Wu Tang Forever was the beginning of the end.

[oO J Smooth Oo]

You gotta be the only person in the world who likes "Black Shampoo"

The intro and Tekitha are straight skips everytime as well.

Other than that the album is definitely a classic.

i appreciate the whole album, Black shampoo is dope from the production to the approach of lyricism

 

[Mike the Executioner]

Can't say anything about the album, but I never hear this song brought up by anyone.

 

[Wacky D]

Think that could be said about the first disc too. Too much filter. It just seemed like a forced album. Dont think wu forever was supposed to be the end product. Its that the label was pressuring them to match their success in that one moment. They should have let all the members release their solos first THEN put out the group project. Let the success of the other members solos bounce off of each other. Nobody would have had a wack album. They fukked up when they didnt let everyone put out a solo before the second group project. Guarantee whatever the second album would have their record would have been different.

meh.
i think deck wouldve benefited from dropping right after wutang forever. or they couldve did the BBD thing and put the other members in a side-group with deck as the frontman.

wutang forever came out at the proper time for them to have one last big run. the landscape was just changing and they were becoming old school. they generally were never a young group to begin with. east coast was shifting back to a more fun sound on one end, and on the other side of the spectrum - DMX was about to explode. wutang's clock was ticking regardless.

you didnt like the 1st disc tho?

 

[Trot LaRoc]

Theres not filler per se but some of the track should be on the follow up solo albums

MGM is cool but it shoulda been on Rae's 2and album
Black shampoo shoulda been on U God solo
Dog shyt should been on nikka Please instead all the glued together shyt they came up with
The City isnt bad but it's kinda meh

 

[KingsOfKings]

 

[Pazzy]

Forever shoulda been a single disc. There was too much filter on there. There were only a handful of great songs on there. On top of all that, i honestly think wu tang actually did a huge mistake by not putting out deck, killa, u god and rza solos out before putting another group album. That would have been the perfect build up before releasing the next group project. They should have did those last solo projects between 97 and 98. Then drop the group project. Then let meth drop tical 2000, rae drop his project, ghost do his, gza put his, odb put his and so on. They would have sold a lot. They did the second group project prematurely and it showed as the sound, music and energy wasnt the same. They killed their run early.

 

[boogers]

i wish we had gotten one more 'classic' era wu group release before all the solo albums came out.

i had an idea that you could take one track from everyones 1st solo album and make a mixtape of a 'lost' album. a 72 chambers, if you will

but really.. it was the flooding that did it, wasnt it? afaik rza had to recreate alot of shyt from memory, quickly for wu-tang forever

they were also wealthy and comfortable by that time, so a lot of the hunger was gone. it was inevitable.

 

[Bugzbunny129]

People who say wu forever was the beginning of the end were never true wu fans in first place. Same goes for so many people calling wu revolution and second coming skips. Album is nothing but BARS non stop. It can start and end with diff genre. If anything, it set that trend off of the lone rnb track on a hip hop album.

Also black shampoo is unfairly hated on. Album needed something light and accessible. It prolly should not have been the last rap track tho. That shoulda been heaterz.

97-2000 dozens of wu albums dropped and most are 3.5-4 mics at worst. Most rappers drop a big album and are lucky to hit 3 mics after that (big pun? Canibus?) and survive off big singles and collabs. Wu a 10 man team consistently dropping 5-4 mic albjms. And NOONE was in their orbit in early to mid 90s.

They were competitive commercially until 2002/3 where they started really fukking it up (meth,deck,rae,cap,ugod…killa didnt even start yet. Stopped working with rza and made him do movies).

But 2004-2010 and upto 2014 (despite abt being bad) wu tang had an incredible comeback run imo. I can name 20 grwat albums from them in that time.

Fishscale, 421 and Cuban 2 10+ years in after debuts…Theres like 10 rappers with an album on that level of good 10 years after debut. And none are team. Fs and cl2 could have been 5 mic albums if it werent samples (like 5 th time that happened in wu history).


With that said, forever has some filler, therrs like 90 minutes of fire on it. Too much for one disk. The filler came from rza playing catchip and jusy giving guys solos because they had none on 36. Album could have used some easier listening on it instead of bar overload but thats also why i love it even more. One of a kind album.

 

[diggy]

shyt was hitting when it came out



Triumph had everyone spazzin

 

[mundL]

Its a classic double disc regardless of what came be4 or after

 

[Whips-n-Chains]

It took me a while to fully appreciate Forever, but it's aged like fine wine.


I was initially let down by the newer sound as I expected some kinda OB4CL x 36 Chambers x Liquid Swords sound.

Theres still a little bit of grimy-ness missing from it, but we couldn't expect them to just do the same sound from 95 in 97. Hip Hop sound was progressing exponentially and they (particularly RZA) wanted to be at the cutting edge rather than doing what they've previously done.

 

[boogers]

People who say wu forever was the beginning of the end were never true wu fans in first place. 97-2000 dozens of wu albums dropped and most are 3.5-4 mics at worst. Ugod had worst second gen album and it was still 3 micer. Most rappers drop a big album and are lucky to hit 3 mics after that (big pun? Canibus?). Wu a 10 man team consistently dropping 5-4 mic albjms. And NOONE was in their orbit in early to mid 90s.

They were competitive commercially until 2002/3 where they started really fukking it up (meth,deck,rae,cap,ugod…killa didnt even start yet. Stopped working with rza and made him do movies).

But 2004-2010 and upto 2014 (despite abt being bad) wu tang had an incredible comeback run imo. I can name 20 grwat albums from them in that time.

Fishscale, 421 and Cuban 2 10+ years in after debuts…Theres like 10 rappers with an album on that level of good 10 years after debut. And none are team. Fs and cl2 could have been 5 mic albums if it werent samples (like 5 th time that happened in wu history).


With that said, forever has some filler, therrs like 90 minutes of fire on it. The filler came from rza playing catchip and jusy giving guys solos because they had none on 36. Album could have used some easier listening on it instead of bar overload but thats also why i love it even more. One of a kind album.

you got me thinking differently now. thank you.

im gonna put on WTF and give it another go with this in mind

 

[The War Report]

Album aged well.

 

[BUSINESS AS USUAL]

36 Chambers is 10 times better.

their second album had too much filler with songs like this




Wu Tang Forever was probably the most anticipated album of all time but that don’t make it better than 36 Chambers

I listen to this album way more than 36 chambers..fukk the 4 or 5 fillers they were ass but rest is crack

 

[Bugzbunny129]

you got me thinking differently now. thank you.

im gonna put on WTF and give it another go with this in mind

Album reminds me of scotch. Its a grown man album

At first its a lil dry, lacks the sweetness of the other rap albums of the era

But then you realize thats the point, and each listen drags you deeper into until scotch ya fav drink.

The only rapper/album that competes is biggie LAD and thats because its total opposite in vibe and filled with pop rap classics that edge it out with the in crowd. Forever is the most anti pop commercial hip hop album of the decade if not “ever”.

wus output is obscene.