Wu Tang Forever was the beginning of the end.

[Ethnic Vagina Finder]

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.

I went to high school from 92 - 96, so Wu Tang was part of my high school sound track. I remember when and where I first heard Wu Tang Forever.

Hip Hop in 1997 wasn't the same anymore. The had transitioned into the getting jiggy wit it, having fun in the club dance scene shyt. This was right after Big and Pac died. Music had changed. 1993 and 1993 aren't the same.

Maybe I was an adult so my tastes changed. I was living in San Diego during that time, so I was immersing myself in west coast hip hop. The South was starting to rise with No Limit. Bad Boy basically dominated 1997. On the West Coast, Death Row and Tupac still dominated. Wu Tang was caught in between. shyt wasn't the same. And their album was a complete departure from the first one. Even the singles.

I'm assuming, it's partly or mostly do to the fire that destroy a lot of RZA's work. But shyt wasn't the same.

 

[Jimmy the gent]

I just finished Rae's book, he was pretty much saying this, or before this even, like the energy internally amongst them was off, the ones who didn't get a solo during the initial run were jealous at the ones who did, etc. RZAs beats got whack ( ask U-God ) not to mention his focus on side projects versus Wu projects, like West Coast Killa Beez,
The fukk happen to them?

 

[Jimmy the gent]

I'm assuming, it's partly or mostly do to the fire that destroy a lot of RZA's work. But shyt wasn't the same.

U mean the Flood Breh?

Pretty much effected sum of the solos like Meth and Decks.
Didn't really effect Forever

 

[tuckgod]

Beginning of the end?!?....I just think they hit their Zenith

It was the end.

Hip Hop itself ended in 96.

Everybody’s been chasing a sound/feeling since then.