A history of Wu-Tang Clan and Philly

“Snoop’s may be the biggest name in rap, but in Philly, Wu-Tang rules” – Dan DeLuca, Philadelphia Inquirer (December 12th, 1994)

When the Wu-Tang Clan announced that the July 18th show at the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia would be the last stop of their final American tour, I admit that I was initially confused. The Wu-Tang Clan is the quintessential New York rap group. Their sound, slang, and visual aesthetic are all synonymous with the city’s fertile and widely influential 90s hip-hop scene. Upon the tour’s announcement, one question rang in my head: Why would the most New York-coded of all New York groups choose to play their swan song here in Philly?

While this date was likely the result of some unseen scheduling logistics between the group, the venue, and corporate live entertainment juggernaut LiveNation, the more I thought about it, the more it all made sense. While the Wu-Tang Clan will go down as one of the greatest embodiment of New York Hip-Hop culture, the group does have significant historical ties to Philadelphia as well. I was 13 years old and living in Philly when Wu-Tang debuted, and the wave of energy and excitement behind the group is what I imagined Beatlemania to be like in the early 1960s.

In his 2013 memoir Mo Meta Blues: The World According to Questlove, Ahmir Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson describes the excitement of hearing Wu-Tang’s iconic debut 36 Chambers for the first time as The Roots drove to New York to sign their first record contract.

“I talked to Tariq on the phone and he told me that the second I got off the plane I had to go to Tower Records and buy [A Tribe Called Quest’s] Midnight Marauders and Enter The Wu-Tang. I didn’t make it to the store, but when the band picked me up in the van to New York to sign our record contract, they had both cassettes. It was the greatest day ever. We were absolutely there — it was the last time we had that pure, old-style hip-hop energy, the last time we were totally engaged.”

The 90s were filled with rich pop-cultural movements from grunge to boy bands to rave culture, and the Wu-Tang was one of the most unique and significant of those movements. In a clear testament to the group’s influence, kids in my school would use phat cap markers to draw the Wu’s iconic “W” on their clothing and adopt the group’s signature slang. Local rap groups adopted a darker, more minimal sound, moving away from the bright, upbeat sound of Philly rap in the late 80s and early 90s. The Wu-Tang Clan may have been the biggest rap group in the world, but they were deeply and uniquely loved here in Philly.

From the very beginning of their career in Staten Island, Wu-Tang Clan possessed a clear sense of place. The group’s voluminous catalog (six group albums, dozens of solo albums, and a near-incalculable number of records from off-shoot groups and crew “affiliates”), is packed with hyper-specific references and shout-outs to Staten Island and the fictional moniker that they gave it — Shaolin. On the first track of Wu-Tang Clan’s 1993 debut album,
Enter The Wu-Tang (36 Chambers), the first voice you hear is not any of the group’s nine members. It is Cantonese action star, Han Chiang, sampled from the 1981 marital arts classic, Shaolin and Wu-Tang. 32 years after the album’s release, that short bit of dialogue remains a thing of hip-hop legend.

By shrouding the familiar in the mystique of the foreign, the Wu-Tang Clan infused their local origins with a universal potential. Armed with their own rich, personal mythology and a dark, minimalist sound unlike anything in hip-hop, the Wu-Tang was primed to take over the world. But before the Wu-Tang Clan expanded beyond the five boroughs, they’d launch an early campaign for domination right here in Philly.

In his 1995 book of essays and interviews, Twisted Tales In The Hip-Hop Streets Of Philly, journalist and historian James G. Spady titles a chapter “The Wutanginazation of Philly.” In the piece’s intro, Spady accounts the first time he was introduced to Wu-Tang’s music through their debut single “Protect Ya Neck.” From there, Spady waxes poetic about Wu-Tang founder, RZA’s familial ties to Philly and details introducing the group to legendary Philly avant-garde saxophonist, Jimmy Stewart who approved of the group’s unique sound, responding “Spady, they are doing something new.”

