Two of hip hop’s most celebrated albums landed in stores on the same Tuesday, 33 years ago today. Wu-Tang Clan’s debut, Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers), and A Tribe Called Quest’s third LP, Midnight Marauders, share a release date of November 9, 1993.
The scoreboard that week favored Tribe. Midnight Marauders entered the US albums chart at No. 8 and went to No. 1 on the R&B/hip hop albums chart. The Wu-Tang record sold 30,000 copies in its opening week and never climbed past No. 41.
The slow starter kept selling. The RIAA certified 36 Chambers four times platinum on November 10, 2025, so tomorrow is the first birthday of that plaque.
Two New York records, two ways of working
RZA made the Wu-Tang album at Firehouse Studio on a budget so thin that up to eight of the nine members crowded into one small room. He handled the production, the mix and the programming himself, stitching soul samples to dialogue from kung fu films. “C.R.E.A.M.,” with verses from Raekwon and Inspectah Deck, is built on the Charmels’ 1967 song “As Long As I’ve Got You.”
The group had already paid for its first single the hard way. In December 1992, RZA charged every rapper who wanted a verse on “Protect Ya Neck” $100.
Tribe spent nine months on its album, moving between three studios in the city: Battery, Platinum Island and Sorcerer Sound. Q-Tip led the production, with Skeff Anselm, Large Professor and the group’s DJ, Ali Shaheed Muhammad, adding beats. A lot of the planning took place in the basement of the house where Phife Dawg’s grandmother lived, where Q-Tip kept his gear.
Lead single “Award Tour” lifts its bassline from Jade’s “Don’t Walk Away,” a choice Q-Tip made after watching a party crowd react to the song. “Lyrics to Go” rides a long, high Minnie Riperton note from “Inside My Love.” Raphael Saadiq, billed as Raphael Wiggins, plays bass on “Midnight,” and Busta Rhymes turns up on “Oh My God.”
One cover showed everybody, the other showed nobody
Tribe’s artwork carried photos of a reported 71 hip hop figures and radio DJs, with Grandmaster Flash, MC Lyte, De La Soul and the Beastie Boys among them.
Wu-Tang went the other way. Only six members made the shoot, which photographer Daniel Hastings staged inside the Angel Orensanz Center, at the time a ruined synagogue, and all six wore stocking masks.
Side by side: the numbers
- Running time: 58:26 for Wu-Tang and 51:12 for Tribe. Add them and you get 109 minutes 38 seconds of music.
- Tracks: 12 and 14, or 26 in all.
- US albums chart peak: No. 41 against No. 8.
- Gold: Tribe got there on January 14, 1994, just 66 days after release.
- Platinum: Tribe on January 11, 1995, which is 428 days after release. Wu-Tang reached platinum by 1995 and four times platinum 32 years and one day after release.
Why the date still gets marked
Wu-Tang’s debut is credited with dragging attention back to New York while West Coast G-funk ran rap, and with clearing a path for Jay-Z, Mobb Deep, Nas and the Notorious B.I.G. Tribe’s album is widely treated as the peak of the Native Tongues movement. The two stories even cross: Q-Tip made the beat for Nas’s “One Love” in that same basement.
In 1993, many buyers had to choose. One writer, looking back 25 years later, recalled walking into a Vancouver record store that Tuesday with enough money for a single album. He took Tribe home and came back for Wu-Tang two weeks later.
In 2022 the Library of Congress added 36 Chambers to the National Recording Registry, its list of recordings judged culturally, historically or aesthetically significant.
The next round number arrives on November 9, 2028, when both albums turn 35.
Further reading
Image: Miloš Krstić, CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons
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