Enter The Wu Tang Clan - 36 Chambers Review

We had to go review Enter The Wu-Tang Clan - 36 Chambers. Welcome to The "Classic" Quest Podcast episode 32. HSR and Chris Chrome hold it down as Your lady friend Bonnie was unable to be with us.

General chit chat about Wu-Tang Clan 00:00 

Bring Da Ruckus (Ft. RZA, Ghostface Killah, Raekwon, Inspectah Deck, GZA) 07:35 

Shame On a N---- (Ft. ODB, Method Man, Raekwon) 14:36 

Clan In Da Front (Ft. RZA, GZA) 20:31 

Wu-Tang: 7th Chamber 

(Ft. Raekwon, Method Man, U-God, GZA, RZA, ODB, Ghostface Killah, Inspectah Deck) 25:09 

Can It Be All So Simple / Intermission (Ft. Raekwon, Ghostface Killah, Method Man) 30:37 

Da Mystery of Chessboxin' 

(Ft, Method Man, U-God, Inspectah Deck, Raekwon, ODB, Ghostface Killah, Masta Killa) 35:39 

Wu-Tang Clan Ain't Nuthing ta F' Wit (Ft. RZA, Inspectah Deck, Method Man) 40:56 

C.R.E.A.M. (Ft. Method Man, Raekwon, Inspectah Deck) 45:44 

Method Man (Ft. Method Man, Ghostface Killah, RZA, Raekwon, GZA) 50:08 

Protect Ya Neck 

(Method Man, GZA, RZA, ODB, Raekwon, Ghostface Killah, U-God, Inspectah Deck) 55:02 

Tearz (Ft. RZA, Ghostface Killah) 59:32 

Conclusion - Album review grade reveal 01:04:04 

Check out Enter The Wu-Tang - 36 Chambers on Spotify and do your own review: https://open.spotify.com/album/3tQd5m...

Classics Revisited #2: The Purple Tape

This will bring back great memories for those old enough to remember, and for the younger fans, something to think about as they already heard about this.
The Purple Tape aka Only Built 4 Cuban Linx is a tasty morsal of golden age rap memorabilia, Why were the tapes Purple? how valuable and reare is it?
Apparently on 10,000 of these Tapes were ever made. I have seen a sealed one go on eBay for about $5k in 2010.

Personal research suggest that the first purple polyphonic product was The Pixies first demo, which was released in 1987. It was nicknamed The Purple Tape by Pixie fans because it was (surprise, surprise) purple. However, there is no real proof that this tape was actually tinted purple. Meaning that a more apporpriate title might have been “the clear tape with the purple case”.

Next came Lisa Loeb’s demo (what’s up with demos and the color purple?) in 1991. Which for all you LL fans (no Todd Smith aka LL Cool J), has been remastered and re-released sometime in 2008. There is also no concrete proof that this cassette were coloured purple be it previously or re-release.  Oh yeah, Lisa Loeb’s current release is called the Purple Tape CD (wack).

This all leads to the release of Only Built for Cuban Linx in 1995 (AKA the Only Real Purple Tape). Luckily record companies were still making tapes, and even luckilier (is that a word?) Raekwon requested that his tape be purple. Good call Rae…

So why did Rae call it the purple tape?
Lets first look at the title of the album, according to Wikipedia 'The album's title serves as "a warning of its musical potency to those not prepared for the uncut raw contained within." Although the original intended title was "Only Built 4 Cuban Linx Niggaz", this idea was eventually dismissed in favor of a more market-friendly one. Ghostface Killah later specified "We already had the title. The chain we used to rock back in the days was Cuban links. So Rae came up with the theory, like a Cuban link is one of the roughest chains to break. Only Built 4 Cuban Linx... Real niggas, strong niggas."

The purple Tape in reference to the album was because the original cassette's plastic was entirely purple; Raekwon marked the tape distinctively as a reference to drug dealers' method of tagging their product, to distinguish it from that of others'. "I wanted to portray an image that if I was selling crack or dimes in the street, you would recognize these dimes from other niggas' dimes.
This was confirmed on an interview Rae did with AllHiphop.com

"AllHipHop.com: Where’d you get the idea to come out with [Only Built 4 Cuban Linx as] a purple tape? I thought it was a defect when I got mine.?

Raekwon: Only because being that we from the block, we was finagling in certain situations where the things that you was dealing with had to be separated from what everybody else was dealing with. I always ran with that as one of my traits in anything I do to separate myself from others. Back when we used to sling and do what we do, we would have certain color caps [to viles]. Certain color caps resembled certain people that were doing s**t different than everybody else. It’s like, “Yo, this is our color. Anybody step on this color, you got an issue at that time.” So I decided with my music, this is my world—this is my thing and I wanna put a color on it just so everybody will know. That’s how the purple tape even came in existence. I think I had wanted a red one at first and then I thought how somebody else had did it already. I made it like that specifically…."

