Date 2020-06-03
Category New Music
Wu Tang Clan Cash Still Rules Scary Hours
With the state of the world feeling highly volatile at the moment, it’s difficult to focus on music during such times. Yet hip-hop can be an escape, a voice of the marginalized, an entry point for those willing to experience and understand new cultures. As such, it’s among the most important tools we have, and taking solace in a classic record feels like an important reminder of the great art made by talented Black minds.
As it happens, today marks the twenty-third birthday of the Wu-Tang Clan’s sophomore album Wu-Tang Forever, and while there are plenty of tracks to choose from, there’s something undeniable about the simple pairing of Raekwon, Method Man, and Ghostface Killah spitting bars over a RZA instrumental. “Cash Still Rules/Scary Hours” opens with an excellent verse from Rae, who proves his worth as one of hip-hop’s brilliant storytellers, deftly weaving vivid images together with a masterful touch.
While Meth and Ghost put in work, Rae stands tall as the MVP, spitting lines like “Scary hours no money out, smash the Guinness Stout / Play the outfield, Lucille, switched cracks on shields / She’s a rich fiend sacrifice her fam shift them n***as.” It’s not easy to follow “C.R.E.A.M” with a sequel of sorts, but given the elite caliber of participating emcees involved in “Cash Still Rules,” it remains an underrated part of the Wu’s legendary catalog.
Wu-Tang Clan – Cash Still Rules / Scary Hours (prod. 4th Disciple)
[Intro: Raekwon]
Shake them niggas
[Verse 1: Raekwon]
Scary hours no money out, smash the Guinness Stout
Play the outfield, Lucille, switched cracks on shields
She’s a rich fiend sacrifice her fam shift them niggas
To Queens
Guess jeans she charged thirty-five beans
Hit the cell phone, regulate with well known Tone
A Wally kingpin who also slam the strike edition
What up? Corleone smoke the bone, Tone phone me
What up? He tried to slang there, address him with chrome only
Grady with the gray beard, transporting for him
Rocking Nike Air, Rastafarian bird, piping that
Switchin Benzes, ten carat nigga with gold lenses
Fronting like he’s sitting on a lump, he’s sitting on junk
You wanna pull a heist, draw guns and robberies
You wanna rock rep, step in yellow Wallabies
Names arraigned, they’re Century Fox, little Glocks
Them niggas with stocks, wheelyin’ blocks
Rich lifestyle, spoiled like an ordinary white child
But right now, Sun it still shine, shed light now
Breakdown, liquidate God, fucking grab the nickel plate
‘Spenser: For Hire’, tension when we mention Dryer
He’s a slave cop, behave pop
Isuzu Beige Top will blow that cat at the Purple Haze spot
[Verse 2: Method Man]
I remember sticking fiends at the one-six-ooh
When we was starving, ducking five-oh, paying ’em dues
Times is hard in the slums I’m from, they got us barred in
We warring and cage dodging, ripping and robbing
Got the NARC sabotaging, slipping cracks in
Your camouflaging, now you snitching on the squadron
That’s something niggas can’t pardon
City overrun by young gun with bad intention and Wu-Wear garment
So I see no need to mention, the potency
Of a sting from a killa bee, kicking the battery
Out the back of them wisecracks
Distorted for your get high, you hijack
These friendly skies ain’t for you, they for me and mine
This the year of the grimy nigga, ragtime
Keep these niggas on the run, peep my Clan emblem
Iron Lung ain’t got to tell you where it’s coming from
[Bridge: Method Man & La the Darkman]
Catch us swimming with these sharks now, you rap villains
(I feel the same way you niggas feeling)
We feel the same way you feeling, let it be known (let it be known)
What the blood clot you niggas dealing, you crash dummies
Cash rules, still don’t nothing move but the money
[Verse 3: Ghostface Killah]
Aiyyo strongarm that kid right there with wavy hair
Billy Johnson snatched him out his whip in Times Square
Took his Pumas, nameplate, dude lost weight
Summer ’88, started a fight, that can’t wait
Ask Dorothy, same kid pussy up in Marcy
Blazing that Ted Rossi up in The Marquees
He lost like a hundred ounces, Jake rushed his houses
Had him on the porch, ass no trousers
This souped up, individual stuck, the new stuff
Same kid crying on the stand with Judge Kuffner
Kissed him with odd numbers three to nine style
Before he left he flashing his face like Denzel
Richard Dale took his Beaver, Un threw up all in his whip
Mussy dropped and split his wig with the heater
His shape-up was all fucked up, Heze had me laughing
God you see how he was laid out in the grass
With dirt in his mouth, Slim woke him up told him he wild out
Blood leaking from his teeth he smiled like he gummed out
Big bolo, stacking his shit, financed a Volvo
He copped his shit from a small coffee shop in SoHo
He still pussy, he sell his dust up on the Lower East
Posing like he rapping out…