4. Wu-Tang ClanEnter The Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)
My older brother used to play this a lot in the house – the piano sample in ‘C.R.E.A.M.’ is probably one of the earliest things I can remember. It predates the first records I fell in love with, it was just always getting blasted out of his room.
I didn’t actively keep up with hip-hop – all I had access to was through him while I got more interested in guitar and rock music. When we were mixing Antidotes, I started to go back and actively rediscover a lot of the stuff my brother had been listening to at the time, from around ’94/’95.
I love the production, the lyricism and how evocative this incredibly captivating cinematic cartoon world is. I love the whole gang mentality, their self-sufficiency, the grittiness of the production. I don’t think I’ve taken direct musical influence from them, but I admire their ethos and the self-mythologising, the way they turned it into something much bigger than just the tracks. It’s just a fucking amazing record.
