Exit the Wu: ‘An American Saga’ Closes

When Hulu announced there would be a series on the legendary hip-hop group, The Wu-Tang Clan, I was both excited and circumspect. Much like how the group’s leader (The RZA) had to manage nine competing personalities (Method Man, Cappadonna, Raekwon, Ghostface Killah, GZA, Inspectah Deck, U-God, Masta Killa and the incredibly mercurial Ol’ Dirty Bastard, whew) and egos in one group, I was curious as to how the series would manage to juggle all of these characters (who were real people), and create a compelling, watchable series.

While much like the real Wu-Tang Clan, that challenge of herding cats was met with ups and downs and ins and outs, but was ultimately successful, so too was the series. It was always a novel idea: the concept of taking a hardcore hip-hop group from ‘90s Staten Island that never had a single top 40 hit, and showcase the level of influence the group (that has both a cult following and mass appeal) had on music, and on popular culture itself. 

Not only have the remarkable albums that came out of the early Wu-Tang Clan era grown in stature, but their clothing line—Wu-Wear has become ubiquitous. Wu-Tang: An American Saga did its best to capture just how inspirational The Wu-Tang Clan were and continue to be. And while it got messy at times, in the end, the show was able to get 85% of the way there. A figure I state with high praise.

I was running a record store when the Clan’s first album, Enter the Wu-Tang (The 36 Chambers) hit the street. It didn’t sound like anything else out there. Raw, gritty, and bracing to the point of feeling like punk rock (the Wu later toured with Rage Against The Machine in support of the second Wu album), the Wu stood alone.

There was a grime and grind to the beats and rhymes. While it was impossible to use nine MCs on every track, their first single “Protect Ya Neck” is a brilliant case study in how you can corral those disparate personalities to create a killer track. 

One of the best scenes in the series takes place when the then 8-person band (Masta Killa hadn’t officially joined yet) takes the stage as a full group to perform “Neck” in a club. All the inner group squabbles disappear when the members hit the stage, and as they get into their groove, the show gives you the sense of how exhilarating it must have felt to be on stage or in the audience when the Wu made their live debut. It’s absolutely thrilling.

If the first season was largely about getting the gang together, season two showcased the group finding their first taste of mainstream success with the 36 Chambers album, and the third and final season is about what do you do to follow up such an extraordinary achievement. 

The band’s often beleaguered ringleader, The RZA, wants to take the band in a new musical direction: no drum machines, no samples, all live instrumentation. This decision perplexes some, and flat out angers Raekwon, who can’t figure out what The RZA is doing recording a classical septet when all he wants is a beat to rhyme over. While some of this tension is humorous, a lot of it is just tension. 

As the band goes on tour with Rage, their internal issues exacerbate. Money squabbles, not hitting the stage on time, and some members not being hip to performing in front of a more rock-oriented audience are all in full effect. It may sound a bit clichéd, the rise and relative fall of a band or artist, but the story is more complicated than that. 

The Wu-Tang Clan broke just about every rule. They signed to a label largely on their own terms, and all of the artists in the band were not held to that label, meaning every MC in the band could, through the RZA’s guidance, sign with any label they wanted. In the world of popular music, that deal was absolutely unheard of. 

While this freedom of movement was unique and beneficial, creating bidding wars for solo albums, the movement wasn’t as free as it might have seemed. The RZA, and not without some level of wisdom, is shown as a control freak who is certain that he knows what’s right for everyone, but to Ol’ Dirty, who always wanted to be on Def Jam, but gets signed to Virgin records by The RZA, he sees The RZA’s maneuvering as a betrayal of their bond. 

Much of the series is based around men who love each other, but who have spent so much time in the streets, that trust doesn’t come easily and can be lost quickly. As I said, with nine band members, along with management (provided by The RZA’s brother, Divine), and love interests (of which Shurrie, played by the lovely Zolee Griggs, registers most strongly) Wu-Tang: An American Saga, could be a lot to keep up with. 

