JayBaldacci
All Star
Live and Let Die is the old school Cuban Linx.
Who was Bigger at their Peak: Nas or Wu Tang?
- Thread starter Stick Up Kid
- Start date
Live and Let Die is the old school Cuban Linx.
mbewane
Knicks: 93 til infinity
Worldwide Wu was HUGE. Not saying Nas didn't have his own following, but Wu is just at a whole other level. Even after the big run there was always Wu concerts (groups or individual) in Europe. And as everyone knows it exceeds hip-hop as a genre. Just two weeks ago I was at an art exhibition based on the Wu. This article is about...another one that was two years ago here in Paris.
Découvrez les photos de "Wu Lab" : la première expo consacrée au Wu-Tang
do you know how difficult it is to have 9 members in a group and to get them to put all their egos aside and come up with the music they came up with?
get these nets
Veteran
outside of some songs, LALD sounded too West Coast forced for me, so I ever rocked with it tough.
Gonna go back and listen to it, but I think the mafia aliases came on later album and songs.
In many ways, you can say that it was the precursor to OBFCL thematically.
EXACTLY!
Wu-Tang Clan have 9/10 Members it's way fukking harder to keep them together, etc. Mind you, all of them have fukking talents.
nikka snoop is global
nikka foriegn great grandmothers know who snoop is
snoop die...today...it will be bigger than pac, nipsey, biggie and jesus combine
u will find far more ppl across the world who know snoops music than u will pac
play i get around in egypt...then play got damn me drop it like its hot or hell lets get blown...bet..the iron sheik will crip walk
This can be seen as early as 1989 in the song "Road to the Riches" where he makes a reference to Al Pacino (who plays mobster Tony Montana in the 1983 crime drama movie Scarface)[59] – this was long before albums such as Raekwon's Only Built 4 Cuban Linx… (1995), and Jay-Z's Reasonable Doubt (1996) made such references popular.
Album wise: Wanted Dead or Alive
get these nets
Veteran
Road to Riches is one of my favorite songs, but every street rapper was incorporating bits or references of scarface into their music in the crack era
I was talking about the gangster aliases. Specifically the era where lot of rappers followed the lead of Wu Gambinos song.
Which alias did G Rap adopt on the second album?
idk about alias I'm talking about a the mafia theme
TheDarceKnight
Veteran
Wu.
Saying otherwise is borderline crazy to me and tells me that the person wasn't actually around back then.
The earliest Wu was slightly before my time, but I was almost in high school when Forever dropped. It's hard to explain how big that time was. People wore Wu Wear clothing, everyone had the fukking Wu bird logo drawn onto their notebooks at school, everyone debated on who the best member was, and everyone could rap the whole Triumph song from front to back, and Wu was just generally a cultural phenomenon that was bigger than music. Even non rap fans would rap Deck's opening verse on Triumph. Triumph at the time was maybe only the 2nd or 3rd million dollar music video ever made. I mean c'mon...Wu took a 6 minute track of nothing but bars and made it a single with a million dollar music video out of it...who else has done that?
I never remember Nas being disliked, and If I Ruled the World was a big song the year prior, but the earth wasn't moving for Nas. Nas at his peak of popularity was probably Ether, and he was the king of hip-hop, but Wu was bigger than hip-hop in '97 and was arguably a pop act. No disrespect to Nas as he's in my top 5 dead or alive.
I remember Only Built For Cuban Linx and Liquid Swords dropped in '95 within a few months of each other. That Purple Tape and Liquid Swords time is when the hype started getting crazy and that lead up to Forever dropping was an insane time in terms of hype.
Saying otherwise is borderline crazy to me and tells me that the person wasn't actually around back then.
The earliest Wu was slightly before my time, but I was almost in high school when Forever dropped. It's hard to explain how big that time was. People wore Wu Wear clothing, everyone had the fukking Wu bird logo drawn onto their notebooks at school, everyone debated on who the best member was, and everyone could rap the whole Triumph song from front to back, and Wu was just generally a cultural phenomenon that was bigger than music. Even non rap fans would rap Deck's opening verse on Triumph. Triumph at the time was maybe only the 2nd or 3rd million dollar music video ever made. I mean c'mon...Wu took a 6 minute track of nothing but bars and made it a single with a million dollar music video out of it...who else has done that?
I never remember Nas being disliked, and If I Ruled the World was a big song the year prior, but the earth wasn't moving for Nas. Nas at his peak of popularity was probably Ether, and he was the king of hip-hop, but Wu was bigger than hip-hop in '97 and was arguably a pop act. No disrespect to Nas as he's in my top 5 dead or alive.
