What is it about the deathless rap samurais Wu-Tang Clan that makes them one of the most “mashed” artists ever? The fact that DJs/Producers race to chop, edit, and mix their tracks with those of an unlikely guitar hook or synth-beat points to two things. The first, a proposed laxness when it comes to the copyrighting and reserving of the collective’s music. The second, that their flows, timed differently from most other spittaz in the game, have a rhyme pattern and delivery style that’s advantageous to a DJ in that the “W” sounds good slowed down, sped up, and put over, virtually, any beat. But it could also be as simple as that they’re just the fuckin’ Wu-Tang Clan and that’s reason enough.

Jigga gets love too, as they’re are also plenty of  Jay-Z hybrids like Jaydiohead and The Grey Album as well, but it’s that fearless tribe straight out the slums of Shaolin (Staten Island) that takes the cake for the amount of devotion and attention the crew gets from DJs/Producers looking to edit and re-edit their classic songs, verses and couplets into clever and sometimes exciting new life. Just when you thought we’d reached the saturation point of some grand and clever new Wu-Tang mashup, a few years go by and someone one-ups the last. So with that said, lets count some out, shall we?

In ’06 you’ve got an album called Wu Orleans by DJ BC, an infusion of dixieland Louisiana jazz, then in 2010 we get a taste of some rich Beatles blends with the hip-hop gods entitled Enter The Magical Mystery Chambers by a previously unknown British schoolteacher, Tom Cuarana. That mashup was way dope and even garnered a stamp of approval from The Chef himself. I hope Tom waved hat little fact in his students faces.

Those are some of my choice cuts from the past few years and I’m sure there are probably a few I missed. Like I said, there is no shortage of DJs/Producers clamoring to mashup the Shaolin and truthfully I’m not really a fan of most mashups… so it’s kind of hard to keep up. Anyhow, the year is now 2011 and we’ve just received a fresh cut from them boys at Doomtree, Cecil Otter and Swiss Andy in particular. It’s been making the rounds the past week or so and maybe you’ve heard, or maybe not but it ain’t nothing to fuck with.

Wugazi is it’s name and if you haven’t put it together, the digi-album is the mashup album to end all of them. A crossbreeding of post-hardcore heroes Fugazi with the tenacious Killah Beez, 13 Chambers, a play on Wu’s 36 Chambers and Fugazi’s 13 Songs, has single-handedly changed my feelings on computer-based audio stitching.

Mashing together different songs and smashing genres into one another with the fervor of a boy and his action figures always came across to me as a cheap and artless act, like shoving a square peg into a round hole over and over again until the majority was convinced it fit. In contrast to the usual shudder, I had an atypical reaction after hearing the album. Altogether the release worked for me and I found myself bobbing my head as opposed to hitting the pause button in 20 second intervals.

My initial impression of Wugazi’s 13 Chambers was that it reminded me of another pseudo-mashup album I had enjoyed last Summer, having burned up my iTunes blasting over and over again on a perpetual loop, that was worked together by some dude calling himself Soul4hire AKA Biz. He combined the fuzzy electronics of, French musician and Ed Banger Records affiliate, Mr. Oizo with the pure toughness of Wu-Tang producing an independent entity of mighty, buzzing layered beats with raw flows called Shaolin Worm Attack.

Although that album was my personal pick of the litter, it wasn’t alone and got me thinking about more and more recent Wu mashups. Mashup kings Girl Talk and The Hood Internet have assimilated the almighty Wu family into their repertoire with the latter giving us some really choice Wu alchemy. The Illinois duo stays flipping Clan bangers left and right giving us their chillwave reworking of “C.R.E.A.M.” and a duel between Raekwon and Twin Sister called “Wu Daydream.”

Let us not forget, although we may try to, that the crew has done some collaborative mishmashing themselves, signing-off on a Wu-Tang Meets The Indie Culture, Volume 2. The subsequent installment of their series that stresses outside cooperation with other artists consists of dubstep wobbliness synced with classic raps. Having not heard the album myself, I wouldn’t count on it being too fulfilling an experience. Individual members have also been getting the mashup treatment, those with enough solo material to play around with, that is. Ghostfunk, a soulful, African-psych album from Max Tannone, the producer who crafted both MosDub and Jaydiohead (mentioned above), just hit the streets a week or so ago and already got it’s fair share of downloads and press hype, so much so that I instantly regret mentioning it.

Getting back to Wugazi, the compilation’s got some roundhouse kick to it. Songs like “Sleep Rules Everything Around Me” and “Forensic Shimmy” underline the natural ability and dedication that was poured into this project. Bass lines push on at stop-and-go speeds that crescendo and shift with each coming rhyme, leaving no space for error. It’s a compendium of hailed singles and deep cuts from Ian MacKaye’s anthemic songbook cut with the straightforward spoken word of the RZA, GZA, Raekwon, Inspectah Deck, Ol’ Dirty Bastard, Ghostface Killah, Method Man, Masta Killa, and U-God. The Wu-mash has been done to death but when all erodes and the slate wiped clean, there Wugazi will stand, palms inward, displaying, that which other mash-ups lack, the intensity, focus, and discipline of an awakened monk.

- Casper