Seeking to get an understanding of how the Wu-Tang Clan struck big in Philadelphia, Spady interviewed a handful of independent music promoters who helped break the group in this market. One promoter featured in Spady’s book, who played an integral role in Wu-Tang Clan’s early development and spread, was Greg Provost, aka G the Promoter, the man credited as the first DJ to play the group on the radio. While working at Princeton’s WPRB, Provost met RZA — then known as Prince Rakeem — when he visited the station’s Thursday night rap show, Raw Deal on June 27th, 1991.

“RZA and I kinda kicked off backstage,” Provost tells Spady. “We were talking about kung fu movies because he had the song ‘Deadly Venoms’ and I was a big Shaw Brothers fan. I was in Jersey, so I’d go to New York or Philly and check out the kung fu theater marathon.”

The initial connection between Provost and RZA would not be limited to their shared taste in cinema. While RZA had come to the show to promote his poppy, playfully horny debut single “Ooh I Love You Rakeem,” an impromptu freestyle would tip Provost to the fact that the young MC /producer’s talents ran deeper.

“We did this thing called Thursday Night Live a lot of times where we’d just have a live freestyle session,” Provost remembers. “RZA went in with some stuff that never got released.”

Over The Honeydrippers’ “Impeach The President” drums, RZA kicked a clever, Dolemite-style rhyme. Through a clever use of lyrical diversion, RZA tricks the listener into thinking he’s talking about sex, only to reveal in the end that the story is a PG story about two monkeys sharing a banana. Impressed with this skill and creativity, Provost stayed in touch with RZA. Sometime in either December of ‘91 or January ‘92, Provost and RZA went to Mahorn’s, a Cherry Hill nightclub founded by and named after Sixers legend Rick Mahorn. That night, in the club’s parking lot, RZA would unleash the new sound and concept that RZA was working on with his crew from Staten Island.

“He played me a cassette tape of the Wu-Tang demo,” Provost told Spady. “I was blown away..and I told him ‘Yo, this is gonna change hip-hop.'”

After being dropped from Tommy Boy Records after “Ooh I Love You Rakeem” failed to blow up commercially, RZA decided to prove the efficacy of the Wu-Tang concept by releasing the group’s first single independently. The 1992 single “Protect Ya Neck” was effectively the big bang to which all of the group’s future success could be traced. Provost’s Raw Deal show was the first station to play it, but it certainly wouldn’t be the last. “Protect Ya Neck” would eventually introduce the group to the world, but according to Provost, the song caught fire in Philly first. As he puts it simply, “Philly has been one of Wu’s strongest markets from the beginning.” Without question, the group’s early success in Philadelphia was mostly due to Provost’s efforts. Working as the group’s promoter and manager, he was tasked with the role of running street teams and servicing radio DJs in the Philadelphia area.

“I had moved to Philly during the time this whole thing was going on. I got the record to [Philly radio legends] DJ Ran and Cosmic Kev. I ended up doing a bunch of street team stuff; like when we got stickers made and cassette singles and stuff, I was out on South Street promoting it. When we got the commercial vinyl pressed, I took it to Armand’s, Funk-O-Mart, and pretty much most of the record stores in Philly, Scranton, and a bunch of other places. Most of the time I had to put it on consignment for the first batch because nobody knew who it was.”

With area DJs supporting the record, word began to spread and Provost was soon getting requests from stores to sell them boxes of the single. Due to G’s hustle and connections in the city, the group caught fire in Philly first, even before they blew up in New York.

“I’m pretty sure that in the first couple weeks, we were selling more records in Philly than they were in New York,” Provost tells Spady. “Stretch and Bobbito played it, then Kid Capri was the first person to play it commercially [on a non-college/commercial station] in New York and then it went wild from there.”

Upon signing their group deal with Loud Records and releasing Enter The Wu-Tang (36 Chambers), it was clear that RZA and the Wu-Tang family’s hard work had paid off. The album is now considered a classic, each member has had successful solo runs and the group commands a dedicated, global fanbase. Looking back on the group’s ascent and subsequent impact, Provost said that the Wu-Tang Clan did in fact change hip-hop and hip-hop subsequently changed the world — and Philly played a major part.

“When I was in high school and into hip-hop, white girls would be like, ‘Ew, you listen to rap?’” Provost said. “Now you look at it and it’s multi-cultural. You have people that are with Wu-Tang in South America, Africa…”