This theory has been in my head for some time. It goes like this: Wu-Tang Clan’s “Triumph” celebrates the point at which hiphop fully arrived in the mainstream. (There’s now no doubt about its success and influence—the world has to live with hiphop and all of its ramifications: sartorial, linguistic, sexual.) It’s also the point at which the kind of hiphop that Wu-Tang Clan represented—democratic hiphop, hiphop as the swarming multitudes, dialogic hiphop—meets its demise in the mainstream. “Triumph” is both a declaration of the cultural success of democratic hiphop and the announcement of its banishment from the market. As the flute of the Pied Piper led the boys and girls of Hamelin to the dark cave, “Triumph” led the rappers and DJs to the underground.
“Triumph,” from Wu-Tang’s second and last important album, Wu-Tang Forever, stands as the clan’s seventh-best single (the best being, of course, “Bring Da Ruckus”—one of the highest achievements of 20th-century music), and it includes performances by the brightest stars of the show (Method Man, RZA, GZA, Ghostface Killah, Raekwon, and Ol’ Dirty Bastard) and lesser lights (U-God, Inspectah Deck, Masta Killa, Cappadonna). Each of the brightest stars had a classic album attached to his name, and each of the lesser lights had a classic track or two. This huge and dazzling body of work was accumulated in the space of four years—1993 to 1997. After 1997, the brightest and not-so-bright lights would end up making a living in (Ghostface Killah) or being honored by (GZA) the underground.
The spoils of the hiphop victory that “Triumph” celebrated so gloriously (its noble strings, its MC heroism, its lion-proud beats and bass) turned out to be shared among a very small number of rappers and record executives. The mainstream essentially dissolved the democracy that made hiphop great, offered lucrative contracts to a few rappers who were notoriously monologic (bitches this, bitches that, clubs, walking with a limp, hos in area codes, and so on), and structured a system that rewarded aggressive individualism (shock) rather than innovation (art). The Wu-Tang Clan will certainly never be forgotten, but the world of hiphop they emerged from is far richer than the one that exists today. 
Agreed.
sometimes it is hard to remember what hip hop was like pre-36 chambers, but the innovation and importance of the Wu Tang Clan can never be underestimated.
still nuthin ta fuck with…
bravo on using the Karl Kani shot!
the nights events are coming back to me as i type, so this is not in chronological order:
the show honestly, was a lot like what mudede summed up in the article. first off, yo what was with that line outside sodo?! missed every single opening act except the last cut from the black knights aka “the west coast killa bees”, in fact, figuring if we pounded 40’s behind the mini-mart and smoked some doja the line would shorten up, but when we returned it was longer! did the same thing two more times before just figuring actually waiting in line was the democratic thing to do… bummer. especially wanted to see champagne champagne open the night since thomas grey is seattle’s cappadonna. ok, finally got in… hip hop shows in seattle are a million times more fun than rock shows right now for two reasons, no one is frontin’ and everyone is smoking pounds of weed. side note, you motherfuckers smoking cigarettes inside are going to ruin this shit for all of us herbal purists. wu tang are the kings, THE KINGS, and they let you know that too, cause set change for wu’s dj to connect two needles and plug in his lap top took 45 minutes to an hour, but like hendrix at woodstock everyone would’ve stayed until sunrise chanting “wu-tang, wu-tang.” method man greeted the crowd like the wizard of oz n’ shit from backstage with that wireless getting hella zumiez’d-out brah’s amped up. oh yeah, memory flashback, out on the corner prior to the show i overheard one of the SODO ticket scalpers say “man, ain’t nobody from the hood here…” back in the crowd, cut and sealed swishers get lit, method man shouts out to seattle seahawk marshawn “hold my dick!” lynch like three times, fyi, the “weezy of the nfl” is hip hop’s most beloved NFL player. at this point i’m mega eager to see who from the original line-up has decided to stick out the entire winter wu tour to it’s final date here in seattle, if rza will go off about white devils, if a wally’d pretty toney will make an appearance or a timb’d and hoodied ghostface, we’re difinitely getting some liquid swords cuts from gza right? the answers to those questions end up being the only buzzkill to the evening. no ghostface, no raekwon, no gza, no rumored cappadonna, just a bunch of dudes i didn’t recognize from the plethora of wu side projects that flooded everyone in the mid to late 90’s. side note: masta killah noticeably covered and killed all the classic ghost verses from 36 chambers and on “uzi (pinky ring)”. the original members that stuck it out didn’t fail to deliver, i’ll get back to method man,.. but first, what?! RZA went all denzel n’ shit. dude looked like common in that gap commercial, this sweater is italian cashmere bung bung, yeah it’s an ed hardy shirt with a grenade on it that i got underneath god… still, like charles pointed out in his article, RZA has and commands the presence of an honorary godfather, taking time to point out among the catalogue of hits they played which verses from which wu members were the hottest. i remember him saying, almost like a proud parent “yo, those old cappadonna verses were…” “yo mastah killah killed it on that…” etc. even gave a mid song lecture on hip hop as an art form. u-god was just skunked out, junior-high stoned, some buddies told me they saw him earlier cruisin’ around westlake, probably had to hit up that lush soap shop, nah mean?!. inspectah deck was just, well you know, inspectah deck, hangin’ out in the back. although, when they banged out their verses in “triumph” it reminded me that yes, like mudede pointed out, “triumph” is the best wu joint ever, if for the only reason being that it’s the only wu song where every member brings it on their respective verses. i mean fuck man, “righteous wax chaperone, rotating ring king” that’s so boss, pure poetry. ok so method man, yeah he was in how high n’ shit and gets a bad rap… get it, bad rap? anyway, but um, dude came out on stage with a broken leg and moved around more than everyone else in the crew and is still the most animated member of wu after ODB’s death, dude plugged his new george lucas produced flick twice, but i don’t care, 99% of anyone would’ve been like fuck this my leg’s broken, where’s the afterparty? at one point he was crowd surfing and jumping up and down during “method man”, then told this big girl in a small dress who was tryin’ to get into the backstage area to “go to the back of the class” then told the same thing to some girl who tried to come up and grind on him after finishing his verse from he and redman’s “da rockwilder”. meth was a total gentleman, genuinely thanking the local sound man, and the security staff on down. all in all a pretty good show, wasn’t a wu show in 97′ but it wasn’t a RZA solo show from 2006 either… i lost my voice, but again, left feeling like that time and place of the wu experience you so seek after, the one where members openly fight with one another onstage after beating the hell out of someone in the crowd for flipping them off while RZA, high on angel dust, spouts off quotes form the i-ching are, sadly, so far gone.
god i hate showbox sodo..
..and no.. i didn’t go..
“Light is provided through sparks of energy from the mind that travels in rhyme form, giving sight to the blind, the dumb are mostly intrigues by the drum…” Masta Killa’s verse in Triumph is SO dope, I can’t believe you’d evern refer to him as a, “lower light.” Especially when the message of your blog is summed up right there…