The anniversary of Wu-Tang Clan’s highly influential debut album Enter The Wu-Tang: 36 Chambers is today.
Often named by some of today’s biggest artists as a point of inspiration, 36 Chambers produced highly successful singles and lifted Wu-Tang to a worldwide platform, subsequently having them release numerous successful solo albums and the even higher-selling 4x platinum Wu-Tang Forever album. MTV recently talked with numerous artists, both newer and veteran about the album and its influence.
“I was locked up when Wu came out, and it’s crazy cause I never seen nobody from Staten Island, right?” Fellow New York Native N.O.R.E. said when asked about the album. “Nobody from Staten Island, and then Wu came out and there was like mobs from Staten Island, ‘You from Staten Island? Jesus man! Where was you at yesterday?’… All these dudes. It was something that Hip Hop had never seen. We’ve seen two-man groups, maybe even four-man groups, we’ve seen Heavy D and The Boyz, rest in peace. But we’ve never seen a nine-man army with everybody spitting. Like when ‘Protect Ya Neck’ came out, I was like, ‘Woah.'”
Rick Ross remembered how influential the album was when he was attending high school.
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“I remember when we had our yearbook,” he said. “At the time “Protect Ya Neck” was the hottest song, we were in high school, I forget what grade we was in but I remember all the chicks drawing the Wu-Tang logo.”
Kendrick Lamar also weighed in, saying the group’s appearance and lyrics were most memorable to him.
“When they were talking about their lyrics, talking about what’s going on in their neighborhoods and at the same time, bringing their whole character with it, and how they was walking in the streets,” Kendrick said. “That’s what I really got from it.”
Proceeding its original release in 1993, the album would attain platinum status in 1995, and in 2003, 36 Chambers ranked at number 386 on Rolling Stone magazine’s list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.
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Watch the video by MTV below including other rapper’s and producer’s take on the album:
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