Post by Dark 7 Invader on Jul 14, 2007 5:12:14 GMT -5
The mathematics should've worked out. 819 days after the death of Ol' Dirty Bastard {8 + 1 + 9 = 18; 1 + 8 = 9}, The RZA announced the forthcoming arrival of Wu-Tang Clan’s fifth release and first in nearly six years. Breaking down the digits, it all added up to 9, and there couldn’t be a number more abiding of the single greatest hip-hop group of all time. Not only does the seductively top-heavy numeral enumerate the group’s original members and their own genesis but also the origin of us all; there are 9 months in the gestation period of a human embryo. The number is so definitive to the New York crew that it now stands out as an era lost to the cruelly neutral cosmos of mathematics. You can’t mention 9 and Wu-Tang in the same breath without having to remind yourself of the need to subtract 1.
According to Supreme Mathematics—a Five Percent philosophy and belief of the Wu, used to describe the Earth’s mechanics—the number 9 means “to bring into existence,” and this meant everything to the group’s first record. It took 9 MCs, each with 4 chambers of the heart {2 atria, 2 ventricles}, to give rise to Enter the Wu-Tang: 36 Chambers {9 x 4 = 36}, and hip-hop was never the same. Referencing the Kung Fu films that Wu-Tang so revered, the Clan arrived onto the rap scene with the 36 chambers of hip-hop mastery when everyone else was striving to attain the knowledge of 35 lessons. With 108 pressure points on the human body {1 + 0 + 8 = 9}, only the Wu-Tang seemed to grasp that 36 of those are deadly {9 + 36 = 45; 4 + 5 = 9}. Enter the Wu-Tang was so definitive that when they released a self-aggrandizing, double-disc sophomore album four years later called Wu-Tang Forever, no one even f**king blinked. No artist or group—hip-hop or not, before or since—has defined itself by such a brilliantly conjured and successfully united mythology. And though 9, and thus 36, was the key, it certainly wasn’t the entirety.
From the announcement of death to that of birth, it all seemed so simple then. Wu- Tang Clan’s fifth record would be called 8 Diagrams, finishing off the trio of classic martial arts flicks that helped define the group’s mythology, and the math continued to add up. 8 members to record 8 Diagrams {8 x 8 = 64}—it’s as if 9 members couldn’t balance the equation. God bless Ol’ Dirty Bastard’s soul, but maybe he had to die so 8 Diagrams could be born. One door closes and another door opens, like the black and white of a chessboard’s 64 squares. Chess is a paramount part of the Wu—from constantly spinning lyrical metaphors to the cover of GZA’s Liquid Swords, perhaps the greatest Clan solo project—and the 64 squares extend beyond the board. It is an equally life-defining integer and an organic evolution not only of the crew’s numerology but also of its history.
“64 is a very important mathematical number,” says The RZA, sitting near the back staircase of Hollywood’s Roosevelt Hotel. “You add 6 and 4, of course, you get 10. You add 1 and 0, you come back around to get 1—knowledge, the foundation for all things in existence.”
But existence might not happen. The math might be all wrong. Unlike 1993, when hip-hop was redefined by the gritty streets of Shaolin, and unlike 1997, when Wu-Tang helped save hip-hop from shiny-suited R&B hooks in the wake of The Notorious B.I.G.’s and Tupac’s tragic deaths, 2007 might not mean the resurrection of Wu-Tang and, in turn, hip-hop. 2 + 0 + 0 + 7 = 9. But that’s not Wu-Tang’s number anymore.
SMALLEST INTEGER WITH EXACTLY 7 DIVISORS
“If Wu-Tang is foolish enough, and it’s possible to be foolish,” RZA says with a wide-eyed look of devastating reality, “if however many members of Wu-Tang are foolish enough to fall for the bureaucracy of the industry in 2007, then they are fooling themselves and taking themselves
out of the realm of heaven.”
9 members meant 9 personalities meant 9 individual egos, and sometimes that worked {9 x 9 x 9 = 729; 7 + 2 + 9 = 18; 1 + 8 = 9}. The dynamics inspired some of the greatest art of the past 20 years, as well as some of art’s biggest frustrations. 64 can be divided by 64, 32, 16, 8, 4, 2 and 1, but Wu-Tang has faced uncounted divisors on all fronts. After reinventing the industry in 1993 by forcing a contract with Loud Records that allowed the members solo deals by other labels, those same industry forces have turned on Wu-Tang over and over again.
From Method Man telling Blender that RZA’s brother, and Wu-Tang Corporation’s co- CEO, Divine is “number one on my nuts-list” to U-God blaming RZA for his lack of solo success to nobody reportedly visiting Dirty in jail, it’s never been a rap utopia. And though members have always returned for the good of the W, things are proving most difficult in 2007.
