Most would argue that the differences between Robert Diggs and Bobby Digital are essentially nil beyond the latter wearing a paper-plate mask while in character. Not exactly-- the story told by RZA in the Wu-Tang Manual has one major advantage over the narrative sorta-established by his alter ego over the past decade (!) in that it actually has something of a point to it. Namely, that any time the Wu has been caught slippin', it's because everyone else failed to give RZA the benefit of the doubt.
And while it's easy for RZA to claim ownership of 20/20 foresight while trying to do the unprecedented, micromanaging the careers of eight budding superstars, it wasn't until winter of last year where his artistic leadership underwent real scrutiny. While a Wu-Tang project in name, 8 Diagrams was ultimately considered RZA's baby, as the rest of the Clan (most notably Raekwon and Ghostface Killah) wiped their hands of it upon release, slamming the Abbot as a control freak "hip-hop hippie" that went behind everyone's back to completely change the character of the record-- a sentiment that gained even more traction after the subsequent drop of Ghost's excellent but cruise-controlled Big Doe Rehab.
But the divisiveness was more talked about than practiced-- both records had nearly equal fortunes commercially (none) and critically (almost rote praise). Still, it's easy to see how RZA could piggyback on this situation and garner so much goodwill leading up to his latest solo LP. First off, he didn't come out of that fiasco looking as petty as Ghost and Rae do when they bitch to the media, and while 8 Diagrams wasn't the maverick work of genius some tried to pawn it off as, his sonics did enough to temporarily deflect the fact that half the Clan sounded frighteningly washed-up. More to the point, Bobby Digital is actually a more trustworthy brand name as far as solo albums go-- his first two bows are uneven, but unhinged semi-classics amongst the Wu faithful, while Birth of a Prince (released as RZA) contained tracks like "We Pop" and "Fast Cars" that have few peers in his discography in terms of sheer awfulness.
Yet despite being erudite and lucid in his recent outside pursuits, Digi Snacks finds RZA unable to convey what he really believes, stumbling through mealy-mouthed lyrical and musical ideas before passing the baton to a more engaged but exponentially less interesting subordinate. He's actually become easier to parse-- far less of the "prominent dominant Islamic Asiatic black Hebrew" stuff; unfortunately he's a lot harder to understand. Here he's working with about three mismatched cadences at once on "Booby Trap", as a grown man going by the name of Dexter Wiggles shouts, "Zap! It's a booby trap/ Would you like a digi or a Scooby snack?" Even as someone who thought that "ears of corn/ And heads of lettuce" ran on some engine of internal logic, Digi Snacks is unknowable, switching from boilerplate social uplift ("I said, 'damn that's poverty'/ He said, 'that really bothers me'") to Gods and Earths pillow talk to Wu mythologizing to standard-issue gun talk, all of it bound together by god knows what-- maybe a weird admiration of Jay-Z's The Black Album?
It's as good of a guess as any, considering RZA bites the "Dirt Off Your Shoulder" flow wholesale on "No Regrets", and slaps it on a Maths & English leftover starved of air and funds. But I guess we shouldn't go any further before discussing "Straight Up the Block", a collaboration with David Banner that makes more sense than it first seems-- after all, both have an aversion to meter and a penchant for dubious political conspiracies. But this attempt at an international player's anthem manages to be the most egregious misuse of talent outside of the Mets-- Banner salvages the beat from Swizz Beatz' scrapyard and then tunes down RZA's voice to the point where his slow grind French ("Je m'appelle Bobby Digi-tell...mademoiselle") tumbles out of his mouth like broken Slinkys.
Advance single "You Can't Stop Me Now" gave the impression that we might get a more earthbound, introspective RZA, but it's like "December 4th" without those silly interludes-- who hasn't heard this story of his come-up dozens of times? It doesn't help that RZA sounds almost completely uninvested. He could just as easily be reciting from a book, which is technically an improvement over the thudding, bored verse from Inspectah Deck, who might as well be rattling through the Yellow Pages. With that you see the ill effects of the estranged Clan, since Deck's bow is the only one from the A-listers on the entirety of Digi Snacks.
After the turbid nightmares of 8 Diagrams, it's no surprise that Digi Snacks is a notably lighter affair, but it just divides RZA's work between a pop audience that never really wanted him and the hardcore Wu heads who think "Tearz" is as soft as they should ever get. "Good Night" revives the waterbed motion of "My Lovin' Is Digi" better than the eponymous sequel, mostly because it's still entertaining to hear didactic rhymes about sinking one's "Titantic" (sic) into your Atlantic and the boundless verbal elasticity needed to fit "Chicago," "Virgo," and "convertible" in the same rhyme pattern.
If anything, Digi Snacks managed to pinpoint where we are in the Wu cycle of life. In 1998, hip-hop was flush with enough cash to possibly sustain a Bobby Digital movie and now, low-overhead labels like Koch ratchet down expectations to the point where it can be pursued as the niche project it always was. But "half-baked" isn't an improvement over "raw" for a guy like RZA, and anyone who's heard a recent Kool Keith record can tell you that an astounding catalog, reality-defying self-confidence and an otherworldly alias can't restore rapidly dwindling goodwill on its own. Things just ain't the same for quasi-mad scientist/ghetto philosopher/sexual dynamo superheroes.
