Credit: Alamy

Method Man once got mad over a classic Wu-Tang Clan song. The Staten Island group are responsible for some of the biggest sounds of the ’90s, releasing classic albums Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) and Wu-Tang Forever.

Ghostface Killah once revealed in an interview that Meth got mad over a track that appeared on 36 Chambers. While explaining that ‘Method Man’ was one of his favourite songs on the project, Toney Starks told a story about his frustration with him and Raekwon.

“My favourite on 36 Chambers gotta be between ‘Method Man’ and ‘Can It Be All So Simple’” he told Complex. “‘Method Man’ because at that time, he had so many fuckin’ styles, B. It’s old to us, but if you really sit there and hear the shit that he was saying?

“One day, me and Rae, you know, we’re fuckin’ around, and we took him out of his element. We just snapped on him, like, ‘Yo, what the fuck you doing with that Dr Seuss rap shit?’ He got kinda mad. We didn’t really know at that time, but he was like, ‘Y’all the ones that stopped me from rhymin’ like that. And I be telling him, ‘Go back to that shit.’ That was the witty unpredictable shit.”

Produced by RZA, ‘Method Man’ is one of many highlights on 36 Chambers. The track finds Meth exercising his unique flow on his own, allegedly securing a solo song on the album after winning a rap battle between all members of Wu-Tang Clan.

In the first verse, Meth raps, “Hey, you, get off my cloud/ You don’t know me and you don’t know my style/ Who be gettin’ flam when they come to a jam?/ Here I am, here I am, the Method Man/ Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake, hey, the Method Man/ Don’t eat Skippy, Jif or Peter Pan/ Peanut butter ’cause I’m not butter/ In fact, I snap back like a rubber band.”

During his appearance on Drink Champs in 2023, Meth revealed ‘Method Man’ was inspired by artists such as Masta Ace, Bootsy Collins, The Beatles and Hall & Oates. “When I wrote Method Man, I was like 15 or 16 years old, 17 or 18… my mind works crazy,” he said. “I don’t know where I heard these records before, but they were etched in my head.”

Speaking on getting a solo track on 36 Chambers, Meth said, “It just happened. In the same breath, GZA had his solo joint on there too. I don’t know why RZA did ‘Method Man’ first. I guess it was a sign of the times and what people were actually listening to … I guess RZA being who he was and being so in tune with what the flavour was, he was like, ‘Yeah. We gonna put this ‘Method Man’ joint on because this is something nobody has ever heard before.'”

The GZA song in question is ‘Clan in Da Front’. While GZA provides two verses, the chorus and the outro, RZA appears on the intro.