History of Wu tang clan

By: Montario Haley

This site deals with my favorite rap group the Wu Tang Clan. Since I love rap music so much I thought that I would do a group that I liked and a group that continues to have me searching the web continuously for more new info and more new music. The information that is contained within this page is information about how the Wu (my favorite rap group) got started.

It was only a few years ago when 9 talented MC's from New York were putting together their first LP. Their album would show everyone that their group had skills, and talent. The group had only 3 members when they first formed, but then other members came a long. The first 3 were Ol Dirty Bastard, RZA, and the Genius. Then they started to sign on their family and friends. When the Wu-Tang was working on their album, there was only 8 members, then Master Killer was added to the clan. Then they had 9 members. The Wu-Tang clan is from Staten Island New York, they released their debut album 'Enter The Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)' in November of 1993, bringing out their first gold single 'Protect Ya Neck', then blowing up the spot in 1994 when they released their top 10 single 'Method Man'. The Wu was already getting noticed at the time, Method Man was working on his solo debut 'Tical', the Wu did work with Shyheim, and Raekwon, and the Genius were doing tracks for the Fresh Soundtrack

People thought the group was going to split up when Ol Dirty Bastard and Method Man released albums, but when the RZA's main goal was to get all 9 members a record deal. The RZA knew that each member had their own talent, and he wanted to bring out solo projects so each member can show they can so their talent and style.

The Wu-Tang Clan is known for their raw, uncut rhymes, their sampling from old Kung-Fu movies such as Shogun Assassin, Master Killer, Shaolin vs. Wu-Tang, Return Of The Bastard Swordsman and others. Which makes the Wu-Tang Clan Unique is that each MC from the Wu-Tang has their own style. A lot of West Coast MC's might sample a Zapp & Roger track, or a George Clinton track, but the Wu-Tang don't. They want their music to be something no one ever has heard before. They dig up older tracks from Gladys Knight, and The Charmels. Every time you look on the radio there is a new song from The Wu-Tang, or from their solo artists. The Wu-Tang is one of the biggest rap groups right now, and proudly one of the most known Rap Group of the 90's. These peeps will be around for a long time, and their sound will never be wack. Their album 'Enter The Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)' is already considered a hip-hop classic by most people and D.J.'s.

1995 was one of the greatest year for the Wu-Tang. Ol Dirty Bastard was topping the charts with his singles, Method Man just released a remix of 'All You Need', and renamed it 'I'll Be There For You' which Mary J Blige did background vocals on. The song was doing good on the Billboard charts, and holding that #1 position on Rap City. After all that, Raekwon released his long a waiting album "Only Built For Cuban Linx". The album featured a few Wu Tang members like Cappadona, Blue Raspberry, and Nas. They make up the Wu Gambino's. In the fall, the Genius released his second album "Liquid Swords". 1995 will never be forgotten. It was a true Wu year.

The Wu-Tang was in the movie The Show. The movie was directed by Russell Simmons. The movie was in the day of the life of rap artists. The Wu-Tang had a 30 minute part in the movie. They were in Japan when they filmed the movie. There was some concert scenes' from the group. They hanged with some Japanese rappers A lot and heard them rap. It show's a good idea what the Wu do with their time. There was a good scene when Method Man starts to talk shit to Ghost Face Killer and U-God cause they never do any of the talking when they do appearances. Method man and Ghost Face do most of the talking. There wasn't no interview's with the RZA and the other artists which makes the movie disappointing. There was some good scenes from Slick Rick and some other old school artists. Arika Bambaataa and the rest of the originators sat down together and talked about hip-hop and where the rap terms first started like Yes Yes Ya'all. Snoop Dogg played a big part of the movie. And so did the Notorious B.I.G. Method Man and Redman did a song of the soundtrack. The song was called How High. The soundtrack was real weak. They could of put better material on the album. The soundtrack contains he hits How High by Method Man and Redman, Summer Time In The L.B.C. by The Dove Shack, What's Up Star? by Suga and Live by Onyx. There are songs on the album from Tribe Called Quest, Mary J Blige, Bone Thugs N Harmony, Domino and Notorious B.I.G.

