Watch Your Motherfuckin Mouth

"Watch Your Mouth" was the first song to leak from the album, & is a traditional posse cut in the vein of Protect Ya Neck, Triumph, Protect Ya Neck (The Jump Off), & Uzi (Pinky Ring), the lead tracks to each of the previous Clan albums.

The track is produced by DJ Scratch & RZA.

All eight surviving members make an appearance, with Raekwon leading the way. Rae's performance is subdued but tough, almost arrogantly calm. Masta Killa, who has truly shined in the past few years when backed by Wu production, is excellent here, & should've been considered for the lead-off position. Meth & Ghost follow & both deliver animated, enjoyable performances. Inspectah Deck is next, sounding much better than he has of late on his mixtape projects. Here's to hoping he returns to the Wu-Tang fold instead of churning out more half-hearted, "accessible" styles.

U-God, who RZA recently described as particularly shining on the album, comes next with his verse, followed by RZA & GZA who finishes the track. Each verse is relatively short & highly enjoyable, though the beat is a little more subdued than what a lot of people might have expected from a lead-off Wu track.

The sample is similar to a track on a recent De La Soul project, & features elements from a Mission:Impossible track. There has been recent conjecture that this track might be cut from the album due to sample clearance issues, but there's no confirmed information in that regard. It is a bit underwhelming as a leadoff single, but I think it will work especially well in the context of an album. Also, the leaked version I've heard is apparantly unmixed. There has been a better sounding version playing on XM radio that sounded great. But the fact that they've gone in a grimey, unflashy direction for the first song instead of the radio-friendliness of the first singles from The W is especially heartening & bodes well for the overall scope of the project.

Also, the initial reports from the listening sessions, where journalists got to hear parts of 8 songs, indicate that this is the least interesting of all the tracks that were previewed. So, if this is the least dynamic track on the project, that is a good indication that 8 Diagrams may turn out to be a great album after all.

There is a slightly different, better-mixed version of the track on Wu-Tang's Myspace page. This version has a Cappadonna intro & omits the RZA & U-God verses. With hope, this isn't an indication of what the final version of the track might be like--those verses need to be on the song. If I remember correctly, both verses were on the XM version.