Who would have guessed that a quarter century after the release of their debut album, 2019 would be the year of Wu-Tang Clan? Okay so they have not released a full length album that was available for mass consumption in five years and I am guessing that most people would be surprised to learn that individual members have released twelve solo albums since then (Ghostface Killah and Inspectah Deck both put one out this year). Then what was the last memorable single, Uzi?
2019 is not the year of the Wu for any new music (there was a mostly forgettable EP released earlier this year); it is because the seminal rap group has been the subject of two shows this year. First was the pretty good four part documentary on Showtime’s Of Mics and Men (I wished the Once Upon a Time in Shaolin got its own episode). Now comes the fictionalized version of the group’s formation with the Hulu mini-series Wu-Tang: An American Saga premiering today.
Most of us were introduced to the Wu when Raekwon said, “I grew up on the crime side, the New York Times side. Staying alive was no jive.” C.R.E. A.M. is the visual representation of An American Saga; there is drug loots, running up on gates, making ways on fire escapes, sticking up white boys, and most importantly getting with a sick click and going all out. The show paints very graphic look at what it was to be a young black youth living in Staten Island in the early nineties.
Okay, I have to get this out of the way: the actors on the show do not look like their real life counterparts at all. Over half way through the series and really the only two Wu members I could recognize without any other cues were RZA who is tall and scrawny and the ODB who has the wild hair. I also thought I had Method Man pegged because he has the wild braid except then he dies making me realize that there were two dudes on the show with the same hair (later in the show a guy who I sort of thought was GZA also dies so I was wrong there too).
Worst is Ghostface Killah who is being played by some dude who could pass as a male model. About half way through the first episode I had to look up this dude Dennis is only to be shocked that it was Ghost’s name. Though in retrospect they did tip who it was in his first scene when he is talking about the Iron Man comic with his special needs brothers, Ironman is the name of his solo debut and he routinely refers to himself in rhymes as Tony Starkz. And that is just when they use their government names, sometimes they use nicknames that are not their Wu aliases; for instance, look out for Sha who you will know better as Raekwon.
It does help in the second episode where there are cartoons that look much more like the real versions that morph into the actors but unfortunately that is the episode that utilizes this technique. For a group brought up on over the top kung-fu stories, a show based on their lives could haed utilized a little more flashiness in its storytelling. I wished they would have flashed a chyron whenever a new member pops up so we could keep the characters straight. Although, even though I am half way through the season, I do not even think I have seen Masta Killa, Cappadonna, or U-God. Those three were not pictured in the promo above but at least Masta Killa and Cappadonna were at least listed at the end.
Really most the Wu members take a back seat to the Diggs family, RZA being Bobby Diggs. His bother Divine (one of the few actors that actually looks like his real life counterpoint) who may have been the most entertaining part of the documentary, may get the second most screen time in what I have seen. Bobby’s litter sister even gets her own episode and Momma Diggs also gets a weird storyline involving Italian gangstas. These are the weakest parts of the show. A show about the Wu-Tang Clan should not give more screen time to someone’s little sister than half the group.
With that said, Wu-Tang: An American Saga is a compelling tale of life in big cities in the early nineties that we saw on the big screen many times at the time from Boyz n the Hood to Juice that we can now live with a little longer thanks to peak television. And the show only gets better as it goes along as it morphs from the crime story, which could be a bit tedious, to the rise of a group of brothers that would go on to conquer the world. After watching, I am sure you will be dusting off your copy of Enter the Wu-Tang album like I did. And be sure to watch with the whole family because everyone who lived through the nineties know, Wu-Tang is for the children.
Wu-Tang: An American Saga premieres today on Hulu with its first three episodes. New episodes are released every Wednesday.
No comments:
Post a Comment