If Rackwon sounds more like a CEO than a rapper, you’ve got to consider the Staten Island-based Wu-Tang Clan’s five-year rise from obscurity to the top of hip-hop. Their 1993 debut, “Enter the 36 Chambers,” went platinum, and five spinoff solo albums all went platinum or gold. They’ve started a popular line of clothing called Wu-Wear and are making plans for Wu-World, a chain of entertainment centers, With Death Row Records in shambles and Bad Boy at a crossroads, Wu-Tang is now the creative center of hip-hop.
RZA, 27, is the man behind Wu-Tang’s unique sound, an ominous blend of creepy piano riffs, whiny horns, wailing fiddles and kung-fu movie samples that has Snoop Doggy Dogg, Beck, Bjork and U2 clamoring to work with him. RZA originally formed the Clan in 1992. He brought together eight of the best MCs he knew, inspired by the brotherhood themes in the “Shaolin vs. Wu-Tang” kung-fu flicks he loved as a child. In those movies, says RZA, “the tongue was always symbolized by a double-edged sword: what you say can either save you or kill you. Wu-Tang is the best fighting style, and we’re the best lyricists.” RZA asked everyone to chip in $100 to produce the hit single “Protect Ya Neck.” When major record labels came calling, he opted for an unprecedented deal with Loud Records, a small outfit distributed by RCA. The Clan took a modest advance, negotiating instead for creative control and the freedom to sign solo deals elsewhere.
The “Wu-Tang Forever” double CD is expected to debut at No. 1 this week even though no rappers were killed during the making of this album, a la Tupac Shakur or the Notorious B.I.G. In fact, Wu-Tang Clan members are ambivalent about the tales of drug dealing and gunplay that propelled them to the top. “We’ve changed,” says Method Man. “We don’t have to stick nogun in nobody’s face. We ain’t gotta sell nobody drugs. We’re businessmen, and we gotta write about that.” Rackwon elaborates in his own Wu way: “We can give them the raw, but at the same time, give them an understanding of why we’re giving them the raw.” An entire generation is listening, and Wu-Tang’s rappers are wielding their swords more carefully than ever.
