"RZA peers quizzically into the O2 audience through a pair of impressively bejewelled sunglasses. How many people in this crowd were born in the 70s? 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's being billed as the Wu-Tang Clan's farewell tour are old enough to remember the Staten Island rap crew's gamechanging arrival on the early-90s hip-hop scene first-hand."
"As the members gradually arrive onstage for a brace of tracks from their epochal debut, Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers), you're struck by how little their verbal firepower has been diminished by the passing years. If a live backing band can't hope to recreate the unsettling, grimy atmosphere conjured by RZA's crackling samples on Protect Ya Neck or Wu-Tang Clan Ain't Nuthing Ta F' Wit, the vocals still carry a sense of barely controlled and feral energy."
Wu-Tang Clan performs their farewell tour at London's O2 Arena, drawing primarily audiences from the 1970s generation who witnessed the Staten Island crew's groundbreaking early-90s hip-hop emergence. RZA acknowledges the physical limitations of aging fans while the group delivers tracks from their seminal debut Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers). The European leg features a scaled-down production compared to the acclaimed American tour, with reduced guest appearances limited to Mobb Deep's Havoc. Despite a live backing band unable to fully replicate RZA's original grimy sample production, the members retain their verbal intensity and feral energy, with Young Dirty Bastard notably performing in place of his late father.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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