A Better Tomorrow

Album: A Better Tomorrow (2014)
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Songfacts®:

  • The title track of Wu-Tang Clan's sixth album shares its name with a song they featured on their 1997 sophomore LP, Wu-Tang Forever. The reference in both instances is to John Woo's 1986 crime film, A Better Tomorrow.
  • RZA explained the album title to Billboard magazine : "John Woo has always been an inspiration to me," he said. "But it wasn't just in reference to that film, because that film is actually a very violent film, very specific about the police corruption and things of that nature. My concept of a better tomorrow, moreso, is what the sentence says itself. We need a better tomorrow."

    "I'm a vegetarian. Why? Because no animal needs to die for me to live," RZA added. "I'm into renewable energy, I'm into getting rid of the plastic bottles and coming with another form of drinking our water. I'm into the people respecting each other. We don't got to like each other but respect each other for everything you are, whether you're black, brown, white or red, homosexual, woman, whatever it is. We gotta have respect for each other first."
  • This samples Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes' 1975 single, "Wake Up Everybody."
  • The song's music video compiles protest footage from Ferguson, Missouri and New York City as well as soundbites from President Obama speaking on race relations in America. "This visual was created by Wu-Tang Clan in the hopes of inspiring change and promoting unity throughout the world, The Wu-Tang Clan said in a press release. They added a quote from Martin Luther King, Jr: "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."
  • Asked by NME what his biggest regret about the A Better Tomorrow album was, RZA replied: "I tried to get James Blake to do a hook on 'A Better Tomorrow' but we couldn't make it happen in time."

    The pair did previously work together on Blake's Overgrown track "Take A Fall For Me."

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