Wu-Tang Clan | TheSocial.news

Wu-Tang Clan formed on Staten Island, New York in 1992 under the creative direction of producer RZA, who devised a structure for the group that was unusual in hip-hop at the time: a collective of nine MCs — RZA, GZA, Ol' Dirty Bastard, Method Man, Raekwon, Ghostface Killah, Inspectah Deck, U-God, and Masta Killa — who would release group albums while simultaneously pursuing individual solo careers that would cross-pollinate the Wu-Tang brand across multiple projects and audiences simultaneously. The plan worked beyond any reasonable projection. Their debut album Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) (1993), recorded on a budget of approximately thirty thousand dollars, sounded like nothing else in hip-hop — raw, sample-based production built from old kung fu films, horror movie samples, and soul records, over which the nine MCs traded verses in an style that valued wit and imagery over convention.

The subsequent solo runs produced some of the decade's most celebrated hip-hop albums: Raekwon's Only Built 4 Cuban Linx... (1995), Ghostface Killah's Ironman (1996), GZA's Liquid Swords (1995), and Method Man's Tical (1994) are each considered classics of New York rap. The group's second album Wu-Tang Forever (1997) debuted at number one and demonstrated that the initial impact was not a fluke. The death of Ol' Dirty Bastard in 2004 was a genuine loss for the group and for hip-hop, but the remaining members have continued performing and recording, and a Wu-Tang Clan live performance remains a significant event in hip-hop culture — a chance to see multiple contributors to one of the genre's foundational bodies of work performing together.

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