I remember Only Built For Cuban Linx and Liquid Swords dropped in '95 within a few months of each other. That Purple Tape and Liquid Swords time is when the hype started getting crazy and that lead up to Forever dropping was an insane time in terms of hype.
All cultures, honestly. People in Asia were also crazy for the Wu. Like I said, Wu-Tang in '97 was one of the biggest things in all of pop culture. For a moment they were bigger than hip-hop, and when OP asked who was bigger at their peak, it's hard to top anyone that was bigger than hip-hop. Nas during the Ether time in '01 was HUGE, but it wasn't a worldwide event in the way that Forever was in '97.
Last edited:
TheDarceKnight
Veteran
Yeah, Wu weren't the first ones to have a mafia theme, but I think Rae and Ghost were the first ones to really put it on the map on a mainstream level. The Linx album was basically a concept album (you probably know this already) about two drug guys trying to get out of the life, all the specific cocaine references, and The Killer samples and interludes, all the nicknames for every Wu member (even Nas got labeled as Nas Escobar on the back cover art) had such an impact. At the very least Linx was the first mafia, coke rap, drug dealing album that was a true 5 mic classic.
Yeah I may even say before '99. It was kind of crazy. People just kind of moved on to other things. I think in '98 when Jay dropped Volume 2 and and DMX dropped, they sort of took over the east coast scene, and Dre dropped 2001 in 1999, and Eminem was becoming popular. It didn't help that Raekwon dropped a sophomore slump and then The W was just not good. RZA started falling off as a producer and refused to let up and coming hot producers onto Wu albums. I think there was a bubble and it just burst after Forever dropped. The culture was just shifting towards different interests.
Yep. And honestly 10 members because looking back I think you kind of have to count Cappadonna as an official member even if they didn't officially list him until later. He was heavily involved on so many of the group albums after 36 Chambers and he was all over the first run of solos. Cap's verse on Winter Warz is arguably a top 10 verse from the entire Wu catalogue.
Last edited:
Wu was one of the first iconic brands to rise out of the 90s
that WU symbol is as legendary as the Death Row electric chair logo or the Yo Mtv rap symbol
on a global level..WU was way more popular
i remember going to the WU store on peachtree in 96 and having to wait in line to get in cause it was a gang of asian toursit kids who had invaded the spot
NAS always had a niche fan base and it pisses me off...because NAS IS MY FAVORITE RAPPER....
i wish back then people could really appreciate his art like they do now.......
ILLMATIC didn't have the impact outside of NYC that 36 chambers did...REAL FAX
that WU symbol is as legendary as the Death Row electric chair logo or the Yo Mtv rap symbol
on a global level..WU was way more popular
i remember going to the WU store on peachtree in 96 and having to wait in line to get in cause it was a gang of asian toursit kids who had invaded the spot
NAS always had a niche fan base and it pisses me off...because NAS IS MY FAVORITE RAPPER....
i wish back then people could really appreciate his art like they do now.......
ILLMATIC didn't have the impact outside of NYC that 36 chambers did...REAL FAX
blankstairz
Superstar
If you are speaking commercially..just by sales....Nas.
If you are speaking impact....Wu. Plus, Wu had a big overseas following too.
Impact from a hip-hop perspective. Nas' main impact on Hip-Hop was Illmatic. Illmatic was critically praised, but the commercial success didn't match the sales of the West Coast cats and later Biggie. Nas wanted that success and aligned with Steve Stoute, Trackmasters. After that, it was a mixed bag with his studio albums. Lyrics were always on point, but his creative choices were questioned at times. At least for hip-hop heads. He didn't really come back home until Stillmatic.
Wu had Enter the 36, and the 5 solo albums (+ RZA on Gravediggaz) leading up to Forever. From 1993-1997, they could walk on water.
If you are speaking impact....Wu. Plus, Wu had a big overseas following too.
Impact from a hip-hop perspective. Nas' main impact on Hip-Hop was Illmatic. Illmatic was critically praised, but the commercial success didn't match the sales of the West Coast cats and later Biggie. Nas wanted that success and aligned with Steve Stoute, Trackmasters. After that, it was a mixed bag with his studio albums. Lyrics were always on point, but his creative choices were questioned at times. At least for hip-hop heads. He didn't really come back home until Stillmatic.
Wu had Enter the 36, and the 5 solo albums (+ RZA on Gravediggaz) leading up to Forever. From 1993-1997, they could walk on water.