Wu-Tang Clan: A Country For Old Men

It was the late summer of 1997, and the Wu-Tang Clan was imploding. The two-fisted Staten Island, N.Y. Hip-Hop crew had been on the road with radical leftist rockers Rage Against The Machine on one of the summer’s most buzzy and infamous tours. The gloriously combustible union between the two counter-culture behemoths was a ‘90s kid’s fever dream.  

The double-platinum Wu-Tang Clan was certainly an inspired pick as touring mates for Rage Against The Machine. Along with unconventional mastermind and producer, the RZA, the ragtag army included a murderer’s row of boundless, hood-stamped lyricists — the GZA, Raekwon the Chef, Inspectah Deck, Method Man, Ol’ Dirty Bastard, Ghostface Killah, U-God, and Masta Killa. Their philosophy was a bewildering mix of Kung Fu film fandom, harrowing street testimonies, and Five Percent Nation ideology. 

But cracks had already begun to appear. There were frequent issues over the $45,000 that the Wu was being paid per performance. Back then, such a figure was a tidy sum, especially for a nuclear hot act whose sophomore double album, Wu-Tang Forever, had just sold a whopping 612,000 copies its first week of release. Yet the large makeup of the crew was starting to take a toll. Members frequently missed shows. There was grumbling amongst the clique that they had forsaken their around-the-way base for Rage’s largely white suburban followers. 

“We were some young, dumb gangsters back then until we got our sh*t together.”—Raekwon

It was during an Aug. 29 show in Tinley Park, Ill., when the bottom completely fell out. There were backstage reports that some members of the Wu beat up a promotions manager who worked for their home label, Loud Records. The next day, the group officially jumped ship.

“It is my understanding, through the twisted labyrinth that is the communication system of the Wu-Tang Clan, that they’re not playing any more shows on the tour in part because of difficulties they’re having within their own group,” said Rage guitarist and leader Tom Morello in a press release. 

Nearly 30 years later, Ghostface Killah is in an immaculate mood on a rainy August evening. The acclaimed wordsmith is basking in the glow of the warm reception surrounding his newest release, Supreme Clientele 2, the proper sequel to his 2000 classic. “I know how important that album is,” Ghostface says of the daunting task of recording a follow-up to Supreme Clientele, one of his most celebrated solo statements in Wu-Tang Clan lore. “But I never felt any kind of nervousness. That never came to mind.”

Ghost professed he reveled in the throwback energy of Hip-Hop’s Golden Age on Supreme Clientele 2 tracks like the first single “Rap Kingpin” and “Beat Box.” He admitted he gets a tad uncomfortable when asked to ponder his legacy (“I really don’t be tripping off that stuff…”). But it’s not until the subject turns to his Wu brothers that you realize the wide-eyed irony of the collective’s full circle evolution. 

This past summer, the Wu-Tang Clan embarked on a 27-date concert tour in June and July dubbed The Final Chamber. It was one of the more intriguing concert industry success stories, grossing $30.6 million, according toBillboard Boxscore. And there were no crackups like in ’97.

This time around, all the original Wu members, along with slang master Cappadonna and the son of the late wild man ODB, Young Dirty Bastard, presented a strong, energetic, united front. This was a heart-on-the-sleeve showing that featured such crew classics as “Da Mystery of Chessboxin’,” “Wu-Tang Clan Ain’t Nuthing ta F’ Wit,” and “Triumph” as well as celebrated solo cuts by Method Man (“Bring the Pain”); Raekwon (‘Incarcerated Scarfaces”); the GZA (“Liquid Swords”); Ghostface Killah (“Holla”); and ODB (“Shimmy Shimmy Ya”).      

“We were some young, dumb gangsters back then until we got our sh*t together,” Raekwon said of the Clan’s turbulent journey while at the group’s capacity-packed July 16 gig at New York’s crown jewel, Madison Square Garden. The Wu’s triumphant return especially hit home, given that when the rhyme troop first hit the scene in the early ’90s, Staten Island, known as a haven for cops and firefighters, was virtually a punchline in New York’s Bronx-Queens-Brooklyn dominant scene. “It’s amazing to be in the game 30 years and to sell out [MSG] ,” an overwhelmed Method Man added. “That sh*t is ridiculous.”

Ghostface echoes his Wu mates. “Yes, it’s surreal,” he says of the 2025 Wu love fest. “To see how we developed up to this stage is crazy. Like damn, we still headlining tours. And then for us to still be writing at the level that we are writing at is like, okay, now you get the chance to really see who the true masters are.” 

It’s almost inconceivable that the same rappers hailing from the Slums of Shaolin that warned the world to “Protect Ya Neck” on their landmark 1993 debut, Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers), have become cuddly, elder statesmen. They are all practically family men now (GFK himself has one daughter and three sons). In an Oct. 15 interview with People, Inspectah Deck opened up about how raising kids has mellowed the once wild bunch. 

“My daughter is going to medical school. My son’s about to start art school. I have a young one.” Deck said. “Everyone’s growing, families are growing now. RZA’s son plays in our band. Some of us are grandfathers, and so I understand the life cycle. I’m not trying to stop what’s the natural progression of things. You can’t hold on to everything forever. But Wu-Tang is forever.”

