1. July 1, 1991, RZA belly-flops as a solo artist
In the early '90s, an unheralded new act named Prince Rakeem lamented his woeful fate on the single and video "Ooh I Love You Rakeem." The problem? It appears women just couldn't get enough of Rakeem's rugged charm. He had too many ladies, and he needed to learn to say "no." What pimply, virginal rap fan couldn't relate? Yet somehow "Ooh I Love You Rakeem" failed to find an audience. Prince Rakeem disappeared, only to be reborn, Phoenix-style, as RZA, the diabolical producer and mastermind behind Wu-Tang Clan. The rest, as they say, is history.
2. November 9, 1993: Enter The Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) marks a new era in hip-hop
The Wu-Tang Clan's monster debut hit hip-hop and pop culture with the impact of a dozen atom bombs. It introduced not just a radically different new sound and style, but an entire universe for listeners to get lost in, complete with a dazzling array of larger-than-life characters, an elaborate mythology, and geek-friendly nods to comic books, martial-arts flicks, blaxploitation movies, and black pulp fiction. Hip-hop and the world at large were never the same again.
3. 1995: Wu-Tang goes pop, part 1 (ODB and Mariah)
In 1995, pristine pop princess Mariah Carey was hungry for hip-hop credibility. So she hooked up with a producer who epitomized glossy slickness (Diddy) and a rapper who embodied scuzzy rawness (Ol' Dirty Bastard) for the remix to "Fantasy." As ODB unforgettably screeched, he and Mariah did, in fact, go together like babies and pacifiers; the Ol' Dirty dog was no liar, and kept the fantasy hot like fiya.
4. 1995: Wu-Tang goes pop, part 2 (Meth and Mary)
Love songs don't get much darker than Method Man's "You're All I Need To Get By," a track that embraces romantic love as a bulwark against a hostile outside world. For the remix, Diddy once again lucratively fused grime and pop by adding superstar R&B songstress Mary J. Blige to the mix. Blige's contribution to the song made sense both commercially and creatively: Few artists convey pain and longing as movingly. But it nevertheless marked the beginning of a debilitating embrace of the mainstream on Meth's part, leading inevitably to deodorant commercials, cheesy sitcoms, supporting roles in Soul Plane and My Baby's Daddy, and musical obsolescence.
5. August 1, 1995: Raekwon's Only Built 4 Cuban Linx marks the apex of Wu-Tang's golden age
After the release of Enter The Wu-Tang (36 Chambers), RZA holed up in a studio lair where he produced damn near every track on every Wu-Tang solo album. The result was a sustained burst of creative brilliance, a mad rush of ingenuity and invention that led to a string of Wu-Tang classics. RZA's beat mastery reached its pinnacle with Raekwon's Only Built 4 Cuban Linx, which combined Wu-Tang grime with Raekwon's fetish for Godfather flash, while solidifying Raekwon and Ghostface's standing as one of rap's most dynamic duos.
6. June 3, 1997: The golden age ends with the release of Wu-Tang Forever
Wu-Tang Forever is the textbook disappointing follow-up to a seminal debut. It's bigger without being better, and bloated with self-indulgence and filler. Moments of brilliance remain, but the focus and hunger of the group's first album is lost. The two-disc set was still a monster commercially, but Forever marked the end of Wu-Tang's golden age. RZA adopted a more hands-off approach to Wu-Tang solo albums, farming out production duties to a succession of sound-alike producers. Quality control suffered. Wu-Tang members like Raekwon, who triumphed with their debuts, released follow-ups that were ignored at best, and mocked at worst.
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