And Wu-Tang Clan’s seminal debut is a shining example of the punk spirit in album form. The spirit of punk: its irreverence for authority, call for youth’s liberation and musical mastery despite limited technical skills, all fit within the umbrella of early hip-hop. And yes, it’s rooted in many of hip-hop’s fundamental elements: MCing, boom bap beats and sampling, but the attitude and means of execution both transcended genres, and embodied the ethos of others, like punk. The album changed hip-hop while doing “DIY” better than many of punk’s biggest names, especially at that time. To simply say “this album is punk” is to say it lives up to the standards set by mostly suburban, white, men.īut it doesn’t just live up to any “punk” metric alone. (Charles Sykes/Invision/AP)Īnd while “36 Chambers” is one of the punkest albums ever recorded, it’s also unfair to qualify the artistic endeavors of nine black men against a white metric.
Wu-Tang Clan's Method Man performs at Governors Ball Music Festival in June 2017 in New York City. And in early '90s Staten Island, arguably the least New York of the boroughs (57 percent of Staten Island voted for Donald Trump), one of hip-hop’s reigning entities, Wu-Tang Clan, blossomed like psychedelic mushrooms growing from the most unexpected of soils.įrom the "slums of Shaolin," the band created their game-changing debut album “Enter The Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)," which remains one of the most punk albums in hip-hop history. The ferocious attitude, grainy sound and warped timbre throughout the album made it like nothing hip-hop had ever seen before. If we're talking about punk as an attitude - a fractious spirit linked with a dearth of resources - then punk never died.ĭJ Kool Herc, Afrika Bambaataa and Arthur Baker, among others, were executing their own exciting brand of DIY with hip-hop in the mid '70s. What’s often forgotten in these arguments is the way in which punk changed hands. Or did the genre die much later, with the advent of surfer bro SoCal pop-punk and festivals like the Warped Tour? But shortly after, some argued that punk died on arrival, as fabricated bands like The Sex Pistols masqueraded around in a circus-like frenzy. (Courtesy) This article is more than 2 years old.Ĭritics and audiences perpetually argue over the death of punk. In the late '60s, bands like Peru’s Los Saicos, MC5 and The Stooges had spawned an irreverent sensibility coupled with a DIY attitude that became the genesis for the genre. Wu-Tang Clan "36 Chambers" stands as a cultural marker, not just of hip-hop, but of the punk spirit, writes critic Eduardo Cepeda.
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