In this episode of Best Albums, Unique Access’s Soren Baker sits down with rap duo Ces Cru and discusses Wu-Tang Clan’s Enter The Wu-Tang (36 chambers) album.
“It seemed like they kind of pioneered a sound,” Ces Cru‘s Ubiquitous states. “No one was doing anything like that at that time.”
Wu-Tang Clan kicked off its album campaign with “Protect Ya Neck,” which didn’t have typical song structure, in that there wasn’t a traditional chorus.
“When you guys were first hearing that,” Soren Baker asks, “did that difference make a mark to you as musicians themselves?”
“I don’t even know I noticed that then when I first heard the album,” Godemis responds. “I remember being caught up in all the characters and trying to match the names to the voices.”
Ubiquitous agrees with Godemis and states that it was about figuring out the personalities of each member of Wu-Tang, being able to identify them by voice and knowing what they were referencing.
“It sort of unraveled or unveiled itself one by one as all of their projects came out,” Ubiquitous explains. “People would debate who was who and as Rakewon’s [album Only Built 4] Cuban Linx… comes out and all their different projects come out, then they all start to emerge as characters but still interwoven with each other.”
Soren goes on to relay how most groups at that time only had two rappers, but that Wu-Tang had nine rappers. Soren questions Ces Cru, “When you have all these different voices, how do you think that added instead of distracting?”
“I think that it worked because they all sounded different from one another and they all had distinct names, characteristics and things they referenced and reoccurring phrases and that is what made you want to be able to tell who from who,” Godemis responds.
As for the group’s distinctive sound, Ubiquitous says that played a role in the LP’s appeal.
“Gutter, urban, grimy and creepy, it was really hard,” he says. “This album was hard-ass hip-hop and it went super hard.”