THE IMPROBABLE ADVENTURES OF WU-TANG CLAN

The first time I heard Wu-Tang Clan’s Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers), I failed to grasp that it was the debut of what would become one of the greatest, most influential groups in hip-hop history.

In the fall of 1993, that initial listen spanned monumental tracks like “C.R.E.A.M.,” “Method Man” and “Can It Be All So Simple.” The nine-man posse from (of all places) Staten Island brandished rhymes galore over a wholly unique, lo-fi production that leaned into samples from kung-fu movies, and I loved it.

But was the Eastern philosophy limned by the Clan’s lyrics or the allusions therein to the Five-Percent Nation (an offshoot of the Nation of Islam) too inscrutable for the mainstream? Would the average listener be able to keep track of nine distinct personas?

By the time I heard the 1997 follow-up, Wu-Tang Forever, the nonet had helped change the face of hip-hop. A series of Wu solo albums released in the interim, all produced primarily by Wu-Tang mastermind RZA, equaled the output and impact of the Death Row Records or Bad Boy Entertainment rosters—but they were all from the same group. They’d taken funk pioneer George Clinton’s model of signing different configurations of the same personnel to various labels (as Clinton had with Parliament, Funkadelic, Parlet, the Brides of Funkenstein, Bootsy Collins et al.) and flipped it on its ear for the ’90s.

When a Wu-Tang Forever cassette made its way into my hands before the album’s official release, I brought it straight to a fellow Brooklyn journalist with the best, um, enhancements for enjoying the event. Listening intently, our über-critical attitudes melted by Side 2, when Inspectah Deck’s famous “Triumph” verse rolled around: “I bomb atomically, Socrates’ philosophies and hypotheses/ Can’t define how I be dropping these mockeries/ Lyrically perform armed robbery.” Dazed and amazed, we forgave the double album’s occasional overindulgences and unequivocally embraced the return of the re-formed Clan.

The following year I met RZA on the Brooklyn set of his ultimately unreleased film Bobby Digital (Universal Pictures would distribute his official directorial debut, The Man With the Iron Fists, in 2012). By then, he’d collaborated with Björk, produced a song on the Batman Forever soundtrack and otherwise ingratiated himself into the mainstream. Wu-Tang wild card Ol’ Dirty Bastard had helped Mariah Carey segue squarely into R&B on a remix of “Fantasy.” And the group, who at that point fit as comfortably on the cover of Rolling Stone as it did The Source, would soon tour with alternative-rock giant Rage Against the Machine.

Understanding the relatively swift trajectory from underground phenomenon to one of rap’s greatest acts takes some explaining. Throughout the ’90s, RZA, Inspectah Deck, ODB, Method Man, Ghostface Killah, Raekwon, GZA, U-God, Masta Killa and Cappadonna stomped their collective footprint onto pop culture like a size 16 Timberland. As chronicled in Hulu’s Wu-Tang: An American Saga and Showtime’s Wu-Tang: Of Mics and Men, the story starts in Staten Island.

A trio of cousins formed the core. From oldest to youngest, Gary Grice (GZA), Russell Jones (ODB) and Robert Diggs (RZA) grew up basking in the creativity of hip-hop’s ’80s golden age. All were born in Brooklyn, taking pride and inspiration from BK legends like Big Daddy Kane.

As a child, Diggs was sent to live with an uncle in North Carolina after his parents divorced, eventually reuniting with his mom at Staten Island’s Park Hill housing projects aka Killa Hill. He enjoyed regular visits from Grice and Jones, who freestyled together in local rap ciphers. With trios like Run-DMC and UTFO making inroads on late-night rap radio, the triumvirate of cousins followed in their path as an act called Force of the Imperial Master, later known as All in Together Now. Diggs assumed the rap pseudonym Prince Rakeem, or The Scientist; Grice went by The Genius; and Jones transformed himself into The Specialist.

According to a 2005 interview with RZA published on Hiphopcore.net, the group’s self-distributed single caught the attention of the late, great clown prince of hip-hop, Biz Markie. “We made a song called ‘All in Together Now,’ which became famous on tapes throughout Brooklyn, Staten Island… all the way down to Miami,” RZA recalled. “I remember Biz Markie when he was famous and I wasn’t, and he was, like, ‘Yo! I heard that shit! Your song with [The Genius] and The Specialist!’” However, RZA notes, “We never got signed as a group back then.”

But Tommy Boy Records, home to rainmakers like De La Soul and Queen Latifah, did ink Prince Rakeem in 1989. The resulting single, “Ooh I Love You Rakeem”―which adopted the lover-rap of the period (see Heavy D’s “Gyrlz, They Love Me”)―fell flat, though, and the label dropped him. The same fate befell The Genius at Cold Chillin’. His 1991 Words From The Genius was lyrically dense, polysyllabic wordplay couched in boom-bap production. The future GZA would later claim that his first label failed to promote his debut. Whatever the reason, the album underperformed.

