Ny Wu-Tang Clan Intervju!!!!
Intervjun
WU-TANG CLAN
There's strength in numbers. And when the loose amalgamation of MCs and sound sculptors leapt straight outta Staten with a little something called "Protect Ya Neck" in 1992, hip-hop witnessed the birth of a somewhat mysterious and perpetually captivating crew. Wu leader RZA has called the Clan's sound "organized chaos," and the way that Method Man, Raekwon, Ol' Dirty Bastard, Ghostface Killah, Inspectah Deck, GZA, U-God, and the rest produced their dense, artful, and philosophical tracks was often mesmerizing. Here are the principals recounting their own history.
GETTING IT TOGETHER
INSPECTAH DECK: Wu-Tang Clan coming together happened way back when we was in junior high school together -- myself, Raekwon, Method Man, U-God, we all from the same neighborhood, Park Hill in Staten Island. RZA, Ol' Dirty and the GZA's from Brooklyn, so we used to all meet over at RZA's house every night, get on them tracks and rhyme all night on the balcony.
GZA: We all came together around '92. RZA had already made demos with several of us. He decided to bring us all together as one group after unsuccessful deals that we had with other labels such as Tommy Boy and Cold Chillin' Records.
U-GOD: We didn't purposely like say, "Yo, we gonna make a group," it just so happened certain brothers come together with a common cause and wanted to do the same thing -- wanted to get out of the ghetto, wanted to stop selling drugs, wanted to change their life around and wanted to become something. We happened to develop at a early age -- we popped off platinum records. I was a baby, some dudes like RZA was 21, I was 16, 17, I was younger than that. We had a plan and we just carried it.
WHAT IS WU-TANG?
RZA: Wu-Tang represented a sword style, and when you're a lyricist, your tongue is your sword. So we got the illest lyrical style out there, and with our double-edged sword we gonna slice through all the competition. Wu-Tang is actually a Chinese word that's pronounced woo-dung, or woo-dang. The word comes from a man named General Wu who had migrated to these mountains to find himself. When he finally found himself they said he jumped off the mountain into the valley and he became a god and they named the mountain Wu-Tang Mountain, meaning where man became God or the man who was deserving of God or deserved to be a god.
GZA: We were all karate flick fans since we were young. And basically that's what inspired it. Some of our other influences were art, science, mathematics, other MCs and hip-hop in general-break-dancing, graffiti, DJ-ing, MC-ing, rhyming. All of the above. Life itself.
MASTA KILLA: Clan is family, you know. I grew up with people coming together for one common cause.
U-GOD: Witty, unpredictable, talent and natural game -- that is the meaning of Wu-Tang Clan.
REPRESENTING THE EAST COAST
RAEKWON: I feel like we was influential to the game at the time, when the West had it popping, everything out there was basically gangsta funk. You wasn't really hearing it crank outta the East like that. So we definitely came with our little sword style of rhyming at the right time, 'cause the game was getting corny.
MASTA KILLA: Sometimes when you start out on a mission, you don't even really know what you into or what you doing, you just going down the road. And when you turn back around, you realize, "Damn, I'm doing this?" But when you start out, you didn't look at it as "I'm