Even though I know that he’s giving an honest and realistic response following the clumsy release of 8 Diagrams, it’s vaguely depressing to hear RZA say that attempting another Wu-Tang Clan album would be “bad business.” Its members’ varying degrees of solo success (and RZA’s own control-freak tendencies) have made it extremely hard for the group to come together, and it’s no surprise that collective enthusiasm is at a new low. But to hear it from the RZA himself guarantees the group is basically done for: “I don’t know, really, to tell you the truth. Wu-Tang is forever, I think, and we’ll be making the same sounds, whether we make it together or separately. But as far as making an album together, I don’t know.”

“I wouldn’t want to get into a business relationship with the Wu-Tang Clan because it hurt my business, Universal Music’s business, the record business. It hurt a lot of people when they wouldn’t show up for music videos, for press. It (wastes) a lot of people’s money. A lot of people got fired — the guys don’t even know how many people got fired because of them.

“That’s just not good business, and I’m a businessman. I need to keep my name clean, so I can go anywhere in the world and do anything and people know there’s professionalism behind it.”

While we’ll undoubtedly see collaborations between the various members (RZA worked on Raekwon’s long-in-the-works sequel to Only Built For Cuban Linx…), and maybe most to all of them will reunite one member’s track someday, it does seem like the 8 Diagrams experience was unpleasant enough that there would be little impetus for the rappers to work together as a group. Have they ever thought about holding a Wu-Convention for all the Wu-nerds? They could even hold it at The Wu Convention Centre.

RZA Is Own Master [Calgary Herald via ProHipHop]
Wu-Tang Clan – Can It All Be So Simple? [YouTube]