You may find this hard to believe, but hip-hop existed long before gushing hacks were wiping their weeping bellends on Odd Future’s altar. Although it was released almost 18 years ago, Wu-Tang’s astonishing debut LP still sits as uneasily today with OFWGKTA’s dubious mix of schlocky horror and queer-bashing as it did against the G-Funk onslaught back in 1993. Their stoned mysticism, obsession with obscure Kung-Fu films and horrifying accounts of life in the Staten Island slums were the stuff of middle-class, white boy dreams. Even this bitter scribe can remember when the only two albums everyone owned in school were ‘(What’s The Story) Morning Glory’ and the Wu’s gargantuan second effort ‘Wu-Tang Forever’. Christ, how many groups can even claim to have their own (hysterically awful) Playstation game, as they did with ‘99’s ‘Wu-Tang: Shaolin Style’?
Although hardly unusual for hip-hop, live gigs for Wu-Tang always seemed like something of a grudging obligation; an excuse to send grim hangers-on called things like Intrepid Foxx over to mumble their way through an embarrassing masquerade of a show. Indeed, from the off tonight, Wu-Tang are as reliably unreliable as ever – what’s billed as a ‘full reunion’ is lacking the group’s de facto leader RZA (unable to leave California due to ‘contractual commitments’, apparently), Raekwon and Inspectah Deck. Once inside, the proceedings follow a strict tick list of half-arsedness. They’ve neglected to bring any merchandise over. There’s a fuck-awful nu-metal band supporting. And the warm-up DJs spend half the time placating the crowd. Good start, lads.
When they predictably saunter on at well-past the advertised stage time (fucking hell, does ANYONE in hip-hop own a clock other than Flavor Flav?! ), the Wu announce their arrival with a flatulent, bass-heavy grunt from the PA. Make no mistake, the sound tonight is laughable; so bad, in fact, that it would reinforce your dad’s notion of the genre – that it’s all a bunch of indecipherably angry blokes shouting into a wind tunnel.
This is a particular indignity as the 75-minute set leans heavily on ‘36 Chambers’, exactly as the fanboys would hope. That album’s rough, skeletal, cold-sweat production is hopelessly lost tonight, to the point where only the most antagonistic numbers (‘Shame On A Nigga’, particularly) have any impact. Indeed, GZA – perhaps the most considered, intricate MC in the collective, so valued that they once remarked, “We form like Voltron, and GZA happens to be the head” – is completely mislaid in the mix altogether. Those who were arsed to get out of bed and get on the plane shamble around like old biddies in a supermarket, stumbling into and barking over one another’s rhymes. The crude cacophony of sound benefits the more aggro MCs, such as Ghostface Killah and Method Man to some extent, however. Perhaps predictably for a man who missed the Wu’s last London appearance to film an episode of CSI, Method trowels some Hollywood pizzazz over the evening; scurrying around the stage, diving into the crowd, and supplying the set’s undisputed highlight with his own ‘Method Man’, an absolutely fucking electric slab of self-aggrandisement.
Unfortunately, the Wu spend a large chunk of a relatively short set doing what can only be described as ‘bollocking around’. An ODB tribute is to be expected, but do we really need a shout-out to seemingly every rapper who ever died? Do we expect those from the ‘Slums of Shaolin’ to be bigging-up William & Kate? Do the audience need to hear about your fucking Twitter pages or gripes with the promoter? Tonight reaches a nadir in one of the most absurd stabs at product placement imaginable, when a flunky holds aloft a t-shirt at the back of the stage WHILST WU-TANG PERFORM. It goes without saying that Wu-Tang have never been adverse to expanding their market (the countless solo albums, the film scores, the clothing line attest to this), but they’ve lost their crucial element: danger.
There’s no sense that they’re doing this out of necessity any longer. In their mid-90s prime the Clan was the result of a bunch of enormously talented individuals fashioning their skills into something cooperatively great. Now, they have the demeanour of a lethargic travelling circus, slothfully reeling-out their back catalogue to the devotees, provided ‘outside interests’ do not deem otherwise. Those who still worship at the temple of Wu – who are animated and adoring throughout tonight – deserve better than this wet fart of a show for their 35 quid.
As ‘Triumph’ and a messy take on ‘Hand On The Pump’ ring-out, there’s only one question left to answer. Wu-Tang Forever? Nah, you’re alright, love. Let’s just remember the good times.
Originally appeared in CLASH Magazine
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