Wu-Tang Forever

Album: Nothing Was the Same (2013)
Charted: 52
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Songfacts®:

  • Despite name checking the Clan, this is a very un-Wu-Tang like track. Noah "40" Shebib's beat is a somber piano loop backed by percussion rather than borrowing from the Staten Island Hip-Hop act's anthemic style. Apart from one namecheck, Drake's rhymes do not allude to the '90s group; instead it finds him detailing some ex-girlfriends as well as his rapping success. However, Drake does sample the title phrase from "It's Yourz," a triumphant track from the New York crew's landmark 1997 album, Wu-Tang Forever. Drizzy also start his verse by repurposing Raekwon's opening bars from the same Wu cut:

    "Machine gun raps for all my n----s in the back
    Stadium packed, just glad to see the city on the map."
  • Wu-Tang Clan member, Inspectah Deck, had some beef with the song title, posting on Twitter: "After listening to the @Drake song, I agree with u... It is in no form a tribute to WU and SHOULD NOT wear the title Wutang Forever!" However, other members of his crew appeared to less bothered as some of them, including U-God and Method Man, recorded the tune's official remix.
  • Jhené Aiko contributes some guest vocals toward the end of the track. The Los Angeles singer-songwriter also hooked up with Big Sean on his "Beware" single and with J. Cole on his Born Sinner track, "Sparks Will Fly."
  • U-God said he only had a short time to write and record his verse for the remix while he and the rest of the Clan were on the road in Europe. "We only had like two hours in the studio to write this joint because we were on a tour when we got the remix," he explained to MTV News. "I didn't get a joint to marinate on it too tough, so I just threw my dart how I felt. I was sayin' some murderous s---, I was sayin' some rawness on there."
  • So what happened to the Wu-Tang remix? Speaking to MTV the Staten Island hip-hop collective's RZA said it's unlikely to ever see the light of day because Drake wasn't happy with the hard tone of their guest verses. "He wanted us to talk about broads," RZA said "At the time, I wasn't feeling woman-y – I was feeling hard as nails. So, I wrote him a hard-as-nail rhyme, and he was talking about something totally different, so the subject matter didn't really mesh."

    "I like Drake, though," his Wu-Tang colleague Ghostface Killah added. "I like him because he pays homage. But at the end of the day, he knows how to rhyme. He's not weak."

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