{"id":545116,"date":"2026-03-18T19:11:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-18T19:11:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/545116\/"},"modified":"2026-03-18T19:11:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-18T19:11:08","slug":"wu-tang-clan-review-still-bringing-the-ruckus-even-on-their-farewell-tour-wu-tang-clan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/545116\/","title":{"rendered":"Wu-Tang Clan review \u2013 still bringing the ruckus even on their farewell tour | Wu-Tang Clan"},"content":{"rendered":"

RZA peers quizzically into the O2 audience through a pair of impressively bejewelled sunglasses. \u201cHow many people in this crowd were born in the 70s?\u201d he enquires, after an attempt to get the audience bouncing on the spot has met with a decidedly tepid response. The ensuing roar suggests the majority of attenders at what\u2019s being billed as the Wu-Tang Clan\u2019s farewell tour are old enough to remember the Staten Island rap crew\u2019s gamechanging arrival on the early-90s hip-hop scene first-hand. He nods understandingly. \u201cYour legs, right?\u201d he offers, kneading the back of his thighs, perhaps no stranger to the occasional twinge himself. Clearly, the challenges in reconvening the Wu-Tang Clan<\/a> for one final jaunt around the world involve not merely assembling the multifarious members after years of internal strife, but accounting for the stiff joints of the hip-hop dads such a gig is likely to attract.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, the tour arrives in the UK trailing ecstatic reviews from its 2025 American leg. Its European iteration is a little scaled down by necessity, its setlist pared back slightly, its impressive raft of guest stars \u2013 everyone from Slick Rick to Lauryn Hill turned up in the US \u2013 reduced to just one: Mobb Deep\u2019s Havoc. Still, the version of Shook Ones, Part II he delivers in the company of Raekwon and Ghostface Killah is ferocious and besides, it\u2019s not as if Wu-Tang Clan really need additional firepower.<\/p>\n

Method Man. Photograph: Simone Joyner\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

As the members gradually arrive onstage for a brace of tracks from their epochal debut, Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers), you\u2019re struck by how little their verbal firepower has been diminished by the passing years. If a live backing band can\u2019t hope to recreate the unsettling, grimy atmosphere conjured by RZA\u2019s crackling samples on Protect Ya Neck or Wu-Tang Clan Ain\u2019t Nuthing Ta F\u2019 Wit, the vocals still carry a sense of barely controlled and feral energy: Young Dirty Bastard makes a fair fist of filling in for his late father (who was the most feral of the lot), managing to capture some of ODB\u2019s unhinged intensity without sounding like he\u2019s doing an impersonation.<\/p>\n

The gig then splits into individual showcases. The crowd seem slightly reserved during Raekwon and Ghostface Killah\u2019s slot, which feels baffling \u2013 1995\u2019s Only Built 4 Cuban Linx is widely held not just to be among the best Wu-Tang solo albums, but among the greatest hip-hop albums full stop \u2013 but go obligingly nuts for Method Man, who\u2019s so taken with their response he not only flashes his abs, but attempts a British accent.<\/p>\n

The transitions between the solo spots are smoothly done, but the gig is still subject to what you might politely call some unexpected set list choices. The poppy 2000 single Gravel Pit \u2013 a far bigger hit in the UK than back home in the US \u2013 gets a huge reaction, but it\u2019s truncated after one verse. On the other hand, there\u2019s a version of Barbra Streisand\u2019s The Way We Were \u2013 the actual song, not the 36 Chambers highlight Can It Be All So Simple? that deployed a sample of it \u2013 delivered straight, by a backing vocalist, in tribute to band associate Oliver \u201cPower\u201d Grant, who died last month. You can understand why, but, like the adverts that punctuate the gig \u2013 for a forthcoming movie directed by RZA called One Spoon of Chocolate, a Wu Tang Clan video game and a documentary about the making of Only Built 4 Cuban Linx \u2013 it gives the show a slightly disjointed quality.<\/p>\n

But it wouldn\u2019t be the Wu-Tang Clan if it wasn\u2019t at least a bit messy and puzzling. As the audience members struggling to jump at RZA\u2019s command would doubtless attest, it\u2019s as slick as a tightly choreographed pop concert compared to the beldam of an early Wu-Tang gig: one mid-90s London appearance by Method Man memorably devolved into chaos after he inexplicably chose to remove his trainers and throw them into the audience, then lost his temper when the audience declined to return them. Stuff like that used to happen all the time, and it doesn\u2019t tonight. Instead they\u2019re reunited for a version of CREAM \u2013 a track that still sounds like the musical equivalent of a brawl 30-odd years on \u2013 and the audience limp home happy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"RZA peers quizzically into the O2 audience through a pair of impressively bejewelled sunglasses. \u201cHow many people in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":545117,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[49,48,75,341],"class_list":["post-545116","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-entertainment","tag-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/545116","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=545116"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/545116\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/545117"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=545116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=545116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=545116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}