“If the business is not taken care of [then] there will be no album or tour,” says Raekwon’s manager, Mel Carter, via e-mail. Raekwon canceled his appearance at the Wu’s scheduled photo shoot for URB, and Bodog, 8 Diagrams’s European label, two days before the shoot was set to go down in mid May. Rock the Bells, the multimillion-dollar hip-hop bonanza, which Wu is scheduled to headline in August with Rage Against the Machine, has already sold out its run. It ain’t Wu-Tang without Raekwon’s inventive slang or infinitely quotable rhymes on “C.R.E.A.M.”
“When it comes to photos and press and all that nuts, I agree with anybody in the crew that say, ‘Yo, I want my business straight before I start talking to people,’” RZA says. “I understand that. I told them that’s their prerogative.”
Carter has since told URB that the business is “all good,” but the outside influence weighs heavy in RZA’s voice. Sometimes anger carries the brunt while other times it is an audible sadness, but it’s entirely unavoidable when more numbers are added into the mix.
“That’s a problem,” says RZA. “You talk to someone like Mel Carter, who’s my buddy or whatever. He’s not a Wu-Tang member. He could never understand the importance of what Wu-Tang is. He can only see it from a business point of view. Everybody be talking about the deals. f**k the deals. We aren’t special because of no deals; we special because when we come together, we make music that changes the world.”
Even without the dotted I’s and crossed T’s of a contract, Raekwon still came through and recorded new verses for 8 Diagrams. In fact, as of the beginning of June, everyone has come through and recorded new verses, at least three apiece, according to RZA, except Ghostface Killah.
Can Wu-Tang exist without Ghostface? In today’s world, Ghost is the Wu’s most relevant solo member. His Supreme Clientele, is widely credited as keeping the group afloat, and his recent string of prolificacy has built up the greatest body of solo work. He was also RZA’s roommate when Wu-Tang Clan was created and perhaps, most significantly, the first Clansman to unsheathe his sword on the first song of their first album.
“I told Ghost, ‘Yo, I’ll do this album without you, Ghost,’” says RZA. “‘I’ll do it without you, man, because it ain’t about you; it ain’t about me; it’s about Wu-Tang. It’s about what it means to the people. It ain’t about what it means to us no more.’”
With the loss of Ol’ Dirty Bastard, the Clan’s number shrunk from 9 to 8...4 x 9 = 36...8 x 8 = 64. 7 may be the God number, but 7 is only prime because it has no product other than itself and one. There is no Wu-Tang with 7, regardless of what RZA says.
64 CELLS
What begins as conception, when sperm and egg meet, turns to meiosis when a cell splits into 2 cells, then into 4, then 8, then 16, then 32 and eventually arrives at 64 {2 + 4 + 8 + 16 + 32 + 64 = 126; 1 + 2 + 6 = 9}. Before life exists, it spreads. There wouldn’t even be concern about
Wu-Tang’s fifth album if it weren’t for the influence of 36 Chambers and the 14 years of Wu that have passed since.
The only place to begin is the beginning, and the only things found there are words like “blueprint,” “renaissance” and “revolutionary.” It was a time when hip-hop was dominated by the two extremes of Dr. Dre and the Native Tongues crew: lush, G-funk bass complemented by gangsta mantras and, respectively, jazzy samples accompanied by textbook cleverisms. Dre defined the West Coast while Tribe, De La and the rest were too ethereal to claim earthly locations, so for the first time in hip-hop history, New York was without a definitive sound. Then, a sample from the Gordon Liu-helmed film Shaolin vs. Wu-Tang came from the gutter before turning into the grimiest drums anyone had ever heard, and the streets of New York were defined on record so thoroughly that listeners could practically smell the piss.
The sophistication of Wu-Tang’s street persona rarely moved dance floors—even RZA leaves the Roosevelt Hotel’s club when the DJ strings together too many Wu cuts—but it was something worth listening to, especially when weed was in the air. f**k, there are 88 castanet claps on the idiophonic-heavy “Wu-Tang Clan Ain’t Nuthin’ Ta F’ With,” just like the 88 keys on a piano—but the only piano within hearing distance is leering in the corner with a butcher knife. The lyrics of these 9 MCs with 9 immediately differential voices used comic books, Five Percent knowledge, chess and Kung Fu films to narrate complicated tales of New York life at the tail-end of its crack era.
That revolutionary renaissance left a blueprint for The Notorious B.I.G., Jay-Z, Nas, Mobb Deep and countless others throughout the ’90s . . .and that’s only ’70s babies. Even in today’s hip-hop world, the slang and Mafioso aspirations laid by Raekwon and Ghostface Killah— especially on Only Built 4 Cuban Linx—are unavoidable in the lyrics of Clipse, Young Jeezy, Lil’ Wayne and more. It’s an artistic expression that, regardless of its high-minded origins and perhaps unavoidable progressions, has become the politically correct cop-out for criticizing the black community in America.
