RZA always envisioned the Wu-Tang Clan albums he produced from 1993-1997 as films.
“I was always trying to make movies as a producer for people to put the tape in their cars,” said RZA. “I wanted people to experience [it] like a movie as they was headed somewhere listening to my music.”
Wu-Tang Clan stood out mostly because a hip-hop group with 10 members sounded absurd. Two rappers and a DJ? Well, there’s Naughty By Nature or A Tribe Called Quest. Three rappers? De La Soul. And such as Hit Squad put multiple rappers on one song but Erick Sermon and Parrish Smith’s creation never officially called itself a group. Wu-Tang Clan tried something different and made it work because each member played a role and brought a different style to the proverbial table. GZA stands as Wu-Tang Clan’s conscience and most intellectual lyricist. Raekwon and Ghostface Killah serve as street hustler narrators and Ol’ Dirty Bastard was the wild card.
Wu-Tang: An American Saga, co-created by RZA, showed how the legendary hip-hop group came together with one common goal. Season One put all the chess pieces on the board and showed their lives in Staten Island, New York, as young Black men looking for a way out of their situations. The show gives glimpses of them coming together but it’s more concerned about laying the foundation for the individual members as people. Season Two finally brings them together as a group and shows them recording music, selling it out of their trunks, taking it to radio stations, and finally getting signed by a record label willing to acquiesce to RZA’s chief demand: Sign the Wu-Tang Clan as a group, but give members the chance to sign solo deals elsewhere.
As Season Two ends, 36 Chambers is a hit, Method Man’s solo album on Def Jam Records is on the way, and RZA starts working on album material for Ol’ Dirty Bastard, Raekwon and Ghostface Killah, and GZA.
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