Wu-Tang MC Masta Killa's long-delayed third solo effort began its life as Loyalty & Royalty. Then Loyalty splintered; a guest-heavy disc under that name is promised soon, while the sample-centric, soul-forward leavings-- which, for a while, Masta'd been calling Soul & Substance-- finally landed in the December dead zone under the name Selling My Soul. We've gotten pretty used to the oil-and-water relationship between meddling A&Rs with dollar signs in their eyes and rappers who know you can't make money selling records when you have no records to sell. But we're not talking Waka at Warner Brothers here; this is a Masta Killa record on Nature Sounds. You might think reshifting the focus back on the Soul side of things might make for a more taut, purposeful LP. But, like a small-scale version of all those hydra-headed, assembled-by-committee major label bloatfests, Soul arrives feeling picked over, toyed with, reassembled from spare parts.
With plenty of distended soul samples, slivers of dialogue, Killa's cautious, GZA-mentored flow, and a beat from Inspectah Deck himself, Selling My Soul has all the hallmarks of a Wu-Tang LP. Killa's previous solo nods, 2004's No Said Date and 2006's Made in Brooklyn, stuck to pretty much the same script, to mostly gratifying effect; even as inter-Clan turmoil and shock at ODB's sudden death lead the mid-00s Clan into a period of creative stagnation, two headstrong Masta Killa LPs (and Ghostface's masterful Fishscale) helped keep the Wu torch lit. Date and Brooklyn didn't risk much, but their narrow focus gave them a certain potency. Even with a runtime just shy of 40 minutes and at least half of its production given over to post-RZA pop-and-hiss, Selling My Soul lacks that same sense of cohesion. The LP feels less like the best bits of two would-be records than the warmed-over leftovers from either, a hastily assembled smorgasbord of tepid vinyl cracklers and Loyalty cast-offs. It has its moments, but they're fleeting, bogged down by its tepid pace and one too many oddball diversions.
Ever since RZA dropped the roll-call on 36 Chambers' "Clan in da Front", the Wu-Tang have have been rap's greatest proponents of listmaking. I can't prove it, but Selling My Soul has to be just about the listiest Wu-Tang affiliated LP to date. Killa skips the now-obligatory run-down of the Wu-Tang ranks on "Things Just Ain't the Same", instead sneaking a full-group shout-out into a NY legend laundry list that includes Boogie Down and Run DMC. That's nothing next to "Dirty Soul", which finds Masta listing off his favorite soul singers by gender, then going through the groups, then breaking into a minute or two of Ol' Dirty Bastard's immortal "Hippa to the Hoppa". A mixtape? A live show? Fine places for these things. But Killa filling out his LiveJournal interests page for minutes on end takes up some serious real estate on an LP of this length, and whatever tone's been set by the dusty groove is lost somewhere around the eighth name he rattles off. "Wise Words" takes the homage thing even further, with Killa jumping on Zapp's "Be Alright", certainly best known as the sample behind 2Pac's "Keep Ya Head Up"; he acknowledges the nod he's making to the classic without ever really explaining why he'd choose that particular (some might say untouchable) track. Hasty-seeming decisions like that are all over Selling My Soul, a strange thing indeed for a record some seven years in the making. Left coast legend Kurupt shows up halfway through for "Cali Sun", a tepid fifth-gen g-funk retread that might've been embarrassing had anybody put any semblance of effort into it. As it stands, it's just dull, two former greats going through the motions, too lazy to even figure out how to meet each other halfway.
And there's the real trouble with Selling My Soul: it's never bad, exactly, it just never seems to care enough to actually get all the way over to good. Masta Killa, after all, famously stayed up all night writing a verse strong enough to crowd Killah Priest out of "Da Mystery of Chessboxin'". But that Masta Killa does not appear on Selling My Soul. True, there are highlights: the slick, 9th Wonder-produced "Food", the slinky "Soul & Substance". But that's mostly a function of the production; for the most part, Killa's flow has stayed squarely in the pocket, but Soul finds him mistaking lethargy for relaxation. Lyrics that probably looked great on paper are delivered in this sleepy fashion, causing otherwise purposeful lines to meander, sometimes float off into nowhere; over the years, his flow's grown so worn-in, so fluid, by the stanza's end, it's sometimes lost its shape. Soul displays Masta's natural way with a hook-- "Food" and "Substance" both hinge around choruses that seem to billow out of the man like smoke-- but too much of that nonchalance carries over to the verses, and what seemed effortless now just feels a little underdone. Despite repeated claims of attention to penmanship, of having something to say, that really only comes out in fits and spurts. "All Natural" is easily the best-realized thing here; over buttery vibraphone, Masta speaks on his vegetarianism and other earthly concerns, imparting genuine passion and lived-in wisdom instead of just alluding to it. It's the one song on the spotty, often comatose Selling My Soul that sounds like it needed to be made. But it isn't nearly enough to make Selling My Soul the kind of album that demands to be heard.
