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It's Wu motherfuckers?
This past weekend I was skimming through a copy of Mass Appeal and came across an interview with a crew out of Amsterdam calling themselves the Wu-Tang Brothers. While the Wu-Tang Clan has had an almost limitless supply of affiliates and hangers-on over the years, the picture that ran with the interview certainly didn't look like any branch of the Wu family that I was familiar with. As it turned out, the Wu-Tang Brothers were a cover band, putting on live performances of the Wu's greatest hits (and even reenacting some of the skits from their albums).
The idea of a hip hop cover band in and of itself was interesting enough to catch my attention. In a genre of music where the act of merely biting one line from another rapper is enough to cost an emcee their entire credibility, hip hop cover bands are, not surprisingly, a very rare phenomenon (truth be told, this is the first one I had ever heard of). Even more intriguing was the fact that the group's appearance ran counter to what one could expect from anything Wu-related in the past.
When I first heard about the Wu-Tang Brothers I was skeptical, to say the least. The concept behind the group - seven Scandinavian kids decked out in stereotypical Hipster attire, mimicking not only the lyrics but the whole onstage persona of the Clan - seemed to be a rather blatant attempt to make Wu-Tang's music more palatable to the type of audience that would, under normal circumstances, dismiss hip hop without a second thought. And after watching their videos I can't say that isn't the case, yet somehow they've managed to turn a glorified karaoke performance into something that's begun to get more attention from the media than many legitimate rappers. Normally I would just dismiss them for the gimmick that they are, but considering all of the bickering and in-fighting that's been going on between the real Wu-Tang Clan, these guys may be the closest thing we get to an authentic Wu concert experience any time soon.
I suppose at the very least we can be thankful that they've chosen to emulate one of the greatest groups of all time rather than, say, some of the groups that have come out more recently (though I can only assume it's just a matter of time before we see a Dipset cover band). Yet I'm still unable to decide whether this is a misappropriation of hip hop culture or a genuine tribute, though the more I read about them the more I've begun to lean toward the latter. They've got two videos up on Youtube, so take a look and decide for yourself. The sound is a little rough, but it should give you a good idea of what their shows are like:
Wu-Tang Brothers - Reunited
Wu-Tang Brothers - Protect Ya Neck
7/16/2007 08:35:01 PM posted by Fresh