There are nine members in the Wu-Tang Clan. How many members must be present for a sufficiently enjoyable show? Nine? Seven? Five? Three?
How about none?
For that matter, how about Cappadonna, frequent contributor to Wu-Tang’s projects?
Despite a marquee that initially proclaimed a mere two words, “WU TANG,” Cappadonna played two shows at the Metro in Chicago on Friday, Jan. 9, and Saturday, Jan. 10. However, the Friday show — announcing “surprise guests” — offered one major surprise: no original Wu-Tang members whatsoever. Instead, members of the audience bore witness to three live acts, all of which were at best tangentially related to the Clan itself.
Originally, concert organizer Streetlevel Productions had only promised one original Clan member for the shows: GZA. That fact was glossed over by Richie Rich, the host of the proceedings, as the Friday show drew to a GZA-less close.
Opening trio Ill Noiz (watch for falling puns) offered a sneak preview of the disappointment that would follow. Beginning their set by playing their own CD — with vocals! — over the Metro loudspeaker, the three rappers proceeded to rap over themselves, allowing the lukewarm audience to hear only select lyrics like “Melt your brain/ With acid rain,” echoed by each of the rappers as they rhymed out of sync. On Friday night, the biggest response Ill Noiz managed to elicit came when one of them fervently proclaimed his love of Wu-Tang to the crowd.
After Ill Noiz, Kalamazoo, Mich.-based rap quartet Dezert Eez took the stage. Following Ill Noiz’s ill-fated 30-minute banter, the group came through with an energetic set that sounded, not surprisingly, similar to Wu-Tang. Unlike Ill Noiz, Dezert Eez had skills enough to make more than three people in the audience wave their hands in the air like they just didn’t care. Dezert Eez’s set was also not entirely devoid of an immense number of shout-outs to the Wu-Tang Clan.
But those shout-outs Friday night must have scared all the real Wu members away. Wu-Tang associate Killah Priest kicked off the collective’s set with a bombastic entrance. The stage filled with members of the Wu-Tang entourage, most of whom did not perform in any way but instead paced to and fro, blocking Cappadonna as he attempted to work the crowd. The overall effect was a sense of excitement in anticipation of GZA and (to a lesser extent) Cappadonna as the mighty Wu-Tang machine cranked out massive hype.
Cappadonna stepped out to a crowd thrilled by the night’s first taste of actual Wu-Tang. He and Priest traded rhymes and, yes, shout-outs in a lackluster showing. Hey, who wants to hear a fragment of “C.R.E.A.M.” by two artists who don’t appear on the actual version of the song? Or better yet, how about a cover of Raekwon’s “Ice Cream” — with none of the original lyricists but, in their place, Remedy, the worst rapper sleeping in the back of your mind, a rapper that creates the need for his namesake?
When Remedy hit the stage on Friday night, it dawned on the audience that GZA was nowhere on the premises. Richie Rich emerged to suffer the crowd’s wrath, having antagonized them prior to the Wu-Tang set with lines like “Britney Spears — ya’ll know about this chick?” Yelling profanities, the audience demanded to know where GZA was; they subsequently hurled their drinks at Rich and exited the venue in an orderly manner. The night was over, and people realized they had just paid $25 for a Cappadonna show.
On Saturday night, however, Streetlevel redeemed themselves to some extent for the debacle that was Friday night’s announced Wu-Tang extravaganza. During the designated “Wu-Tang” portion of the set, GZA finally did appear alongside Cappadonna for approximately four songs.
Nevertheless, even GZA proved no match for the lack of planning that resulted in Friday’s disastrous outcome. Immediately following his arrival on stage, GZA and Cappadonna exchanged shout-outs and then transitioned into an asinine 45-second rendition of the Clan’s six-minute single “Triumph,” in which they performed only two of the song’s nine verses before ending the song abruptly, leaving the audience baffled. GZA then issued a shout-out to the “real Wu-Tang Killa Beez” in the audience, retired to the back of the stage with Killah Priest, and then left the stage for the remainder of the set, leaving Cappadonna to continue his uninspiring Wu-Tang covers.
Unfortunately, the “Killa Beez” in the audience were left with one conclusion: that Wu-Tang is no longer a collective of rap music prodigies. Rather, “Wu-Tang” is nothing more than a brand name that, in addition to shout-outs, can also be applied to inexplicably horrible shows.
