The Fall of the Berlin Wall was good but Wu-Tang is for the children

Sure it’s Big Pun’s birthday (born 1971) and Scarface’s too (1970). But how many of us would know that if not for the internet.

On the other hand my generation lived through two unforgettable November 9th’s.

In 1989 there was the fall of the Berlin Wall. Germany reunited, the Scorpions sang about the Wind of Change, two summers later there’d be a coup in the USSR and then just a fizzling out of the whole half a century old Cold War. I don’t think kids today even understand what it meant to grow up in those times. I was born in 77 but it still felt like we were under the shadow of Vietnam and forever on the edge of a nuclear war. In the 80’s I was in elementary school and we were having nuclear attack drills where we’d all go sit in the hallway and duck and cover. As if that was going to save us.

When it turned out that the USSR was done in by its own lousy economy, it was sort of anti-climactic. Twenty years later I can appreciate how debt messes up your whole day-to-day life but at the time I couldn’t understand how a superpower could just go broke.

Four years later on November 9 1993, hip-hop had its (first and finest?) Super Tuesday with A Tribe Called Quest’s classic Midnight Marauders and Wu-Tang’s debut album dropping on the same day. You already know this of course. But think back to 93 for a minute. The world outside of NYC didn’t have Wu on their radar yet but if you were around these parts you’d been watching a raw as hell clip for Protect Ya Neck on the Box all year. And your were left wondering who the hell are these dudes in hoodies with masks and swords. And how can I hear more of their music without getting killed.

Soon the single “Method Man” was all over the radio and MTV. It was a sneak-attack to put the dude with the good looks up front to get the airplay. Next thing you know it was 1994 and C.R.E.A.M. and Chessboxin’ were going cross-country and across the free world, which thanks to the collapse of the Berlin Wall was bigger than it would have been. Though I think Wu-Mania like Beatlemania in the 60s would have been able to slash through the Iron Curtain.

I can’t call it on which November 9 changed the world more. Let’s just call it a toss-up and bridge the gap with the video above of a German record executive randomly encountering Wu at a burger spot in midtown in ‘92.