Various Artists: Wu-Chronicles

Hits packages and tribute compilations have always served an interesting dual purpose: On one hand, they serve as a way for record companies to squeeze every last dollar out of bands that are either defunct or less-than-prolific, but they're also a good way to sum up an act's lasting cultural impact. Two recent albums compiling the work of the members of N.W.A and The Wu-Tang Clan may be mercenary commercial endeavors, but both pay tribute to the creative and artistic influence of the artists they document. Few musical acts have ever boasted the cultural impact N.W.A did. Like The Sex Pistols, the group shone brightly for a very brief period, left countless imitators in its wake, and saw its musical output reconfigured frequently for countless compilations, greatest-hits collections, and tributes. The countless sub-par gangsta-rap groups that followed have blunted the impact of the genre, but the tracks from Straight Outta Compton, Niggaz4life, and Eazy Duz It collected on The N.W.A Legacy—a selection of songs by N.W.A, its members' solo projects, and their proteges—remain remarkable for their blissful nihilism, kinetic energy, and influential production work. One of the surprising things about going back and listening to a track like Eazy-E's "We Want Eazy" is just how ebullient the song is. Sure, N.W.A rapped about crime and poverty, but there was a joy and musicality in its members' work that's absent from that of their imitators. Many of the songs on The N.W.A Legacy have been recycled on countless other collections: Snoop Dogg's "Murder Was the Case," for example, has already been featured on Doggystyle, the Murder Was The Case soundtrack, and Death Row's Greatest Hits, and it'll probably be on Snoop Dogg's forthcoming greatest-hits album, too. Likewise, almost all the N.W.A material should be familiar to even a casual fan of gangsta rap. Still, to the uninitiated, The N.W.A Legacy should come as a revelation, and its compilers deserve credit for including songs from Westside Connection's underrated first album rather than the numerous HWA songs that padded out the recent Ruthless Records compilation, Decade Of Game. Wu-Chronicles collects 17 Wu-Tang Clan-related tracks that haven't appeared on either of the group's two albums. Some of the songs, including "4th Chamber" featuring Genius, RZA, and Killa Priest, and "Wu-Gambinos" featuring Raekwon, Ghostface Killah, Method Man, RZA, and Masta Killa, are fairly prototypical Wu-Tang Clan tracks. But the world captured on Wu-Chronicles is large and flexible enough to entail everything from the drunken vocal gymnastics of Tha Alkaholiks to the laid-black, futuristic funk of the Notorious B.I.G. It's a remarkably consistent, inspired compilation, a rap equivalent of The Smiths' Louder Than Bombs. And, as if that weren't enough, it's informative: "The End," featuring RZA and Ras Kass, contains some vital information about the secret relationship connecting the Chevy Lumina, the Statue Of Liberty, and the international Freemason conspiracy.