The story behind Wu-Tang Clan’s ‘Triumph’
‘Triumph’ is that rarest of beasts: a Wu-Tang Clan song that features all of the group’s official members.
Arguably, ‘Triumph’ is the one and only true Wu-Tang Clan song to feature all the members, although Ghostface Killah released a song called ‘9 Milli Bros’ on his 2006 Fishscale album that featured everyone. But that was produced by MF DOOM and isn’t generally thought of as an official Wu song.
But ‘Triumph,’ which featured on the group’s second album Wu-Tang Forever, is a true Wu track, produced by RZA and featuring each member of the Clan, including Cappadonna, who was actually only an associate of the group at the time. He became an official member with the release of the third album, The W, when his appearances on songs were no longer marked as features.
But he was present on ‘Triumph’ in any case, as were Ol’ Dirty Bastard, Inspectah Deck, Method Man, U-God, RZA, GZA, Masta Killa, Ghostface Killah and Raekwon. There’s no chorus in the song, structured by an intro and interlude by ODB and verses from every other member. It’s a classic posse cut.
Method Man spoke to Complex in 2011 about making the track, revealing that it had been recorded in Ray Parker Jr’s studio. There were two studios on the premises, meaning the Clan generally split into two groups across the two rooms to work. But for ‘Triumph’, they were all together.
There was, Meth recalled, “a lot of energy in the room” during the song’s creation, with Inspectah Deck setting the tone with his widely celebrated opening verse. As for ODB’s contributions, they were short and sweet. He was a hard man to pin down during this period, and the Clan had to make a concerted effort to draw his contributions onto songs.
“Dirty, he was the motherfucking star,” said Meth. “He was able to handle all the cameras and all that, he was ready for all that shit.”
While Meth recalled the energy being good among the group during the recording of ‘Triumph’, he also thinks there are signs of strain evident on the finished song. The Clan had become very big by this point in time, and with that success came ego.
“‘Triumph’ was like, all the pressure of the name being bigger than the group and everybody smelling themselves and thinking they were bigger than they really was,” Meth argued. “You can hear all that on ‘Triumph’.”