[Watch] For The Children: 25 Years of Enter The Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) Mini-Documentary

In 1993, after recruiting 6 new members to their crew, Force Of The Imperial Master (AKA: All in Together Now), Robert Diggs (RZA) and his cousins, Gary Grice (GZA) and Russell Jones (Ol’ Dirty Bastard) released one of the most influential hip-hop albums of all time under the moniker of the Wu-Tang Clan.  Although ’93 was an important year for Rap music, Enter the WU-Tang: 36 Chambers managed to become a critically acclaimed breakthrough, even surrounded by such classic releases as Midnight Marauders (A Tribe Called Quest), Doggystyle (Snoop Dogg), Black Sunday (Cypress Hill), and Strictly for My N.I.G.G.A.Z. (2Pac).  Cypress Hill celebrated getting faded; Pac spoke of social injustice and uprising; Tribe helped usher in an era of jazz and sampling, while rapping about consciousness in their Cross Colours overalls; and Snoop helped the West Coast lock down its place in history while riding the trademark G-Funk sound.  More than anything else, though, WU-Tang displayed the skills that made people want to rap.  RZA set the backdrop with a dusty, subterranean sound, laced with samples from Shaw Brothers Kung-Fu flicks, and unleashed 8 fellow lyrical assassins that were not only unlike anything else the game had ever witnessed before, but, within the group, each and every emcee had a style unique unto themselves.  As would oft be repeated, they formed like Voltron, but they each also had their own incredibly strong and well-defined personas.  The Wu is like a a team of superheroes, which makes them so empowering to listen to, just based on their promotion of individualism. They were, and still are, untouchable.

All of the other artists mentioned above played their own parts in shaping the musical landscape and the culture as a whole, but the major difference with WU Tang is that they actually had a fundamental impact on the way that the business side of the music industry was handled.  Prior to The Clan, it was, essentially, unheard of for a group to be able to sign with one label as a collective, while retaining the right for the individual members to step outside of that label to seek deals elsewhere, independent of one another.  The 9-strong crew from Staten Island changed all of that, providing much more leverage and opportunity to them artistically, while allowing them to find the best deal for each of them, respectively.  This approach wherein they dispersed in different directions to establish their own solo careers and identities, allowed them to swarm onto the scene and produce at an alarming rate, dropping some of the greatest albums of any era or genre in a relatively short period of time.  Beginning with Gravediggaz — RZA‘s 1994 horrorcore pioneering collab with Prince Paul — the first wave of solo albums would include Method Man’s Tical (1994); Ol’ Dirty’s unclassifiable Return to the 36 Chambers (1995); Raekwon‘s street mafioso masterpiece, Only Built For Cuban Linx; and, my all time favorite, Liquid Swords (1995), by GZA.  More and more titles would roll out, along with impressive affiliate albums by artists like Cappadonna, Killah Priest, and La The Darkman.  But it was Enter The Wu-Tang that started it all, and it dropped 25 years ago today.

To celebrate this monumental anniversary, a short documentary was just released titled For The Children.  The film, which takes its title from the moment that ODB infamously stormed the Grammys stage in 1998 and took the mic to declare that “Wu-Tang is for the children,” has been getting teased on the instagram pages for Ghostface and Inspectah Deck throughout the week, so I’ve been waiting in anticipation for it.  Although Raekwon is noticeably absent, the majority of the other members seem to make appearances, visually, if not through actual interviews.  The son of the late ODB even shows up.  I wasn’t sure what to expect from this mini-film, but, overall, I do feel like it’s worth giving 17 minutes of your time.  If you don’t know any of the history, you should definitely check it out, and then, of course go on to check everything else that you can regarding the group and their breakthrough album.  For those of us that have, easily, spent way too much time over the years reading about the WU, and/or falling into video clip rabbit holes, there’s still something of value in here and, Inspectah Deck can always be counted on to drop new insight into the mix.  If I’m being absolutely 100% on everything, WU-Tang and their debut album simply deserve a pair of three hour documentaries, minimum, and anything short of that will be… short of that.

The one aspect that threw me for a loop, at first, when watching this thing, is the fact that, of all people, they are interviewing A$AP Rocky and A$AP Ferg of Harlem‘s A$AP Mob — two rappers that were barely 5 years old when Enter The Wu-Tang originally hit shelves.  Later in the film, you’ll see CJ Fly and then, Joey Bada$$, who is interviewed about the impact of the WU on him.  I wrote about Joey early on, when his and CJ‘s Brooklyn crew, Pro. Era, was just starting to gain some buzz, and I’m sure that I was guilty of making particular comparisons to them and the Clan back then.  As Joey mentions here, although he’s the most prominent member of his unit, by far, he’s always genuinely approached his career as if no one member is stronger than the entire group.  The Wu-Tang left a blueprint for these more recent incarnations of New York squads that are popping up decades later.  Back when they hit the scene in 1993, West Coast hip hop was beginning to dominate things and the WU helped pull the spotlight back to the birthplace of the culture.  A$AP and Pro. Era have played a similar role during a time when Southern Rap had been dominating everything and NYC needed to take back their voice.  There’s a reason that this short is titled what it is and that rappers who were either incredibly young or hadn’t even been born yet, when 36 Chambers was released, are featured  This film isn’t only about highlighting the past, but on stressing the longevity of the legacy that’s been created.  25 years later, there are youth that continue to keep it alive, build off of it, and even use it for their own inspiration; folks that are carving their own lanes and making their own impacts on the culture in real time.  We are living in a era where kids are making pilled-out mumbling dipshits rich; tranwrecks who brag about how they just started rapping 6 months ago, have sub-mediocre face tats, and are hospitalized for eating too many flaming hot Cheetos, while attempting to knock the talents of an undisputed legend like 2Pac.  There are much worse efforts, right now, than celebrating the W ‘s enduring careers and legacy, while simultaneously acknowledging those that are carrying their spirit on into the future,

Check out For The Childre,: 25 Years Of Enter The Wu-Tang (36 Chambers), below.