Only six members of the Wu-Tang Clan are pictured on it, and all are sporting stocking masks over their faces. The story behind the album’s iconic cover has also become one of hip-hop’s favorite ruses. Apparently, the building last sold for just under a quarter of a million dollars back in 2002. Google mapping 234 Morningstar Road today shows a squat domestic house next to a law office. Perusing the credits to the original vinyl release of “Protect Ya Neck” reveals the Wu were using a Staten Island address as the headquarters of Wu-Tang Records.

Here’s15 factoids about the Wu’s jump-off moment that might have passed you by. (Meth even claims that as their goal on one of the album’s slang-saturated skits.) But while the album, its iconography and its lead singles are now solid pop culture fixtures, there’s also a mysterious underbelly to the project. Dre and Snoop Dogg’s g-funk dominance, Raekwon and Ghostface’s rhyme styles inspired the subsequent work of Nas, Jay Z and the Notorious BIG, and RZA’s tick of speeding up soul samples struck a chord with a young Kanye West who then embraced the technique for his own early break-through productions.Įnter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) was the first stage of worldwide dominance for the Clan.

The album’s influence has become legendary: It helped restore New York City rap pride in the face of Dr.

Masterminded by the group’s de facto leader RZA, the album paired grit-sodden, lo-fi production with razor sharp rhyming skills from the nine-man troupe who claimed Shaolin (as they’d re-christened Staten Island) as their fortress. Twenty years ago, the Wu-Tang Clan blessed the world with their debut album, Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers).

Wu tang clan videos youtube