Description

The masks on the cover of Enter the Wu-Tang were a practical solution that became a legend. When photographer Daniel Hastings set up the shoot, two members of the nine-man group could not be there. U-God was in jail for a parole violation, and Method Man had been arrested earlier that same day for marijuana possession. So the six who did turn up, RZA, GZA, Ol' Dirty Bastard, Inspectah Deck, Ghostface Killah and Raekwon, pulled stocking masks over their faces, and nobody could tell who was missing.

The setting made it look like a horror film. Hastings shot them inside the Angel Orensanz Center in Manhattan, at the time an abandoned and ruined synagogue, standing in front of a huge foamcore version of the group's W logo. He lit the scene with tungsten lights, strobes and candles, so the hooded figures seem to emerge from smoke and darkness. Hastings also photographed the group under the Queensboro Bridge, and those pictures appear inside the packaging.

The result matched a record that sounded like nothing else in 1993: grimy beats, kung fu film samples and a crew of rappers who seemed to come from another world. Released on 9 November 1993, the album launched one of hip-hop's most influential groups, and the masked portrait and the yellow W logo became symbols of Staten Island rap that are still printed on T-shirts and tattoos today.

Credit

Photography by Daniel Hastings