Will the Wu-Tang Clan Be the Next Chart-Toppers to Take Broadway?

An unlikely group of artists are looking to join the ranks of recording artists whose albums cross from iPod to stage: hip-hop supergroup The Wu-Tang Clan. According to an interview with de facto group leader and producer RZA, the tribe of MCs are dreaming of bringing their landmark album Enter the Wu-Tang: 36 Chambers to Broadway within five years.

“I dreamed I can do it on Broadway because I make my albums like movies,” RZA, aka Prince Rakeem, told The Boombox in a recent interview. “People [have been] talking to me about a lot of things. I got people reaching out to me about Carnegie Hall. It’s still in the dream world, but a lot of my dreams have come true and I’m working on this one, baby.”

If RZA’s dream comes to fruition, the Wu-Tang Clan will join the ranks of bands like The Who and Green Day, whose respective concept albums Tommy and American Idiot have both famously been adapted for the Broadway stage.

Released in 1993, the platinum-selling 36 Chambers pulls its name from the film The 36th Chamber of Shaolin and prominently features samples from numerous martial arts films. Instead of telling a narrative story about a specific character, as in The Who’s Tommy, the nine-member clan (which includes Method Man, Ghostface Killah and Raekwon) rap their individual takes on urban life in New York City on the album.