Shaheed, along with producer Ninja Scroll, after Big Baby Osirus, liking what these young bucks brought to the table, officially labeled them the “Zu Ninjaz” (an offshoot of his own Brooklyn Zu campaign).

The Zu Ninjaz specialized in the typical boasts-n-bullshit that all of your favorite Wu-Tang Clan emcees and their BFFs serve up in cafeteria lines the world over, leaning into more violent imagery, as they are supposed to be rapping ninjas, after all. Rotating through ten-plus emcees is always a problem, especially when you’re unfamiliar with their individual styles, but unlike a lot of these type of acts, many of the group members have distinctive flows that make it easy to point them out eventually. I understand if that exercise sounds daunting for many of you two, but rest assured that there are only, like, three songs on their debut that feature more than three Ninjaz.

Said debut, Now Justice, was released through the Wu-Tang underground label Chambermusik back in 2005. They had been knee-deep in the recording process for a while, but after ODB’s passing in 2004, it became imperative that they release what they were working on. In doing some online research, I couldn’t discern whether Now Justice was a true debut album or merely a compilation of previously-recorded tracks (at least one of them appeared on a different Wu-affiliated project, which I’ll note when we get there), but over half of the project is produced by Ninja Scroll, so at least there’s a bit of continuity to be found here.

1. INTRO (ELEMENTS)

This rap album intro purportedly runs down a list of “elements” deemed “important” top a “ninja”, but it sure seems random as fuck. And did he just say “hand-to-hand sales”? Anyway, this was dumb.

2. SLICER (FEAT. BABYFACE FENSTA, BUDDHA MONK, & DANA)

Ninja Scroll’s beat is actually pretty interesting, if a bit geeky: the sound of a sword slicing through the air (get it?) is paired with some seemingly off-kilter drums and a hint of a darker melody in order to score this unsettling nightmare-fuel posse cut. I don’t mean that as a negative, either: “Slicer” is pretty solid, leaning into the nerdiness of the deeper Wu-Tang mythology with boasts-n-bullshit that skew a bit more violent than their forefathers. K-Blunt, 5 Foot Hyper Sniper, and D.L. all match the energy of the instrumental, and the verses aren’t bad (references to female genital mutilation notwithstanding, although that’s only brought up to explain how populations can be controlled), although guest Wu-affiliate Babyface Fensta’s higher-pitched flow is more distinguishable than that of his collaborators. This is also censored on my copy of Now Justice, which is hilarious to me, because who the fuck would ever want to hear a clean version of Now Justice? Were they playing this shit in-store at Sam Goody? I think not. Buddha Monk and Dana round out the cast, but they only provide ad-libs and light crooning, respectively. A better rap album intro than the actual intro, certainly.

3. NO RETREAT (FEAT. TOYON)

A lot of the Wu-Tang z-team affiliates mistake “aggression” for “lyricism”, which only really works part of the time, “No Retreat” being one of those instances that misses the mark. It isn’t for a lack of trying, though: Ninja Scroll’s instrumental is really good, and I mean “I could easily see it being used for an extended freestyle on a mixtape from the early 2000’s” or, more relevantly, “as the score for one of those “freestyle” cyphers during the BET Awards”-good. I’m dead serious. It’s too bad the rest of the track is so mid: Raw and 5 Foot Hyper Sniper evaporate from memory, while Popa Chief can’t be bothered to rap on beat (the one solid line of his I can remember, “Popa Chief the widowmaker, your baby daddy ain’t comin’ home,” could have worked so much better than it does here). Most of “No Retreat” is also handed off to guest Toyon, though, lending the song a reggae feel that is absurdly out of place. By the way, my copy of Now Justice censors this track, too, although the Parental Advisory sticker comes out in full force for the rest of the project.

