I guess I shouldnt be surprised. I’m not surprised. But Im still disappointed. The Wu-Tang reunion album outlook is looking a bit bleak. And honestly, at this point, I think its too late and too little. Maybe some things are just not meant to be. Like a Lauryn comeback. And another Biggie. And non-insane female emcee. And….a real Wu-tang reunion album.

(FYI: by real album, I mean one where all the members are willingly and enthusiatically involved……not some forced reunion where most of the members contribute a few verses via email, very begrudgingly. Meanwhile, we’re forced to endure a majority of appearances by random annoying wu-affiliates with names like Bishop Algebra or Maniacal Chemist etc.)

Is this not going to happen because the members can’t get along? Is it because they feel like they’re probably not going to get a major payday from it? Or as artists, have they just moved on from the mythology of their own body of work?

In a new article in Urb Magazine, Rza, Rae, and the rest of the Clan lay some of their disagreements right out in the open….

“If Wu-Tang is foolish enough, and it’s possible to be foolish,” RZA says with a wide-eyed look of devastating reality, “if however many members of Wu-Tang are foolish enough to fall for the bureaucracy of the industry in 2007, then they are fooling themselves and taking themselves out of the realm of heaven.”

(dope quote by the way. Rza is ill)

“If the business is not taken care of [then] there will be no album or tour,” says Raekwon’s manager, Mel Carter, via e-mail. Raekwon canceled his appearance at the Wu’s scheduled photo shoot for URB, and Bodog, 8 Diagrams’s European label, two days before the shoot was set to go down in mid May. Rock the Bells, the multimillion-dollar hip-hop bonanza, which Wu is scheduled to headline in August with Rage Against the Machine, has already sold out its run. It ain’t Wu-Tang without Raekwon’s inventive slang or infinitely quotable rhymes on “C.R.E.A.M.”

“When it comes to photos and press and all that shit, I agree with anybody in the crew that say, ‘Yo, I want my business straight before I start talking to people,’” RZA says. “I understand that. I told them that’s their prerogative.”

Carter has since told URB that the business is “all good,” but the outside influence weighs heavy in RZA’s voice. Sometimes anger carries the brunt while other times it is an audible sadness, but it’s entirely unavoidable when more numbers are added into the mix.

“That’s a problem,” says RZA. “You talk to someone like Mel Carter, who’s my buddy or whatever. He’s not a Wu-Tang member. He could never understand the importance of what Wu-Tang is. He can only see it from a business point of view. Everybody be talking about the deals. Fuck the deals. We aren’t special because of no deals; we special because when we come together, we make music that changes the world.”

Even without the dotted I’s and crossed T’s of a contract, Raekwon still came through and recorded new verses for 8 Diagrams. In fact, as of the beginning of June, everyone has come through and recorded new verses, at least three apiece, according to RZA, except Ghostface Killah.”

(If you were Ghostface Killah, would you be more concerned with doing your own thing? Would you feel hampered by the other members who may not have the same profile as you?)

“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.’”

(I can see what Rza is saying because there is something about creating music that is bigger than the artist making the music. But nowadays that can feel like a lost cause, I can imagine.)

“How has the South dominated hip-hop for the last four, five years without lyrics, without hip-hop culture really in their blood?” RZA asks. “Those brothers came out representing more of a stereotype of how black people are, and I think the media [would] rather see us as ignorant, crazy motherfuckers than seeing us as intelligent young men trying to rise and take care of ourselves.”

“I don’t think we’re going to achieve some of the same things that some so-called hip-hop artists do,” RZA says. “Let’s say Chris Brown— he’s considered a hip-hop artist, but he doesn’t rap, and he sells millions of records and has a real young audience. How do we compete with that? We don’t. Wu-Tang needs to aim at what’s us, what’s ours.”

(Rza also says that ODB has a 16 year old son who looks, acts, speaks just like his father. And that they may have this son do a hook on the album in honor of Dirty. Also, that Cappadonna will be on the album as an official member of the Wu. Hmm. And here’s another surprising/questionable thing about the new project….)

“Right now, as far as the freshest voice on the mic, it’s the person you least expect,” RZA says. “U-God is on fire. Now how could U-God be on fire after all these years? After all the shit that he done been through, after U-God came on the radio publicly blaming me for his life. He’s the most in-tune motherfucker right now. ..This is a nigga that hates me.”

(hmmm. Well this part is more plausible….)

“I’m making songs, nigga, songs that you can have Carnegie Hall play one day,” RZA says, also announcing that for the first time Wu-Tang will bring in big name outside producers (Marly Marl, Q-Tip, Easy Mo Bee and perhaps Dr. Dre) to add to RZA’s newly unearthed vibe.

(But this last quote definitely sums up the reality of this Wu Tang Clan reunion and all its problems….)

“It’s gonna happen. It’s gonna happen because it’s inevitable—it has to happen,” RZA says. “[But] if it’s not coming this year, it ain’t coming at all. That’s my opinion. If it doesn’t come this year, it don’t mean nothing no more.”