Czarface - Every Hero Needs a Villain [2015]

Welcome to one of my many Write-Ups, where I dive into a contextual history of a project from an artist, while also breaking down the different parts worth mentioning. Come over to my Write-Ups page for a list of all of the work I’ve done so far.

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"These aren’t comic book pages anymore, this is real life! And remember: tell a gangster friend to join in, because every hero needs a villain!”

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The thing about boom-bap music is that, despite it’s dark and violent golden age, you could still find elements of a fun and playful beginning. Look back to cats like Eric B and Rakim, where the majority of lyrics weren’t really about anything other than block parties and turning up with the illest rhymers around, and the sounds were simply crisp drums over a cheap funk loop. But once people thought that “hey, let’s fuzz this up and talk about being Scarface”, the innocence of the genre kind of faded, which of course isn’t really a bad thing (I think some of the best albums of all time were made in this vein), but it led to the artform being stigmatized and less accessible. Of course there were still more palatable acts like A Tribe Called Quest, and even more absurdist acts like Kool Keith that would provide the outlet, but I don’t think there was a “lane” carved out for this alternate boom-bap until people like MF DOOM started gaining steam. I mean look at the shit that DOOM was putting on wax: an entire album about food, tons of comic book references, and complete nonsense lyrics that simply worked because of how bizarre they sounded. Whenever traditional heads got behind this dude, you knew boom-bap was shifting into something that was more easy-going and fun; you didn’t have to be a coke-slinger to gain clout in the game anymore. That pop-culture energy would translate very well going into the 2010’s, with many, many artists drawing from it in order to create a whole new host of music. People like Action Bronson, Oh No, and The Alchemist would disseminate the zaniness of the movie references and superhero talk, but there was one group that went so whole-heartedly into the schtick that it was hard to imagine anyone else hitting all of the right notes in the same way…

Something about Czarface that has always stunned me are their album arts: here’s the one for the record day exclusive The Odd Czar Against Us

Czarface is a rap trio consisting of the unbelievably prolific Army of Pharoahs member MC Esoteric, his partner in crime (and mastermind behind the boards) 7L, and none other than the Rebel INS himself, the Wu-Tang Clan’s Inspectah Deck. Deck and Eso had linked up a few times over the years, notably on 7L & Esoteric’s debut album The Soul Purpose all the way back in 2001, but very few thought the meeting would result in anything other than a one-off feature. But come 2013, whenever they linked up for a full length, self-titled project, people were quite surprised not so much at how 7L & Eso were continuing their tradition of boom-bap mixed with rappity-rap, but rather at how well Deck was at taking to this intense focus on comic book/pop culture reference-rap. The highly stylized boom-bap beats laced with all manner of cartoon samples and movie clips were a valid substitute for the kung-fu clips of Wu-Tang’s earlier days, so the transition for Deck just kind of worked, and Czarface went on to become a sleeper-hit in 2013 among underground fans. But for everything that the project did right, there was still a little bit of a slapdash feeling to it: Deck wasn’t as energized (or mixed well for that matter) as Esoteric, and 7L could have come way harder with the instrumentals, sounding like these were a lot of B-Sides from past projects. I don’t think they expected much to come out of the pairing, but I saw the potential, and knew that if they tightened the screws a little, they could create something potentially classic status. In 2015 they did just that, with their sophomore album Every Hero Needs a Villain being that finely tuned haymaker that screamed passion on every front: the rapping was on point for the entire record, the beats are the best beats of 7L’s career, the overwhelming nostalgia and adherence to motif across the record surpassed that of MF DOOM, and the guests they got to flavor this thing were limited to only the best of the best.

