Speaking of music festivals, I'll be in New York not this weekend, but next weekend for Rock the Bells. There's a shiteload (a fuckton?) of hip-hop acts performing that day, but the headliners are the Wu-Tang Clan and Rage Against the Machine. At this point, I figure I'm pretty much just going to see Rage Against the Machine. If the Wu actually manages to show up and put on a good show, that'll be great. But if they don't, I won't be too surprised.

After all, the Wu has become known for that sort of thing. Next month will mark 10 years (Jesus H. Tapdancing Christ!) since the time a young Bol was going to see them and Rage out at Riverport (the sight of the infamous Guns N Roses riot about 15 years ago) and those motherfuckers couldn't be bothered to show up. 10 years after the fact, I'm still pretty upset about this. I could use some closure and/or a rosy cheeked woman.

When I saw the GZA in Chicago the other day, he made it a point to note that he was missing a Wu-Tang show in Amsterdam to perform for us. On the one hand, I could appreciate the fact that he was willing to push his other obligations aside to come perform for us (read get his fat festival check), but I'm sure I'd be pretty pissed if I was counting on seeing him (as opposed to, say, U-God) in Amsterdam.

Worse was the time when Ghostface couldn't make it to the Wu-Tang episode of VH1's Hip-Hop Honors, supposedly because he had a show to do in Europe somewhere; and it's not like he could just not show up to some concert just to tape a TV special that would be seen by millions of viewers and might have had the effect of helping get the Wu's career back on track...

At the time, there was speculation that there might be beef between Ghost and the rest of the Wu and that Ghost might not be on the next album. Of course when I mentioned it in a post I did on the Wu on this site earlier this year, mofos got all upset, talking about how I didn't know what I was talking about because I don't know shit about hip-hop all of the usual pejorative ad hominem bullshit.

Come to find out, I was right. In the feature on Wu-Tang, in some magazine that obviously caters to a more sophisticated demographic, the RZA suggests that Ghost might not be on the new Wu album.

“I told Ghost, ‘Yo, I’ll do this album without you, Ghost,’” says RZA. “‘I’ll do it without you, man, because it ain’t about you; it ain’t about me; it’s about Wu-Tang. It’s about what it means to the people. It ain’t about what it means to us no more.’”

As much as I'd hate to be that guy who makes it a point to note that he was right about something, just so everyone else can feel stupid, I'm pretty much left with no other choice at this point.

*takes a five minute break to wallow in his self-satisfaction (nullus?)*

In an interview at Pitchfork today, the GZA says that the new Wu-Tang album might be coming out in October, but it sounded like he just pulled a date out of his ass. When I saw him in Chicago this weekend, he suggested that they already had quite a few songs recorded, probably enough to put together a decent album. Only thing is, from what I understand, Ghostface has yet to record a single verse.

With all of the hype that I'm sure will be generated by the tour beginning this month and extending into the fall, this year would be as good a time as any for the Wu to mount some sort of a comeback. Will they actually be able to? I hope so, but I wouldn't count on it.

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