Enter The Wu-Tang

36 Chambers directly paved the way for harder-edged New York rap from Nas, Mobb Deep, and The Notorious B.I.G,. and provided a hardcore hip-hop blueprint that’s been followed by rap purists and collectives for nearly three decades. It began the Tao of Wu, bonding nine Staten Island dreamers by philosophies of the mind and the scents of the fried food wafting past Brooklyn’s Palmetto Playground. But more than anything, it’s a testament to pop culture’s power to create and forge brotherhood. In 2004’s Wu-Tang Manual, just over 10 years after the album’s release, RZA broke down the significance of its title as only he could: “You have the thirty-six chambers, and there's nine members of the Wu-Tang Clan. Each member of Wu-Tang has four chambers of the heart. And what's nine times four?”