While Esoteric is obviously a speedier, wordier, and more punchline-focused rapper than Inspectah Deck, the INS still holds his own with a suaveness that Eso can’t match. Between the two of them, the best way I can describe Every Hero Needs a Villain is that it’s a love letter to the concept of metaphor and simile, with damn near every bar a comparison to some sort of pop-culture situation or character, comic book hijinks, or (in Deck’s case) how to please your bitch. Usually people use their best wordplay sparingly because, you know, you gotta think about these things and be intelligent. But the minds of these two men must be coming up with dope shit constantly, and while Eso might have a corny line every now and then, almost every thing these two dudes say across this LP is witty, funny, or clever with the turns of phrase they use. There isn’t much story these tracks, no overarching theme to the record other than making as many references and comparisons as possible, but it never tries and to sell it to you as anything that it’s not: this is just 50 minutes of bars and dope shit. You know how Inspectah Deck sounds by now: his voice is still as sharp as it was back 20 years earlier, but he’s obviously gotten older as his flows aren’t as fiery. He makes up for this shortcoming by going toe-to-toe with one of the most technical rappers of the 2000’s, Esoteric, who’s religious devotion to speedy, well-constructed bars and the precision comparable with some of the industry’s greatest spitters like Big L and Eminem make him a deadly emcee coming at you with an onslaught of some of the craziest lines of 2015. “You out for more fame that makes me say ‘Y’ like the J in Bjork’s name”, “Only time you load the clips(e) is when you put in Pusha T”, “these rappers set the bar low like Peter Dinklage at the gym”, “I’m Michelangelo, I’m a mutagen hooligan / you a terrapin, a shell of yourself”, “ayo, bring that, and we can have a one-one-one evenin’ / and let he chips fall where they may like my son eatin’” are some of my favorite rap lines ever, and they’re all ON THE SAME FUCKING SONG. Good Villains Go Last, the closer on the record has some of my favorite verses of all time, with both Esoterica and R.A. the Rugged Man absolutely demolishing the beat with reference after reference, wordplay galore. But Deck still shines, like on the middle part of Escape from Czarkam Asylum where he channels that Godzilla energy, imagining himself as the giant lizard destroying the city with his bars saying “when I’m on the scene, drama is routine / I mean it’s gonna take the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines / I’m a monster, ‘fuck shit up’ my middle name / Ima mash out your posse like Danze and Lil’ Fame”. The thing about Deck is that he’s never bad, he’s just consistent in the way he raps, and fits into the mold of Czarface better than almost any other rapper that could have joined Esoteric on the mic.

Esoteric (left, Xavier Institute shirt because he’s a rapping mutant), Inspectah Deck (middle, bombs atomically), 7L (right, bald)

When placing the features on Every Hero Needs a Villain, Deck and Eso obviously were interested in the best of the best: old legends only. Large Professor, the mythic music producer, is vastly underrated as an emcee (mostly due to his big solo debut being shelved for over a decade), and his appearance on World Premier is a lyrical time-chamber back to the early 90’s when hard-nosed braggadocio was the norm. MF DOOM, the father of this irreverent wave in hip-hop that Czarface so happily taps into, checks in on Ka-Bang!, and everything about his verse in on point. The rhyme scheme is flawless, with literally almost every word in his verse rhyming with each other, but NONE of it makes sense in the most hilariously DOOM sort of way. It almost sounds like MF DOOM parody in the way it leans so heavily into his tropes, but I can’t get enough of it. Juju, of The Beatnuts fame, fits into the ethos of the album squarely as well, spitting bite-sized threats at you on the track Junkyard Dogs. It’s slightly tongue-in-cheek with the monotonous and uncaring vocal tone, but he nails that threatening nature. Meyhem Lauren, who at the time was one of the most sought after features the underground could offer, kills his appearance on Deadly Class, and serves as only one of two rappers that have appeared as a features on a Czarface album more than once when he would come back next year for A Fistful of Peril. Of course, since this is technically a Wu-affiliate album given Deck is such a large part of Czarface, they needed some of the Clan on here too to represent. Their debut had Ghostface and Cappadonna, the two grimiest emcees in the group, but on Every Hero Needs a Villain they brought in the lyrical heavy-hitters to elevate the album into the stratosphere. Method Man annihilates his appearance on Nightcrawler, maintaining this incredible rhyme scheme through his entire verse while staying in this professional pocket that only Meth could hit. Even 20 years removed from the Clan’s debut the Ticallion Stallion is a flowing monster of a rapper, showing no sign of aging whatsoever. On the opposite of that spectrum, however, is the GZA, who in the years since Liquid Swords has gotten distinctly winded in his rap delivery, but that doesn’t affect the quality of his verse here on the track When God’s Go Mad. The beat switches up in a super classy way to adapt to the Genius’ flow, with his opening lines “It was a concocted tale that was convoluted / lawmen and prosecutors heavily armed to shoot it / a storyboard that was ruff and rugged and filled with splinters / courtroom colder than the Alaskan winter” being the coldest introductions on this LP. It’s one of the best verses on the record, and honestly I think it’s the GZA’s best verse the entire decade. The album ends off with a feature from R.A. the Rugged Man, who I’ve admittedly never dug too deep into, who wraps up the entire album with the final verse that gives some of the craziest and most provocative lyrics on the record. He talks about whipping Christ, sodomizing police officers with their nightstick, knocking off soccer moms, and decapitating motherfuckers and putting their heads in their stomachs. R.A. probably plays more into a Christian Bale American Psycho-esque figure more than a “villain”, but nevertheless the vivid imagery and husky flow provides and excellent cap on to an amazingly lyrical album.

