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Few groups have had more impact on the shape and evolution of hip-hop than Wu-Tang Clan, the Staten Island supergroup that helped define the sound of 1990s New York rap and transform the industry.<\/p>\n
And yet seeing Wu-Tang Clan perform a full-length concert in the flesh \u2014 all of the members onstage together \u2014 is a privilege not many have experienced. Even in its golden era, the Wu-Tang Clan was never a reliable touring unit. Its smaller shows were often unruly, and by the time the group graduated to bigger stages, performances were often undone by competing egos and unreliable artist attendance, to say nothing of the limits on the opportunities available to rough-edged rap stars in the 1990s and 2000s.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s so many places we really haven\u2019t been,\u201d RZA, the chief architect of the Wu-Tang Clan, said in an interview on Popcast<\/a>, The New York Times\u2019s music podcast. \u201cWe had some successful touring, right? But not at the level of what the brand is.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n He\u2019s aiming to fix that with Wu-Tang Forever: The Final Chamber, billed as the group\u2019s last tour, and the biggest road show it has undertaken as the headlining act, which will begin in June. All of the surviving original members \u2014 RZA, GZA, Raekwon, Ghostface Killah, Method Man, Inspectah Deck, U-God and Masta Killa \u2014 are slated to participate, as well as Cappadonna and Young Dirty Bastard, who will perform in place of his father, Ol\u2019 Dirty Bastard, who died in 2004<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The tour, RZA told Jon Caramanica and Joe Coscarelli, is the culmination of a five-plus-year plan of legacy-building for the Clan, including a multipart documentary series<\/a>, a dramatized mini-series<\/a>, several individual biographies and a Las Vegas residency<\/a>, the first for a hip-hop act.<\/p>\n On Popcast, RZA spoke about what it took to get the whole Clan on the same page; the opportunities that slipped through their fingers over the years; and inventing pathways for hip-hop acts that later became the norm. \u201cJay-Z was like, Yo, I got the blueprint from you,\u201d RZA recalled.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n These are edited excerpts from the conversation.<\/p>\n JOE COSCARELLI <\/strong>You\u2019re always creating, making new stuff, but you\u2019ve spent some time over the last five or six years really thinking about the legacy of what you built with Wu-Tang and making sure it is reflected correctly in the public record. When did you know it was time to glance in the rearview?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n RZA<\/strong> It was when other outlets started showing hip-hop and started looking back. There was a TV show on Netflix, \u201cHip-Hop Evolution.\u201d I was like, hold on, they\u2019re kind of skipping some [expletive], you know what I mean? If you miss a layer or a pillar of something, then the foundation is going to fall. When I realized that part of what was being skipped was our story \u2014 the Wu-Tang story and what we helped bring the culture of hip-hop and even pop culture \u2014 it was important for me to take charge and be sure to tell the story, and tell it the way I thought was best.<\/p>\n COSCARELLI <\/strong>As you started to move the chess pieces of this nostalgia moment for Wu-Tang, were you already imagining the next steps \u2014 the Vegas residency and now this tour \u2014 as you did 25 or 30 years ago when you started with a very deliberate map?<\/p>\n RZA<\/strong> It all was part of a plan. In the beginning there was a five-year plan. This time, there was two five-year plans. You have to start the first plan \u2014 the documentary to get to the series \u2014 and then that\u2019s going to build up to the first tour, New York State of Mind, with Nas. That\u2019s going to build up to the residency \u2014 a test run, at first \u2014 and that\u2019s going to lead to a final tour.<\/p>\n And then, after you complete that, if you\u2019ve succeeded in all those steps, you can potentially sit still at a residency and ride it out. We\u2019ve been blessed to be on course.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n COSCARELLI<\/strong> Does it start to become more successful because the guys see there\u2019s a regular check here and it\u2019s a bigger check than they\u2019re now going to make from recording music or touring solo? Is it driven by money or is it driven by the fact that it was clicking creatively?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n RZA<\/strong> I think both. It\u2019s business, so you\u2019ve got to be able to have some cheese on it. But I also think that for the Wu-Tang, the spirit gotta be right. If the spirit ain\u2019t right, you can\u2019t pay GZA to show up, straight up. You can\u2019t pay me to show up. And I think our spirits are right.<\/p>\n JON CARAMANICA<\/strong> Everybody\u2019s going to be on every date?<\/p>\n RZA <\/strong>Everybody has agreed<\/em>.<\/p>\n CARAMANICA<\/strong> That\u2019s not nothing. [Laughs]<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n RZA<\/strong> No, seriously. Everybody has agreed to do this. Everybody\u2019s agreed on the name. So we may come to your city, you\u2019ll see all of us together and that may be the last time you see us all together in the physical. You might watch us on TV, but we\u2019re not coming to your city again. We want you to come break bread with us.<\/p>\n COSCARELLI<\/strong> So what were the hurdles? Was there a holdout?<\/p>\n RZA<\/strong> You never know who \u2014 that\u2019s the point. You\u2019ll be like, I got everybo<\/em> \u2026 \u2014 oh, [expletive] \u2014 this guy! [Laughs]<\/p>\n The thing you can do, though, is just simply ask everybody what do they want, what do they need, how does it work for you, time-wise, dollar-wise, comfortability-wise? Somebody might be like, yo, listen, I don\u2019t want more than two people in the dressing room with me. OK, we can work that out.