I'll bet you 4 million dollars that it doesn't hold a candle to 36 Chambers. Actually that the only Wu Tang album I like (solo records are a different story.) But it would be so awesome if now that it's sold RZA just put it up on Soundcloud for free as a big fuck you to this guy.

You like Gravediggaz?

Fuck yes. In order from favorite..

Gravediggaz - 6 Feet Deep
Raekwon - Cuban Links pt. 2
Rawkwon - Cuban Links pt. 1
Wu Tang Clan - 36 Chambers
Ghost Face - Iron Man
Gravediggaz - Pick and Sickle
Gza - Liquid Swords
TIE - Method Man - Tihkal and Blackout (not sure if Blackout counts)

and probably some others, but Gravediggaz was and will always be my favorite.

Shit shit shit left out Cappadonna The Pillage. That goes right above Liquid Swords!

Gravediggaz 6 Feet Deep is great.

Though not nearly as different from ICP as people like to admit.

Thematically similar, but in the execution Gravediggaz are far superior as MCs and producers.

I never really listened to hiphop. One of my friends bought a Gravediggaz album once, but that was because we'd mistaken it for an album by the bagpipe-metal band, Gravedigger.

We were VERY disappointed.

How are ICP received by the "normie" hiphop community as a whole? From what I gather, most non-juggalo hiphop fans look down on ICP, yet at the same time, it seems as if many oldschool hiphop bands wind up getting pulled into the Family - everyone from Raekwon and 2 Live Crew to The King of Rap, Vanilla Ice himself!

That's an interesting point Homer. As far as listeners are concerned, they're never discussed, but it isn't just the hip hop fans, its just society in general. They're just a group of freaks who we all can look down upon. BUT ICP fans are generally hip hop fans, and they'll appreciate seeing those acts at the Gathering. As for the rappers, I'm sure its a nice pay check.

Interesting. Raekwon and Rza had a beef for a while when their "new" album and this one was being recorded, but I think that's water under the bridge now. And Wu Tang, Triple 6 (also regularly involved with GotG) and ICP share the same basic ideologies, making a mountain out of a hip hop molehill. The simple answer for why most hip hop fans, backpack or otherwise, don't like ICP is because they're simply not that good at what they do, and nothing having to do with the color of their skin or their primarily white fanbase. That'd be calling the kettle black because Wu borrows its mythology from Chinese stories. Could just be my taste and the people I know, but I've never heard any ICP that appeals to me musically, even though I find the lifestyle pretty fascinating.

"The simple answer for why most hip hop fans, backpack or otherwise, don't like ICP is because they're simply not that good at what they do"

It's funny you should mention that, IZ, because this is how I've always felt about the WuTang Clan! WuTang was really, REALLY big back when I was in elementary and middle school, but even for rap (which I disliked), they always struck me as being kinda shitty. The rhythms were sloppy, the rhyming was all over the place, the quality was inconsistent at best, especially amongst different members. I had a lot of respect for the WuTang Clan *as people* - as a martial arts dork myself, Middle School Me loved what they were doing to localize and restore vintage kung fu films, and RZA is one of the few celebrity musicians I think I'd enjoy hanging out with. But as a rap band, they were a pretty half-assed; the KISS of hiphop, if you will.

Yeah that's why 36 Chambers is the only Wu Tang Proper album I like. It combined the sloppy "drunken master" style of ODB with the surgical focus of Ghostface, and everything in-between, often in one song (Mystery of Chessboxing is the best example) but it's like a magic trick you can only do once, sort of like Pavement's Slanted and Enchanted. It was a lo-fi gem that came completely out of left field, like "do these guys really suck" and after that they went for the production, but it influenced pretty much every indie rock band today just like Wu Tang's first did. Problem is Wu Tang keeps trying to replicate that collective flow on subsequent albums and besides a few singles here and there, it's really nothing worth listening to in the first place.

Well, if it makes you feel a little better, Rza says the sale was made in May, so well before we or anyone else knew much about Shkreli and what he'd later become infamous for. And since then, Rza's pledged that most of the money will go to charitable organizations.

I guess that's one way to pry some money from his greasy little mitts and do some real good with it.

Maybe they can buy thousands of people that competing toxoplasmosis treatment pill at a buck a pop so Turing takes a bigger financial hit.

I don't think he cares. I honestly think this guy just enjoys being an IRL wrestling style heel. I can picture him doing all of Ted Dibiase's classic rich heel antics, like when he bribed a public pool manajerk to close the pool just so he could gloat at the children who's day he just ruined.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgj3_Wis6HU

Yeah, like Binro said above, there's cheaper medication that basically does the same thing, so devil's advocate here (and by that I mean that literally) but I understand the supply and demand reasoning for a hike on a drug that's not really used that much. Big pharma does that all the time, but it's usually not exponential like Turing so it goes under the radar. It's like if you only shop at Whole Foods and complain about the prices going up and up, even though you can find pretty much the same stuff for a lot cheaper at a Safeway.

But his arrogance is what gets to me. He fucking enjoys being the bad little rich kid, just like he's in a movie or Pro Wrestling. I'm sure in real life Hulk Hogan and Million Dollar Man got along just fine the same way as a James Bond villain would get along with whomever's playing James Bond when the cameras are not rolling, but he's doing this in real life and has pretty much lost all of his real life friends and is vilified as a result of not only the initial price hike but for his "I don't give a fuck" attitude. It's a very strange condition. It's no lie that money equals power but why would anybody want to be alone in their castle where all they can do to reach out is continually post snarky "I'm better than you" tweets and such?

They said he's under contract to not sell it for 80 years.

Does that apply to sharing as well? As far as I know, the most expensive album of all time is Radiohead's In Rainbows, with some people paying up to a million dollars for it and others paying a penny, and many more just torrenting the thing. And I don't condone violence, but if one of his "friends" (if he still has any) came over for a listening party, beat him up and stole it and put it on Youtube, I could care less.

I don't know. If I was Wu Tang I'd have made the buyer sign a very strict NDA that barred them from disclosing anything about the album beyond its existence for 80 years, and then just delivered something like

https://soundcloud.com/fartclops

One stipulation of the sale is that RZA is allowed one attempt at a heist to steal the album back, with full ownership returned to him and no legal repercussions if he succeeds. Knowing now who the buyer is, I really fucking hope he's getting his ramblers rambling for this. Hell, I want to case this shithead's estate for an acquisition now. Maybe replace the physical album with The Shaggs or something.

Who was the MC who used that word a lot in the 80s or early 90s? I'm blanking on it.

Shaq used it a lot.

That's ok not being braggadocious
Supercalifragelistic Shaq is alidocious

LOL