The Wu-Tang Clan are one of the most popular, influential and seminal bands of the hip-hop generation, most notably through their 1993 LP Enter The Wu-Tang (36 Chambers). All the members – Method Man, Ol’ Dirty Bastard, GZA et al – have gone on to enjoy successful solo careers, with Ghostface Killah recently releasing his sixth studio album, Fish Scale, to much acclaim.

“I miss my brothers,” Ghostface, aka Iron Man, aka Tony Starks, aka Dennis Coles says when asked about the Wu. “Every time we go on tour we have fun. We played together last month, and the bond between us was as strong as ever. I made my first record with them, so the relationship will always be special.”
Fish Scale finds the MC teaming up with such celebrated producers as MF Doom, Pete Rock, J Dilla and Madlib who all put their stamp on the record.
“It’s not easy writing rhymes because I don’t think as fast as I used to and I don’t see the same pictures in my mind as when I was younger,” he confesses in his thick New York drawl. “It takes a while because sometimes I start second guessing myself. Usually I get the beat from the producer and I take it with me. I live with it for a minute to see how I want to carry it on. You might write two or three rhymes to see which approach is better.”
Although ‘fish scale’ is the street slang for high quality crack cocaine, Ghostface has been off drugs, weed included, for two years now and feels all the better for it.
“It’s high quality music instead,” he observes. “When you get older you lose a lot of things. I done a lot of drugs and they burn your brain cells, so that’s why I don’t do that no more. They say your brain cells don’t come back for seven years and I’m a diabetic, so that right there messes up your memory. So it be hard. It’s even twice as hard for me, and that’s what’s changed since the Wu-Tang days ‘cause I didn’t know I was diabetic back then.”
Do the new kids on the hip-hop block put the same effort into their music as Wu-Tang did when they were starting out?
“People are gonna do what they do, I just got to do what I do,” he reflects. “Times change, nothing remains the same. You’ve got to try and keep a twist of your own self in what’s coming at you. At the end of the day, it’s still got to be whoever’s got poetic skills. Right now nobody’s saying nothing, they just having fun. Which is all good, but I remember when I first came in the game you had to be saying something. You wasn’t just rhyming about parties, so I’m still practising so I can sound better on the mic.”
Killah’s future plans include lauching his own action figure and sneakers, releasing an album with his Theadore Unit crew and doing a Hollywood movie. Bring da ruckus!