Do you remember where you were the first time that you heard a Rza beat? How about the first time you saw Meth's razor sharp teeth? Or the first line from Old Dirty Bastard that made you say, "What the #$%* ?"

Spending, "An Evening With The Wu Tang Clan" and observing the unusually diverse crowd made me come to the conclusion that, not only do many people remember these things, but many cherish them as significant events.

Now don't get me wrong, I love me some Old Dirty!
But surveying the arena and seeing the bikers, and skaters, and thugs and kids, I recalled the now infamous line uttered by a blazed out O.D.B. at the Grammy's.

"Wu-Tang is for the babies."

Like most of the works of a genius, this phrase was passed off as the drunken ramblings of a past (...and present.... and future) prison inmate. But go to a Wu show and you too will see what O.D.B was talking about...

The Wu-Tang clan is for the babies of hip hop.
It is for the people who had never listened to rap before or at least never seen it performed in anything other than parachute pants.

When The Wu first burst onto the scene in 1993, there really wasn't a whole lot else out there, in terms of mainstream hip hop. The Wu gave America (and to a lesser extent, Canada) something new to listen to but something that also had street creditability. As a result, the group spurned millions of followers who otherwise would not have even glanced at a rap cd otherwise.

Fast forward 7 years, and how else would you explain a sold out show filled with people from all walks of life? And don't be mistaken, this crowd was not here merely hoping to catch a glimpse of Method Man and Mary J., or Ghostface and Mary J., or any other Wu-Mary combination that resulted in millions of copies of albums sold.

No, I watched this crowd recite EVERY WORD to Golden Arms song after Golden Arms song. I watched them mouth EVERY WORD to several doodoo tracks off of the soon to be forgotten, Bobby Digital album.

By introducing themselves as an entity as opposed to a collection of solo artists, Wu-Tang established arguably a wider fan base than any other artist in the hip hop industry.

Witness the tour, consisting of Method Man, Golden Arms, Raekwon, Ghostface Killah, Inspectah Deck, Gza and your host the Rza, and you will see what I'm talking about.

Seven sets.
Seven live performances, each one evoking a larger and larger crowd reaction.

The biggest of course belonged to a late-arriving Method Man, who just when the show seemed to be over, took over and brought it and the crowd to a whole other level.

Surprise of the evening?
Seeing that I'm not the only one who's getting tired of Ghostface's "Che Lez Ghost."

But all in all, not a bad show, but definitely not one that you can watch from the sidelines. I couldn't get into this show until I got off of the railing and into the heart of the crowd.

That's the spot still reserved for the underground, even if the rest is taken over by the mainstream....

I'm out like long sleeves at Caribana!!!

ps - props to all of the women that have been making it out to hip hop shows. And I don't just mean with their boyfriends. There were girls coming to these shows by themselves... Unheard as recently as 2 years ago.

The game has definitely changed for the better.