From the Streets of Shaolin

June 14, 2021
Music journalist Fernando (The New Beats) meticulously recounts the career of legendary hip-hop supergroup Wu-Tang Clan (WTC) in this sprawling biography. He explores the group’s origins, starting with the “all-star lineup” of its nine founding members. Before “tearing up the underground,” life for the Staten Island musicians was full of drugs, crime, and a near-inescapable sense of despair. But member RZA had other plans. When he created Wu-Tang Productions in 1992, his “pitch was simple: Give me a year of your life... and we’ll never have to sell drugs again.” After months of hitting the studio “six days a week,” the group released their 1993 debut Enter the Wu-Tang: 36 Chambers, which sold more than two million copies. Informed by extensive interviews with the group, Fernando’s narrative flows like a conversation as he charts the group’s meteoric rise and, eventually, its demise after “getting blackballed by New York’s Hot 97” in 1997 for “dissing” the station at its annual hip-hop fest. Still, the work ethic that defined the WTC continues to impress. As Fernando writes, “they changed not only their own lives... but... the way business was done in the music industry,” turning their W logo into “one of the most recognizable symbols in the world.” An undisputed labor of love, this is the account diehard fans have been waiting for.

Starred review from December 17, 2021

Music writer Fernando pens the first full-length biography of the influential, nine-member rap collective, the Wu-Tang Clan. Mostly using interviews that he conducted during his years as a hip-hop journalist, he describes the bleak childhoods of the group, who grew up when crack cocaine addiction was pervasive, as well as their influences: first-generation hip-hop; the ideology of the Black Muslim offshoot the Five Percent righteous teachers; and kung-fu movies such as Shaolin vs. Wu Tang. Fernando then delves into the first two multi-platinum Wu-Tang albums--Enter the Wu-Tang: 36 Chambers (1993) and Wu-Tang Forever (1997)--and the solo discs of Wu-Tang members, which all featured the path-breaking, gritty production of Clan mastermind RZA, who sampled a wide array of sounds, from Thelonious Monk to dialogue from kung-fu films. Fernando concludes with Wu-Tang spin-offs (fashion, books, the film projects of RZA and Method Man) and subsequent albums, including the single copy of Once Upon a Time in Shaolin (2015). VERDICT Fernando brilliantly reconstructs the Wu-Tang story and, in the process, sketches a concise history of hip-hop and illuminates the challenges the group members encountered growing up. Whether readers are long-time Wu-Tang Clan fans or have never listened, they'll be captivated.--David P. Szatmary, formerly at Univ. of Washington, Seattle

Copyright 2021 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

July 1, 2021
An authoritative history of seminal hip-hop collective the Wu-Tang Clan. Baltimore-based journalist Fernando argues that during the halcyon days of 1990s hip-hop, the Clan "seemingly emerged out of nowhere to hijack the music industry like a band of guerillas toppling a corrupt government." The author boasts significant cultural knowledge as well as a longtime association with the group: "I was lucky enough to be a fly on the wall as they worked on the first [records]....Wu-Tang, like hip-hop itself, represents a movement from the bottom that slowly and organically percolated to the top." Fernando vividly evokes the hardscrabble landscape of the group's home turf of Staten Island, where RZA first brought them together with an ambitious vision: "If you give me five years, we're gonna be the number one crew in the country." Fernando examines RZA's intricate studio innovations and the individual rappers' collaborative yet competitive writing and delivery styles. "If it seemed like each MC was trying to outdo the one before them," writes the author, "they were, but, collectively, they sounded like an unstoppable army." As the industry buzz grew, Wu-Tang became the first rap group to maintain creative control, with members eligible to sign with other labels. In 1995, they followed up their seminal debut with resounding solo records. "Between Meth[od Man], ODB, and Raekwon," writes Fernando, "Wu-Tang was running this shit." This air of inner-city camaraderie suffused their elaborate mythology and maintained the group's momentum. In the late 1990s, the group's cohesiveness became strained--as one insider noted, "nine egos were too big to keep under control"--and ODB's overdose death in 2004 further complicated matters. They persevered, however, releasing three albums in the 2010s. (The group produced only one copy of Once Upon a Time in Shaolin (2015), which they sold for $2 million to since-disgraced pharma CEO Martin Shkreli.) Though more than 500 pages, the text is consistently entertaining. The go-to source for anyone interested in one of the most significant hip-hop groups of all time.

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