One of hip hop’s most important groups Wu Tang Clan are “the black Beatles”, group member Raekwon has claimed.
Emerging from a hip hop scene obsessed with guns and machismo, Wu Tang Clan seemed more like a way of like than a rap group. Blending Eastern mysticism (by way of kung fu movies) with street knowledge the band crafted a series of classic album.
Yet Wu Tang’s line up was always fluctuating. The band members have always split off to do their own thing, with the likes of GZA, RZA and Raekwon all released stone cold classic long players under their own name.
Recently united for a tour of Australia, the group caused huge controversy down under when only some group members united for the shows.
Disappointed fans vented their grievances, with MC Raekwon explaining to Australian radio station Triple J that the days of whole band shows were over.
“Well you know, everybody’s basically doing their thing right now” he claimed.
“You know, we been in the business for a long time so everybody’s just continuing to do their own artistry alone right now. You know, we done did the Wu-Tang together, albums, we done dropped that but we always told the world that we had individuality, things that we wanted to do ourselves.”
“So these are the days where, fourteen, fifteen years later, everybody’s still surfacing, dropping their albums. We’re the black Beatles man, that’s all I’m gonna tell you.”
Raekwon of course is continually working on solo material. The rapper recently teamed up with Black Keys for the all star Blakrok project, which features a variety of guest MCs including Mos Def and late Wu Tang star Ol’ Dirty Bastard.
