And so it’s only one of many contradictions here that the dude who needs this the least wants it the most. For several months, I chased down and spent time with all 10 members of the Wu-Tang Clan,2 winding my way from Brooklyn to New Jersey to Tennessee to Arizona to — of course — Shaolin in the process. It was, for the most part, maddening. As a fan, I was happy to find that a certain anarchic spirit is still rooted deep within the Wu.

He is chased by Yuhao and yelling that if Wang Dong explains it, he will treat him to lunch which slows him down. When he finds out that Yuhao is an orphan he apologizes and says that he will treat Yuhao to lunch. He then explains the effects of the pill.

Unlike the more socially conscious and jazz-influenced sounds of New York rap at the time, the influential album was marked with soundbites from kung-fu flicks and sped up soul samples with an eerie, grudgeful echoe. Among the gallery of inspiring cuts, "C.R.E.A.M. (Cash Rules Everything Around Me)" features a sample of the Charmels’ 1967 song "As Long As I’ve Got You." Yes, Kendrick Lamar performed in the halftime show for Super Bowl LVI in Los Angeles in 2022, alongside fellow rap legends Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg and wutang name Eminem, as well as R&B icon Mary J. Blige. Anderson .Paak and 50 Cent also made special appearances during the star-studded performance. As if performing at the Super Bowl in your home city wasn't enough, the Compton rapper also got to watch his home team, the Los Angeles Rams, hoist the Lombardi trophy at the end of the night. Lamar's first mixtape in 2004 was enough for Tiffith's Top Dawg Entertainment (TDE) to offer the aspiring rapper a deal with the label in 2005.

In the meantime, tensions flared over who was in control of the Wu brand, mostly directed at their manager and RZA’s older brother Divine. The more popular members felt the money was being divided up unfairly, and not everyone was psyched about the affiliate crews like Killarmy that RZA was stamping with the wu tang name generator logo. These frustrations boiled over in frequent arguments and a diminishing trust in RZA’s iron-clad grip on the sound. In the summer of 1997, the Wu-Tang Clan were in the midst of their mafia movie montage—you know, when life is sweet and it seems like it’s always going to be that way. That summer, the nine Staten Island goons went on tour with one of the premier rock bands on Earth, Rage Against the Machine, blowing cash and sipping champagne on airplanes. They got a $960,000 budget for the special effects-ladened music video for "Triumph," the famous, reckless, hookless posse cut.

They were as obsessed with money as the jiggiest but cognizant of the ultimate truth that if ain’t raw, it’s worthless. The RZA and GZA had witnessed the pitfalls of chasing cash at the expense of the art. Full of cringe-worthy commercial concessions, their debut solo projects both flopped. Selling out properly is an art form unto itself.