The Wu-Tang Effect on Action Movies
Sure it may be crazy causality, but I think Rap’s obsession with Kung Fu revolutionized action films
Crazy ass premise, right? Maybe. But it’s not click bait and it’s not sensationalism.
I’0n’t know what young white kids did or how they behaved in the early to mid-80s. I ain’t grow up around them. All I know about them is what I saw in our newly integrated schools.
And what I saw was no one…I mean no one was into Kung Fu movies the way that us young Black kids were. Yo…Brothers went as far as getting the Chinese mock necks and walking around in the rubber sole Kung Fu shoes.
Martial arts were a part of the fabric of our youth which is why for us, when Enter The 36th Chamber dropped we weren’t enthralled with the RZA’s use of Kung Fu movie clips — it was normal.
But it was the Kung Fu references that made the Wu similar to Public Enemy — transcendent of their initial audience. Wu-Tang in general, the RZA in particular have become a darling to white America so much so that a collector was willing to pay $2 million for an album.
Up until the Wu, there were action films and there were martial arts — never did the two meet. Maybe it’s a coincidence. Maybe there’s no connection. We don’t care. This isn’t a term paper and we’re going to have fun just talking about Rap, Martial Arts, & Action Movies.
When I think of the name Sam Peckinpah, I think of film class and studying Wild Bunch. That 1969 Western was reknowned for its excess of choreographed violence. Of course by the time I watched it in film school in the mid 90s, I was desensitized to violence. Nonetheless, Peckinpah’s name meant quality films. Another one of his classics is the recently remade Straw Dogs.
So it comes as a surprise to me to learn that one of the first films that I can remember seeing as a thinking, cognizant human, Convoy, was made by Peckinpah. I doubt that Convoy was high art then (and it sure ain’t now). Apparently Peckinpah was trying to cash in on the CB Radio Craze of the mid to late 70s and what better way to do that than making a movie about truckers. Basically, Convoy just ended up being a good o’ exploitation flick.
I couldn’t have been no older than six and I vaguely remember the movie (I’m bout to watch it in t-minus…). The only two things I remember about Convoy are the fight scenes and Kris Kristofferson’s truck blowing up. I was terrified of trucks for some time after that movie.
But those fight scenes, I don’t even have to watch the movie to envision what they were like…because they the same in every movie. Sorry fight stance, bare knuckle brawls, that involved chairs and bottles being broken over heads in slow motion. Whether it was Convoy, Every Which Way But Loose, or The Warriors, whatever, that was the fight scene of the late 70s. Punches were blocked with the arm. People were easily hefted up and thrown.
The best way to describe late 70s fight scenes is they were American. Just basic slugging. Punches to the face, sometimes the body. That’s it. Hell, there was rarely a kick. But in Hong Kong and China a whole new industry was growing around martial films.
What we grew to know as Kung Fu movies were popular among Black folks as early as 1974. So popular that Monthly Film Bulletin and (UK) Time Out critic, Verina Glaessner (often mispelled Glaser) mentioned it in her book Kung Fu: Cinema of Violence. Now you know, if it’s being published in a book…it’s been going on for quite some time.
Part of the unwritten, oral history is martial arts in the Black community goes back even further than that, back to the mid 40s and early 50s. As Black men returned from World War II, many of whom had been stationed in Okinawa, they came back to the same injustices that they fought against it in the War. Disgruntled, they became a part of the swelling numbers that entered the Nation of Islam in the early 1950s.
We’re talking about men like Dr. Moses Powell, Karim ABdAllah, Vic Moore, Arnold Duncan, Fred Hamilton, etc. Men who have all but been written out of history.
Seeing these sharply dressed men perform martial arts who weren’t afraid of anything — not police…or their dogs — was a draw for many Black youth, the ones that were coming of age in the late 60s and looking for things to do. In New York, that meant heading downtown where they could see two movies for $2.
This is when 42nd Street Manhattan was 42nd Street. Filled with movie theaters, prostitutes, and drug addicts. The area was nicknamed ‘The Deuce’ or ‘Forty Deuce.’ It’s the area where porn flourished and it was also home to the Grindhouse (exploitation) and Kung Fu films.
One of the key (if not only) people responsible for bringing those films to the U.S. was film distributor, Mel Maron. Maron was a distributor of B-Movies and another great foreign niche genre — Monster movies (that’s what we called the Godzilla, Gamera, Ghidra films) and knew how to provide supply for a perceived demand.
