Word: rza
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...goes with Wu-Tang Clan--part music sensation, part myth. And this is its paradox. It is 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 in order to restage the Wu brand and set the Clan on a new growth phase...
...RZA (pronounced rizzuh) is the driving force behind the group's eight-year rise from Staten Island's housing projects to a mini-entertainment conglomerate. He and his brother Mitchell Diggs, a.k.a. Divine, form a New York street answer to Richard Branson. RZA is the potty-mouthed artistic visionary who speaks in streams of consciousness about his plans for global corporate domination. Divine, who keeps to the business side, is the soft-spoken older brother who is constantly trying to bring order and professionalism to the company...
...brand was born in 1992, when the group became an underground sensation by developing an urban-gangster-as-warrior persona based on old kung fu movies (RZA's passion). Wu-Tang has since evolved into a hybrid of Pokemon and Dungeons and Dragons, prepackaged for suburban teens and complete with video games, comics and, coming soon, animated films. It's all embodied in Wu-Tang's stamp of approval, a Batman-like chubby...
Early in the game, RZA convinced his fellow rappers that if they put their solo careers on hold, they'd share in a giant pot of gold via the vagaries of corporate synergy. He was right. The Wu-Tang brand blossomed under an unprecedented 1993 contract the band signed with Loud Records (Sony owns a 49% stake) that allowed each member to branch into solo projects on other labels. Every few years the group pulls together for an album, thus raising each member's visibility and bolstering the branding strength of Wu-Tang, Inc. It then launches a new crop...
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...