Wu-Tang

Nas And Wu-Tang Clan Team Up For A Joint ‘New York State Of Mind’ Tour

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Despite being a 30-year-old veteran of hip-hop, Queens, New York rap pioneer Nas is having some of the best years of his career lately, dropping off Grammy-winning album King’s Disease I and its followup King’s Disease II and the slick joint EP Magic with Hit-Boy. Today, he announced his next joint endeavor, this time with fellow New York Golden Era hip-hop trailblazers Wu-Tang Clan. They’ll be embarking on the co-headlining NY State of Mind Tour in August, starting in St. Louis, Missouri, and concluding in October at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles.

And while Wu-Tang hasn’t released a new group album in nearly seven years (eight, if you don’t include Once Upon a Time in Shaolin, which didn’t have a traditional release at all), they’ve also received a pretty high honor recently. Earlier this month, the group’s 1993 debut album Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) was tabbed for inclusion in the National Recording Registry by the Library of Congress. You can check out the full tour dates below and grab tickets for Tuesday, April 26 at 10 am local time here.

8/30 — St. Louis, MO @ Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre
9/1 — Noblesville, IN @ Ruoff Music Center
9/2 — Tinley Park, IL @ Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre
9/3 — Clarkston, MI @ Pine Knob Music Theatre
9/4 — Toronto, ON @ Budweiser Stage
9/7 — Cuyahoga Falls, OH @ Blossom Music Center
9/8 — Camden, NJ @ Waterfront Music Pavilion
9/9 — Hartford, CT @ Xfinity Theatre
9/10 — Mansfield, MA @ Xfinity Center
9/13 — Newark, NJ @ Prudential Center
9/14 — Virginia Beach, VA @ Veterans United Home Loans Amphitheater at Virginia Beach
9/16 — Bristow, VA @ Jiffy Lube Live
9/17 — Raleigh, NC @ Coastal Credit Union Music Park at Walnut Creek
9/18 — Charlotte, NC @ PNC Music Pavilion
9/20 — West Palm Beach, FL @ iTHINK Financial Amphitheatre
9/21 — Tampa, FL @ MidFlorida Credit Union Amphitheatre
9/22 — Atlanta, GA @ Lakewood Amphitheatre
9/24 — Houston, TX @ Toyota Center
9/25 — Austin, TX @ Germania Insurance Amphitheater
9/26 — Dallas, TX @ Dos Equis Pavilion
9/29 — Phoenix, AZ @ Ak-Chin Pavilion
9/30 — Irvine, CA @ FivePoint Amphitheatre
10/1 — Oakland, CA @ Oakland Arena
10/2 — Wheatland, CA @ Toyota Amphitheatre
10/4 — Los Angeles, CA @ Hollywood Bowl

ODB’s Widow Sues Wu-Tang Clan For $1 Million In Unpaid Royalties

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Icelene Jones, the widow of the late Ol’ Dirty Bastard, sued the rapper’s band, Wu-Tang Clan, on Tuesday, citing a decade’s worth of unpaid royalties, according to Variety. Jones is asking for at least $1 million, alleging that Wu-Tang Clan Productions paid no royalties to ODB’s estate from 2011 to July 2021. When royalties were paid out, it was only in the paltry sum (relatively speaking) of $130,000.

The basis for the suit is a 1992 recording agreement between ODB and Wu-Tang Clan Productions, which is owned and operated by Wu-Tang founder RZA, that promised 50% of net earnings on the publishing of his copyrighted songs as well as 50% of net earnings from the sound recordings — two very similar but slightly different subsets of income generated by artists’ music. Think of the first as all the money from the use of the songs in movies, TV shows, film trailers, and during sporting events, while the latter would be the actual sales of the songs via online and physical purchases, streaming, and radio play (not to mention, the auctioned, ultra-rare album, Once Upon A Time In Shaolin). The suit says that royalties from merchandise have been withheld, as well.

Although the estate has received some payments from Warner-Tamerlane Publishing Corp. in 2019 and 2020, the suit alleges that this is well short of the royalties actually owned. The estate has requested accounting from the time period in question but says it has not received it in all this time.

RZA Files A $2 Million Copyright Infringement Lawsuit Against Wu-Tang Clan Bootleggers

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RZA has filed a lawsuit against multiple e-commerce stores that he claims illegally sold products with the Wu-Tang Clan logo on them. In documents obtained by Complex, the rapper is suing the alleged bootleggers for trademark infringement, counterfeiting, and false designation of origin. It’s also believed that the stores, who are seemingly running their business from China, used the rap group’s brand to convince buyers that they were selling authentic Wu-Tang Clan merchandise.

