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In one of the strangest bookings Wales has seen for a while, one of the world's biggest and most influential hip hop bands have been booked to play in Newport this July.

Wu Tang Clan

New York's Wu Tang Clan will play on Monday 16 July.

On Twitter the response to the booking was a combination of the ecstatic and the incredulous. @garethjphillips said: "What a massive coup for Newport", while @Beau__ said "Wu-Tang Clan are playing Newport in July. I'm genuinely ridiculously excited."

It was perhaps expressed most succinctly by @Lou_143: "Holy cow!"

A note of caution was expressed, however, by a local music industry linchpin:

"Hats off to the organisers of the festival if they've managed to book Wu Tang Clan," said south Wales promoter John Rostron, who co-runs the Sŵn festival. "It certainly makes a change from the usual fare at civic festivals. The thing with The Wu Tang Clan, though, is that you don't know who you're going to get these days."

And that might be the problem for the Big Splash: Wu Tang Clan, once a globe-straddling unified collective, have become increasingly fractured over the years and given the fluid nature of their working practices might be represented by anything up to the full nine members.

This booking could be a massive triumph for the officials of the Big Splash, if it goes well. The ambition is to be applauded. And, lest we forget, Newport hasn't been averse to a spot of hip hop magic over the years.

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