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The probably most famous song of the Wu-Tang Clan "Protect Ya Neck" from the album Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) starts with this radio talk:

Caller: "So whassup man?"

DJ: "Coolin' man"

C: "Chillin' chilin'? Yo, you know I had to call, you know why right?"

DJ: "Why?"

C: "Because, yo, I never ever call and ask you to play somethin' right?"

DJ: "Yeah"

C: "You know what I wanna hear, right?"

DJ: "Whatchu wanna hear?"

C: "I wanna hear that Wu-Tang joint"

DJ: "Wu-Tang again?"

C: "Ahh yea, again and again"

Did this actually happen on a real radio show (if so, which one?) or was it made up for the song (who plays the roles)?

As a bonus you can also answer why there's a radio intro in the first place.

Alex
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1 Answers1

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In the Wikipedia article of this song it says that it is from an interview on a radio station:

The person who rings into a radio station at the start of the song was from an interview Wu did. Wu did the interview on a radio station ("Virginia or Maryland, WPGC, I think" Inspectah Deck says), different segments of the same interview are placed at different parts of the album.

Howsoever, in the annotations of the lyrics on Genius it says:

The intro is taken from an exchange between a listener who called in on a City College radio station

In the same annotation it's also stated why:

RZA included this intro on this song to demonstrate Wu-Tang’s growing popularity — “Protect Ya Neck” was Wu’s debut single which sold 10,000 copies underground, leading to the group’s signing with Loud Records.

So it seems to be a real dialogue that was not scripted but it's unclear where it originated from.

Alex
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