Released: February 11, 1997

Featuring: Cappadonna

Songwriter: U-God Cappadonna Masta Killa RZA GZA Ghostface Killah Raekwon Inspectah Deck Method Man Ol’ Dirty Bastard

Producer: RZA

[Intro: Ol' Dirty Bastard]
What? Y'all thought y'all wasn't gonna see me?
I'm the Osiris of this shit
Wu-Tang is here forever, motherfuckers
This like, this '97
Aight my niggas and my niggarettes
Let's do it like this
I'ma rub your ass in the moonshine
Let's take it back to '79

[Verse 1: Inspectah Deck]
I bomb atomically, Socrates' philosophies and hypotheses
Can't define how I be dropping these mockeries
Lyrically perform armed robbery
Flee with the lottery, possibly they spotted me
Battle-scarred Shogun, explosion when my pen hits tremendous
Ultraviolet shine blind forensics
I inspect you through the future see millennium
Killa Beez sold fifty gold, sixty platinum
Shackling the masses with drastic rap tactics
Graphic displays melt the steel like blacksmiths
Black Wu jackets, Queen Beez ease the guns in
Rumble with patrolmen, tear gas laced the function
Heads by the score take flight, incite a war
Chicks hit the floor, die hard fans demand more
Behold the bold soldier, control the globe slowly
Proceeds to blow, swinging swords like Shinobi
Stomp grounds and pound footprints in solid rock
Wu got it locked, performing live on your hottest block

[Verse 2: Method Man]
As the world turns, I spread like germ
Bless the globe with the pestilence, the hard-headed never learn
This my testament to those burned
Play my position in the game of life standing firm
On foreign land jump the gun out the frying pan
Into the fire, transform into the Ghost Rider
A six-pack and A Streetcar Named Desire
Who got my back
In the line of fire holding back?
What? My peoples if you with me, where the fuck you at?
Niggas is strapped and they're tryna twist my beer cap
It's court adjourned for the bad seed from bad sperm
Herb got my wig fried like a bad perm
What the blood clot? We smoke pot
And blow spots, you want to think twice? I think not
The Iron Lung ain't got to tell you where it's coming from
Guns of Navarone tearing up your battle zone
Rip through your slums

[Verse 3: Cappadonna]
I twist darts from the heart, tried and true
Loop my voice on the LP
Martini on the slang rocks, certified chatterbox
Vocabulary 'Donna talking, tell your story walking
Take cover kid, what? Run for your brother, kid
Run for your team and your "six can't rhyme" groupies
So I can squeeze with the advantage and get wasted
My deadly notes reign supreme, your thought is basic compared to mine
Domino effect, arts and crafts, paragraphs contain cyanide
Take a free ride on my thought
I got the fashion catalogs for all y'all to all praise due to God

[Interlude: Ol' Dirty Bastard]
The saga continues
Wu-Tang, Wu-Tang

[Verse 4: U-God]
Olympic torch flaming, we burn so sweet
The thrill of victory, the agony of defeat
We crush slow, flaming deluxe slow for
Judgment Day cometh, conquer, it's war
Allow us to escape Hell, globe spinning bomb
Pocket full of shells out the sky Golden Arms
Tunes spit the shitty Mortal Kombat sound
The fake false step make the blood stain the ground
A jungle junkie, vigilante tantrum
A death kiss catwalk, squeeze another anthem
Hold it for ransom, tranquilized with anaesthesias
My orchestra, graceful, music ballerinas
My music Sicily, rich California smell
An axe kill adventure, paint a picture well
I sing a song from Sing-Sing, sipping on ginseng
Righteous wax chaperon, rotating ring kings

[Verse 5: RZA]
March of the wooden soldiers, C-Cypher-Punks couldn't hold us
A thousand men rushing in, not one nigga was sober
Perpendicular to the square we stand bold like flare
Escape from your dragon's lair
In particular my beats travel like a vortex
Through your spine to the top of your cerebral cortex
Make you feel like you bust a nut from raw sex
Enter through your right ventricle clog up your bloodstream
Heart terminal like Grand Central Station
Program fat basslines on Novation
Getting drunk like I'm fucking ducking five-year probation

[Verse 6: GZA]
War of the masses, the outcome disastrous
Many of the victim families save their ashes
A million names on walls, engraved in plaques
Those who went back received penalties for the acts
Another heart is torn as close ones mourn'
Those who stray, niggas get slayed on the song

[Verse 7: Masta Killa]
The track renders helpless and suffers from multiple stab wounds
And leaks sounds that's heard
93 million miles away from
Came one to represent the Nation
This is a gathering of the masses
That come to pay respects to the Wu-Tang Clan
As we engage in battle, the crowd now screams in rage
The high chief Jamel Irief takes the stage
Light is provided through sparks of energy
From the mind that travels in rhyme form
Giving sight to the blind
The dumb are mostly intrigued by the drum
Death only one can save self from
This relentless attack of the track spares none

[Verse 8: Ghostface Killah]
Yo yo yo, fuck that, look at all these crab niggas laid back
Lamping like them gray and black Puma's on my man's rack
Codeine was forced in your drink
You had a navy green salamander fiend, bitches never heard you scream
You two-faces, scum of the slum, I got your whole body numb
Blowing like Shalamar in '81
Sound convincing, thousand dollar cork-pop convention
Hands like Sonny Liston, get fly permission
Hold the fuck up, I'll unfasten your wig, bad luck
I humiliate, separate the English from the Dutch
It's me, black Noble Drew Ali, came in threes
We like the Genovese, sazon season these degrees
It's Earth, 93 million miles from the first
Rough turbulence, the wave burst, split the megahertz

[Verse 9: Raekwon]
Aiyo that's amazing, gun in your mouth talk, verbal foul hawk
Connect thoughts to make my man child walk
Swift notarizer, Blue-Tang, all up in the high-riser
New York Yank visor, word tranquilizer
Adjust the dosage, delegate my Clan with explosives
While my pen blow lines ferocious
Mediterranean, see y'all, the number one draft pick
Tear down the beat God then delegate the God to see God
The swift chancellor, flex the white gold tarantula
Track truck diesel, play the weed God substantiala
Max mostly, undivided then slide in sickening
Guaranteed made 'em jump like Rod Strickland

Wu-Tang Clan

Emerging in 1993, when Dr. Dre’s G-funk had overtaken the hip-hop world, the Staten Island, NY-based Wu-Tang Clan proved to be the most revolutionary rap group of the mid-’90s – and only partially because of their music.

Turning the standard concept of a hip-hop crew inside out, the Wu-Tang Clan were assembled as a loose congregation of nine MCs, almost as a support group. Instead of releasing one album after another, the Clan was designed to overtake the record industry in as profitable a fashion as possible – the idea was to establish the Wu-Tang as a force with their debut album and then spin off into as many side projects as possible.

In the process, the members would all become individual stars as well as receive individual royalty checks. Wu-Tang Clan has several lyrical Einsteins aboard. As far as large vocabularies, GZA (not called Genius without reason) places in the top 2! RZA, Ghostface Killah, Raekwon, and Method Man are also all within the top 25. Wu-Tang Clan does not disappoint.