Original Album Classics

At a time when hip-hop was being powered by old-school funk and the West Coast gangster style had taken over the charts, the Wu-Tang Clan's 1993 debut album Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) was a massive game-changer, with its lean, atmospheric sound, stark dirty beats, and tag team of inspired MCs spinning harsh, unglamorized tales of life in New York City's urban maze, with chess and martial arts movies used both as a backdrop and unending source of metaphors. Enter the Wu-Tang became one of the most influential hip-hop albums of the decade and turned many of the group's members into overnight stars, especially rappers Method Man, Ol' Dirty Bastard, Raekwon, Ghostface Killah, and production mastermind RZA. Original Album Classics is a special three-disc box set that features three of the Wu-Tang Clan's most memorable albums: the classic Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers), 2000's powerful return to form The W, and 2001's Iron Flag, a fierce group effort that was in part the group's speedy response to the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York. ~ Mark Deming|