When I saw kids going to these karate and kung fu schools that were springing up everywhere, I felt there was a natural tie-in between the martial arts and America. Mel Maron
Like I said in the onset of this article, the RZA has transcended the Wu-Tang brand per se and become an entity unto himself. So much so that he’s written books, done lectures, and has even been interviewed by the bible of cinema snobs, Film Comment.
When asked about his early contact with the genre of Kung Fu movies, the RZA had this to say:
In 1979, my cousin took me to 42nd Street to see some kung fu movies and I was blown away. We started going every weekend after that. There was a movie directed by Chang Chen called Five Deadly Venoms [78] and when I saw it, I was totally geeked out. The plot was crazy, and the characters . . . The Toad, the Lizard, the Scorpion, the Snake, the Centipede! They seemed like superheroes. And there were no guns or weapons, just hand-to-hand fighting.
The RZA was 10 and the Kung Fu/Grindhouse, Forty Deuce, cinema era was coming to an end…which ain’t necessarily a bad thing either. Without the move from theaters to the home theater of television, we would have never been exposed to the Martial Arts film.
But let’s swing it back to Umerican Action Movies.
If you ain’t live through the 80s, let me school ya.
Gunplay.
Lots of gunplay. That was the 80s Action Movie. The Uzi was the gun of choice and it was everywhere — from Running Scared to Terminator — that gun was bound to surface.
And we loved these movies. No doubt.
How could you not enjoy Gregory Hines and Billy Crystal (at the height of his powers) in a staple, 80s interracial buddy flick getting shots fired at em from drug dealing Jimmy Smits’ Uzi? Who didn’t want to see eyebrowless Arnold Scwartzneager mowing down every cop and Sarah Conner in sight…with an Uzi?
You had Billy Dee Williams and Sly Stallone — interracial buddy flick — check. The appearance of an Uzi — check. Danny Glover and Mel Gibson, Eddie Murphy and Nick Nolte, so on and so forth. Interracial buddies with lots of gunplay. That’s the 80s action film in a nutshell.
If there was a fight scene, it was just like the 70s fight scene sans the slow motion, bare knuckle brawls with people getting knocked out and over tables, bars, etc.
That was action movies. But what we loved more than that, what we imitated and what sparked our imagination were the Kung Fu movies that would fill space on Channel 2’s late Saturday night schedule in Denver. Those dubbed movies with out of synch audio were great but they aired sporadically. We had no idea when they were coming on and would often catch em near their conclusion.
It wasn’t until we moved to New Jersey the summer of 84 that we became all out fans of the genre.
It’s always amazing to me as an adult when I look back at the origin of things that I grew up with only to find out that they had just come into existence when I was experiencing them.
And I’m not talking about personal computers, video games, or things like that. We were totally aware that we were a part of history in the making. I’m not even talking about Hip-Hop…we knew we were MAKING that history.
But for something like cable tv, we never thought of it as something that wasn’t around before. If anything, we just thought it was a thing of privilege. Only the well to do could afford that antenna on their duplex roof for HBO in Park Hill (Aiyetoro KMT’s family being the first on our block), only it was even more rare for someone to have full on cable (I can’t think of a soul that did).
So when my older brother and I took up residence on McGuire AFB, aside from the instant feeling of security that a guarded, fenced in community brings, we felt blessed. For the first time in life we had cable. We ain’t know how to act. We sat in that den for endless hours flipping channels. It was the first time we saw Nickelodeon (who remembers the slime?), the first time we saw MTV (up until then, we were Teletunes babies), and it was the first time we were exposed to USA’s Kung Fu Theater.
Before Kung Fu Theater, it was all about Bruce Lee (not that I knew or know many of the actors that I loved) but from that first Sunday on (even to this day) I prefer my Kung Fu in ancient times (aka Wuxia films). It was my first true exposure to the Shaw Brothers in general, and Chang Cheh/Venom Mob in particular. The Five Deadly Venoms and The Kid With The Golden Arm are still my two favorites but any Shaw Brother film is worth watching.
Kung Fu Theater premiered in 83 and built off the success that World Northal/Black Belt Theatre had been experiencing since 81. And you know how Black Belt Theatre got it’s start? You guessed it…Mel Maron.
