As such, “C.R.E.A.M.” has been stripped for parts: The only aspects of real interest to a mass audience are the use of “cream” as slang for money and the repetition of the hook as an admonishment to work harder, longer, and more ruthlessly in the pursuit of it. These are questions that arise if we’re listening to the song as a whole, but pop success alters the way music is heard. Chasing cash, by whatever means available, is the only option for survival, as it rules everything around us-but should it? Should a lack of money make one’s life indistinguishable from prison? They sound less like a rallying call and more like desperate pleas of escape shouted into a void. If Deck’s life, at the ripe old age of 22, felt no different inside or outside of prison, Meth’s cries to “get the money” are utterly meaningless. Likewise when it comes to Inspectah Deck, who raps:
![wu tang clan cream hat wu tang clan cream hat](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/71QIsTVPdVL._UL1340_.jpg)
If we listen as Raekwon describes the circumstances that push him into the black market economy of drug sales and robbery, and yet his life “got no better,” Method Man’s declaration that “cash rules everything around me” feels less celebratory and more frustrated. If heard through the lens of the verses, the now-iconic hook does the same work, but it has to be contextualized. The version of “C.R.E.A.M.” that was just Rae and Deck trading long verses was called “Lifestyles of the Megarich,” which would have stood in stark contrast to the grim realities of poverty in the lyrics, all but forcing listeners to understand the critique. The song’s original title was more explicitly ironic. But “C.R.E.A.M.”-led by its money-hungry hook-took on a life of its own. And as other New York rappers started leaving the streets behind and moving toward the shiny suit era initiated by Puff Daddy and Bad Boy, Wu-Tang stood strong as a collective committed to mining the dirtiest and oft-neglected corners of life in America’s hoods. Wu was a grimy rebuke of that transition, shifting the focus back to New York City and hip-hop’s gutter roots. Dre and his West Coast cohort was focusing in on melodies while smoothing out rap’s rough edges. Wu-Tang debuted and first found success during the G-funk era, when Dr. “He was burying a dream deal over pride.It stands against the group’s origin story that they could be co-opted in such a way. “I kept my cool and didn’t spaz out on him, but in my heart I knew more than ever that his relationships in Hollywood mattered more to him than his relationship with us,” he wrote.
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The deal never materialized, however, with Raekwon claiming that RZA scuttled the project in favor of what would become the Hulu series Wu-Tang: An American Saga. They were very interested, so we got the ball rolling, talking real numbers, with the goal of an even bigger release than Straight Outta Compton.” “He was super open to the idea, and after that meal, he had his production company executives reach out to me. “He talked about his production company and all the directors he thought might do a great job - and these were big names and people he’d worked with,” he wrote. Method Man would go on to interpolate the “dolla dolla bill y’all” part from Jimmy Spicer’s “Money,” a 1983 hip-hop song that the group had been listening to “since the rec room parties in the projects.” A classic was born.Įarlier this week, Rolling Stone published an excerpt from the book detailing a meeting between Raekwon, Q-Tip and Leonardo Dicaprio in which the actor and Wu-Tang fan expressed interest in producing a Wu-Tang biopic along the lines of Straight Outta Compton.
![wu tang clan cream hat wu tang clan cream hat](https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/a-gAAOSwAZJe7qEU/s-l400.jpg)
When Meth heard the song, he realized it was the perfect opportunity to use the term because that’s what the song is about: trying to get some cream.” So my cousin brought that to our neighborhood and it stuck.
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“In the ’hood everyone is big on slang because it’s a code that isn’t meant for outsiders to understand. “‘Cream’ was his way of saying he was trying to get his spread on and do well,” Raekwon wrote.