Realizing that reinvention was the mother of necessity, Diggs remade himself as The RZA and formulated a new plan of attack from a basement studio at 67 Warren St. in the Stapleton Houses projects of Staten Island. “That was my first apartment,” he’d tell the New York Post in 2014. “It was where I set up my first demo studio, and that’s where the Wu-Tang formed. A lot of the guys would come over to my apartment and we’d cut demos. The foundations of a lot of the songs that went on to be on 36 Chambers—like ‘C.R.E.A.M.’ and ‘Tearz’—were laid right there.”

RZA roped in Dennis Coles, another MC from the Stapleton Houses, who went by Ghostface Killah. Killah’s middle-school classmate, a Brooklyn Five-Percenter transplant by the name of Raekwon (né Corey Woods), also joined. Raekwon’s New Dorp High School homie Jason Hunter, aka Inspectah Deck, soon pledged his allegiance to the Wu, too. Darryl Hill, a teenager known as Cappadonna, had cemented a local rep as an ill MC with his deep-voiced beatbox partner, Golden Arms (born Lamont Hawkins, soon known as U-God). He signed up, with Cappadonna becoming an official member only after the release of Wu-Tang Forever. The Specialist rechristened himself Ol’ Dirty Bastard and The Genius became The GZA. They likewise entered the Wu.

And that was the crew. Though the penal system demanded some reshuffling.

Another New Dorp student, Clifford Smith—a lacrosse-playing MC from Long Island who split time between tony Hempstead and Killa Hill—came on board as The Method Man, specifically to replace Cappadonna, who’d been incarcerated for selling crack cocaine. U-God was convicted on firearm and drug-possession charges in 1992; his absence was filled by Brooklyn-born Elgin Turner aka Masta Killa. And the whole Wu-Tang itself might never have come to pass if not for RZA’s rededication to his craft after a 1991 acquittal on charges of felony assault; viewing his freedom as a second chance, he took the unlikely route of devising an Avengers-sized rap crew centered on kung-fu flicks, comic books, soul samples and Five-Percenter mysticism.

The 1980s rap band Stetsasonic had numbered five members. Further back, the pioneering Cold Crush Brothers had consisted of six. But a nine-MC rap collective? Unheard of. There was nonetheless a method to this seeming madness; as demos for what would become Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) came together, RZA, the self-described abbot of the group, decided to only sign with a label that would allow Wu-Tang to splinter off into separate deals as solo MCs.

Loud Records made a deal with Wu-Tang Clan for a low-end $60,000 advance. But in short order, RZA and GZA had solo deals with Gee Street and Geffen, respectively. Method Man signed with Def Jam. Raekwon remained with Loud and Ghostface signed with Epic—the two would crisscross heavily on each other’s albums, forming one of hip-hop’s great duos. Inspectah Deck also stayed with Loud. Cappadonna also went with Epic. Ol’ Dirty Bastard signed to Elektra, U-God to Priority and Masta Killa to the indie Nature Sounds.

Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers), released in November 1993, took its title from the Bruce Lee classic Enter the Dragon and the Shaw Brothers’ magnum opus, The 36th Chamber of Shaolin.

New Yorkers of a certain age share a familiarity with, among other pop-cultural touchstones, the rap-video programming of Video Music Box, proto-anime series like Battle of the Planets and Voltron and the Saturday-afternoon martial-arts movies that aired on Channel 5. RZA and GZA fell heavily under the influence of those dubbed Chinese films, which often starred Lee or were produced by Hong Kong’s Shaw Brothers Studio. Meth took his name from the 1979 Jimmy Shaw-directed martial arts film Method Man. The impact of kung-fu cinema―and animation series like The Marvel Super Heroes―would be heard (and seen) throughout the collective’s oeuvre.

Distinguished by dissonant, symphonic strings, rugged drum breakbeats, sampled kung-fu movie dialogue and sound effects and wordplay peppered with Black nationalism, Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) set the Clan apart from the beginning. As it turned out, keeping track of nine MCs was a joyride for fans, who rode hard for their favorites.

“C.R.E.A.M.”—“Cash Rules Everything Around Me”—sits atop Rolling Stone’s recent 100 Greatest East Coast Hip-Hop Songs of All Time. Over a track built from the piano trill of The Charmels’ “As Long As I’ve Got You,” Raekwon and Inspectah Deck reminisce about their hardscrabble childhoods as Method Man spits the song’s infectious hook. Meth, the Wu’s most recognizable voice and resident sex symbol, took his star turn on the aptly titled favorite “Method Man.”