What I appreciate about his responses is he’s very clear about who the audience was — it was a different era. Now, people liked to mince words when it comes to race. This is what Maron had to say:
Kung fu movies were really enjoying their biggest success with downtown urban audiences, primarily the African-American audiences. I was the first one to go on television with dubbed kung fu movies, after everyone told me it couldn’t be done. My rationale was that a lot of the kids were hungry to see those pictures, but they couldn’t because their parents felt uncomfortable letting them go to the downtown theaters. Mel Maron
Don’t get me wrong, movies like the Karate Kid appealed to young whites but I don’t think that it had the same type of impact that Martial Arts movies had on us. When we first starting seeing Martial Arts movies back in the early 80s, kids in Park Hill were begging their parents to take them all the way near downtown so they could enroll in Tiger Kims (which, incidentally, was Karate…not Kung Fu). And for those of us not fortunate to do so, we still imagined that as our reality.
No one had to focus the marketing on us or anything. We just ate that shit up. But soon a new wave of film was coming en vogue in Hong Kong — it became labeled Gun Fu.
Watching American John Woo films was like watching Skip to My Lou in the NBA, Hollywood shackled his game and made his films damn near unwatchable. But before Hard Target…whew…before the worst installment of Mission Impossible, before Woo was imitated the world over, what he did was revolutionary…but we’ll get to that in a second. Let’s first revisit American Action films of the late 80s.
…
Yeah, I meant to put that space in there. Late 80s Action was no different than mid 80s Action. Maybe there were less Uzis, but all and all, the American Action movie stayed the same. Arnold was still huge with Predator and Running Man, Bruce Willis made his first Die Hard, and Mel Gibson was the wild man in Lethal Weapon.
There were still no advancements. Same o bare knuckle brawling, car chases and gun play.
Meanwhile in Hong Kong, gun play was being made to look like ballet.
John Woo was frustrated.
He had made some Kung Fu movies, had done the whole Assistant Director thing (for Chang Cheh no less) and was unfulfilled. Which was perfect.
As the Honorable Elijah Muhammad teaches, dissatisfaction brings forth change and Woo was lucky enough to have someone in his corner that would act as an agent for that said change — Tsui Hark (Remember that name).
Although younger than Woo, Tsui Hark had enough success and foresight to start his own Production Company, Film Workshop. It was through the Film Workshop that Woo’s passion project, A Better Tomorrow, would be made.
If you caught the film later, which you almost invariably had to — in 1986 it had little to no foreign theatrical presence — you may not be able to understand what the big deal is.
When A Better Tomorrow opened, it quickly became the best selling movie in Hong Kong, staying in theaters for an unprecedented five weeks (their bootlegging market is scrong) and becoming the highest grossing film in Hong Kong’s history.
The reason a viewer may not be able to understand what the big deal is about A Better Tomorrow is because of the fact that the two gun, tracking shot, one man killing multiple people in slow motion, cool killer thing was quickly adopted by other Hong Kong directors and Heroic Bloodshed or Gung Fu became a genre unto itself, packed with religious symbolism and classic Wuxia themes to boot. A Better Tomorrow made Chow Yun Fat an A-list actor with him starring in 12 films in 86 alone…several of which were Gung Fu.
By the time The Killer made its debut in 89, Hollywood was already taking notice. Three years later, Woo would make his way to the US of A and now we’ve reached the core of the story. Enter: Wu-Tang Clan.
Yo, Meth, hold up, hold up
Yo, Meth, where my Killer Tape at, God?
First of all, where my
Where the fuck is my tape at?Raekwon, “Wu-Tang: 7th Chamber”
I’m not even going to go into the affect that first Wu jawn had on me. We discussed that in detail here.
What I will say is that for us, hearing Wu-Tang was familiar. Sure, they were new. Sure their music upped the ante on hardcore lyrics and beats. And sure, it was dope to have a whole crew of MCs that were razor sharp exchanges verses.
Hearing clips from Shaolin vs Wu-Tang, Five Deadly Venoms, Ten Tigers of Kwangtung, etc. that was as per normal. We referenced Kung Fu movies often. When “forming like Voltron” is mentioned, that was a common statement. And hearing talk of lending someone your videotape of a movie like The Killer…and it coming up missing…sadly enough, that was common too.