“Many defendants also deceive unknowing consumers by using the Wu-Tang Clan Trademarks without authorization within the content, text, and/or meta tags of their e-commerce stores to attract various search engines crawling the Internet looking for e-commerce stores relevant to consumer searches for Wu-Tang Clan products,” the documents read. “Other e-commerce stores operating under the Seller Aliases omit using the Wu-Tang Clan Trademarks in the item title to evade enforcement efforts while using strategic item titles and descriptions that will trigger their listings when consumers are searching for Wu-Tang Clan products.”

RZA wants to block the stores from selling the inauthentic merchandise in the future. He is seeking $2 million for the use of Wu-Tang trademarks, or all profits and damages for trademark infringement. He also wants to ask companies like Amazon, eBay, and AliExpress to stop promoting these products.

The lawsuit comes after RZA teamed up for Flatbush Zombies for a pair of tracks: “Quentin Tarantino” and “Plug Addicts.”

A Wu-Tang Clan Biopic Backed By Leonardo DiCaprio Was Shot Down By RZA, According To Raekwon

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Although biographical films about hip-hop pioneers have become a hot commodity in recent years — just see Straight Outta Compton, Roxanne, Roxanne, and Aaliyah: The Princess of R&B for proof — one group that has yet to see its story adapted to the big screen is Wu-Tang Clan, which instead has been recounting its origin in the Hulu original series Wu-Tang: An American Saga. However, according to group member Raekwon, the group did come close thanks to an unlikely ally: Leonardo DiCaprio.

In an excerpt of Raekwon’s upcoming memoir From Staircase To Stage: The Story Of Raekwon And Wu-Tang Clan published on Rolling Stone today, Raekwon detailed his efforts to produce a Wu-Tang film with DiCaprio’s help — and how RZA ultimately shut those plans down in favor of the television series concept.

“We started talking about the possibility of a Wu-Tang movie and I told Leo I’d love to see him play a role in it, anything he wanted to do,” Rae recounts of meeting the actor at what he calls “an old mafioso-looking pizza spot.” “He talked about his production company and all the directors he thought might do a great job — and these were big names and people he’d worked with.”

However, Rae recalls, “RZA’s energy was entirely different. He barely said anything and seemed to be going through the motions, nothing more. I could tell he wasn’t going to agree to do it, and my instincts told me why: my guess is that he was already in bed with a production company, deep into developing the scripted series for TV, even though none of us had signed off on it.”

The “Ice Cream” rapper said the move hurt his feelings “because it proved to me that he’d already counted me out before I began. He didn’t think I could bring that kind of power to the table, but I’d gotten them there, all ready to rock and roll.” Eventually, though, the TV show plans went ahead and the show itself has become a well-received success, so even if Raekwon’s movie idea could have been a winner, it looks like the story was told how it needed to be after all.

‘Succession’ Fans Are Disappointed This Week’s Episode Never Delivered On ‘Tiny Wu-Tang’

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Succession remains appointment television on Sunday nights and, as usual, digital water cooler Twitter is abuzz with talk of the latest episode a day later. However, today’s chatter is slightly different than the usual disdainful amusement at the antics of the toxic Roy family in their endless power struggle. Today, there is an air of disappointment that Sunday’s episode did not deliver on the potential entertainment value of Kendall Roy’s 40th birthday party.

Sure, we got pesky little brother Roman antagonizing his older brother, Shiv’s dance floor meltdown, Connor’s coat (and polling-related injury), and cousin Greg‘s victorious date proposal (though Comfry may have just accepted out of spite for Ken’s nonstop buffoonery), but the one thing we didn’t get was the one thing the show’s writers had to have known we’d want from the moment they wrote the words: Tiny Wu-Tang.

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HBO

Just look at Rava’s face. The skepticism mixed with wonderment and just a dash of curiosity. Truly, she is all of us.

And then Kendall (probably wisely) pulled the plug on his schlocky performance idea (crucified, singing Billy Joel’s “Honesty.” Whew, lord, that man isn’t just out of touch — he’s never been in it). And so we all missed out on what could very well have been the most side-splittingly harebrained of his birthday plans. Fans aren’t happy about it, either.

Ah, well. It’s probably better we didn’t get this anyway. Could you imagine those poor kids having to tour behind some dumb joke from an HBO show? That’s one future reality show we definitely don’t need to be subjected t– aw, dangit. Now, I want that too.