The daily digest of Twin Cities culture | Secrets of the City

Now it can be told: When a federal judge ordered the break-up of Wu-Tang Clan Corporation back in 1993, he was acting in the interest of fair competition. The Clan had established a formidable market monopoly with its gritty, esoteric alternative to Cali gangsta funk, bundling cinematic kung fu lore together with its jagged, rubbernecking rhymes, spare beats, and crackling minor-key string samples. Some market rivals cried foul, prompting an investigation that would uncover a wealth of hostile e-mail threads stored on various Wu-Tang hard drives. (“Wu-Tang Clan ain’t nothin’ to [mess] with!” read one particularly damning memo from the RZA, longtime president and CEO of the enterprise.) But dismantling the dominant hip-hop juggernaut served only to strengthen its overall market position as various corporate offshoots—most notably Method Man Inc., Ghostface Killah Ltd., and the much-scrutinized offshore venture Ol’ Dirty Bastard International LLC—continued to outperform their direct competitors throughout the 90s. Subsequent deregulation of the industry at large has allowed for a controlled reorganization of the original company, and with the release of its new product, Wu-Tang Iron Flag, its commitment to tireless power-branding and synergistic hip-hop initiatives continue to yield high margins both fiscally and aesthetically. Now, please don’t come and kill us.