But the same way the media jumped on the whole Da Inner Sound Ya’ll and forever labeled De La Soul hippies…to the point where they had to make a song about it “Ain’t Hip to be Labeled a Hippie” and kill themselves off, yo…white folks (and media types) went ballistic over the whole Wu-Tang, martial arts angle. The Wu was written of as “Kung Fu flick obsessed” or having “a fascination for Hong Kong martial-arts mythology.” The only magazine that got it right was, SURPRISE, The Source.
The Ghetto Communicator provided the context behind the album in a succinct paragraph reviewing Enter The 36th Chamber stating:
In the late ‘70s and early 80s, a generation of NYC b-boys fell in love with imported martial arts films. These features often detailed the mental, physical and spiritual disciplines battles of ancient secret fighting societies and colorful Shaolin monks… …
Soon the innovation and imagination that was revealed in darkened Times Square movie theaters would be taken back to the inner-city projects, basements and parks…
Needless to say, Enter the Wu Tang was a so-called underground hit. It may have went gold upon it’s release. Maybe. Eventually it went platinum. Like, maybe a year and a half later. The second album would change all of that…but back to that in a moment.
One of the only movies that I walked out on was a Stevan Seagal flick. My brother, Sayyed Munajj was highly amused at how annoyed I was watching Seagal whop ass. I just wasn’t buying it (No, I have no idea which movie it was…I bet Sayyed knows…he says Marked for Death).
In the early 90s, while American Action films were still on that fast cars, bare knuckle brawl, gun play kick, white martial artists like Seagal and Jean-Claude Van Damme were winning. And I hated these movies with a passion. Seagal’s smart-ass comments and Van Damme doing those damn splits in every movie drove me up the wall.
I mentioned earlier that John Woo’s American films were depressing. John Woo and Van Damme was outright egregious. Woo had brought his formula to the U.S. and Hollywood bought into the action but the violence, which was as much the formula as the two gun, slow motion sideways dive, proved to be too much.
And that was all the more worst because Tsui Hark was revolutionizing Wuxia.
Tsui Hark — I told you to keep his name in mind, right? Hark had helped John Woo get out his proverbial rut, produced A Better Tomorrow which in turn shifted the Hong Kong filmmaking landscape from classic Kung Fu movies to a new genre which was dubbed Gun Fu — well, that Hark would then bring forth the next trend .
He did that with Once Upon a Time in China.
Hark’s film would revitalize the traditional Kung Fu movie by infusing the plot with satire, historical references, and wire-work; that wire-work, suspending actors on harnesses making their jumps and leaps otherworldly — that changed action movies forever — it was dubbed Wire Fu.
Wire Fu had been used before but it was advanced by green screen and technology, But Yuen Woo-Ping (remember that name) is quick to point out that the only place technology happens is in post:
The actors have to wear a heavy canvas corset attached by metal cables to a wire, which hoists them 75ft in the air. These are worked by a team of “puppeteers”, working in tandem with the opposing actor’s team to avoid mid-air collisions. There is no computer trickery involved — the only “special effect” is when we remove the wire in post-production. Yuen Woo-Ping
If you watch Once Upon a Time in China, although it’s a quarter of a decade old, you can see in it all of the makings of what is the modern Martial Arts movie…AND…the modern Action Movie. The fight coordination (which includes the wire-work) was done by Yuen Cheun-yan (brother to Yuen Woo-Ping).
But what does that have to do with the Wu?
I ain’t do all that work above to make a distinction between young Black children’s love for Martial Arts Movies for no reason.
Like I mentioned above, when Enter the 36th Chamber came out, it was an underground album. That’s how critics referred to it and the amount of units it moved reflected that. Martial Arts Movies were no different.
Those films were sub-underground. They were exchanged via VHS long after VHS was an active medium of exchange. They were sold in the same places you could find the latest in porn. And, like comics, It wasn’t cool to be into them…not as an adult at least.
But after Enter the 36th Chamber, Wu released a barrage of solo albums: Tical, Return to the 36th Chambers, Only Built for Cuban Links, Liquid Swords, etc. all of which sold well. What those albums did though was whet the appetite of the people for a Wu-Tang sophomore album and that album would be huge.