4. GUNSHOTS

The Kamikaze Productions instrumental for “Gunshots” is a bit difficult to get into, or at least it was for me. It incorporates elements of Otis Redding’s “Hard to Handle” (famously used for Marley Marl’s “The Symphony”) with the opening line from Method Man’s “What the Blood Clot” (which gives the song its title) and some odd drums seemingly lifted from the Geto Boys’ “Damn It Feels Good to Be a Gangsta”, which reads like a mess and sounds about the same. (“What the Blood Clot” is underrated as shit, however – related note: I just right now discovered that I still have all of Meth’s lyrics committed to memory, so that was nice). “Gunshots” is a dual showcase for K-Blunt and 5 Foot Hyper Sniper, who both clock the most appearances on Now Justice, and their respective flows don’t mesh well with the oddly bubbly beat Kamikaze Productions puts in front of them. K-Blunt’s warning that he will “tell you that you suck like a Kirby” was hysterical, though. Neither rapper sounded bad, but “Gunshots” never grew memorable.

5. HARD TO DEFEAT

Ninja Scroll’s instrumental on here is so fucking good that I didn’t mind how it played almost entirely uninterrupted for over a minute after the last rapper utters a syllable, as though there had been plans for a fourth artist to appear that were scrapped when he was found to be too full and sleepy to press on. The kung-fu flick samples, which I guess should be referred to as “ninja flick” samples in order to maintain accuracy, are meh, but the synth-laden beat was fire for me, like Celo, Rambo, Hook Ninja, and Raw were rapping over a fragment of a John Carpenter fever dream. Speaking of which, everyone sounded good here, but Celo’s verse shoots him to the top of Now Justice, his delivery and confidence causing him to stand out from his peers like the sorest of thumbs. “It’s senseless to act relentless,” Raw reminds listeners during his stanza, and based on “Hard to Defeat”, you’re likely to heed that warning.

6. SPECIALLY TRAINED NINJAS (FEAT. OL’ DIRTY BASTARD, DRUNKEN DRAGON, & REDZ)

The beat on this Holy-produced posse cut is terrible, especially considering the star power the Zu Ninjaz managed to score, which you can see by glancing at the guest list. The beat is far too nondescript to keep anybody engaged for long, and I extend that definition of “anybody” to the actual participants on “Specially Trained Ninjas”. K-Blunt sounded alright, and Popa Chief has the same far-too-many-syllables-per-bar issues as before, but the two most memorable performances here come from Drunken Master, who sounds like a Wu-affiliated Lord Have Mercy, and, who else, Ol’ Dirty Bastard himself, whose verse is coherent, yet all over the place. (His verse also accidentally begins right in the middle of Drunken Master’s stanza, a hiccup I’m happy they left in the final cut.) There is no fucking way this song should have sounded this bad – it does a disservice to every rapper involved, all of whom deserved better.

7. BACK OF THE CHURCH (FEAT. SPIRITUAL ASSASSIN & REDZ)

This is the same song that appeared on Popa Wu’s Visions of the Tenth Chamber compilation five years prior, but don’t let that sway you: it still works within the context of Now Justice, even though Buddha Monk’s beat is as far removed from Ninja Scroll’s darker chambers as one can be while remaining within the same musical genre. Over a beat that mixed a sample last heard on Killarmy’s “The Shoot Out” with choral elements, K-Blunt and 5 Foot Hyper Sniper each spit a verse without the need for a hook to distract the listener, each man sharing boasts-n-bullshit in an effort to one-up the last guy, which was nice. Guests Spiritual Assassin and his buddy in Da Manchuz, the returning Redz (referring to himself as his “Delta One” alias here) also unleashes a verse that rivals those of his hosts. This was just a pleasant song about nothing in particular that Wu stans will dig.

8. BLAZIN (FEAT. BUDDHA MONK)

During his last appearance on Now Justice, Popa Chief made a Pokémon reference. On “Blazin”, he mentions not just Beavis and Butthead, but specifically their movie, Beavis & Butthead Do America. Dear Lord. He doesn’t tank this song, however: it was doomed from the jump, with guest Buddha Monk’s Big Baby Jesus-aping delivery forcing the hook through his throat hole, and Ninja Scroll’s instrumental not sounding powerful enough to control the narrative. Celo pops in again and sounds fucking great, I must say: his flow is in stark contrast to everyone else in the Zu Ninjaz. (Especially Hook Ninja, who sounds like a cross between 5 Foot Hyper Sniper and 60 Second Assassin.) I did laugh out loud at Buddha addressing the end of Hook’s verse with, “N---a, shut the fuck up, pass the blunt.” We could all learn a thing or two from such sage advice.

