I’ve never seen Afro Samurai. Actually, I watch little regular programming, even less non-comedic, and even less anime. And I watch nothing on Spike. The whole channel feels icky like an Axe commercial; pandering in a way that I imagine would deter intelligent women from watching Lifetime.

Compelling reasons to check it out: it’s anime produced by and starring Samuel L. Jackson. It has badass Ron Perlman (fantasy icon of cult soap Beauty and the Beast, French fable City of Lost Children and Guillermo Del Toro’s Hellboy), and the music is held down by the RZA.

This is the second series music compilation the RZA has put together.

Like his classic Ghost Dog soundtrack (and less so his compositions for the Kill Bill movies), this collection embellishes score instrumentals into its songs. It also featuring a fascinating line-up of emcees, from Wu’s Ghostface, Killa Priest and Black Knights, to familiar voices Rah Digga and Kool G. Rap, to charismatic obscurities Boy Jones and Reverend William Burks.

It all has the cool fantasy atmosphere of “the kind of creative crowd that stays at the top of RZA’s cell phone traffic lists all spitting verses sort of tailored to the themes and imagery of a nifty cartoon.” And the need for the instrumentals to be series-viable prevents some of the slack he drops on his own albums. The whole thing is engaging, but occasionally undercooked (RZA liberally borrows obvious licks from obvious sources like Sly Stone and himself). It comes off like the good cable television analog to the timeless cinematic grandeur of Ghost Dog.