Now is a pretty great time to be a New York rap fan. Roc Marciano made the best album about sitting on a throne, smoking a blunt and lurking in steak houses since...well, since Action Bronson did it, or since Ghostface did it, or since Killah Priest rapped about lounging between ivory pillars on GZA’s Liquid Swords. You get the idea. The Ratking crew emerged in tattered shirts and wispy teenage mustaches with self-deprecating half-boasts that sounded like they were conceived after downing an ill advised second 40. That's not even bringing up Joey Bada$$’ Nas-aping showmanship or the fact that as I write this A$AP Ferg is somewhere in head-to-toe sweat clothes making gothic rap about being cozy. The other day, I actually had a serious conversation in a bar about the merits of Illmatic for the first time since it got kind of played out to have a serious conversation about the merits of Illmatic. There are so many young artists with a weeded love of New York rap history that you have to wonder if there's room for the rest of the old(er) dudes that are still kicking around. The answer to that is yes! The world is endless. The internet is endless. There's room for everyone. So if D-Block and Wu-Tang want to make a supergroup album that combines Ghostface's straight-out-the-gate energy with their coldly calculating threat rap (and also the way that Sheek Louch always sounds like he is about to rage-cry (in a good way)), then they should do that—and they did, and here it is to stream for zero dollars, that, in a perfect world, you could save to spend on a series of slim jewel-cased Dipset mixtapes sold to you by some guy on a blanket on the street. Memories.
Stream: Wu-Block, Wu-Block