“Everyone in my crew is either a dropout or a felon. And to have that side of America express art was different,” RZA says before quieting down, “but at the same time, it was detrimental. Because now you have guys who have more of a wild-style mentality, the ghetto-hood type of life, and it followed us and caught up to us in one way or another by making us a target.”
According to Supreme Mathematics—a Five Percent philosophy and belief of the Wu, used to describe the Earth’s mechanics—the number 9 means “to bring into existence,” and this meant everything to the group’s first record. It took 9 MCs, each with 4 chambers of the heart {2 atria, 2 ventricles}, to give rise to Enter the Wu-Tang: 36 Chambers {9 x 4 = 36}, and hip-hop was never the same. Referencing the Kung Fu films that Wu-Tang so revered, the Clan arrived onto the rap scene with the 36 chambers of hip-hop mastery when everyone else was striving to attain the knowledge of 35 lessons. With 108 pressure points on the human body {1 + 0 + 8 = 9}, only the Wu-Tang seemed to grasp that 36 of those are deadly {9 + 36 = 45; 4 + 5 = 9}. Enter the Wu-Tang was so definitive that when they released a self-aggrandizing, double-disc sophomore album four years later called Wu-Tang Forever, no one even f**king blinked. No artist or group—hip-hop or not, before or since—has defined itself by such a brilliantly conjured and successfully united mythology. And though 9, and thus 36, was the key, it certainly wasn’t the entirety.
From the announcement of death to that of birth, it all seemed so simple then. Wu- Tang Clan’s fifth record would be called 8 Diagrams, finishing off the trio of classic martial arts flicks that helped define the group’s mythology, and the math continued to add up. 8 members to record 8 Diagrams {8 x 8 = 64}—it’s as if 9 members couldn’t balance the equation. God bless Ol’ Dirty Bastard’s soul, but maybe he had to die so 8 Diagrams could be born. One door closes and another door opens, like the black and white of a chessboard’s 64 squares. Chess is a paramount part of the Wu—from constantly spinning lyrical metaphors to the cover of GZA’s Liquid Swords, perhaps the greatest Clan solo project—and the 64 squares extend beyond the board. It is an equally life-defining integer and an organic evolution not only of the crew’s numerology but also of its history.
“64 is a very important mathematical number,” says The RZA, sitting near the back staircase of Hollywood’s Roosevelt Hotel. “You add 6 and 4, of course, you get 10. You add 1 and 0, you come back around to get 1—knowledge, the foundation for all things in existence.”
But existence might not happen. The math might be all wrong. Unlike 1993, when hip-hop was redefined by the gritty streets of Shaolin, and unlike 1997, when Wu-Tang helped save hip-hop from shiny-suited R&B hooks in the wake of The Notorious B.I.G.’s and Tupac’s tragic deaths, 2007 might not mean the resurrection of Wu-Tang and, in turn, hip-hop. 2 + 0 + 0 + 7 = 9. But that’s not Wu-Tang’s number anymore.
SMALLEST INTEGER WITH EXACTLY 7 DIVISORS
“If Wu-Tang is foolish enough, and it’s possible to be foolish,” RZA says with a wide-eyed look of devastating reality, “if however many members of Wu-Tang are foolish enough to fall for the bureaucracy of the industry in 2007, then they are fooling themselves and taking themselves
out of the realm of heaven.”
9 members meant 9 personalities meant 9 individual egos, and sometimes that worked {9 x 9 x 9 = 729; 7 + 2 + 9 = 18; 1 + 8 = 9}. The dynamics inspired some of the greatest art of the past 20 years, as well as some of art’s biggest frustrations. 64 can be divided by 64, 32, 16, 8, 4, 2 and 1, but Wu-Tang has faced uncounted divisors on all fronts. After reinventing the industry in 1993 by forcing a contract with Loud Records that allowed the members solo deals by other labels, those same industry forces have turned on Wu-Tang over and over again.
From Method Man telling Blender that RZA’s brother, and Wu-Tang Corporation’s co- CEO, Divine is “number one on my nuts-list” to U-God blaming RZA for his lack of solo success to nobody reportedly visiting Dirty in jail, it’s never been a rap utopia. And though members have always returned for the good of the W, things are proving most difficult in 2007.
“If the business is not taken care of [then] there will be no album or tour,” says Raekwon’s manager, Mel Carter, via e-mail. Raekwon canceled his appearance at the Wu’s scheduled photo shoot for URB, and Bodog, 8 Diagrams’s European label, two days before the shoot was set to go down in mid May. Rock the Bells, the multimillion-dollar hip-hop bonanza, which Wu is scheduled to headline in August with Rage Against the Machine, has already sold out its run. It ain’t Wu-Tang without Raekwon’s inventive slang or infinitely quotable rhymes on “C.R.E.A.M.”
