Wu-Tang Clan’s 1993 album Enter the Wu-Tang is well known for its use of samples in the album’s beats, intros and melodies. I’ll be talking about two specific songs off the album in this post, “Wu-Tang Clan Ain’t Nuthing Ta F’ Wit” and “Protect Ya Neck”. In both these songs, and throughout the album, Wu-Tang Clan samples from a 1977 Kung Fu movie called Executioners from Shaolin from the Shaw Brothers Studio. The movie follows the main character learning a combination of tiger and crane fighting styles. We hear this “tiger style” appear in the intro of the track “Wu-Tang Clan Ain’t Nuthing Ta F’ Wit”.
First appearing in the song at 0:02, we hear the clip from Executioners from Shaolin of a character saying “tiger style” (4:51 in the clip below).
This “tiger style” sample is repeated throughout the song, especially being repeated towards the end of the track in the outro. In the intro of the song, the beat is very stripped down, also featuring a sample from the movie theme “Underdog”, which begins at 0:07 in the clip below.
One of the other few pieces of the intro is a sampled drum track from Joe Tex, in the song “Papa Was Too”, with the sample coming from the very start of the track.
The intro to “Wu-Tang Clan Ain’t Nuthing Ta F’ Wit” is essentially all sampled, mixing the Joe Tex drum sample, along with the “tiger style” sample, the “Underdog” Sample and RZA’s vocal to create a hollow sound that the bass track fills when it enters into the song at 0:23.
Another sample for Executioners from Shaolin comes at 0:15 into the track “Protect Ya Neck”.
We can hear the sample found in the movie at 50:45.
The sample is just fighting sounds, and serves as part of the intro to “Protect Ya Neck” after the radio call section. A direct sample of the score from another Kung Fu movie titled Snake and Crane Arts of Shaolin (starring Jackie Chan) plays at the beginning of the fighting sound sample. The sample can be heard at 5:09 in the following video.
Another sample from Executioners from Shaolin is featured in the intro and end of “Protect Ya Neck” and it’s a mixed sample of both spoken dialogue from the film and part of the score, and can be heard at 3:25 in this clip from the movie.
When these three samples are combined, it helps to create a sense of chaos in the intro of the song, and leads the track from the radio call section into the main lyrics. Wu-Tang Clan also samples a sound effect from rapper LL Cool J’s “Rock the Bells” (0:02), which they tune down and feature throughout “Protect Ya Neck”.
In “Rock the Bells”, the sound is a rhythmic part of the hook, while in “Protect Ya Neck” it’s featured sporadically and used to censor certain words throughout the song. Overall, Wu-Tang Clan uses samples, often from Kung Fu movies, to create a specific style of their own for the album Enter the Wu-Tang.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0076168/?ref_=ttpl_ov
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0078251/
https://www.whosampled.com/Wu-Tang-Clan/Protect-Ya-Neck/
https://www.whosampled.com/Wu-Tang-Clan/Wu-Tang-Clan-Ain%27t-Nuthing-Ta-F%27-Wit/