7L’s approach to making Every Hero Needs a Villain is a huge level up from the effort he put in for their debut. Their first album was a great attempt at capturing the frivolous nature of comic book media, but fell more to the side of traditional boom-bap, and many of the tracks felt more self-serious than they needed to be. While Every Hero Needs a Villain can sometimes get dark, the majority of the production is decidedly light-hearted, with plenty of vocal and movie samples breaking up the electric guitar and old-funk loops. The electric guitar is a large part of what makes the album work so well, with many of the tracks conveying this sense of a live Motley Crue show with the guitar riffs, like a romp through the early days of hip-hop. Tracks like Lumberjack Match, Czartacus, some parts of Escape from Czarkam Asylum, Sinister, and (of course) Czar Guitar are driven by rough and tumble shredding from an axe, where while the subject matter is telling you MF DOOM and modern pop-culture, the beats are taking you way back to almost the 80’s era in hip-hop. That’s not to say there isn’t some excellent instrumental sampling on this LP: When God’s Go Mad starts forcefully enough with the fuzzy industrial notes tinged with horn embellishments and rocking guitar solos, but transfers to some of the most cutthroat and soulful horns I’ve heard for GZA’s verse, inseparable from the subject matter of a courtroom drama that the Genius spits about in his verse. That brass extends to Deadly Class, mixing these dramatic horn triplets with this amazing looped guitar shredding all backed by crisp as fuck boom-bap drums and snares. In fact, snares are a huge part of the crazy instrumental fidelity of this record: Nightcrawler is a pretty sparse instrumental in comparison with the rest of the record, but it fills that “vacuum” with loud jamming snares backed by faint keyboard notes (that vocal sample in the background that incorporates “nightcrawler!” is soooo ill as well). World Premier sound like analog death with boom-bap thrown over it, with these deep modular synths left to run their course behind steady snares; it and Red Alert are two of the more serious cuts on Every Hero Needs a Villain instrumentally, and probably would have fit in well with their self-titled debut. Junkyard Dogs with Juju feels the most 80’s out of all of the beats here, having this great groove to it with it’s selective guitar notes and it’s slowed down BPM; it creates this great pocket that all three emcees are able to hone in on and demolish, especially Inspectah Deck. In contrast to Junkyard Dog’s reliance on older vibes, Ka-Bang! is distinctly modern with it’s deeply placed 808’s, digital (and kinda 2000’s inspired) looped synths, and it’s overall overbearing but barren sound. Escape from Czarkam Asylum is 7L’s time to shine though, with the beat switching between five different beats across its eight minute runtime, even acting a lot like a real composer bringing in certain themes back to draw attention to other tracks. The second and fourth beats also act as incredible bridges to the more evil and villainous beats, and like many other tracks on here those shredding electric guitars are everywhere to be found on this track. The huge and ambitious nature of this instrumental reminds of me of a Rush track, with different parts of the story unfolding through sound and vibes.

Czarface Meets DOOM was like Kylo Ren teaming up with Darth Vader

Every Hero Needs a Villain is far and away Czarface’s magnum opus. While I love A Fistful of Peril, their next album, their collabs with both MF DOOM and Ghostface Killah in later years never matched the magic that their second album brought. While each album was a great fusion of Deck and Eso’s styles, what makes this album the classic that it deserves to be is the perfect marriage of traditional boom-bap sensibilities and a deep love and appreciation for comic book, movie, video game, and overall nerd culture (without being too on these nose like a Pokemon cypher or some shit). This is 7L’s best work hands down, and his contributions in both the world-building samples from cartoons and his biting guitar clips make him one of those producers who’s visions for a project can be perfectly manifested. However, as the group went on through the years, 7L’s sound got more darker, subterranean, and even experimental on this last Czarface album The Odd Czar Against Us. I can get behind some of these beats, but usually I’m left reminiscing on this amazing film of an album, that felt more like a trip through nostalgia and wonder rather than an observance of digital darkness. Still, if you’re looking for something villainous worth saving, you can be this album’s hero and listen to it, not only because it’s one of Inspectah Deck’s best post-Wu albums, not only because it’s Esoteric at his most focused, but because every hero… needs… a villain. *dramatic music*

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