22 years ago in 1997, Rage Against The Machine and Wu-Tang Clan teamed up for a co-headlining tour which, sadly, never completed all of its scheduled dates due to internal turmoil within the Staten Island hip-hop crew. Now that Rage Against The Machine will reportedly reunite again in 2020 with supposed scheduled performances planned across the southeast U.S. during both weekends of Coachella, Wu-Tang’s RZA has noted that he wants the two outfits to finish what they started those many years ago.
In a video interview published by TMZ earlier this week, RZA (real name, Robert Diggs) publicly asked the members of RATM to give Wu-Tang another chance now that the rap group is older and wiser.
“If the stars line up right, I would love to see, when they finish that Coachella [performances], and finish that tour we never finished,” RZA said rather optimistically. “I think I’ll reach out, I’ll start with Tom [Morello] then reach out to Zack [De La Rocha] and see what can happen.”
Watch the interview below.
RZA Talks Rage Against The Machine/Wu-Tang Clan Reunion Tour
An August 1997 review from one of the tour performances published by Rolling Stone reads,
“Though the audience adored both Wu-Tang’s sophomoric shenanigans and Rage’s furious punk, the most cheers were reserved for Rage frontman Zack De la Rocha when it was announced that the show would go on despite a mid-set ankle injury from landing on a monitor … Part of what generated anticipation for the Wu/Rage tour was the possibility of a collaboration between the two acts, but a Rage Against the Machine encore featuring Wu-Tang leader/producer RZA featured neither the righteous indignation of the former nor the musical innovations of the latter.”
Watch old MTV video footage covering the 1997 co-headlining summer tour below.
MTV News – Rage Against The Machine/Wu-Tang Clan 1997 Tour Report
[Video: Jason Hall]
Stay tuned to see if the members of Rage Against The Machine share RZA’s enthusiasm for picking up where they all left off back in 1997.
[H/T TMZ]