he varsity members of the Wu-Tang clan are easy to rattle off—Raekwon’s Mafioso stutter, Ghostface’s obsession with food, Meth’s bench press flow—but the JV Killa Bees? Not so much. In the interests of deepening the talent pool and hooking up the grand old Shaolin MC’s to an IV of new blood, I’ve combed the music world for men and women (living and dead) who, drafted well, might just recapture the 36 Chamber rapture. RZA is the GM, follow along.

Paul Anka
In a bid to one-up Shatner in the “who can sink faster” race, Anka looses himself in a library of kung-fu scrolls, encyclopedias of drug lingo, and actually goes to buy a pair of Wallabies. The RZA and Ghostface can’t resist the tiny little white guy’s heart and decide to let him replace Cappadonna in the “who the fuck is this?” spot on the roster.

Steve Albini
The tendency for Albini to revel in his own creative juices while at the same time delicately slamming his own work (calling the Pixies boring, et al) is just the sort of revisionist work-ethic and brilliance that could’ve pushed Iron Flag or The W over the top. And the potential for a Big Black cover of “C.R.E.A.M”… be still my beating heart!

Young Buck
Oh be reasonable, someone has to fall in the draft.

Henry Rollins
He’s already fought them in the spectacular street fighting game “Def Jam: Fight for NY,” so there’s no reason Rollins won’t let the GZA help him try the poetry thing again. Come on, Bad Boys II or Bobby Digital? Does Michael Bay really have that many roles for you?

Jeff Buckley
Getting blitzed off booze and god-knows-what-else before deciding to take a midnight swim in a river? If Buckley hadn’t thought about doing some dirty scat-man rapping stuff on My Sweetheart The Drunk surely Raekwon could’ve pushed him into incorporating more references to combat boots, Mahjong, and hot Puerto Rican girls from the S.I.

Redman
Meth’s good friends in the Wu probably don’t like Redman’s Puck-like knack for generating bundles of laughs off of decent weed jokes. In the context of the Wu, Funk Doc would become the social equivalent of Ironhide from the Transformers. A fan favorite but only Optimus Prime (Method Man) respects the flow. The rest of Autobots (The Wu-Tang Clan) just nod their heads and let him do his shtick. He then gets blasted by Megatron (Cam’Ron?).

Tom Waits
I bet “Singapore” gives the Killa Bees nightmares and I’m also willing to place money on Waits’ desire to adopt a gazillion other aliases (Sword Fish Cutter? Big Tupelo Penny Piece?) once the someone brings up the idea to him. Probably still won’t play chess.

Nina Simone
The High Priestess of Soul would slap every strip club also ran (Lil’ Kim, Trina, etc…) right along side the pseudo-intellectual women soaking up Clear Channel airspace (Eve, Jill Scott, India.Arie). You think any other rap group in history can handle the pure fire of Simone? Even T. Starks would be nursing a huge crush.

Brian Eno
Eno has aged like that really cool uncle who took acid at Ohio Wesleyan and still tries to help out his nephew’s garage band. Currently an unbelievable sounding board for sonic ideas and the only person in the galaxy who treats the studio like a heavenly body. Give him to the group for three months and they become world-beaters again.

Courtney Love
The true soul mate of the late great O.D.B. Too strong for this earth, too strong for any drug created under heaven, and given so much talent that they both had to flush most of it down the toilet. Wait for her big, druggy guitar riffs on a live version of “Da Mystery of Chessboxin’.” She’s the franchise, baby.