Introduction.

Currently listening:  GZA - "4th Chamber" (from Liquid Swords)

What up; welcome to Map of Shaolin!  My name is jonny Lupsha and I own a small publishing outfit in north Virginia called A Carrier of Fire.  I have no idea what makes Wu-Tang Clan so damn infectious - the beats, the rhymes, the kung-fu samples or something else - but I knew I was hooked from my first listen in 1996.  I got more and more into them, and I realized last month I had about 55 of their 65 or so group and solo albums.  I decided to round out my collection and start up this blog.

Every Wednesday, starting on April 30, I'm going to talk about a new album from Wu-Tang Clan or one of its original nine members (RZA, GZA, Ol' Dirty Bastard, Inspectah Deck, Raekwon the Chef, U-God, Ghostface Killah, Masta Killa and Method Man).  No disrespect to Cappadonna, but I want to look at the first nine guys.  You can call it a review, but I'm also aiming to educate as much as critique.  You'll find trivia, bizarre stories, recommended tracks and more about each album.  I'll start with 1993's Enter the Wu-Tang and work my way forward by release date.

This is a totally unofficial, fan-made blog project dedicated to The Wu-Tang Clan.  We're not in any way affiliated with Wu-Tang, and all the opinions on here are our own, not to be taken as official dialogue from the band.

The purpose is to take this unbelievable band and find out where they came from, what their releases said about the group and the scene at the time and what it led to.  I just wanna take this bag of snakes and lay it out straight for anyone down with Wu-Tang, answering some questions along the way, like...Is Shogun Assassin really that good?  What's up with the apocalyptic theme on Tical 2000?  How close to official retail release is that pirated copy of A Son Unique?  Is Think Differently: Wu-Tang Meets the Indie Culture, Masta Killa Presents: The Next Chamber or Legendary Weapons worth the money?  Ideally I'll even get a review of the super-secret album Once Upon a Time in Shaolin up at some point; I live outside DC so I'm hoping it'll tour the Smithsonian and I'll get to give it a listen with my pad and pen.

This will probably take about 15 months, ending in August 2015 or so.  I'll fully detail the plan next week when I get a picture of my entire library uploaded to the blog, but I'll answer one question you may already have:  Why start at Enter the Wu-Tang when a couple albums, like GZA's Words from the Genius and RZA's Ooh We Love You Rakeem came out before then?  I feel like once RZA, GZA and ODB started Wu-Tang in 1992, they had a mission and a philosophy in mind that wasn't present when they released their earlier stuff.  So I'm starting with Enter the Wu-Tang, when the world met all nine Wu generals.

So bookmark this page and check back every week.  Send me questions and comments at ACarrierofFire@gmail.com - I'll even post the best non-trolling ones.  So play nice; I'm committing over a year to only listening to one band.

Until next time?  Hip-hop is forever, Wu-Tang is for the children, and killa bees are most definitely on the swarm.