I read the thread title, went and picked up some takeout, got setup at the kitchen table, entered the thread, and then this...
its more
July 1997: Rolling Stone’s Anthony DeCurtis writes up a cover story, finding that “each member contributes 20 percent of his earnings back to that company, and all of the members share equally in the profits, regardless of how well their individual albums sold, or whether or not they even made an album.” While that might sound pretty good, DeCurtis thinks it’s “a blueprint for jealousy and competition — and it may eventually prove to be” their downfall.
July 1997: The group announces a two-month tour with Rage Against the Machine.
September 1997: "It is my understanding, through the twisted labyrinth that is the communication system of the Wu-Tang Clan, that they're not playing any more shows on the tour in part because of difficulties they're having within their own group," says Rage guitarist Tom Morello. Soon after, RZA tells MTV that most of the group wasn’t showing up to tour dates by that point, anyway.
1999: Under the title “Wu-Tang Forever?” U-God says he’s tried to talk to ODB about his ... problems, but that “he’s his own man.” When told that Method Man “didn't know a Wu-Tang video game was out until someone asked him about it,” U-God responds “angrily.” (Says U-God: "He's on the road, so nobody should ask him that shyt. He's always on the fukking road, so he doesn't know what the fukk is going on.")
November 2000: The A.V. Club reviews The W, saying it sounds like they’re “struggling to make order out of chaos without being swallowed up by it.”
2000: RZA calculates that each member of the group would’ve made $220,000 if only they’d all shown up to concert dates. (The Chicago Tribune adds, helpfully, “They did not.”)
June 2001: Method Man lets loose that the Shaolin swordplay has turned inward and denies that anyone’s busy at work recording their third album Iron Flag since there’s "internal bullshyt" and "the sales aren't what they used to be.” One reason could be that studio sessions aren’t as full as they once were: ODB’s in jail, GZA opts to send over ProTools files from afar (no one’s sure why), and Cappadonna has somehow ended up driving a taxi in Baltimore. It’s rumored that the FBI has cornered him into acting as an informant; apparently, there’s some connection between the Wu-Tang Clan and the Gambino family. (RZA will later say that the album was put together in 30 days. Upon its release in December, The Guardian’s reviewer calls the record “sloppy and uneven.” It lands at No. 32 on the Billboard "200," behind debuts from Nas, Mystikal, and Lil Bow Wow.)
June 2003: Method Man goes on Big Boy’s Neighborhood radio show and lets loose: “Ain't no Wu-Tang album going down unless everybody comes together as a group and stops coming together as these solo artists. Everybody, you know, basically, suckin' they self off … you're only as good as your last hit homey. Know what I'm saying? And our last hit was 'C.R.E.A.M.' That song came out in 1993."
August 2003: MTV reports that neither Raekwon, Inspectah Deck, nor Method Man like the idea of ODB signing to Roc-a-Fella. “Inspectah Deck compares it to fighting on Iraq's side." Meth says, “Brothers ain't really been in contact with each other. Don't let none of them fool you like we talk to each other every day, 'cause we don't. Where we're at right now, a lot of people got a lot of issues they gotta deal with — personal as well as business." RZA jumps in to say, "I know some [members of the group] are upset about it. They're upset about it based on the egos.”
November 2003: “Number 1 on my shyt list right now is [RZA”s business partner] Divine from Wu-Tang management. He took something major from me that he had no intention of giving back," said Method Man, speaking to Blender magazine.
March 2004: U-God leaves the group, releasing an anti-RZA DVD, Rise of a Fallen Soldier. He accuses RZA of being the devil and a slavemaster, of favoring certain members’ projects over his. RZA posts on the Wu-Tang website: "U-Godzilla has a distorted memory of the Wu and his involvement.” U-God goes on Hot97 and tells Sway — straight up — that it’s a publicity stunt ... before RZA calls into the show. It’s a strange conversation! U-God rejoins the group.
Summer 2004: To get ODB to leave his hotel room and perform at Hot97’s Summer Jam, RZA bribes him with an extra five grand.
