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Wu-Tang Clan Once Again Tease Long-Awaited Album

01/08/2014
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(Radio.com) It's hard out here for a Wu-Tang Clan fan. After galvanizing the group's massive fan base last year with show-stealing performances during the 2014 Coachella festival, the hip-hop collective turned up that excitement with the announcement of a new full-length album to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the group's groundbreaking debut, Enter the Wu Tang (36 Chambers), released back in 1993.

That Wu-Tang euphoria hit a fever pitch in the spring of 2013 when it was revealed that the group would follow the triumphant Coachella performances by headlining last year's Rock the Bells tour, which were to be highlighted by appearances by band's late rapper, Ol' Dirty Bastard, courtesy of "virtual performances, not holograms," according to the tour's founder, Chang Weisberg.

"It will be 20 years of Wu-Tang history meeting 10 years of ours, in a performance that's going to be exclusively handcrafted by the members onstage, especially RZA," Weisberg said during an exclusive Radio.com interview, adding that "minds will be blown."

Then, Inspectah Deck sweetened the deal by announcing that the 20th anniversary album was going to tentatively be entitled A Better Tomorrow, and would be a true group effort as it would feature previously unheard vocals from Ol' Dirty Bastard.

"RZA has a bunch of Ol' Dirty tracks and verses that for years nobody's heard and, from my last conversation [with RZA], we're supposed to have an Ol' Dirty track on there," Deck told Line Of Best Fit in an interview last summer. "It may be by itself or we might join it on to another song. But Ol' Dirty is going to be part of this album, that's a fact," with RZA himself saying that the group was looking to release it last November in honor of Enter the Wu Tang's 20th birthday, saying "that's my goal."

While 2013 held so much promise for all things Wu-Tang-related, the momentum began to seriously wane starting with negative reports from the highly publicized Rock the Bells shows, including a Radio.com review stating that not even the Ol' Dirty Bastard virtual performance could save the San Bernadino, CA, date from being a "miserable" experience as Wu-Tang's set degenerated into an awkward debacle where Method Man chastised Weisberg from the stage. The last run of shows on the tour were eventually cancelled due in part to poor ticket sales.

With 2014 now upon us and all hopes of a 20th anniversary Wu-Tang Clan album effectively dashed, the group has taken to its Facebook page to announce that A Better Tomorrow is still going to happen, and that what would be the band's sixth studio release was "coming soon," although no release date or other details were included. more on this story

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Copyright Radio.com/CBS Local - Excerpted here with permission.

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