There’s a grand irony present for the premiere of "Wu-Tang: An American Saga," a miniseries dramatizing the origin of the titular hip-hop group. The Clan realized its sound in the Stapleton Houses and Park Hill Apartments of Staten Island, and some 25 years later, they were attending the premiere of a show about their lives — in the rapidly gentrifying (if not, post-gentrification) Lower East Side. In a way, it’s almost too classically rags-to-riches; a geographical and temporal embodiment of their classic single “C.R.E.A.M.”, or Cash Rules Everything Around Me.
But y’all, it’s easy to get lost in the dollar dollar bills and lose sight of what this all really means.
From the outside looking in, Wu-Tang is the final lesson in a masterclass of securing your own legacy and advancing your own narrative. We’re often told to give our loved ones their roses while they're still alive, but for de facto Wu-Tang leader RZA, he and his crew grew the roses themselves, trimmed and shipped them, and threw a massive party to cap it all off. Is it mythmaking? Mythology? Self-hagiography? Probably, but what’s wild about Wu-Tang is how welcome it all is.
They’re far from the only influential hip-hop outfit from the New York '90s, but tell me the last time you saw commemorative Nas or MC Lyte projects on this scale. Every culture has — nay, needs — its legends, and the Wu has gladly taken it upon themselves to fill and furnish 36 chambers. Listeners — and viewers — let us come right on in.
Click the player above to hear how it all went down when James Bennett and WNYC's Jim O'Grady brought a mic and recorder and worked the red carpet for the Wu-Tang miniseries premiere at the Metrograph Theater in Manhattan.