November 2004: Ol’ Dirty b*stard misses another concert, prompting Method Man to call him out onstage: “There’s no one bigger than the Clan. When you see Ol’ Dirty b*stard, tell him that.” The next day ODB dies at a recording studio from an accidental drug overdose.
2005: Ghostface Killah sues RZA for unpaid royalties. RZA, who also acts as the group's producer, claims his 50 percent take is standard.
August 2007: RZA: "How can hip-hop be dead if Wu-Tang is forever?"
October 15, 2007: Ghostface tells MTV: “the hierarchy at Wu-Tang Clan is on some bullshyt” and complains that the group is trying to release 8 Diagrams (their album) on the exact same day as The Big Dough Rehab (his album), to sabotage him. He closes by saying, “N***as better pay my fukking money. Matter of fact, they can keep the money — just get me out of their life right now.”
October 22, 2007: "While the Wu-Tang Clan's tour has been cancelled until spring 2008 Ghostface will be performing on stages throughout the country," reads the Wu website.
November 8, 2007: Raekwon tells Hot97’s Miss Info: "One minute, you my brother, one minute we doing business. ... And that's the problem ... A n***a may know you love them because you love them like that, and then next thing you know he uses that as a weakness against you and your mind." These are shots at RZA, in case you haven’t been reading.
November 8, 2007: And so RZA responds: "I don’t know if everybody agreed with [the idea behind 8 Diagrams]. Everybody has their own opinion. This is in my vision at the end of the day.”
November 27, 2007: RZA yells at U.K. radio DJ Tim Westwood: "I ain't never take no money from nobody, and I don't owe nobody no money! Don't never say that. I pay all my bills. I work hard and pay all my bills."
November 29, 2007: Bing bong, case closed! Ghostface wins $158,000, saying, “I just won my court case from them n***as. The suit been in there for three years. So put that out there. They just lost their fukkin’ case. So who don’t owe who money? Let’s get it straight, RZA. That’s all I’m sayin’, baby. It was a loss, they lost. L-O-S-T. That’s really it.”
November 29, 2007: Ghostface is on a press run, getting a lot of questions about 8 Diagrams: “That shyt is wack. I heard RZA was changing some of the beats around the last minute. I didn’t hear that. I don’t know what y’all listening to out there. I never heard it. I’m with Raekwon.”
November 29, 2007: More from Ghostface: “I don’t see RZA, man. That n***a’s real sneaky. I love him, though. Ain’t no bad blood. Ain’t nobody doing no bad to him. It’s just that you can’t get money with a n***a.”
November 30, 2007: Ghostface to Rap Basement: "I've had that date since like last June and the Clan album was supposed to been came out. It was supposed to drop in August, then October and I guess it wasn't making the deadlines or whatever. Rza and Divine didn't want me to drop this year. They wanted it to be all about the Wu and it seemed like a lot of funny sh*t was going on. Rza ain't listening. He wanted to make [8 Diagrams] how he wanted it and it ain't come out right. He wanna always do the whole thing himself, produce the whole album. We're like, let's bring in some other producers too. Bring in Kanye, bring in Pharrell. You ain't gotta do the whole thing yourself. He wanna make his own instruments and shyt and it sounded real horrible."
December 3, 2007: RZA tells MTV that U-God is blown away by everything RZA’s making, that he believes they’re on the right track. As for everyone complaining, "Wow, I thought we were all on the same page." In the same interview, RZA says, “When we do come together, a lot of things just seem to evaporate. When we get on the stage together, we can have a problem 10 minutes before we get onstage. But once we're onstage, we feel like everything evaporates."
December 10, 2007: Raekwon says that he’s supporting the release of 8 Diagrams, after supposedly getting in RZA’s face and telling him, “This is a Wu-Tang Clan album. This ain't RZA's album.” Rae says that he’s working on a new album — to be called The Wu Tang vs. The Shaolin — and that everyone but RZA will be on it.
December 17, 2007: “We’re not so much talking to each other. “We have lawyers speaking to lawyers now,” says Cappadonna.
April 2008: Wu-Tang reunites onstage for the first time in a year! RZA’s publicist makes a big deal out of saying, "There is no more beef!" to a writer from HipHopDX.
