June 3, 1997 was a very imp0rtant day in my life.
I did not meet my wife on this day, nor was a son or daughter born. I did not fall in love for the first time, and I did not get my driver's license either (although that would be a couple weeks after).
June 3, 1997 was a very important day in my life because the most anticipated and most significant rap album of my adolescence was released. That album was the double-album, Wu-Tang Forever, by the Wu-Tang Clan and it changed my life for a while.
My friends and I in suburban Atlanta had been digging on the Wu-Tang Clan for sometime before the album came out. Thanks to BMG music club (and their 12 cd's for the price of 1 deal), I had managed to accumulate a most impressive collection of hip-hop compact discs. The majority of these were the various solo records from the members of the Wu-Tang Clan, my favorites being Method Man's Tical and Ol' Dirty Bastard's Return to 36 Chambers: The Dirty Version. When my dad picked me up that day from school, we went directly to the record store and picked up Wu-Tang Forever. I listened to it non-stop that night and then compared notes with my friends the next day. My favorite tracks were "A Better Tomorrow", and the opener to the second disc, "Triumph".
3 weeks later, I turned 16 years old and passed my driver's test. The soundtrack to my summer was the Wu-Tang Clan and it was a grand summer. I worked construction and drove all around town in my red Jeep Cherokee while listening to the Wu-Tang Clan.
That was 12 years ago. Since then, I have listened to all kinds of "cool" indie music and punk rock. Ol' Dirty Bastard is dead. I graduated college and moved to the other side of the country. Then, I moved back to the East Coast 2 years later.
I don't know what ever happened to my copy of Wu-Tang Forever, but the other day, I found a used copy of Wu-Tang Forever at the record store and could not resist the urge to pick it up. I'm listening to it as a type this and it has never sounded any better. I'm a lot older and drive a different car, but when I hear the sounds from the slums of Shaolin, I feel like a 16 year old working construction without a care in the world.