I make no bones about it, by the time 1997 rolled around I was damn near done with Rap. I ain’t really listen to Life After Death like I listened to Ready to Die, I was too busy listening to OK Computer. And the only Rap album I listened to during the summer of 97 was Da Dirty 30. When Portishead’s sophomore release came out…not even that.
So Wu-Tang Forever was no more than a collection of songs that I had recorded unto a mix of other Rap songs. I may have listened to six songs, which on a regular album, ain’t that bad…but Wu-Tang Forever was a Double Album…and a major hit.
Look, Wu-Tang Forever sold in its FIRST WEEK the same amount of records that took Enter the 36 Chamber almost a year to sell and it went on to sell upwards of 4 MILLION copies.
And that ain’t all.
It was the beginning of a different era, an era where Rap music would dominate the charts for close to a decade. As a result, Wu-Tang Forever did what few Rap albums had done before— it debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 list. That doesn’t happen unless white folks buy ya record also. And it’s not like the album was crossover-type material. Hell, the intro had Papa Wu reciting 120, talking about Who is the Five Percent on this poor part of the Planet earth, the population of the original nation in the wilderness of North America and all over the planet earth, so on and so forth.
Not to mention, the lead-off single was damn near six minutes long.
There were less Kung Fu samples but the thought process was still intact. Not to mention, Martial Arts was already an established part of the Wu-Tang brand. The critics gave the same descriptions of the group as they did on their first album:
The Clan’s cosmology is made up of references to kung-fu films, comic books and gangster movies (the name is taken from the Hong Kong B movie Wu-Tang vs. Shaolin); religious doctrine from the quasi-Islamic 5 Percent Nation sect (which has long been popular among New York-area rappers); and hauntingly descriptive tales of ghetto hustlers and victims. Nathan Brackett, Rolling Stone
or
The Clan built colorful personas that ingeniously borrowed from Islamic scriptures, comic-book superheroes, kung-fu flicks, and Mafia lore. Matt Diehl, Entertainment Weekly
But somehow the results were different. Maybe it was great counterprogramming to the shiny suits of Bad Boy or the so-called “Gangster Rap” out west, but whatever the case, it was and still remains the Wu-Tang Clan’s best seller.
And suddenly, Martial Arts — particularly Kung Fu and the movies mentioned and sampled by the Wu became en-vogue. Shortly thereafter, American Action Movies would reflect that.
The Wachowskis cherish their privacy. That’s the narrative.
As the 90s came to an end that was rare, especially for hotshot filmmakers who altered the landscape of what an American Action Movie was. Which, to be honest, is a bit annoying. Let me explain.
I went to school for Mass Media Arts with a concentration in Radio/TV/Film, my focus was Film. Studying Film meant tracing the origin of a Filmmaker’s path. Learning how Robert Rodriguez (who really doesn’t get the credit that he deserves, by the way) leap-frogged from El Mariachi to Desperado or how Spike Lee blossomed from She’s Gotta Have It to School Daze was a part of the Kool-Aid that got me into all this student loan debt.
Nothing like that exists with the Wachowskis. Or at least that’s the narrative.
Thanks to the internet, one can cull a decent amount of information from the Wachowskis early interviews. Stuff like the basic story of frustrated writers, turned off by Hollywood making their own movie, Bound, about two lovers running afoul with the mob. Said writers/filmmakers taking the success of that movie and finally having the opportunity to produce their pet project, blah blah blah.
But the leap from writer to the type of filmmakers that the Wachowskis are is out and out amazing. Most writers turned filmmakers shoot movies that look like plays — Ed Burn’s The Brothers McMullen, perfect example — not mis-en-scene masterpieces like Bound. Lily Wachowski explains:
We’re of the opinion that film is still first and foremost a graphic medium and should be about images more than it should be about talking heads. Talking heads are nice and all, don’t get me wrong, but novels do talking heads a lot better than movies do. And I think that movies should take advantage of the fact that they are about images and pictures. Lily Wachowski
And to go from that to The Matrix?
Ok. I got the whole 600 page comic narrative. The one where the Wachowskis hired Geof Darrow to illustrate their Matrix script. Got it (Oh, FYI don’t think for a second that everything will always be easy to find. That Art of the Matrix book at one point could be found in used bookstores every where for pennies…now if you want it…POW!). But I reckon it’s like most things American, the “how” will never be told.
