Wu-Tang Forever: The Final Chamber
BOK Center
June 16, 2025
Thirty years ago, Wu-Tang Clan’s first album Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) solidified the nine-man collective as icons and protectors of the art of hip-hop. Since then, they’ve not only made a way, but they’ve done it their way—and that includes choosing how to wrap it up. Their 27-date farewell tour, The Final Chamber, extends from Baltimore to Philadelphia and included a stop in Tulsa along the way. Fans from all over Oklahoma and surrounding states packed the BOK Center for the show last Monday night, and even the bootleggers showed out, selling bargain-priced imitation Wu-Tang concert shirts across the street from the arena. Opening up for Wu-Tang, Run the Jewels performed under their iconic logo, a fist and a hand made into a gun, which was suspended high enough for even those in the nosebleed seats to see. The duo—Killer Mike and El-P—hasn’t played in Tulsa for quite a while, but Killer Mike has been here multiple times recently, as last year’s headliner at the Neon Prairie Festival and as a cast member for Sterlin Harjo’s show The Sensitive Kind. From the BOK stage he said he’d reassured El-P that Tulsa is a Run The Jewels town.
As the group started, the floor seats were about half-filled, but by the time they hit their fourth song, every seat was taken. I caught the occasional smell of marijuana, whose white smoke blended with the stage production's and which may have been one of the reasons El-P dropped the mic multiple times and why Killer Mike named Douglas High School in Oklahoma City as a Tulsa high school. I’ll let that one slide; Run the Jewels made up for it with their raps. Killer Mike is a master lyricist who finally got his recognition by winning three Grammys. I was blinded by his huge gold rope chain, which seemed to shine extra bright when he performed “36 Chain.” El-P had just as much swagger with his Ray-Ban shades and his lyrical display of versatility while performing “Lie, Cheat, Steal.”
During intermission, Eminem’s “My Name Is” played through the speakers as latecomers shuffled in and came face to face with people who’d taken their seats. I may or may not have moved closer to the stage myself, but I figured, what would Wu-Tang do? In that moment, I think they would’ve been proud of me.Then the lights went dark. A video of thousands of killer bees played on the huge screen, their buzzing like trumpets announcing the arrival of hip-hop royalty. RZA stepped to the middle of the stage and threw up his Wu-Tang “W,” and the crowd mirrored him; he played this role of conductor throughout the night. At times he even led sort of a Wu-Tang meditation, directing the crowd to put their hand into a fist to control their energy and then to release that energy. Maybe we have Wu-Tang meditation to thank for the range of multidisciplinary projects shown during the concert: the Wu-Tang video game, a new movie written and directed by RZA called One Spoon of Chocolate,” and a mention of Raekwon’s documentary The Purple Tape Files, which included never-before-seen footage of the making of his first album Only Built 4 Cuban Linx. The group has been busy.