Word: clan
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...this corporation is definitely headed in the up direction, and the key members are focused, which is the main point. In 1997, Wu Wear was going in its own direction without too much influence from the rest of the Clan. I took Wu Tang Records by myself and didn't care what nobody else said. Razor Sharp [Records] was left up to Divine. Everybody was like "whatever, whatever" and meeting at the end of the year like, "how you doin', how you doin?' But now it's like we're coming together like we did for the first five years...
...hundred children awaited him. He proceeded to communicate the only way he knew: by rapping. "They didn't speak English, but I blew their minds, and they all came asking for autographs and pictures," says Diggs, who, under the pseudonym RZA, is the leader of rap's Wu-Tang Clan. "That's how it goes in China; they may not sell our records in Beijing, but kids in the remote areas have our discs bootlegged before they're released in the States...
...While all this may sound good - by 1998 Wu-Tang, Inc., was grossing more than $25 million a year - RZA, Divine and Oli Grant, the band's corporate brain trust, feel the group has spread itself too thin. "A few years ago, I told my brothers [fellow Clan members] that the W is gonna be like the Mickey Mouse ears," says RZA. For brands trying to be cool, though, ubiquity can be a bad thing - just ask Gucci. The W began showing up on too many things, while the band hardly showed up at all. It got to a point...
...That's how it goes with Wu-Tang Clan: part musical sensation, part myth. And this is its paradox: a branded marketing juggernaut, instantly recognizable in remote corners of the globe, but not quite able to convert its wide appeal to the mainstream. With its latest album, "The W" (see review), RZA hopes to harness the band's market power to better management to restage the Wu brand and set the Clan on a new growth phase...
...Tang Forever," the group's Wu-Wear clothing line hit $15 million in annual sales, a new Wu comic-book line briefly nudged out X-Men for the top spot in the country, and its first kung fu video game sold 600,000 units for Sony PlayStation. Six Clan members recorded successful solo albums...