Whatever the case, when The Matrix hit theaters in 1999, it was all any lover of conspiracies, comics, Martial Arts, or film could talk about. How could they not? People still walk around talking about those damn red and blue pills. People still start statements with, “like in the Matrix.” Conspiracy theorists adore The Matrix. And because of the action, so do most comic lovers.
That’s mostly thanks to the integration of Yuen Woo-Ping and John Gaeta’s work. While the same effect of flying or superhuman leaps could be achieved with special effects, one can FEEL the difference when all of what they SEE is REAL. Having actors controlled and suspended as Yuen Woo-Ping said, like puppets and then circling around said actor 360 degrees with hundreds of DSLRs is envigorating.
(Incidentally, for many filmmakers it wasn’t something that was “new” per se. A year prior the same technique was in full display in the Gap Swing ads)
If you saw that movie in the theater on opening day in a packed theater, you’ll know what I’m talking about. Audiences were cheering and clapping the whole damn movie — from that first scene where officers go to arrest Trinity to the last scene where Neo flies out of frame.
None of this had ever been done in an American Action film, certainly not a Science Fiction one — even American Superhero films didn’t give you the feel of a comic. The Matrix did. No longer was the action of John Woo relegated to a gangster-oriented movie nor was wire-work relegated to martial arts.
In essence, The Matrix is a combination of all the ‘Fus’ — Kung, Gun, & Wire. Thus began the Hong Konginzation of Hollywood.
Nowadays, Martial Arts and Action Movies are synonymous.
From 2000 and beyond, it became common to see Kung Fu/Gun Fu/Wire Fu in Hollywood. Yuen Cheun-yan had Drew Barrymore and gang looking like badasses in Charlie’s Angels and, as much as I hated Mission Impossible II, compare the action between that and the first…well, you can’t. There’s no comparison. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon took Wire Fu to a whole ‘nother level (that movie was the first time that I can remember Blacks and whites crowded into a packed theater for a foreign language film, cheering together). But the over the top fighting styles were rendered obsolete by one movie — you already know which one that is — Bourne Identity.
What hasn’t been said about the original Bourne Trilogy? Those movies brought a realism that had never been captured on film and expanded fighting styles beyond Wushu/Kung Fu and Karate. Doug Liman explains:
The martial arts actually ended up being the thing that helped us define Jason Bourne and his entire character. Right after Matt agreed to do the film, we arranged for demonstrations of different martial arts and Kali really inspired us. It is ridiculously efficient. You don’t break a sweat or expend any energy, you use your opponents energy against him. Doug Liman
From 2002 on filmmakers have scoured the earth looking for different fighting systems, one is as likely to see Kali, Keysi, & Krav Maga as they are to see Karate & Kung Fu. Fighting Choreographers have become stars in their own right. People like Robert Lonzo (Mission Impossible 3/Jack Reacher), Phillip Silvero (The Netflix Daredevil series/Deadpool), Olivier Schneider (Taken), & Cory Yuen (Transporter) stay in demand. Even the Fast & The Furious movies have gone beyond racing cars, and with the help of Jeff Imada, are that strange hybrid action movie that dominates the box office now.
I know it may seem abstract.
It may seem like a stretch. I understand that. Our society likes…no NEEDS to see concrete proof on everything otherwise it’s labeled a conspiracy or dismissed.
Well, this ain’t no dissertation and I don’t need this essay to graduate. It’s just an observation and there’s a whole lot of causality involved, no question. But as someone who grew up in a time when the only ones that were into ‘Karate Flicks’ were young Black people to a time where everyone seems to accept Martial Arts as a given, I can’t help but to trace it back.
Quentin Tarantino ain’t ashamed to talk about his love (and appropriation of) Black culture. He even scooped up the RZA for his Kill Bill soundtrack (Tarantino later helped the RZA out with The Man with Iron Fists, RZA’s foray into the Kung Fu field and they’re considered to be ‘friends’). I doubt the Wachowskis would ever be asked (or admit) that they had any affinity towards Wu-Tang. But it doesn’t matter.
We may not be able to see the significance of the Wu but Grade A asshole Martin Shkreli does. That’s why he shelled out two Ms for the only copy of Once Upon a Time in Shaolin.
Martial Arts and Martial Arts movies were once niche watching and far from mainstream. Wu-Tang Clan’s popularity changed that. You may not agree. I’on’t care. As they say in modern parlance — fight me.
