Me and my girlfriend have a series of mixtapes we've made under the title "Method Man is the best member of Wu Tang Clan"- this being her summation and not mine; he's arguably the best dancer and best looking member of the clan, but I don't think he's the best.
A good quote from Method is buried at the end of 'Can It Be All So Simple', where he speaks of GZA "we all form like voltron and he just happens to be the head". It could be the Genius. He doesn't really have the best lyrics but he does overall seem to be a good representative of the group. This being said, I love the RZA for his producution, his verse on '4th Chamber'* and the whole Bob Digi series which is a whole lot of fun.
Ghost and Rae are good, I'm not going to ignore them, but they're always too tied up in the mafioso subject matter that I'm not terribly interested in. Ghost has the best most vicious verse on 'Da Mystery Of Chessboxin' and Rae shines on Cuban Linx but it's just their personas that I don't find terribly appealing compared to others.
Inspectah Deck's verse in CREAM is amazing, by the way. U-God is the Tom Waits of the rap world. And we have an APB on an MC Killa, looks like the work of a master. Meh. It'd be a cop-out to choose ODB as my favourite, although he may be one of the most original vocalists in hip hop ever, as well as a straight-up lunatic and you've gotta love 'em. This is such a difficult fucking question! Ah, fuck it. I know:
Simply because he's been caught playing chess in a bar I frequent, his production is wonderful, Wu would've got nowhere without him and the aforementioned:
Camouflage chameleon, ninjas scaling your buildin'
No time to grab the gun, they already got your wife and children.