Wu-Tang Clan — Stapleton Houses, Staten Island

The Wu-Tang Clan — the nine-member rap collective that released Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) in 1993 and changed hip-hop forever — came out of the Stapleton Houses and Park Hill Apartment projects in Staten Island, known in their mythology as 'Shaolin.' RZA, GZA, Ol' Dirty Bastard, and others grew up in these projects and carried the experience of Staten Island's poverty and violence into lyrics dense with Five-Percent Nation theology, martial arts cinema, and street reportage. The borough of Staten Island — the city's forgotten outer borough — became through the Wu-Tang one of the most mythologised places in hip-hop.

RZA produced the debut album largely in his basement in Staten Island, creating a deliberately raw, lo-fi sound using soul samples, kung-fu movie dialogue, and hard drums. The collective's business model — allowing each member to release solo albums on different labels — was as revolutionary as the music. Method Man, Raekwon, Ghostface Killah, and Inspectah Deck all released landmark solo records within three years of the debut, establishing Wu-Tang as the most creatively prolific collective in hip-hop history.

The Stapleton Houses and Park Hill developments are active public housing projects and are not tourist destinations in the conventional sense. Respectful visitors sometimes seek out the neighbourhood as part of hip-hop pilgrimages. Staten Island's ferry terminal provides cheap, scenic access from Manhattan, and the borough's outer neighbourhoods retain the working-class character that defined the Wu-Tang world.