Visualising 100 Wu-Tang Clan albums

A deep-dive into the recorded works of Wu-Tang Clan and the group’s core members.

The Wu-Tang Clan have an almost incomparably large discography. They’ve recorded 100 studio albums. That’s without counting mixtapes or albums from the group’s 90 or so affiliated acts.

But considering the group’s enduring popularity, it can be hard to find detailed information about the group’s music — so I decide to do something about it.

The idea for this article was sparked from listening to one of my favourite albums, Ghostface Killah’s ‘Supreme Clientele’. The album is basically an unofficial Wu-Tang album, featuring 9 of Wu-Tang’s 10 members. The only absentee is Ol’ Dirty Bastard, who was incarcerated through much of the album’s recording.

I started thinking about other unofficial Wu-Tang albums. GZA’s ‘Liquid Swords’ sprang to mind. I guessed there were more but a quick Google search found nothing. Wikipedia was missing detailed information. Forays into decade-old forum threads found little more. Before long I was scouring Discogs and making my own Wu-Tang Clan database.

What started as an attempt to figure out the Wu-Tang Clan albums with the most Wu-Tang members snowballed. I became curious about the timeline of the albums and the group’s chart performance. The results are the first in depth analysis of the Wu-Tang Clan’s discography.

The albums with the most Wu-Tang Members

This graph shows 100 albums ranked by the number of Wu-Tang members featured on these albums.

Wu-Tang Clan have made 9 studio albums. The group’s 10 members have made 91 solo albums, either as solo artists or as part of a group. Group projects include Inspectah Deck’s Czarface, Method Man and Redman’s albums, and RZA’s Gravediggaz.

Wu-Tang Albums since 1991

This graph shows the number of Wu-Tang Clan albums released each year and how many of those albums reached The Billboard Top 200.

2019 was the first year since 1993 that there was not a Wu-Tang Clan related album in The Billboard Top 200. That was despite 6 Wu-Tang related albums dropping in 2019, including 4 albums from Inspectah Deck. The first Wu-Tang Clan related album was GZA’s 1991 album, ‘Words From The Genius’, released two years before the first Wu-Tang Clan single.

Most prolific Wu-Tang Members

This graph shows the most prolific members of Wu-Tang. The graphs are segmented by albums as a solo artist, appearances on Wu-Tang albums, and appearances on other member’s solo projects. Featured appearances include appearances as a rapper or producer.

RZA has worked on over half of the 100 Wu-Tang projects with 54 total appearances. He has appeared on every Wu-Tang album, 14 of his own solo albums and appeared as a producer or rapper on 31 solo albums. Ghostface has the most solo albums with 19.

Who has the most hits?

This graph shows the performance of Wu-Tang Clan’s albums on The Billboard Top 200 chart. This is segmented by albums that reached the Top 10, the Top 40 and Top 200.

Wu-Tang Clan have only reached the Top 10 twice. However, they have achieved a Billboard number one with ‘Wu-Tang Forever’ — a feat no Wu-Tang member has achieved solo.

Many Wu-Tang members have had more hits solo than with the group. Method Man has had 6 Top 10 albums. Ghostface Killah has had the most albums in the charts with 14 albums in the Top 200.

Who has the most misses?

This graph shows the number of Wu-Tang related albums that didn’t make The Billboard Top 200.

Cappadonna and Inspectah Deck have missed out the most with 8 non-charting albums each. The majority of Inspectah Deck’s misses are as part of underground hip-hop group, Czarface. Some albums have a good explanation for not charting. Ol’ Dirty Bastard’s posthumous album ‘A Son Unique’ did not see an official release. There is only one copy of Wu-Tang Clan’s ‘Once Upon A Time In Shaolin’. That album was purchased for $2 million by Martin Shkreli and now belongs to the US Federal Government following Skhreli’s conviction for securities fraud.

Interactive list

You can dive into an interactive list of Wu-Tang Clan’s albums below.

Methodology

The data for albums was pulled from Discogs. This data was imported into Google Sheets and analysed using a VLOOKUP function to compare artists’ roles in various albums. Google Sheets was also used to analyse the number releases each artist produced. The data for chart performance was taken from Billboard.

Graphs were first visualised in Google Data Studio and then further developed in Sketch.