You’re tooling around in eastern Pennsylvania, Lexington, Kentucky, or North Carolina and see what looks like one of those ubiquitous signs for a political candidate. You look closer: pro Harris or pro Trump? But wait, they’re voting for … RZA? Ghostface Killah? Method Man?
“It really looks like a legit campaign sign,” says Dale King of the online store Doc Spartan. “You do a double take and say, ‘What the hell is this?’ And then you go, ‘Okay, that’s pretty funny.’”
King is referring to blue-hued yard signs that look suspiciously like real ones but read, “Presidents Are Temporary – Wu-Tang Is Forever.” Starting with the 2020 presidential campaign, the signage began appearing courtesy of a Wu-Tang Clan fan in their home borough of Staten Island. “I made them up with an inadvertent message that no matter what side you vote for, we are still all Americans and most importantly [Staten] Islanders,” Rafael Medina said at the time. “We should have each other’s back and maybe even have a laugh together.”
The Portsmouth, Ohio-based Doc Spartan normally specializes in all-natural skin care products and apparel, but after seeing a meme with the sign in 2020, co-owner King thought it would make for amusing political merch. With the help of a graphic designer and a local print shop, King made about 50 of the “Wu-Tang Is Forever” signs and sold them all.
“We try to sell funny shit that we find amusing,” he says. “It was a tongue-in-cheek approach, our way of saying, ‘This is our official political stance.’ And the Wu Tang Clan are on the Mount Rushmore of rap groups of all time. They have a certain generational appeal of people from 35 to 55.”
The products went back into storage after that election, but they’ve returned and, anecdotally at least, in more numbers than before. Now, they are for sale at various online retailers. Among other retailers, Doc Spartan resumed selling the signs for about $30 with a new product twist. Since the two-by-three signs don’t fit into standard mailers, King has branched out into stickers and T-shirts as well; his customers, in particular, asked about the latter.
Although exact numbers are hard to pin down, the signs are seemingly back in full force, based on random sightings around the country, and King feels he knows why. “There’s so much vitriol and polarity going on,” he says. “It’s worse than it was four years ago. So this isn’t so much about the music and more about the message of getting through this shit every four years. Don’t get caught up in it. Stay focused. Here’s something to take your mind off the vitriol and something we can all get behind.”
Those sentiments are echoed in online customer reviews. “I’ve had tons of compliments,” reads one on Amazon, “heard laughs from passers-by, along with, ‘That’s awesome!’ and others inquiring where I got it.”
Various members of the Wu-Tang Clan and their reps did not respond to requests for comment about the unauthorized signage. But Kia Kamran, an attorney who works with the group, says, “It has been repeatedly and irrefutably proven throughout the history of the known universe that Wu Tang is, indeed, forever.”