9. NINJITZU

The grammar nerd in me is annoyed as shit that the word ‘ninjutsu’ is misspelled as “Ninjitzu”, but this posse cut was pretty entertaining otherwise. It also features so many group members that it really should have been the first song on Now Justice, although “Protect Ya Neck” is kind of buried in the tracklist of Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers), so. That said, 5 Foot Hyper Sniper, whose stage name I refuse to abbreviate, apparently, has a line that could cause listeners to recontextualize the song and laugh their motherfucking asses off (like myself): “I’m mad at pussy ‘cause I got a dick.” What were you trying to say with that bar, bro? Maybe it’s for the best that “Ninjitzu” appears so late in the program. Still, Scroll’s instrumental is pulsating and thrilling, and the Zu Ninjaz do pull off sounding like a cohesive team (they “stick together like Kit Kats,” according to Raw), so I enjoyed the hell out of this one, and odds are that you two will feel the same.

10. NINJA HABITAT (FEAT. DENISE AND HER HOES)

The last song on Now Justice is the much slower paced “Ninja Habitat”, although the titular phrase being shouted at the listener (occasionally accompanied with “Motherfucker!”) by the unfortunately-named Denise and Her Hoes doesn’t seem like something that belongs on a slightly more serious track. Kamikaze Productions turns in a beat that is horrifically boring, fuck that shit, but K-Blunt turns in a great performance that finally solidifies for me why he’s appeared so often on this project: under the right circumstances, he could be a star. Hearing 5 Foot Hyper Sniper deliver a much calmer verse is also kind of interesting, although he adheres to rapper clichés and such for the duration, and Popa Chief, while a bit more chill, still gets overexcited when spitting, which is when the syllables start falling out of his mouth. Sigh.

11. BLOOD THIRSTY (INSTRUMENTAL)

Just a brief, pleasant-enough way to end the evening. (And this 12 Days of Wu-Mas series. Whew! We did it!)

FINAL THOUGHTS: The Zu Ninjaz compare Now Justice to Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers), which I suppose is fair, although it isn’t as successful as the Wu-Tang Clan’s seminal debut: K-Blunt and 5 Foot Hyper Sniper sort-of dominate the project as a whole, whereas the Wu did a slightly better job of shining the spotlight on the different members of the crew. I mean, there’s a whole-ass Ninja (Shaheed) that doesn’t even appear on Now Justice in any capacity. So as a group effort, it doesn’t work as well as it should. However, Now Justice contains several moments of underground brilliance that Wu stans will enjoy a great deal: K-Blunt, 5 Foot Hyper Sniper, and (especially) Celo do major damage behind the mic, while Ninja Scroll goes four-for-five with the instrumental backing. (The “Blood Thirsty” instrumental at the very end of Now Justice isn’t credited to any producer, but if it was Scroll, I’d up him to five-of-six.) Now Justice is too far off the beaten path to recommend to anyone in a general way: imagine talking this shit up at a house party? You can’t, because you would have already been thrown out, DJ Jazzy Jeff-style. But if you're the type to hold weekly Mountain Dew-fueled Dungeons & Dragons-type Wu-Tang meet-ups in your basement, Now Justice will be relevant to your interests.

BUY OR BURN? If you’re not a Wu stan, there’s no way I’d be able to convince you to give this one a try – it’s just so inside baseball that it would be a lose-lose for both of us. But active Wu-Tang Clan fans who occasionally enjoy dipping in and out of the nerdy waters may wish to give Now Justice a shot, especially as some of the tracks featured are pretty fucking good for a Wu side-side-side-side project.

BEST TRACKS: “Ninjitzu”; “Hard to Defeat”; “Back of the Church”; “Slicer”

-Max