Completed: 4. Listen to All Wu-Tang Clan Albums
Basically, anyone who I’ve talked to for more than five minutes knows how much I love ’90s rap. I have heard MANY Wu-Tang Clan songs and consider a few to be favorites, but I’ve never listened to their albums in their entirety. Also, last year I was mesmerized by this chart that illustrates rappers who have the largest vocabularies in which many Wu-Tang Clan members are featured at the top. I was intrigued and realized I needed to expose myself fully to their work.
The studio albums I listened to (no solo albums):
- Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers), 1993
- Wu-Tang Forever (double CD), 1997
- The W, 2000
- Iron Flag, 2001
- 8 Diagrams, 2007
Though their first album is my favorite [and considered one of the most influential rap albums of all time], I really enjoyed all of their albums (even the 2007 album which featured the only song I wanted to skip — The Heart Gently Weeps — terrible). But let’s be real, even at Wu-Tang’s worst, their songs (mainly lyrics) are better than any rap song you hear on the radio today. It’s not like each Wu-Tang song tackles serious social issues, but they’re diverse. Listening to their albums just reinforces my hatred for current music. If I hear one more goddamn contemporary rap song with the following subjects: ridiculously pricey material items that you can’t afford, crazy sex that you’ll never have, or topics that no peasant like myself can relate to, I’m going to lose my shit. And not just directed at rap music, I’m disenchanted with all genres’ inability to feature lyrics that concern relevant topics. It can be done. See Marvin Gaye, who had both catchy beats and socially-conscious lyrics. I’ve listened to each album more than once and now working through them all again.
Most importantly, I was tweeting about my progress the day I completed this goal and Inspectah Deck favorited my tweet. Inspectah Deck, people!!!!! AKA the rapper who is considered to have one of the best lyrics of all time, aka the rapper in the greatest hip-hop group of all time.
– Lyssa