Moment In Hip-Hop: ‘Wu-Tang Forever’ Was Released 18 Years Ago Today

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Boom Moment In Hip-Hop (June 3rd)

Today marks the 18^th anniversary of the release of Wu-Tang Forever, the second studio album from Wu-Tang Clan. The two-disc set was a follow up to their debut album Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers). The album debuted at number one on the charts with 612,000 copies sold in its first week, despite little radio/TV promotion. The album is 4x platinum and has sold well over 2 million copies in the U.S.

RZA had been expanding his musical production since the first Wu-Tang release, and used techniques such as chopping up and speeding up soul samples. The style of production was very influential for hip-hop, especially producers like Just Blaze and Kanye West.

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Each member of the group provided their own lyrical technique, with many verses written in stream-of-consciousness style, and being heavily influenced by the teachings of the Five Percent Nation. The group took advantage of the double-disc format, which allowed each of the nine members to play significant roles, with some of the members delivering some of their greatest performances to date.

The album was critically accepted for the most part since the first week of its release, and is considered one of hip-hop’s greatest projects. From RZA’s ground breaking production, and strong back and forth verses from Method Man, Raekwon, Ghostface Killah, and the rest of the clan created one of the most influential projects in the past 30 years.

Moment In Hip-Hop: ‘Wu-Tang Forever’ Was Released 18 Years Ago Today  was originally published on boomphilly.com