Stream It Or Skip It: ‘The Disciple: A Wu-Tang Fable’ on Netflix, the Story of a Superfan Who Helped Immortalize (and Nearly Destroy) His Favorite Hip-Hop Group

The Disciple: A Wu-Tang Fable (now on Netflix) is a reminder that life can be quite the rollercoaster ride. Director Joanna Natasagara’s documentary tells the story of Tarik Azzougarh, a nobody hip-hop fan who ingratiated himself into the hallowed ranks of the Wu-Tang Clan – and ended up masterminding Once Upon a Time in Shaolin, the infamous Wu-Tang album that exists as a single CD worth millions. Fascinating saga? You bet. Now here’s hoping Natasagara does it justice.

THE DISCIPLE: A WU-TANG FABLE: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT? 

The Gist: As a Dutch Moroccan kid growing up in Tilburg, the Netherlands, Tarik was frequently bullied and subject to cruel racism, and therefore had few friends. But he loved music, specifically hip-hop, and the work of generational greats the Wu-Tang Clan. While Tarik and a couple of buddies were inspired to rap over beats in their bedrooms, Wu-Tang, CEO’ed by charismatic leader the RZA, became a multiplatinum sensation by crafting its own mythology — a blend of members’ urban New York City backgrounds and obsession with Asian martial arts cinema — and funneling it into landmark late-’90s albums Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) and Wu-Tang Forever. 

Pure uncut persistence and a little bit of luck would eventually land Tarik within RZA’s inner circle (a story that could be its own movie). Redubbed Cilvaringz, Tarik signed a deal to join Wu-Tang minor leaguers the Killa Beez, released an album and eventually organized tours for the Clan and RZA solo, joining them on stage as an ancillary hype man of sorts. In the late 2000s, Tarik followed his yearning to be a producer and began piecing together tracks featuring the broad swath of Wu-Tang and Beez members, unsure of what might be done with them. Maybe it was just for the love of the game.

But from the project grew Tarik’s idea: What if an album could be considered a piece of fine art — you know, like the Mona Lisa? It’d rebel against the devaluing of music in the era of digital piracy and streaming. RZA agreed that the album, dubbed Once Upon a Time in Shaolin, fit under the greater Wu-Tang brand, and Tarik sold him on the idea that it should be released as a single copy, put on exhibition and auctioned off like a master artist’s painting or sculpture. So they crafted an exquisite series of nesting silver boxes for the disc, drummed up publicity, crafted legal documentation stating that it couldn’t be copied or commercialized for 88 years and hid a loophole in said documentation in case it didn’t sell. But at its 2015 auction, OUATIS went for $2 million. Hooray! Until Tarik and RZA realized the buyer was Martin Shkreli, the same Martin Shkreli who acquired a pharmaceutical company and astronomically jacked up the price of a life-saving drug, and became the most hated man in America. Boo.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of? The 2022 doc Pharma Bro gives us more on Shkreli; the drama series Wu-Tang: An American Saga gives us more on RZA and co. Oh, and Rock Star uses Mark Wahlberg to essentially fictionalize the story of Tim “Ripper” Owens, who sang for a Judas Priest cover band before becoming the singer of the actual Judas Priest.  

Our Take: This story might be bigger than a 105-minute documentary can handle. Several components beg for deeper examination: Tarik’s biography and his relationship with RZA, and the larger implications of the OUATIS experiment, including its status as an art object and how it created rifts among Wu-Tang members. It seems Tarik helped further immortalize his all-time fave hip-hop group at the same time he nearly tore it apart – a core idea that The Disciple doesn’t satisfactorily interrogate. Natasagara repeatedly returns to images of a chessboard as a means to contain an unwieldy narrative, a metaphor that doesn’t quite work.

But the documentary is nevertheless highly watchable, Natasagara keeping an uptempo pace fueled by Tarik’s thoughtful commentary. Somewhat curiously, all Wu-Tang member interviews are archival, save for Cappadonna (essentially a temp for the core group) and Beez member Shabazz the Disciple, who offer vital color. It takes half the runtime for the rubber to truly hit the road, as OUATIS takes centerstage as the doc’s most compelling narrative strand — and its most compelling idea, explored just enough to keep us watching.

Our Call: The Disciple encapsulates a saga in entertaining fashion, even if it’s not as thorough as it sometimes begs to be. STREAM IT. 

John Serba is a freelance film critic from Grand Rapids, Michigan. Werner Herzog hugged him once.