---
title: "Wu-Tang Clan’s The W turns 26; the 2000 album with Isaac Hayes and Snoop Dogg went Platinum in 23 days"
url: https://badiyaa.com/wu-tang-clan-the-w-26-years/
published: 2026-11-15T15:24:00+00:00
modified: 2026-11-15T15:24:00+00:00
section: Entertainment
publisher: Badiyaa
---

# Wu-Tang Clan’s The W turns 26; the 2000 album with Isaac Hayes and Snoop Dogg went Platinum in 23 days

Wu-Tang Clan's The W, released November 21, 2000 with Isaac Hayes, Snoop Dogg and Nas, sold 301,000 copies in week one and went Platinum fast.

Isaac Hayes, Snoop Dogg, Nas, Redman, Busta Rhymes and Junior Reid all show up on *The W*, and Wu-Tang Clan’s third studio album still clocked in at a lean hour. Released on November 21, 2000, through Loud and Columbia, it turns 26 this coming Saturday.

The record sold 301,000 copies in its first week, debuting at No. 5 on the US albums chart and No. 1 on the R&B and hip-hop albums list. Columbia’s paperwork moved fast: the RIAA certified it Platinum on December 14, 2000, just 23 days after release.

## Back to basics after Forever

After 1997’s double album *Wu-Tang Forever*, several members went off to make solo records. *The W* pulled them back into one room, and its sound was rougher and less polished than most Wu-related albums of that era. RZA produced almost all of it; Wu-Tang’s longtime DJ Mathematics produced “Do You Really (Thang, Thang)” and the hidden CD bonus “Clap.”

Mathematics is still making records with the crew. This month he teamed up with U-God on [the new song 7:Thirty with Nems](https://badiyaa.com/mathematics-wu-tang-u-god-nems-7-thirty/).

## The guest list, track by track

- **“Redbull”:** Redman trades lines with Inspectah Deck and Method Man.

- **“Conditioner”:** Snoop Dogg joins GZA, Inspectah Deck and Ol’ Dirty Bastard.

- **“I Can’t Go to Sleep”:** Isaac Hayes, built on a sample of his own “Walk On By.”

- **“The Monument”:** Busta Rhymes alongside GZA and Raekwon.

- **“One Blood Under W” and “Jah World”:** Jamaican singer Junior Reid.

Nas appears too, on a track with Inspectah Deck and Raekwon. “Protect Ya Neck (The Jump Off)” was the first single, with all nine core members plus Cappadonna on one song, and “Gravel Pit” followed in December.

## The last stand for Ol’ Dirty Bastard

*The W* is the final Wu-Tang album to include Ol’ Dirty Bastard, who was absent from *Iron Flag* a year later and died in 2004. His verse on “Conditioner” next to Snoop is one of his last appearances on a group record.

## How it compared

Critics rated it as a strong comeback. Its Metacritic score sits at 80 from 17 reviews, and one widely read indie site later placed it at No. 162 among the best albums of the 2000s. Reviewers repeatedly singled out RZA’s production, with one calling it his most consistent work.

For a sense of scale, 301,000 first-week copies is almost four times the 76,000 that [Ghostface Killah’s Bulletproof Wallets](https://badiyaa.com/ghostface-killah-bulletproof-wallets-25-years/) opened with a year later. By April 2014, *The W* had sold 1.1 million copies in the US, and it holds Gold certifications in Canada, Germany and the UK.

The album turns 26 on Saturday, November 21, 2026.

## Further reading

- [Wikipedia: The W](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_W)

*Image: Derzsi Elekes Andor, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons*

*This article was produced with AI assistance and reviewed by our Editorial Desk. [How we work](https://badiyaa.com/editorial-policy/).*