The 12 Days of Wu-Mas #4 - My Gut Reaction: Czarface - The Odd Czar Against Us (November 29, 2019)

On Black Friday this past November, Czarface, the hip hop supergroup comprised of the Wu-Tang Clan’s Inspectah Deck alongside underground duo 7L & Esoteric, released a surprise vinyl project entitled The Odd Czar Against Us!, advertised as a new full-length album. This was a shock mostly because Czarface Meets Ghostface, an album-length sparring match with Deck’s bandmate Ghostface Killah, had dropped earlier this year – Czarface was a group that seemed to enjoy taking their time with their work. And yet here we were with another album, and not just another instrumental effort, which these guys also love doing.

The project lost its exclamation mark when it hit other platforms the following week, but The Odd Czar Against Us remains an anomaly in the catalog of the trio (which really should be a quartet at this point – hey, 7L isn’t producing these songs by himself), who aren’t really known for their spontaneity.

They’re also not known for putting out inferior product, but there’s a first time for everything.

The 12 Hours of Wu-Tang: #9 - My Gut Reaction: Czarface & MF DOOM - Czarface Meets Metal Face (March 30, 2018)

Following 2016’s A Fistful of Peril and 2017’s First Weapon Drawn, an instrumental narrated storybook adventure that we won’t be getting into but rest assured it does exist, Czarface, the group consisting of the Wu-Tang Clan’s Inspectah Deck alongside Boston underground stalwarts 7L and Esoteric, decided to follow the Marvel Cinematic Universe blueprint for their fifth album. To do so, they partnered with a rapper-slash-producer so enveloped in pop culture references that his rap moniker and general aesthetic was swiped from a comic book supervillain. I’m speaking, of course, about Daniel “MF DOOM” Dumile, and the project was called, unsurprisingly, Czarface Meets Metal Face.

And it was a team-up that made so much sense that hip hop heads would have felt that something was missing from our chosen genre if these guys hadn’t worked together.

The 12 Hours of Wu-Tang: #3 - My Gut Reaction: Czarface - A Fistful of Peril (October 25, 2016)

Czarface may be the only team-up in our chosen genre that mirrors the seemingly random nature of comic book heroes and villains banding together to battle a common foe. I realize that’s the entire point of the collaboration between the Wu-Tang Clan’s Inspectah Deck and the underground producer-slash-emcee duo 7L and Esoteric: the comic book artwork that adorns every project they’ve released since their debut, simply titled Czarface, dropped back in 2013 is proof that these guys are proud of the association. But I suppose what I hadn’t been expecting was the level of consistency each successive album has reached – one would have assumed that the pop culture references and purposefully-limited worldview of the artists involved (they like staying in character, so what) came with a built-in expiration date.

Despite the odds, Czarface has stuck around through multiple waves of new trends in hip hop, sticking to their guns and evolving at their own pace – hell, they have a new album scheduled for release next February that is a full-length collaboration with fellow comic enthusiast Ghostface Killah. So obviously this act is working for them.

My Gut Reaction: Czarface (7L & Esoteric + Inspectah Deck) - Every Hero Needs A Villain (June 16, 2015)

In 2013, the Wu-Tang Clan's Inspectah Deck teamed up with an underground producer-rapper duo, Boston's 7L & Esoteric, to record a full-length collaborative project, building off of the chemistry they established while working together on the group's song "Speaking Real Words".  Due to their mutual love of comic book imagery, I guess, the side project, detouring from the career paths of both parties, was named Czarface, and featured hard-hitting beats from 7L (and an assist from the one and only DJ Premier, a fact I had literally forgotten about until just now) for Deck and Eso to talk shop over.  They invited some of their closest friends: Eso brought in the underground cats, while Deck hired on Ghostface Killah and Cappadonna (although he probably also had a hand in the Primo production, too).  When the project was completed, I didn't give that much of a damn, not being that great of a fan of 7L & Esoteric, and Deck's solo career had topped out at fucking Uncontrolled Substance, but I listened to Czarface anyway, and goddamn, that motherfucker was good.

So a sequel was a foregone conclusion.

My Gut Reaction: Inspectah Deck + 7L & Esoteric - Czarface (February 19, 2013)

Today's post is about a project that I'm pretty sure only a quarter of you even give a damn about.  Hell, I didn't even give a shit about this album until a couple of weeks ago, when I was alerted as to how soon it was scheduled for released.  I know that you two don't believe me, given that the subject of today's post stars a fully-decorated member of the Wu-Tang Clan, but I honestly didn't give two fucks about this project when it was first announced.

It's weird how two weeks can change a man.

7L & Esoteric - Speaking Real Words (1999)

7L & Esoteric are a deejay/rapper combination who hail from Boston, Massachusetts.  They are best known for not being Gang Starr.