“Not everybody is going to love you. But in certain people’s eyes we did something right.”—Ghostface

The Clan has grown so respectable in recent years, in fact, that their music can frequently be heard in corporate television ads. Ghostface’s frenetic 2006 joint, “The Champ,” anchors Amazon Prime. NIKE tapped the group’s catalog for their 2024 New York Knicks player-featured, Wu-Tang Can Dunk Highs Killer Bees campaign. Raekwon appeared in a Super Bowl TV commercial for DoorDash, reacting drolly to a shopper reciting the lyrics to the Wu’s classic single. “C.R.E.A.M.” And there are commercials featuring ODB’s “I Got Your Money” (LG WashTower) and the RZA (Apple Watch).  

Yet Madison Avenue co-signs and high-profile sit-downs with instant viral podcasters Shannon Sharpe and Chad “Ochocinco” Johnson, Fat Joe and Jadakiss, and Smartless would just be stuck in mere sentimentality if the grizzled Wu vets weren’t still lyrically sharp. 

“There is the nostalgia of having their music in our DNA,” says Yves “DJ Whoo Kid” Mondesir, longtime New York Hip-Hop tastemaker and SHADE 45 radio host. “But the Wu are showing that Hip-Hop is back. All these young rappers can’t f*ck with them. The older artists are taking it back.”

For Grammy-winning icon DJ Premier, often celebrated as one of Hip-Hop’s most influential producers alongside old rival and friend the RZA, the Wu transcends fads. “Ghostface reminds me of the era I grew up in,” Preemo explains. “I’m 59 years old, so he sounds like he’s spitting over some ’86 breakbeats, but for today. That’s the Wu-Tang Clan. Timeless.”

Indeed, there’s something downright inspiring about witnessing Method Man, 54, jump from his professional working actor bag to reclaiming his spot as one of rap’s most charismatic voices still capable of turning heads with a random, rewind-worthy freestyle like him and Raekwon on 50 Cent’s “Window Shopper.” In April, all nine living members of the Wu appeared on the Mathematics-produced limited release Black Samson, the Bastard Swordsman. 

Last July, Raekwon dropped his eighth studio album, The Emperor’s New Clothes, to critical acclaim. Hearing the Chef and an in-the-zone Nas on the standout track “The Omerta” is like being transported back to the youthful pair’s classic Only Built 4 Cuban Linx deep cut, “Verbal Intercourse.”

Yet perhaps the award for the most WU-TANG CLAN (!!!) statement in years goes to Ghostface’s “The Trial” from Starks’ Supreme Clientele 2. The concept record, featuring GFK’s fellow spitters Raekwon, Method Man, and the GZA, is essentially a courtroom drama on wax. It’s the type of high art recording made for Hip-Hop nerds. 

“That was a fun one,” Ghostface recalls. “The Trial” is me and Rae on the stand facing a case. We were going back and forth with that one for about a year and [a] half. Rae finally coughed it up, and my brother was like, ‘Yo, you need to get the Genius and Meth on it.’ Meth plays the judge. He got his sh*t done in one day. The Genius was taking all day… you know how he is [laughs] . He did his verse two months later.”

Of course, this is the kind of good-natured, brotherly ribbing that can only come with decades of fighting in the trenches together. The Wu-Tang Clan can be an unmitigated mess (U-God filed a lawsuit against RZA and his brother Mitchell “Divine” Diggs, CEO of Wu-Tang Productions, in 2016 over royalties and placed blame on the producer over the group’s breakup in his 2018 memoir RAW: My Journey Into the Wu-Tang). 

But in the end, the Wu is too big to fail. In a bit of ultimate Hip-Hop karma, Martin Shkreli, the disgraced “Pharma Bro” who was forced to forfeit ownership of the one-of-a-kind Wu-Tang Clan album Once Upon a Time in Shaolin following his securities fraud conviction, currently faces a lawsuit for copying the work and playing it online without permission. (Shkreli purchased the auctioned album back in 2015 for a record $2 million and was later universally rebuked for raising the price of a life-saving, anti-infective drug Daraprim overnight.)

There are plans to extend the Clan’s successful “final” jaunt overseas in 2026. Last June, Raekwon unveiled the trailer for the much-anticipated documentary for his seminal Only Built 4 Cuban Linx release titled The Purple Tape Files, featuring appearances by the Chef’s OB4CL partner-in-rhyme Ghostface, Kendrick Lamar, Snoop Dogg, and Mobb Deep’s Havoc, Method Man, along with other Wu alumni. That same month, RZA debuted his martial arts indie film One Spoon of Chocolate at the Tribeca Film Festival. And Ghost is eyeing a Supreme Clientele 2 tour. 

Both Rae and Ghost are featured on the Oct. 10 Mobb Deep set Infinite, which includes unreleased, posthumous bars from late rhyme great Prodigy. And Method Man recently updated his long-in-the-making team-up album with Mobb spitter and all-world producer Havoc. “We are still working on our Covid album we started in 2019,” Meth recently told TMZof the project called Dirty P, a release that serves as a tribute to both ODB and the aforementioned Prodigy. “It needed some tracks, and it should be out soon. Havoc is a master of his sound. He has mastered sound like RZA.”

“We are trying to figure some things out,” says Ghostface when asked about the Wu’s next move. Ghost recently postponed his Supreme Clientele 2Tour due to, strangely enough, the government shutdown.)When asked his thoughts on Raekwon proudly hailing his brothers as “one of one,” he responds in classic GFK fashion. “You know, not everybody is going to love you,” he says. “But in certain people’s eyes, we did something right.”

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Photo: Getty