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Wu-Tang: Widdling Down Infinity :: Can a bunch of old, dirty bastards save hip-hop for a third time or will the math just collapse upon itself?

By Brandon Perkins   Photography by Tomer Hanuka

07/10/07 :: URB 148

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 fucking 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 shit-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 shit, 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. Fuck 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.

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