A Wu cinematic universe took shape in the wake of this seismic debut. Aliases abounded, and keeping up with The Rebel INS (Inspectah Deck), The Chef (Raekwon), Tony Starks (Ghostface), Big Baby Jesus (Ol’ Dirty Bastard) and so on became a badge of honor for a rapt fan base. The group even provided hip-hop with a farm team of affiliated artists to follow, including Shyheim, Killarmy and Sunz of Man. Further evidence of the act’s “arrival” could be found in the presence of the Wu Wear clothing store operated on Staten Island, which competed with Russell Simmons’ Phat Farm and Sean “Puffy” Combs’ Sean John brands.

The appearance of Wu members on each other’s solo projects, meanwhile, made listeners feel they were receiving a new Wu-Tang Clan album every six months, amply validating RZA’s vision.

The initial wave included RZA’s own horrorcore side project, Gravediggaz, which blew in with 6 Feet Deep (1994); Method Man’s platinum Def Jam debut, Tical (1994)―it won the 1996 Grammy for Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group (for “I’ll Be There for You/You’re All I Need to Get By” featuring Mary J. Blige, a remix of the hit single “All I Need”); wild man ODB’s Return to the 36 Chambers: The Dirty Version (1995), home to the irresistible “Brooklyn Zoo”; Raekwon and Ghostface’s mafioso celebration Only Built 4 Cuban Linx… (1995), a masterpiece in its own right; GZA’s lyrically pugilistic Liquid Swords (1995); and the stirring soul of Ghostface’s Ironman (1996).

Even as solo acts, members hewed closely to the group’s shared aesthetic. GZA, for instance, hired celebrated comic-book artist Denys Cowan to illustrate the cover of Liquid Swords. In 1998, RZA would tap the equally respected comics illustrator Bill Sienkiewicz to create the cover of his Bobby Digital in Stereo album.

As cruel fate would have it, between the release of Wu-Tang Clan’s first two albums, RZA’s basement studio was beset by catastrophic flooding. “When the first Wu album came out, we had all the other albums ready,” he told Vibe in 1996. “I had the shit with everybody’s names on it, and everybody had at least 15 beats in their section. I lost 300 beats in the flood. All that got washed up.”

Perhaps as a result, Wu-Tang Forever saw production contributions from protégés Fourth Disciple (a founding members of Killarmy) and True Master. Some critics accused RZA of spreading himself thin after four years of Wu solo records. Nevertheless, Wu-Tang Forever kept things as grimy as Enter the Wu-Tang. At more than five minutes―and with no chorus—first single “Triumph” is the only Wu track to feature all of its members. The “I bomb atomically” stanza cited above is widely considered one of the strongest verses in all of hip-hop. Selections like “For Heavens Sake,” “It’s Yourz” and “Cash Still Rules/Scary Hours (Still Don’t Nothing Move But the Money)” also proved Wu-Tang Clan had plenty of gas left in the tank.

But the group began to drift (and worse) thereafter.

Ghostface’s 2000 solo effort Supreme Clientele was rightly celebrated, but by then, Method Man had decided he needed a foil outside of Staten Island. He found it in Newark rapper Redman. The two released a joint album, Blackout! (1999), a Universal Pictures stoner comedy, How High (2001), and a brief TV series, Fox’s Method & Red (2004). (The Wu-Tang rapper took his Method acting to its highest heights memorably playing Cheese, the crew chief of a narcotics-trafficking organization, on The Wire.)

In 2004, ODB, who’d been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, died of a drug-related heart attack at the age of 35. RZA wrote in his 2009 book The Tao of Wu: “The man who became ODB… my cousin... People may not know this from the outrageous character he played, but ODB was a visionary. But he decayed, he lost that vision... From the time they put him in jail to all the drugs he was doing to all the stress he went through with his family, it took away his ability to see. And this night, he sat there and looked me in the eye and said, ‘RZA, I don’t understand’… Now, I know that right there, right when he said that—we lost him. Eight hours later, ODB was gone.”

Post-Wu-Tang Forever solo projects suffered commercially from declining quality and fan fatigue. Internal strife seeped to the surface during the promotion of albums like The W (2000), Iron Flag (2001), 8 Diagrams (2007) and A Better Tomorrow, released in 2014, the year Raekwon told Rolling Stone, “RZA’s a coach who won rings back in the day, but now your team is in ninth place. It’s time for a new fucking game plan.” That plan seemed to include side projects like 2010’s Wu-Massacre, credited solely to Raekwon, Ghostface and Method Man.

But Wu-Tang’s influence has proven enduring; among other important contributions to hip-hop culture, the group paved the way for the early-’90s East Coast rap renaissance that would see the rise of Jay-Z, The Notorious B.I.G., Nas and Mobb Deep. And though the ascendance of Kanye West, Drake, Kendrick Lamar, Future and the new millennium’s other standard-bearers has eclipsed Wu-Tang’s standing in hip-hop, its members continue to enjoy the role of elder statesmen. Drake, for one, paid homage to those elders on Nothing Was the Same in 2013 with “Wu-Tang Forever.” Wu-Tang Clan forever remains the nine-man crew that bombed atomically—in the best way possible.