GZA (Gary Grice), a founding member of the seminal hip-hop group The Wu-Tang Clan, made an unforgettable appearance at the Emerson Suites of Ithaca College on Saturday, February 12. He hopped up on stage around 10:00 PM, immediately sending the crowd into mania. Ithaca College students body-surfed across the crowd as if they were riding raucous waves; raised hands were not balled into fists but arranged into the Wu-Tang Clan’s trademark “W”‘s; and unidentifiable smoke plumes rose to the rafters shortly following GZA’s entrance. Despite the raucous actions of the 600-something fans in attendance, GZA maintained a cool and collected sense of composure. Dressed in an understated hoodie and blue jeans, he needed nothing more than a microphone to soak the audience with a monsoon of metaphors, alliterations and hard-hitting punch lines. At one point, he rapped acapella with a flow so ice-cold that climate change came to a temporary halt. But shortly after, GZA turned up the heat with an onslaught of crowd favorites such as “Shadowboxin’” and “Wu-Tang Clan Ain’t Nuthing ta F’ Wit.”
Original Author: Spencer Holm