#25 The Wu-Tang Clan

AHHHHHHHH, Wu Mother Fuckin' Tang. After the Opium Wars/Western Arrival in Asia and the downfall of Kung-Fu/Ju-jitsu/Tae Kwon Do's supremacy, Asians were on the slide. We got our asses handed to us by Admiral White Bread and all pride was sucked out of the motherland. From 1839 to 1993, shit was not sweet. Euros did to Asia what the Feds did to the hood. Dope got dumped and people got dumb. The soy-sauce side kicks and dragon punches just didn't have the snap that they used to before ope hit the streets. For a while, it looked like Asians would be relegated to being punk bitches playing with abacuses and working for Ford, but ENTER THE WU-TANG.

I was a young buck in Middle School when the Clan came through and I bugged the FUCK OUT. For real, I was scared. I didn't know what hit me. There was visions of killer bees, fire bombed trash cans, cocaine straight from Bolivia, and Nine really pissed off black dudes on some Shaolin Swordplay. Being 11 years old when I first heard the brothers from Shaolin, I thought the shit was illegal, but I wasn't givin' it back; that shit made me proud to be an Asian again.

Of course, before Wu, I was still gettin' busy in the scraps after school, but mad dudes down South clowned Asian kids and the way we looked. Even if you win the fight, the words are in your head. A lot of Asian kids held up Black Leaders like Martin, Malcolm, Charles Barkley, etc as their heroes cause you don't see any Asian ones in American culture. If Staten Island was the forgotten borough, Asian was the forgotten culture. We've made a come back since then, but that come back was due to the RZA, the GZA, Ol' Dirty Bastard, Inspektah Deck, Raekwon da chef, U-god, Ghostface Killah, AND M-E-T-H-O-D MAN! BONG BONG, shit, me and my brothers named our iguanas Meth and TICALLLLLL. We were high as Wu-Tang could get and it was this point in my life that I said to myself: I will never be ashamed to be Asian again. I slapped myself at least 100 times for even thinking bad thoughts about Planet Asia, but finally, because of the Wu, I was back in effect.

Who knew it was gonna be a gang of hai ren from the forgotten borough that brought Asian Pride back to the people, but they did. Most of their songs are about urban struggle in black neighborhoods, but Asians understood it, embraced it, and appreciated the lessons of the Shaw Brothers Wu-Tang Films that were worked into their tales of struggle and survival. It taught us a powerful lesson, dudes with tans and funky eyes got to stick together. Power in Rotten Bananas!