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01: Mystics of the God
02: Shaolin Soldiers
03: Skit #1
04: Warrior's Drum (Westside Remix)
05: Leave Now (feat. Fes Taylor, Star & Mega Don)
06: No Flows on the Rodeo
07: Round 'Em Up
08: Skit #2
09: Can I Get Some
10: Pain
11: Skit #3
12: Move on 'Em Stomp (Remix) (feat. Shaolin Soldiers)
13: Escape from the Zoo
14: Skit #4
15: Warrior's Drum
16: Boom Bow!
17: Hassan Chop
18: Identity Crisis
19: Killa Verse
20: Forget Me Not
21: Stand Up
22: Hatred
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REUP:The list of Wu-Tang affiliates is nearly inexhaustible, but I will cover the entire boatload of albums or die trying.

King Just is a rapper from Staten Island who is said to be of native American descent. He was at some point in is career a member of the collective the Hillside Scramblers, which was affiliated with U-God, the Wu-Tang Clan’s least popular individual member who always gets hated on by hip-hop critics and hardcore Wu-fans (though since U-God dropped his third solo-album Dopium all the hate has mysteriously turnt to praise, which must mean that he has sold his soul to the devil or some shit.)
Before that group became a thing however King Just was a guy an undefined affiliation with the Clan with a debut he unsuccessfully tried to sell to the general public making his career very similar to a similarly named artist who goes by the name Timbo King.

For his debut album he got RNS (the fabled mentor of the RZA and the main producer of Shyheim’s eponymous debut album) and Easy Mo Bee (known for producing such legends as Big Daddy Kane and the Notorious B.I.G., as well as the pre-clan debut album by Wu-member GZA), as well as West Coast producer and Alkaholiks member E-Swift to provide the beats, which is a pretty good team to run with. He signed with Select Records, an independent label that’s not so independent inking a deal with it means committing career suicide, and Mystics of the God is the result. Like Shyheim and United We Slam, Mystics of the God contains no vocals by any actual Wu-members, which is mystifying since even if the big boys were busy recording their debuts at least U-God must’ve been available or some shit.
In the place of Wu-guest verses there are Wu-esquely named group Shaolin soldiers, a group of which King Just himself may or may not have been a member, who pop up on two tracks.

Mystics of da God, despite its obvious lack of involvement of the franchise it’s ambiguously trying to convince you it’s a part of, is an alright substitute for the real thing. That not to say it’s as good as anything by those who are an actual part of the Clan; this King Just person is a competent gangsta rapper, with a nice urgent, agressive flow, slightly reminiscent of what ODB might sound like if he put down the crack pipe and started taking his medication, who knows how not to embarrass himself on the mic.
But he too is unimaginative to really stand out in a crowd of his peers, let alone be in the same league as rap’s equivalent of the Beatles. There’s no outstandingly quotable rhymes on the entire album.

Still, fans of mid-’90s East-coast hip-hop who haven’t heard this yet should definitely give it a spin once. If the guy isn’t much better than generic then he’s certainly no worse. And some of these beats, especially the Easy Mo Bee contributions No Flow on the Rodeo and Can I Get Some really knock, and it’s easy to imagine Ready to Die-era Notorious B.I.G. or Me Against the World-era 2pac (It’s really the same era…) rhyme over them, mostly because Easy contributed beats to those two classic albums as well.

RNS, E-Swift, and even more anonymous producers such as Marcus Peake, Victor Flowers and MZA (Huh? MZA!? The fuck!? What kind of producer name is that!? Word to upcoming hip-hop producers, do not under any circumstances make your artist name a consonant with “ZA” added, this will irrevokably have blog hipsters such as myself draw unfavourable comparisons.) also come correct with their contributions, such as Shaolin Soldiers, which confusingly doesn’t feature the Shaolin soldiers, but does have a Kung-fu sample and a RZA-aping beat.

The best thing on here is probably Warrior’s Drum, which has an RNS beat that switches up occasionally and should get any fan of the second golden age of hip-hop nod to nod his/her head and pimps Just’s alleged native American heritage in a not-too-offensive manner.
Conversely the weakest shit on here is the Westside Remix of the song that inexplicably apperas earlier in the album’s tracklist than the original version does, and tries to fit the song in the G-funk format that was popular on the other side of the USA, and does so in the most boring manner imaginable.

Everything else rests comfortably on 1995’s industry average.

Best tracks
No Flow On The Rodeo
Can I Get Some
Warrior’s Drum
Round Em Up

Recommendations
It’s hard to either outright dismiss or rabidly recommend Mystics of the God to anyone. I’m sure since 1995 Select Record has gone bankrupt three times over and Mystics of the God has been out of print for most of the time following its release and that there’s some people on the internet asking copious amounts of cash for a used copy (This is a recurring thing with many things Wu-related). It’s not worth a small fortune so either you should buy the above songs of iTunes or Spotify or pick up a used copy if you can find it for under $5.- on Amazon.com or a used cd store.


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