Loud Records signed the Wu-Tang Clan in 1993, and the Wu-Tang Clan release their album Enter The Wu-Tang (36 Chamber). Their first single was Protect Ya Neck. Wu-Tang followed it up with Method Man which was on the Billboard's Rap chart for 25 weeks. C.R.E.A.M. reached #3 on the Billboard Rap Single Charts. It was #1 in Maxi-Single Sales Chart, Top 30 on the R&B Singles Chart and Top 60 on the Pop Singles Chart. The album Enter The Wu-Tang 36 (Chambers) received a RIAA Gold Certification, Wu-Tang Clan won two awards at The First Annual Source Awards Lyricist Of The year and Single Of The Year for their song Method Man.

This year of music from the Wu-Tang has been more like a solo year. The only track the Wu did together this year was "America", and the rest of the music they produced was from other artists like Raekwon, and Ghost Face. This been a disappointing year for some of you, but lets review what happened in the past 12 months and see what the Wu-Tang has accomplished so far in 1996.

It's 1995, people waiting for the Wu-Tangs 2nd LP, to come out, but it was pushed back to 1996. 1996 comes along, there hadn't been a album out from them yet. The movie "Don't Be A Menace.." was released and guess who was on the soundtrack? No other than the Wu-Tang! People were amazed by the track "Winter Warz", and people were listening to Blue Raspberry first solo track which is on the album. After the track was released, people thought that was going to be their next song, but it end up being Ghost Face's track.

People were disappointed from the quality of the music, and people started to say "The Wu has started to recycle beats, and they're selling out.", then the Wu-Tang fans started to get upset with tracks like "Wu Wear" saying it's wack, or is one of the Wu-Tang's weaker joints. Wu-Tang fans started to lose faith in the Wu-Tang, and started to lose interest in their music. But that didn't matter, it just separated the real fans from the fake ones.
The Wu-Tang started to do songs for motion picture soundtracks, being placed on remixes, and wasn't putting albums together. For a long time people were waiting for "New World Order" to be released. New Wu family members started to come along, production was getting weak, then this summer the RZA was working on getting his own label called "Razor Sharp". About that time, Ol Dirty Bastard was arrested and was in jail for a while. RZA reported there was a flood inside the Wu-Tang's recording studio, and that's why everything was backed up.

Around April, some of the biggest news was released about Ghost Face releasing his LP on June 30th, but time passed by, and it wasn't released. "Daytona 500" started to get some air play on Hot 97 in New York, and no one didn't hear much from "Iron Man" except "Winter Warz" and "Motherless Child". After the RZA got his label, Epic/Sony gave out the track listings for "Iron Man", and said the album will be out October 29th. Then people started to see "Iron Man" commercials on Rap City, everyone was really getting hyped up. Then October 29th arrives, everyone rushes to the music stores, everyone rushes to the counter and grabs a copy of "Iron Man". People were like "Daaam! It's finally here." But people still wait for the Wu-Tang's second LP.

The RZA said in a Vibe Magazine issue back in 1994 that he was going to release solo albums from all the core members in the next 2 years, but its been over 2 years and 5 solo albums have came out. There now 10 members (Cappadona the 10th new member) and the Wu has accomplished a lot in the last 3 years. They done 6 albums, and been on several soundtracks.

We did get to buy a full length album this year from Ghost Face, but people are still waiting for Method man and Ol' Dirty Bastard's albums that were suppose to come out this year. U-God was suppose to release his LP too, Blue Raspberry, and Cappadona were suppose to release their debuts, but never did. The year is almost over, and the other albums have been pushed back in till 1997.
Ghost Face Killah, Raekwon, and Method Man kept busy this year. They did a lot of tracks on other peoples albums and done a few b-sides. I cant name them all off, but they had their share in hip-hop in the last few months. The Wu-Tang are busy people, do good music, and release a lot of music. They work together to bring you Shaolin's finest. We had 6 albums from them so far, that's a lot of material. If you count all the songs they done in the past, including RZA's work with the Gravdiggaz, included every remix and b-side they done, and every unreleased track they recorded, you proudly counted over 160 songs!