Wu-Tang's changing Clan returns

Check Billboard's singles chart any given week, and you'll see that the artist credits of every other single have the words "featuring," "with" or "co-starring." So you've got "T.I. featuring Beyonce," "Ludacris co-starring T-Pain," "Kenny Chesney with the Wailers" and Lil Wayne seemingly featured, with and co-starring everywhere else.

Truly, this is the age of collaboration and pop-music spheres of influence, a time when who rather than what you know is more important than ever. Which means that the future as foretold by Wu-Tang Clan has come true. The group plays Monday at Raleigh's Lincoln Theatre, although it's not entirely clear who Wu-Tang Clan even is nowadays.

But that's always been the case, given the sheer volume of Wu-Tang spinoffs and affiliated acts. The group's Web site (wutang-corp.com) lists a dozen "Wu-Tang Family Groups," and 31 solo acts in addition to the original nine-member group.

Mystery has always shrouded Wu-Tang Clan since the group emerged from Staten Island in the early 1990s. Musically, the group took a highly cinematic approach that was evocative despite its spareness, with relentless beats and oddball sound effects. "Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)," the group's 1993 debut, conveyed the sort of menacing vibe that usually anticipates a kick to the head in martial-arts movies.

Wu-Tang Clan broke through at the height of gangsta rap, when everyone in hip-hop was going out of their way to come on hard. Wu-Tang was plenty hard, with lots of criminal-minded rhetoric and boasting about various members' real-life exploits.

But Wu-Tang Clan also had the added dimension of being weird as hell, espousing an oddball mysticism steeped in martial arts, radical Islamic nationalism, numerology and even chess. Beneath the tough-guy posturing, Wu-Tang has always had geeky undercurrents they seemed like a bunch of dudes who grew up on comic books, Dungeons & Dragons and reruns of "Star Trek" and "Kung Fu."

As weird as they were (and are), there was method to Wu-Tang Clan's madness. Kanapolis native George Clinton pioneered the multiple-personality concept in the 1970s with his P-Funk All-Stars, a crew that performed under different names including Parliament, Funkadelic and Brides of Funkenstein. This enabled P-Funk to release a steady stream of music and, not coincidentally, keep getting paid.

That's not insignificant, because getting paid has always been a key part of the Wu-Tang Clan manifesto one of their earliest hits was "C.R.E.A.M.," an acroynm for "Cash Rules Everything Around Me." Years before Jay-Z, Snoop Dogg and 50 Cent were being hailed as visionary hip-hop entrepreneurs, Wu-Tang Clan built its own hip-hop empire that included a line of "Wu Wear" merchandise. And long before Nelly's St. Lunatics or Eminem's D-12, Wu-Tang Clan was the definitive hip-hop posse, with spinoffs including Wu-Tang Killa Beez, Killarmy and Gravediggaz.

Since all the members work together in various combinations, their solo albums amount to de facto Wu-Tang Clan albums. Ghostface Killah, Method Man, RZA, GZA, Raekwon and the late Ol' Dirty Bastard are among the original Wu-Tang members that have released gold or platinum solo albums.

So just who will be onstage in Raleigh Monday night? As always, the only certainty is that Ol' Dirty Bastard won't be there (except in spirit). You'll just have to show up to find out, and it doesn't get any more old-school than that.