The show took a while to settle, but eventually, the series focused primarily on four band members: The RZA (Moonlight’s Ashton Sanders), Raekwon (Shameik Moore), Ghostface (Siddiq Saunderson), and Ol’ Dirty (TJ Atoms). Outside of the performers, Divine (a terrific Julian Elijah Martinez) is given a lot of time too as the group’s manager. For those expecting more Method Man (the most popular solo Wu member), An American Saga might come as a surprise. Meth (played by a well-cast Dave East) is shown mostly on the outskirts of the band as if an island unto himself. That being said, when Meth steps into the studio and comes up with the hook to C.R.E.A.M. (The band’s most enduring song), the joy of creation is ever-present and electrifying. “Dolla. dolla bill ya’ll.”

The best episode of the final season is Divine trying to sign three specific members to Tommy Mottola’s (then Mariah Carey’s husband, and shown as an almost gangster-like character) label. Each of the three are on their own trip at a house party and don’t want to talk business. The episode shows Divine hurtling towards the brink of madness before getting the trio to sign. 

Nothing ever came easy with the Wu, and the series does excellent work showing how hard it was to not only get the band together, but to keep the band together. As the proverbial calm within the storm, Ashton Sanders as The RZA had to grow into the role. No matter how much Sanders’ deepened his voice, mimicked The RZA’s halting style of speech, he just looked so much younger than everyone else that it was sometimes difficult to buy him as a leader. To Sanders’ credit, he did find the core of his character, and particularly in scenes where he is creating music, you can feel the joy of discovery in his efforts.

The best performance in the series belonged to TJ Atoms as Ol’ Dirty Bastard. In the history of popular music there has seldom been a character like ODB. His rhymes are often delivered in a marble-mouthed fashion, his desire to sing is a folly that somehow works, and his completely unpredictable nature makes it seem astounding that ODB was able to produce as much quality work as he did before his untimely death at the age of thirty-six. It’s a high god damn bar to try to reach to capture the strange magic and madness of ODB, but Atoms does so with often hilarious aplomb. It’s the best performance on television that no one talks about.

No portion of Wu-Tang: An American Saga highlights the beauty and madness of ODB like episode three of the final season , which is a full-on fantasy, alternative reality that posits ODB as a ‘70s Dolemite-like character. In doing so, the show captures the spirit of ODB while also paying tribute to a cult legend (please see Eddie Murphy in Dolemite is My Name if at all possible) who influenced many hip-hop artists. 

Two other episodes take the same tack as the ODB stand-alone, giving other characters their own mini- movie with the purpose of allowing us greater understanding into their personalities. Unfortunately, having three episodes of fan-fiction not only feels like overkill, but takes away from the show’s momentum and flow. 

However Wu-Tang: An American Saga, does find its footing down the stretch, and just as the wheels are about to come off their tour with Rage due to not meeting contractual obligations, victory is snatched from the jaws of what would have been a humiliating demise (being kicked off the tour), as we see the band members pull it together at the last second and deliver a remarkable live performance. 

The show then cuts to the real Wu-Tang playing their groundbreaking single “Triumph” with The RZA leading a full orchestra in front of tens of thousands of fans, while the band members get ready to spit their rhymes. Like the band itself, Wu-Tang: An American Saga pulls it together just in time to make (or perhaps remind) the viewer of what a seminal group of artists the Wu-Tang collective grew to be. For a short period of time, the Wu-Tang Clan, a bunch of struggling and troubled young men from Staten Island, were the biggest band in the world. 

It’s a miracle that it even happened, but when you see real-life footage of a massive crowd in Wu-wear cheering on their heroes while an orchestra plays over their beats and rhymes, you get a true sense of why the show was called an American Saga. 

The story of the Wu-Tang Clan could only be told in this country. There is no other place that it would have been possible. And if the series can’t quite reach the dizzying heights of Sacha Jenkins’ tremendous Wu-Tang documentary Of Mics and Men, it comes far closer than anyone might have expected. The show makes few compromises to the masses. All of the main characters are Black, and any white characters exist as a sideline to the show’s main focus: Black men making music for Black people. And maybe that’s why the show didn’t gain  more eyeballs or acclaim. Maybe it was just too insular for a larger audience. That’s not to say that there were not plenty of pleasures to be found for those of us outside of the Wu’s community, it’s just that you has to come to the Wu on their own terms, and that goes for the real band and the show. 

If you were able to make that leap, you’d understand what all of us Wu lovers already know: that Wu-Tang is forever.

Forever, ever.