“When it comes to photos and press and all that nuts, I agree with anybody in the crew that say, ‘Yo, I want my business straight before I start talking to people,’” RZA says. “I understand that. I told them that’s their prerogative.”
Carter has since told URB that the business is “all good,” but the outside influence weighs heavy in RZA’s voice. Sometimes anger carries the brunt while other times it is an audible sadness, but it’s entirely unavoidable when more numbers are added into the mix.
“That’s a problem,” says RZA. “You talk to someone like Mel Carter, who’s my buddy or whatever. He’s not a Wu-Tang member. He could never understand the importance of what Wu-Tang is. He can only see it from a business point of view. Everybody be talking about the deals. f**k the deals. We aren’t special because of no deals; we special because when we come together, we make music that changes the world.”
Even without the dotted I’s and crossed T’s of a contract, Raekwon still came through and recorded new verses for 8 Diagrams. In fact, as of the beginning of June, everyone has come through and recorded new verses, at least three apiece, according to RZA, except Ghostface Killah.
Can Wu-Tang exist without Ghostface? In today’s world, Ghost is the Wu’s most relevant solo member. His Supreme Clientele, is widely credited as keeping the group afloat, and his recent string of prolificacy has built up the greatest body of solo work. He was also RZA’s roommate when Wu-Tang Clan was created and perhaps, most significantly, the first Clansman to unsheathe his sword on the first song of their first album.
“I told Ghost, ‘Yo, I’ll do this album without you, Ghost,’” says RZA. “‘I’ll do it without you, man, because it ain’t about you; it ain’t about me; it’s about Wu-Tang. It’s about what it means to the people. It ain’t about what it means to us no more.’”
With the loss of Ol’ Dirty Bastard, the Clan’s number shrunk from 9 to 8...4 x 9 = 36...8 x 8 = 64. 7 may be the God number, but 7 is only prime because it has no product other than itself and one. There is no Wu-Tang with 7, regardless of what RZA says.
64 CELLS
What begins as conception, when sperm and egg meet, turns to meiosis when a cell splits into 2 cells, then into 4, then 8, then 16, then 32 and eventually arrives at 64 {2 + 4 + 8 + 16 + 32 + 64 = 126; 1 + 2 + 6 = 9}. Before life exists, it spreads. There wouldn’t even be concern about
Wu-Tang’s fifth album if it weren’t for the influence of 36 Chambers and the 14 years of Wu that have passed since.
The only place to begin is the beginning, and the only things found there are words like “blueprint,” “renaissance” and “revolutionary.” It was a time when hip-hop was dominated by the two extremes of Dr. Dre and the Native Tongues crew: lush, G-funk bass complemented by gangsta mantras and, respectively, jazzy samples accompanied by textbook cleverisms. Dre defined the West Coast while Tribe, De La and the rest were too ethereal to claim earthly locations, so for the first time in hip-hop history, New York was without a definitive sound. Then, a sample from the Gordon Liu-helmed film Shaolin vs. Wu-Tang came from the gutter before turning into the grimiest drums anyone had ever heard, and the streets of New York were defined on record so thoroughly that listeners could practically smell the piss.
The sophistication of Wu-Tang’s street persona rarely moved dance floors—even RZA leaves the Roosevelt Hotel’s club when the DJ strings together too many Wu cuts—but it was something worth listening to, especially when weed was in the air. f**k, there are 88 castanet claps on the idiophonic-heavy “Wu-Tang Clan Ain’t Nuthin’ Ta F’ With,” just like the 88 keys on a piano—but the only piano within hearing distance is leering in the corner with a butcher knife. The lyrics of these 9 MCs with 9 immediately differential voices used comic books, Five Percent knowledge, chess and Kung Fu films to narrate complicated tales of New York life at the tail-end of its crack era.
That revolutionary renaissance left a blueprint for The Notorious B.I.G., Jay-Z, Nas, Mobb Deep and countless others throughout the ’90s . . .and that’s only ’70s babies. Even in today’s hip-hop world, the slang and Mafioso aspirations laid by Raekwon and Ghostface Killah— especially on Only Built 4 Cuban Linx—are unavoidable in the lyrics of Clipse, Young Jeezy, Lil’ Wayne and more. It’s an artistic expression that, regardless of its high-minded origins and perhaps unavoidable progressions, has become the politically correct cop-out for criticizing the black community in America.
“Everyone in my crew is either a dropout or a felon. And to have that side of America express art was different,” RZA says before quieting down, “but at the same time, it was detrimental. Because now you have guys who have more of a wild-style mentality, the ghetto-hood type of life, and it followed us and caught up to us in one way or another by making us a target.”