While there has been major debate about the status of New York City hip hop for the last decade or so, the signature New York sound is not up for debate.
From the braggadocious musings of The Notorious B.I.G. and young Hov, to the menacing thread woven throughout the discographies of Jadakiss, DMX and so many other New York City natives, everybody knows the sound hailing from the birthplace of hip hop.
RZA, the de-facto leader of New York’s most iconic hip hop collective, Wu-Tang Clan, is largely responsible for that sound and has been manufacturing it for the better part of three decades. From Enter The Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) to the recently-released Remedy Meets Wu-Tang, RZA’s fingerprints are all over NYC rap, and on his latest single “Plug Addicts,” the Wu-Tang head honcho enlisted Flatbush Zombies to keep that sound alive.
Spitting over his own menacing production, RZA & the Brooklyn collective take turns telling stories about immense amounts of money and the shady activities they engaged in to make it theirs. Accompanied by horror film-like visuals and some of the hardest bars of 2021, “Plug Addicts” is a throwback to a time when Wu-Tang Clan was the biggest thing in hip hop, and the New York sound was the sound of the genre itself.
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