Indeed.. The album from cover art, concept, packaging was all thought through, the music (production, features, lyrics, subject matter etc) was also thought through, this is what makes this album a classic and what makes the Wu-Tang Clan the best collective to ever emerge from Hip-Hop.
The album was loosely composed to play like a film with Raekwon as the "star," fellow Wu-Tang member Ghostface Killah as the "guest-star," and producer RZA as the "director.' It features appearances from every member of the Wu-Tang Clan, and served as an introduction to Cappadonna.  It also features an acclaimed guest appearance from rapper Nas, which marked the first collaboration with a non-affiliated artist on a Wu-Tang related album.

In 2012, Rolling Stone magazine ranked Cuban Linx number 480 on their updated version of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. Need I say more?

Long Live The Purple Tape!!!
Long Life Wu-Tang!!!
Wu-Tang 4 Ever!!!

Check back every last week sunday of the month another Wu-Tang classic Revisted.

Put Together by Dark7 for Wu-International.com

Classics Revisited #1: Wu-Tang x Nike Dunk High (1999)

Wu-Tang x Nike Dunk High
Black/Bright Goldenrod-Black
630335-073
1999

A very strong case can be made for the ‘sneaker collaboration’ being a trailblazer for widespread popularity of kicks today. The individually numbered shoes tied to a renown cult street-artist or sneaker boutique and boxed up in custom packaging had all the sex appeal to get the sneaker-libido raging for any obsessed fanatic, but before the era of the collaboration, there was a sneaker that stretched the definition of ‘Limited Edition’ so far that we often don’t even consider it when discussing the toughest sneaker pick-ups in history. Why? They’re nearly impossible to find. Leap years occur more often than Wu-Tang Dunk sightings, and Flight Club, the one-stop shop for finding the world’s most rarified kicks while keeping a blind eye to price-tags, hasn’t had a pair come through its doors in over five years. What are they valued at? It’s one of the very few sneakers that might have an inconsistent appraisal for a number of reasons; it could be priced identically to what it last sold for on Flight Club ($5,000), or it can be adjusted for inflation and appreciation and easily mark them at double that figure. Some may assess that these don’t have tangible value at all – a priceless sneaker at the very core.

Throughout the 1990′s, the Wu-Tang Clan, based out of the NYC boroughs of Staten Island, Brooklyn, and the Bronx, made an incredible name for their alternative style of hip-hop and wordplay, and have since sprouted a wide range of career paths that cover anything and everything that needed a unique flavor. Solo albums, careers in film and TV, music production – the Wu was very much a part of pop culture outside of their albums, and consistently the Wu-Tang Clan is listed among the greatest and most influential music acts in history. In 1999, when the original Nike Dunk High ‘Be True’ Collection was re-released, Nike created a special edition Wu-Tang Clan ‘Friends & Family’ edition of the Black/Goldenrod colorway associated with the University of Iowa – one of the original seven representatives of the Nike Dunk ‘Be True’ Series.

The Black/Yellow colorway was selected in accordance with ‘The Swarm’, a 1998 album put forth by the Wu-Tang Killa Beez – a collective of Wu-Tang members and its affiliates. The sneaker featured the iconic Wu-Tang logo embroidered on the heel and on a custom tongue label, and the mere addition of the logos made the simplistic two-toned colorway a staggering beauty that exuded the aggression and refined grit we associate with the Wu-Tang Clan and its music. The true number of issues of the Wu-Tang x Nike Dunk High isn’t exactly firm; while a number of pairs were given to the Wu-Tang Clan, a very limited number actually did release (perhaps the first Nike ‘hyperstrike’ release ever) in New York City at Training Camp, a sneaker spot known for its hip-hop celebrity clientele which included the likes of Raekwon, Jay-Z, and many more NYC-based rappers.

Sneaker historians, Dunk enthusiasts, and even those behind Nike walls consider the original ‘Be True’ series of the Nike Dunk as one of the holy landmarks of Nike Basketball and Nike Sportswear history. The ‘Be True’ re-release in 1999 struck a chord with the sneaker community and gave the Dunk new life and was praised for its Retro styling and energetic colorways, quickly becoming a cult hit and rolling out the red carpet for the Dunk renaissance of the early 2000′s. With our praise of these Nike Dunk classics this week, the Wu-Tang Dunk is, ironically, close to being an unattainable shoe – a Dunk ‘nirvana’ if you will. Perhaps, in another life. Wu-Tang Killa Beez forever!

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