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Review Summary: Maybe if The RZA wasn't so busy playing Bobby Digital and dipping his weed in HONEY, then Inspectah Deck might have been blessed with a classic here. That is not the case though. Inspectah Deck is a member of the unnoticed three of the Wu-Tang along with Masta Killa and U-God. The difference between the other two, however, was that Inspectah was, for a while, on the radar of many Wu-Tang fans as one of the top verse rippers. His evolving and ever-changing arsenal of flows were all, simply put, sick, and his lyrics were technically some of the best the wu-tang had to offer. And in that sense, Uncontrolled Substance doesn’t fail to deliver at all. Unlike on albums like The Movement and his later failed mixtapes, he sounds excited, enjoyable, and most importantly, a MC with skills and flow. Particularly on the religious tales of “Show N Prove”, and the Wu Posse (at least the closest this ablum has to one) cut “The Grand Prix”, Inspectah Deck manages to impress his audience with lyrics like “Give me room, hit the tune/Feature presentation comin soon, early June/Killa Bee platoon, well groomed/Spells doom, raise the volume/You react like a werewolf in a full moon/With the force of a trojan horse”.
With lyrics like that, you would be inclined to think that Inspectah Deck’s debut is infailable, but unfortunately its far from that, with a gigantic cast of lame-os coming all over the Wu-affilation list to ‘help’ Deck with his debut. “9th Chamber”, a track that should have been an Wu Posse cut, instead is a parade for weaker level affiliation Killa Bees, Method Man’s Robin Streetlife, and La The Darkman. The only real Wu appearances come in the form of the weakest member of the clan U-God, who at this point, hit his lyrical low point, which wouldn’t be reached again until Mr. Xcitement. Then Masta Killa, whose mellow flow and knowledgeable spitting manage to come in the form as the only guest appearance that doesn’t disappoint. The weak guest appearances scream for strong beats, but unfortunately, the album is filled with weak Wu affiliation copy cat beats, incomplete Inspectah deck beats, and about two RZA beats sparsely placed around the albums ends. The best contribution to the album, RZA’s “Movas and Shakers” is simple but effective, with blaring horns mixed down just enough for the Wu-brand to crash on the song. “Word on the Street” is easily Inspectah Deck’s most effective instrumental, with the simple mixture of violins, sirens, and guitars combining to give himself a nice backdrop for some serious track ripping. At the same time though, for every track that is produced well, there is the easy complaint that the beats are just unmemorable, incomplete feeling, and dull.
If RZA had decided to help his fellow clansmen, instead of handing a bunch of beats to pseudo-member Cappadonna so he could continually defecate on them, then this would be a very different review. If Method Man, Ghostface Killah, and Raekwon had decided to help his more lyrical brethren than the more commercially viable fools, then this would be a very different review. Too bad, they didn’t, and instead we get an album that is incredibly hit/miss, with the hits being good enough to save this album from being a simple case of white noise lyrical rap, and the miss being a simple case of bad guests or boring beats, but there are enough to keep this album from being anything more than JUST good.
It’s a real shame, because from his appearances on Wu-Tang Clan albums, it seems like Inspectah Deck would be one of the clansmen to have a classic album under his belt.
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Sad thing too, this is the last album Inspectah Deck would release that is tolerable to listen to 
| | | Album Rating: 4.0
This is one of the weaker albums to come from the Wu, I haven't heard anything else from him though.
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Again this is the best he's released, which is disappointing, because he's a pretty strong MC, he's just surronded himself with lesser MC's/ his Wu brethern were too busy or lazy or assholish to help with his album.
| | | Album Rating: 2.5
good review. i feel like a lot of times the Inspectah gets a free pass just 'cuz he's from the Wu...it's like cats feel like dude can't make a bad verse, just because of where he's from. same shit happens with Guru. has so many weak verses, but cats refuse to acknowledge them.
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He's pretty strong rapper, but his new stuff is fucking WEAK, so i agree with you completely there. I agree with you on Guru too, especially his solo 'rap-jazz' career.
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good review, just one thing though
"infailable"
do you mean infallible?
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OH YEAH, thank you good sir
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Agreeing with review, Deck could have had much better solo career and no matter if group or solo release by Wu, the random verses by Wu affiliates in most cases ruin the tracks.
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illmitch why is it everytime i see you post it's you hating on talented east coast rappers? the inspectah gets no "free pass", if he did then this album would have been at least gold. he has proved himself multiple times on 36 chambers, wu-tang forever, etc. but anyway it's a shame about this album, if the RZA were more involved it could easily have been a classic.
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This album IS gold lol.
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i make more noise than heavy metal
| | | Album Rating: 2.5
illmitch why is it everytime i see you post it's you hating on talented east coast rappers? the inspectah gets no "free pass", if he did then this album would have been at least gold. he has proved himself multiple times on 36 chambers, wu-tang forever, etc. but anyway it's a shame about this album, if the RZA were more involved it could easily have been a classic.
he gets a free past from east coast stans. he has good verses from wu-tang group albums, yeah, but as a solo artist he's more or less boring. i hate on overrated east coast rappers because i'm angsty that the dirty south gets little to no recognition on sputnik.
| | | Album Rating: 2.5
and for the record, i'm a huge fan of old school east coast hip hop, but east coast has more or less fell off (with the exception of Cam'ron, who remains one of my favorite rappers alive, and Clipse) in recent years.
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more or less
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Hmm... understandable. But his lyrics aren't that bad, I honestly don't think it's his fault this album isn't up to it's potential. It's the production that falters, so didn't like seeing him getting hated on. And the dirty south gets less recognition because for the most part (note not all) it's pretty unintelligent music.
| | | Album Rating: 2.5
he's not bad, just not all that interesting.
and what do you mean by unintelligent music? do you have to rap about politics and uplifting things to be intelligent? i find intelligence in a rapper's way with words, how they describe things - and i find a lot of southern rappers paint pictures with their words in ways that most modern east coast stuff never does.
| | | Album Rating: 2.5
[img]http://www.1000recordings.com/images/artist-e/eric-b-rakim-291-l.jpg[/img]
^so what was this album about?
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By unintelligent I mean it in the way the public generally does. When the hear a southern song which is generally about cars, money, girls, and drank they see that as more rappers trying to be mainstream and unoriginal. I'm not saying south can't be good, just giving my guess at why it doesn't see the love east/west do. And different styles paint different pictures, so in that respect east paints pictures the south never could and vice versa.
| | | Album Rating: 3.0
Paid In Full is overrated as heck, their three other releases are much better
| | | Album Rating: 2.5
halfmanhalfamazing: responding to comments over a year old since 2010
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![http://www.1000recordings.com/images/artist-e/eric-b-rakim-291-l.jpg[/img]](http://www.1000recordings.com/images/artist-e/eric-b-rakim-291-l.jpg[/img]){kind=link}