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n I\u2019ll take this to myself. I can be very \u2014 I\u2019m a film director, showrunner \u2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n CARAMANICA<\/strong> You\u2019re used to having things your way.<\/p>\n RZA<\/strong> That\u2019s a personality that you gotta have humility with.<\/p>\n COSCARELLI<\/strong> A control freak, some might call it.<\/p>\n RZA<\/strong> Some might call it! The know-it-all. That\u2019s an issue sometimes. Method Man said to me one day, \u201cYou always talk at<\/em> me.\u201d I just listened. I always ask my wife. She\u2019s like, you can be that way. So then I said let me ask him what he wants. The last brother I had to call is my teacher: the GZA. He can do almost anything he wants and I can\u2019t say nothing.<\/p>\n CARAMANICA<\/strong> You were prepared for a no?<\/p>\n RZA<\/strong> Yeah. I called him directly, no manager to manager. He didn\u2019t make the Vegas shows. I don\u2019t need an explanation from him. He\u2019s my teacher. I revere him, to be quite frank. But I said, here\u2019s the time, here\u2019s the flow, here\u2019s the business potential. Are you in? And he said, yeah, I\u2019m ready. That\u2019s a blessing.<\/p>\n COSCARELLI<\/strong> It\u2019s an impolite question, but does anyone pick up the phone and say, \u201cYeah, well, how much is so-and-so making?\u201d<\/p>\n RZA<\/strong> That could be happening on the managerial level.<\/p>\n COSCARELLI<\/strong> Because there is a hierarchy, I assume.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n RZA<\/strong> Oh, there is a hierarchy.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n COSCARELLI<\/strong> Have people accepted where they sit on that hierarchy after all these years? Do people know where they are in the power rankings?<\/p>\n RZA<\/strong> I don\u2019t have the answer to that. What I will say is that I think everyone can measure their own equations as they go out and face the world alone and see their value. And then if they come back to Wu and that value is at least that or better, you can measure that. If that value is less? Then you\u2019re going to have a problem.<\/p>\n CARAMANICA<\/strong> There were a number of things that we now take for granted in hip-hop that you did first. In a way, you were too early for the biggest era of hip-hop touring, but that kind of forced you into unconventional strategies. Can you talk about stepping into the breach in the \u201990s and being like, well, damn, there isn\u2019t a way for us to do a big tour unless we go with Rage Against the Machine.<\/p>\n RZA<\/strong> You had your club dates and college shows. That\u2019s fun. And you can make some change like that. But you\u2019re not going to make it to the top of the food chain. And so my idea, along with Steve Rifkind and Rich Isaacson [of Loud Records], was like, yo, Wu-Tang with Rage. Go out to the world.<\/p>\n Around then, I was in Manhattan by a pay phone and I hear this kid on the phone. Little white kid. I guess he\u2019s talking to his parents. I overheard him say, you know, \u201cNew York is good, Mom. The best thing I saw, there\u2019s a big Wu-Tang sign in Times Square.\u201d That was his most exciting moment of his trip. And here\u2019s a Wu-Tang guy five feet away from him, but he didn\u2019t know. And so when it came time to go for the Rage tour, it was like, there\u2019s a lot of white fans out there that are ready for us.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n COSCARELLI<\/strong> And that was a lightbulb moment.<\/p>\n RZA<\/strong> That was more like a convincing moment for me. And so my case to the team was we go here first, in the summer. And then at the fall homecomings, we go back and get the Blacks. Some people took to it and some people did not take to it. We actually walked off the tour. A lot of us weren\u2019t prepared or engaged in what it was. I think the foresight wasn\u2019t there for some of us. And, you know, it was counter to what some of us was feeling.<\/p>\n I didn\u2019t think it was a great idea to leave. It ended up being just me and Zack [de la Rocha] onstage one night. After we dropped out, they put the Roots on the tour. I had a talk with Questlove. He said that\u2019s what ended up buying his first house. It changed his life.<\/p>\n COSCARELLI<\/strong> 1997 was also the year you were banned from the New York radio station Hot 97, after members of the group said \u201c[expletive] Hot 97\u201d onstage at the concert they sponsored. I think younger listeners don\u2019t realize how much power rap radio had at the time. Talk about the fork in the road of that moment. What happens to Wu-Tang if you don\u2019t get banned from Hot 97?<\/p>\n RZA<\/strong> Between that and the sister stations and even a few other stations that followed their trend, it\u2019s almost like \u201cWu-Tang Forever\u201d could have been diamond. Finally, someone apologized to me, like, two years ago. Funk Flex sat down with me and apologized. That was a kick in the nuts, and in hindsight, it was a kick in the nuts to the culture.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n CARAMANICA<\/strong> 1997 was a huge year with \u201cWu-Tang Forever,\u201d Biggie\u2019s second album, his death. Then there was the beginning of the real rise of the South, and all of the cultural power reorganized around Cash Money Records, No Limit Records, scenes in Texas, Florida, Atlanta. I remember with No Limit in the late \u201990s, there wasn\u2019t one umbrella group, but the family energy felt very Wu-Tang. Do you think that Wu-Tang being stymied created oxygen for other people and scenes?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n RZA<\/strong> First of all, hats off to them because their destiny is theirs. The model of Wu-Tang has been emulated everywhere. We showed that you could come in collectively and spread your culture. But if you go back and look at the Wu-Tang empire, with the Wu-Tang Clan and all the solo members having a potential to continue the rawness of hip-hop \u2014 it gets stopped. And then another wave comes in, and they come in to New York radio. In one degree it\u2019s great because the South culture gets a chance to rise and those families get a chance. But the Wu getting stopped opened up for others \u2014 and that\u2019s also the blessing of the Wu.<\/p>\n