Kung fu films and comic books built the Wu-Tang Clan's empire
Two Staten Island rappers dropped by their labels regrouped around a strange recipe: Eastern philosophy lifted from kung fu movies, Five-Percent Nation teachings and comic books. The Wu-Tang Clan then struck a deal that let every member sign solo with rival labels, turning one group into a small hip-hop conglomerate.
The story starts with three cousins, Gary Grice, Robert Diggs and Russell Jones, who rapped in the late 1980s as the All in Together Now Crew. Grice and Diggs each landed solo deals in 1991, as The Genius and Prince Rakeem, and each was quickly dropped. They reinvented themselves as GZA and RZA, while Jones became Ol' Dirty Bastard. RZA then teamed with Dennis Coles, soon Ghostface Killah, from the Stapleton Houses, and by late 1992 a nine-man crew had assembled with RZA as leader and producer, named after the film Shaolin and Wu Tang.
The independent single Protect Ya Neck built an underground following in 1993. Finding a label was hard because the group insisted that members stay free to record solo elsewhere, but Loud/RCA agreed, and Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) appeared that November, split into Shaolin and Wu-Tang halves. It is now counted among the greatest hip-hop albums ever made. RZA later described the arrangement as a financial movement: Method Man went to Def Jam, Ghostface to Sony and GZA to Geffen, while RZA produced the first wave of those solo records in his basement studio.
Wu-Tang Forever debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 in June 1997. Its lead single, Triumph, runs over five minutes with nine verses and no hook at all. The album lost the Grammy for Best Rap Album to Puff Daddy, and Ol' Dirty Bastard notoriously protested by interrupting Shawn Colvin's acceptance speech. Critics argue that the flood of Wu releases between 1997 and 2000 oversaturated the market and cost the group popularity.
Later albums sold less, though The W went platinum in 2000, with Ol' Dirty Bastard's vocals on one track recorded over prison telephones. He died in 2004 after collapsing at the group's studio in New York. The oddest coda came in 2015, when the only copy of Once Upon a Time in Shaolin sold for $2 million to Martin Shkreli, the priciest piece of music ever sold. The group is set to join the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2026.
Source: Wu-Tang Clan
