It is inarguable that the Wu-Tang Clan is made up of geniuses. They have multiple classic albums under their belts and managed to fleece pharma-bro Martin Shkreli out of $2 million for an exclusive copy of their double album, Once Upon a Time in Shaolin. Wu-Tang created an empire that has continued to rake in money for more than 25 years. I’ve always wondered what their secret was, so imagine how surprised I was to learn about the surreptitious business advice they slip in their music.
There are way too many examples of free business advice in Wu-Tang songs to cover in one article, so I’m just going to focus on one, the hit that made them famous from 1993’s Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers): “C.R.E.A.M.” For those of you that have ignored this chapter in our musical history, the chorus to the lyrics go, “Cash rules everything around me. C.R.E.A.M. Get the money! Dolla dolla bill, y’all!” It’s simple yet catchy, and it even works well as a slogan on merchandise, like a T-shirt or hat. What you might not have noticed is its tips on how to get rich.
It sounds crazy, but stay with me. Let’s break it down to really understand what it says. The chorus first begins with a declarative statement: “Cash rules everything around me.” Here, Method Man is stating the simple fact that money controls the world. Meth is pointing out the problem that he means to address in the remainder of his soliloquy.
Here is where the magic happens. The first statement is followed by “C.R.E.A.M.,” which is both an acronym for the previous statement and a dairy product. While the first option is clever, I believe it to be a pun for the true meaning of this part of Mr. Meth’s statement. As Method Man continues, we find out that cream will, “get [us] the money” in the form of “dolla dolla bill, y’all.” Once we have money, we will be allowed to rule everything around us, as we learned at the beginning of the chorus. So, if we want to get rich, the answer lies in the pink, bulbous tits of dairy cattle.
You read that right. The solution to your money problems is a silky, white, tall glass of fresh milk. Think about it; kids and weird adults love it, pets can’t get enough of it, it tastes great with chocolate syrup and it’s the foundation for cheese. Sure, it makes my stomach feel like a bomb went off inside it, but it’s nothing a little Lactaid can’t fix. Dairy farmers have known about this goldmine for years and have kept it a secret from the rest of us, but those days are over now thanks to my decryption of the Wu’s secret message.
The farmers would have you believe that getting that white gold is harder than it seems, and they aren’t entirely wrong. The up-front costs and overhead of a dairy farm are nothing to laugh at. As if the money weren’t enough of a barrier already, running a farm is also serious work. It will consume your life if you go the classic route and run the farm yourself, but with my plan based on guidance from the Wu-Tang Clan, you don’t have to.
The Wu had a great idea, but it was hard to implement back then. Twenty-five years later, we find ourselves in the age of crowd-sourcing and cryptocurrencies and possibly a way to bring this idea back to life. Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies work by allowing anyone to “mine data” with their computers to help keep track of transactions made with the currency in exchange for bitcoins of their very own. What if our plan to get cream worked like that, too?
Our new cryptocurrency will be called C.R.E.A.M. (obviously), and here is how it will work. A cow will be connected to a subscription-based app that will pair a user to a milking device to pump out product. The milk produced will be sold and a small percentage of the money earned will be reinvested into more cows, milking machines, overhead costs and Wu-Tang licensing fees. Users of the app will receive the remainder of the milk profits in the form of C.R.E.A.M. coins that can be exchanged for goods and services with an extensive retail network.
There are admittedly a few details to work out, but the plan is otherwise solid. The money we are all certain to make will cause a ripple in the currency market until everyone is using C.R.E.A.M. for everything. If you get in early, you could be the next Bill Gates or Mark Zuckerberg. You have almost nothing to lose. Wouldn’t you rather rule everything around you? C.R.E.A.M.! Get your money! Dolla dolla bill, y’all.
**This column first appeared in print on page 11 of issue #261 (March 12 – 26, 2018)**
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