RZA as the Tony Blair of Wu-Tang Clan? Strangely, some parallels spring to mind. It takes a certain kind of leader to antagonise those around him while convincing them that it’s in the collective interest to let him have his way. And what once applied to Labour under Blair just as easily applies to Wu-Tang Clan under their de facto premier, RZA.

First to go public with his misgivings about this fifth album was Ghostface Killah, who suggested that RZA had marginalised his contributions while engineering the release of 8 Diagrams so that it eclipsed Ghostface’s own solo opus, The Big Doe Rehab. Shortly afterwards, in weighed Raekwon: “[RZA’s] trying to do too much of this guitar s***. He’s like a hip-hop hippy.”

They complain, yet they don’t leave. Save for the deceased Ol’ Dirty Bastard, the eight founding members who released the era-defining Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) in 1993 are all present. Indeed, that’s Raekwon and Ghostface Killah taking a verse each alongside a guitar-wielding Dhani Harrison as he helps Wu-Tang Clan to adapt his dad’s tune on The Heart Gently Weeps.

So far, so catchy – but elsewhere, Wu-Tang Clan don’t so much bypass the hip-hop Zeitgeist as fly around it in circles flicking V-signs. Kanye West’s continuing metamorphosis into MC Obvioso: Premium Purveyor of Dumbass Samples finds its counterpoint in RZA’s tendency to eschew samples for his own arrangements and inspired guest turns.

Featuring the Manhattans singer Gerald Alston, Stick Me For My Riches is a case in point. Even if you don’t haemorrhage empathy for a song that links not being able to put meat in your cheese sandwich to becoming a gangster, Alston brings to it an emotional depth that neutralises misgivings.

Musical differences may ultimately see Wu-Tang Clan implode, but it’s those same differences that make 8 Diagrams such an absorbing trip. At one extreme, there’s RZA – respected polymath pal of the likes of Jim Jarmusch and Russell Crowe. On his solo centrepiece, Sunlight, he eschews beats in favour of cosmic jazz chords and New Age lyrics. At the other, it’s left to Killah on the vintage swamp-hop of Campfire to declare: “We gon’ have a ball, might as well pick a testicle.” To say the whole doesn’t cohere is to miss the point. Between those two poles, all hip-hop life is here.

(Wu Music/Bodog)

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