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The hip-hop world is abuzz with conflicting versions of what’s going on inside the Wu-Tang empire, as both Ghostface Killah and the Clan as a whole have new albums. (Pretty Toney’s The Big Doe Rehab dropped on Tuesday; Shaolin’s finest release 8 Diagrams next week.) A blog dedicated to 8 Diagrams has a helpful recap of all the beef surrounding the two discs, and The Village Voice carries a particularly distressing story on Ghostface this week, with the MC admitting he has no clue what could bring the Clan back together again after the current debacle. All arguments aside, we’ve still got two new, exciting, Wu-related CDs to examine, and examine I do, in a review coming out in next week’s Creative Loafing, but posted here right now, right after the jump.

WU-TANG CLAN: 8 Diagrams (SRC)
GHOSTFACE KILLAH: The Big Doe Rehab (Def Jam)

The ghost of legendary rap wild man Ol’ Dirty Bastard looms large on 8 Diagrams, the fifth disc from his former comrades in the Wu-Tang Clan and the group’s first since ODB’s fatal collapse in the Wu recording studio in late 2004. On “Life Changes,” the eight surviving MCs pay homage, and Genius/GZA’s words are the most powerful put to tape: “I cried like a baby on the way to his place of death / Hate not being here the minutes before he left / Now I’m in the booth 10 feet from where he lay dead / I think about him on this song and what he might have said.”

That melancholy tone dominates the remaining 15 tracks as well, with group mastermind RZA supplying some of his gloomiest beats to date. (Pretty astounding, considering the Wu has never been known for its cheer.) “The Heart Gently Weeps” features an interpolation of The Beatles’ “While My Guitar Gently Weeps,” with contributions from George Harrison’s son Dhani, Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarist John Frusciante and neo-soul chanteuse Erykah Badu. “Sunlight,” meanwhile, is an eerie creeper woven around RZA’s marble-mouthed flow.

Only the sunlight of the album’s lone banger, “Wolves,” penetrates the general sense of doom, although that’s not really a complaint. The Wu does evil better than all comers, as evidenced by the sharp strings and brutal percussion of “Unpredictable.”

Meanwhile, Ghostface Killah — aka Ironman, Tony Starks, Pretty Toney, etc. — sounds like he wants to party. The most consistently awesome MC in the Wu stable, Ghostface just released The Big Doe Rehab, his seventh solo joint and his third since March 2006. Like his past two discs — Fishscale and More Fish — Big Doe contains heavy doses of neck-snapping beats and old soul samples, topped off with Ghostface’s hyper-detailed, often bizarre lyrics about the drug game and living the superfly life.

“We Celebrate” is Ghostface’s obvious stab at pop crossover success, and while the track is serviceable, we don’t turn to Ghostface for radio jams. We turn to Ghostface for Bizarro-concept tracks like “White Linen Affair (Toney Awards),” the man’s vision of his own personal awards show, with a guest one-liner courtesy of fellow rapper Shawn Wigs (introduced as “Shawn Rickles”). We also turn to Ghostface for razor-eyed glimpses of the underworld and impeccable storytelling, on display here on a sequel track to Fishscale’s “Shakey Dog.” What other MC, in the middle of a violent crime narrative, would digress about the poor job OxiClean does removing those pesky bloodstains?

When you add it all up, neither 8 Diagrams nor Big Doe will be replacing any of their creators’ previous classics in the hip-hop canon, but to heads it hardly matters. Both discs are proof that Shaolin’s finest still got something to say.

8 Diagrams: 3.5 stars; The Big Doe Rehab: 3.5 stars.

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