Last updated on August 5, 2026
Liquid Swords 1995 was really the last piece of something bigger — the closer on a run nobody in hip-hop has really matched since. This Geffen ad says it straight in the headline: “And Finally… In the Year of the Wu.” By the time GZA’s album dropped that October, Wu-Tang had already put out Raekwon’s Only Built 4 Cuban Linx and ODB’s Return to the 36 Chambers that same year. Three solo records, three different lanes, all coming out of one crew in one calendar year — that’s the kind of run labels dream about and almost never pull off.
You can see the family business right there in the ad copy too. Raekwon’s quote — calling GZA’s work genius, calling it “just right” — isn’t just a pull-quote, it’s the Clan doing what they always did, backing each other publicly, making sure the run stayed a run and not just one album at a time competing for the same ears.
That’s what makes this piece of paper worth looking at now. It’s not just an album ad, it’s proof of a label letting a crew build its own mythology one solo record at a time, ending the year with the one a lot of people still call the sharpest of the bunch.
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Thomas Dishaw is the creator of Rap Therapy and a lifelong Hip Hop fan with deep roots in the culture.