It is a panoramic showcase of a group at the peak of the powers they would never quite recapture. This is as savage but controlled an example you’ll ever hear of blowing up on your own terms, without compromise. Everyone except ODB, who briefly plays hypeman, is unchained on the mic.

Opening with yet another of the finest verses in the Inspectah Deck arsenal (and one of the Wu’s most unforgettable starting gun bars: “I bomb atomically, Socrates philosophies/And hypotheses can’t define how I be dropping these/Mockeries, lyrically perform armed robbery/Flee with the lottery, possibly they spotted me”), RZA launches a relentless, climbing orchestral payload which almost banishes any memories of the rickety beats which birthed his legend. The album’s lead single inverted that formula, infamously clocking in at almost six minutes with no hook and still generating the white hot radio energy which powered that very same promotion. In truth, you could do a follow-up list of ten more of a barely less certified quality, and maybe I will one day!įrom Wu-Tang Clan – “Wu-Tang Forever” (1997)ġ997’s “Wu-Tang Forever” was the commercial peak for the collective, a furious crescendo of hype ultimately dead-stopped by one of the first and biggest examples of prioritising bloat over bounty in the hip hop genre. Using a base definition which includes at least three of the aforementioned figures on any track, I have attempted here to do right by what I would consider the ten most vital, powerful of the Wu Bangaz. The term “Wu Banga” entered the lexicon for any track featuring multiple of RZA, GZA, Ghostface Killah, Raekwon, U-God, Inspectah Deck, Masta Killa, Method Man and the late Ol’ Dirty Bastard, not to mention numerous affiliates of which Cappadonna, today a paid-up member, was the most prominent. His vision of the capabilities and possibilities for several of his lyricists saw him reimagine hip hop music a couple of times over, spawn burgeoning sub-genres and remould the vocabulary of the scene. By the time the collective’s second group album “Wu-Tang Forever” smashed to the top of the US charts in 1997, transitioning out of what would be known as the “First Wave” of the Wu-Tang Clan, RZA the musician had vaulted himself straight onto any Mount Rushmore of hip hop producers.

In the early 90s, RZA was busy assembling a crew of nine MCs from New York (including himself) with a plan for world domination.

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