Classic hip-hop stars bring Memphis influences back to the bluff for Riverbeat
Ghostface Killah poses at the premiere of "Wu-Tang Clan: Of Mics and Men" during the 2019 Sundance Film Festival on Jan. 28, 2019, in Park City, Utah. (Arthur Mola/Invision/AP file)
One came from New York’s Long Island in 1989, the product of three teenage friends and a wizard producer with a regal name.
The other came from New York’s Staten Island in 1993, the product of a mad scientist ringleader drunk on kung fu movies and dusty R&B records, corralling a chaotic collective — OK, a Clan — of eight other rappers.
De La Soul’s “3 Feet High and Rising” and the Wu-Tang Clan’s “Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)” are two of the most distinctive and surprising debut albums in hip-hop history, and maybe “hip-hop” is too narrow for the claim.
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Chris Herrington
Chris Herrington has covered the Memphis Grizzlies, in one way or another, since the franchise’s second season in Memphis, while also writing about music, movies, food and civic life. As far as he knows, he’s the only member of the Professional Basketball Writers Association who is also a member of a film critics group and has also voted in national music critic polls for Rolling Stone and the Village Voice (RIP). He now splits his time between Minneapolis-St. Paul, where his wife works, and Memphis.
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