O2 Arena, London
This is slicker than their thrillingly chaotic early gigs, but the veteran New York hip-hop crew’s flows remain feral after 30-odd years
RZA peers quizzically into the O2 audience through a pair of impressively bejewelled sunglasses. “How many people in this crowd were born in the 70s?” he enquires, after an attempt to get the audience bouncing on the spot has met with a decidedly tepid response. The ensuing roar suggests the majority of attenders at what’s being billed as the Wu-Tang Clan’s farewell tour are old enough to remember the Staten Island rap crew’s gamechanging arrival on the early-90s hip-hop scene first-hand. He nods understandingly. “Your legs, right?” he offers, kneading the back of his thighs, perhaps no stranger to the occasional twinge himself. Clearly, the challenges in reconvening the Wu-Tang Clan for one final jaunt around the world involve not merely assembling the multifarious members after years of internal strife, but accounting for the stiff joints of the hip-hop dads such a gig is likely to attract.
Nevertheless, the tour arrives in the UK trailing ecstatic reviews from its 2025 American leg. Its European iteration is a little scaled down by necessity, its setlist pared back slightly, its impressive raft of guest stars – everyone from Slick Rick to Lauryn Hill turned up in the US – reduced to just one: Mobb Deep’s Havoc. Still, the version of Shook Ones, Part II he delivers in the company of Raekwon and Ghostface Killah is ferocious and besides, it’s not as if Wu-Tang Clan really need additional firepower.
Continue reading...
