The Real Secret of Wu
OP-ED: Considering the Clan’s elusiveness on their 20th anniversary
By Chris Faraone
Originally published in Esquire (April 2013)
It’s been two whole decades since they climbed into the rap game like your neighborhood Spider-Man, yet the Wu-Tang Clan remains at the center of attention. N.W.A. is done. The Geto Boys are finished. G-Unit is a distant memory. But in a business where most acts have a shelf life of skim milk, the Wu still has more juice than any other crew, then or now.
With the 20-year anniversary of Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) upon us, a lot of air and ink have been expended trying to explain why. A few admirers have argued that the group’s singular and intensely arcane beats and rhymes are the secret. More enlightened commentators have attributed the Wu’s prosperity to RZA’s bold business plan, in which all his soldiers are pushed to secure solo deals beyond the hive — an arrangement that’s been winningly replicated by cliques ranging from Dipset to Odd Future.
But, as a journalist who has spent a lot of time around the edges of the Clan, and even written liner notes for some of their records, I find that the recent swarm of salutes misses the real reason that they still thrive after all these years. It’s simple: unlike other rap acts of their caliber, which desperately whore themselves out for cheeseburger ads and guest verses, Wu-Tang has remained elusive, tightly controlling information and access, and essentially maintaining an unprecedented scarcity to keep fanatics fiending for more.
Their debut album cover featured the posse creeping in anonymous ninja garb. They’ve rarely given group interviews, and they don’t desperately leak rumors for attention. They arrive at their own shows ridiculously late, if at all, and habitually postpone release dates. They even abuse their own labels. Legend has it that after an uninvited A&R guy visited Miami to check up on Ghostface Killah’s progress during the Supreme Clientele sessions, the rapper flew to New York just to tell executives, “Motherfuckers, you can taste my cake when I’m done baking it!” None of the members have conceded this to me personally, but RZA lays the strategy down front-and-center on “Reunited,” the lead single off the collective’s then-long-awaited sophomore return, Forever: “Grow like a fetus with no hands and feet to complete us / and we return like Jesus, when the whole world need us.”
I’ve seen this strategy in action firsthand over the last 15 years. Save for Alvin Blanco and a handful of other obsessive rap journalists, I’ve probably exerted more energy than anybody on chasing the Wu and interpreting their expressionism. I even have the logo prominently tattooed on my arm. And yet all of my most profound Clan memories are disappointments.
