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No Country For Old (Rap) Men: The Curse of Wu Fatigue

Posted on January 3, 2013December 5, 2024 by Robbie Ettelson

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It was painful to write this, but I can’t live in denial any longer…

No Country For Old (Rap) Men: The Curse of Wu Fatigue

15 thoughts on “No Country For Old (Rap) Men: The Curse of Wu Fatigue”

  1. Lair says:
    January 3, 2013 at

    Sadly, I’m with you on this one. It’s not just the unending uninspired releases, it’s the having hundreds of other acts under the Wu-umbrella (Wumbrella?)who’ll never really establish themselves (no matter how talented they are) as anything other than a “wu-affiliate.”
    More than that i can’t listen to any more tracks with any variation of “darts” in the title, no matter what they call it it usually ends up being “tranquilizer darts.”

  2. DB says:
    January 3, 2013 at

    Stopped reading after ‘Cuban Linx II was underwhelming’.

  3. oskamadison says:
    January 3, 2013 at

    Actually, Robbie, Ghost annonunced that he was working on “Supreme Clientele 2: Blue and Cream, The Wally era”, months ago. It’ll probably go the way of “Liquid Swords 2”. BTW, Cuban Linx 2 was a banger, although not an instant classic like the first one.

  4. Caesar says:
    January 3, 2013 at

    And now they’ve resorted to scamming people on the internet with fake contests. I won the Masta Killa box set on here months ago, those cheap bastards never shipped it!!!!

  5. Gx says:
    January 3, 2013 at

    This is slanderous!!!! Enthusiasm as a fan can come and go but they haven’t released enough since Apollo kids to warrant a “fall off”. So yeah I guess fatigue is fair, you’ve od’d yourself not wus fault.

    Also tony bones released a album?

  6. Robbie says:
    January 3, 2013 at

    @Gx: Not the real Tony Bones. But there’s another rapper who bit his name getting around…

    @Ceasar: Nature Sounds told me you’ll get it next week.

    @oskamadison: Good grief.

  7. INDOE says:
    January 3, 2013 at

    I can understand some of the points.I consider myself a huge Witty Unpredictable Talent And Natural Game fan but honestly I have never heard Cuban 2.Only the couple leaks that came out prior to its release.
    The farthest I ever branched out in the family tree were the couple early Sunz Of Man projects and Shyheim who I still like.
    Killah Priest,and Bronze Nazareth get honorable mentions as well as Cappadonna’s “The Pillage” Milk This Cow & Slang Editorial are still big to me.
    Overall though I can kind of agree.These last 2 Rae tracks he released for Lost Jewelry I didn’t even listen to.
    I don’t know.Its tough because Wu are such a big deal to me.
    I did like The Man With the Iron Fists sdtk though.I paid for the physical.
    Im starting to border on Wu stanery so I better quit.
    I see your point.I agree.

  8. gstatty says:
    January 3, 2013 at

    Robbie this was a bit painful to read, because I can kinda see where you’re coming from. I’m gonna keep subscribing to the wu brand, but its been like 1 in 4 wu/killa beez/wu affiliate albums that are even somewhat good these days. I’ve been listening to some Holocaust aka Robot Tank these days, that dude from Sunz of Man, and the wu block was half good. I will be honest when I say after ‘Enter the 36 chambers’ I thought RZA’s production got more and more watered down over time. All my wu stan friends swore by their double album wu tang forever, but I was let down by the sophomore jinx. Don’t get me wrong, I did like the album, but as an honest comparison to enter the 36, it was like they just made a double album cause everyone else at that time did (all eyez on me, life after death, capital punishment, etc. etc.). Do you remember that enhanced cd shit that was on that album too? I remember fucking around with it on my computer back in the day. It was like their branding became more important than their rapping. I didn’t even really like 8 diagrams tbh. I was straight up about it when it came out as well. I will remain a loyal wu tang fan til the day I die, but that doesn’t mean I won’t critique em every once in awhile since I have been a paying fan for so long.

  9. shaolins finest says:
    January 4, 2013 at

    While we can all agree on wutang not making the great music like they did in the past..i believe its the fact that they re not focused..plus now they rocking with cats like rick ross..wu wouldnt have done that in the past..but at the same time they are legends that have done much for hip hop…end of the day..wutang still aint nothing to f with when they want too..

  10. LUMBERS says:
    January 5, 2013 at

    Oh well Robbie, your loss mate. I still fly the Wu flag… hell i have to. A Wu tattoo dont wash off

  11. digglahhh says:
    January 5, 2013 at

    I’m with gstatty.

    I think the key is to adjust expectations and not hang on every release as if it’s going to be marvelous. Wu is like Chipper Jones was last year or something – you can’t expect him to carry the team everyday anymore, but it surprises absolutely nobody when he hits a game winning homer.

    I was also a bit disappointed by Wu Tang Forever, but in hindsight, I’m not sure it was possible to live up the expectations set for that album. So, I’m not exactly sure how I feel about it in light of that. At the time, I did remmeber thinking that they should have just released one long album and made it all killer, no filler. Yet, at the same time, I was appreciative of having two albums worth of new Wu to bang. …See, I’m still conflicted to this day.

    Anything that was that big was primed to fail at some point. At their peak, Wu was the biggest thing in rap at any point in the history of hip hop. Despite the way social media makes everything “louder” than it was in the past, nobody ever dominated the consciousness of the scene like Wu did.

    One grudge that I still hold to this day though is that they never gave Killa Sin enough shine. He carried those Killa Army albums as much as any single rapper within a crew carried a crew. His 6 or whatever verses on Silent Weapons for Quiet Wars alone made that album worth its purchase price.

  12. oskamadison says:
    January 5, 2013 at

    @ digglahhh:

    I bought that damn “Silent Weapons…” joint. That was the first album that put me to sleep EVERY time I listened to it. They would have been better off with a U-God/Masta Killa/Cappadonna group album.

  13. lou says:
    January 5, 2013 at

    this post could’ve probably been written about Mobb Deep, who have fallen off way harder than Wu

  14. Robbie says:
    January 5, 2013 at

    @lou: I covered the Mobb earlier: http://www.unkut.com/2012/10/no-country-for-old-rap-men-should-we-care-about-mobb-deep-breaking-up/

  15. RobThom says:
    January 29, 2013 at

    I never really thought wu was that great

    The first album was okay, but not a lot better then a lot of other stuff

    The second album had 2 good songs out of like 20 or something

    Wu was always pop music to me

    Way more popular then they deserved

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