If what you say is true,
the Shaolin and the Wu Tang
could be dangerous.
Yes, my lord. We saw them practicing with each other.
Their kung fu is first-class.
So who came with the name?
Who came up with, "Yo, we gonna call it Wu-Tang Clan"?
I heard Ghost say "Wu-Tang" first.
It stemmed from the town.
So you didn't come up with the word "Wu-Tang"?
- No, the Wu-Tang comes from a movie. - Right, right, understand.
First of all, we was calling the Ballantine ale, the Shaolin.
And the Olde English Wu-Tang.
Wu-Tang shit. Then the flick came.
- But no, the flick was first. - No.
I seen the movie.
- He brought the movie to you. - No. I saw it on the deuce.
- I brought it to your flick, though. - No, you brought it to my crib.
You brought the tape, but me and Dirty...
I ain't know you seen it.
But I told you to watch this shit like this, yo.
I ain't know that, man.
Hold on!
Hold on. Cut, cut!
No, no, Rae's made it...
Rae's made it into a...
The rap, the music form.
Who you're gonna say put the slang on the streets, Tony did that.
Who put the Wu-Tang Clan into a movement?
- I started that Wu-Tang. - That was you.
- You put... yeah. - He put the movement in it.
Who made it nothing to fuck with?
- We made it nothing to fuck with. - We did.
Ah, that's right.
WU-TANG CLAN: OF MICS AND MEN
After Ohio,
I was awakened to what my positive energy could do,
what my intelligence could do.
I'm realizing that I could bring that energy
to the world through music.
RZA's house was the spot, man.
It just became the thing to do. "When you done hustling,
let's go to RZA house."
RZA'd play the tracks.
We going on for hours,
spending the night,
waking up the next day
you know, sleeping on top of each other.
He looked very determined.
Like he was on a mission.
His aura just stood out amongst everybody.
I was in the streets a lot, know what I'm saying?
But Meth was more serious than me
when it came to entertainment
and making his rhymes.
Just finding something else to do instead of just being on the block,
selling drugs, wasting away, and worrying
about getting locked up or not.
Come do this rap shit.
And RZA was, like, a getaway thing
when it came to me escaping our life.
The condition of the neighborhood
and the people... That shit hit family and friends.
You know, my brother is me. You know what I'm saying?
There's no separation in knowledge and understanding.
The father and the son is one the same.
I was just going with the flow, but I also felt
there was gonna be a breakthrough.
It was just a feeling that I had.
I felt... I just felt that he, like...
RZA came to everybody with the proposal
and he told us exactly what he wanted to do.
Okay, we got a lot of offers and shit,
but the best deal is the one with the dude
to do everything ourselves.
- The creative control type of... - Right. Know'm'sayn?
It's the kind of deal where none of us ain't tied down.
We can sign to another label and all that shit.
That's the deal we want, whereas we gonna be no slaves.
Most of these record companies treat you like their son.
We gonna make it for ourselves at the same time, the singles,
and nobody will steal nothing from us.
That's our entire plan.
He knew how to speak in a way where we all felt
what he's saying is real.
He told me, "Just give me a year
and if shit don't go right after a year,
you can go back to doing what you do."
That's one of the next moves we gotta do.
We gotta start building something in Shaolin
of our own shit, you know what I'm saying?
Real, man, you know what I'm saying?
At first, we was trying to do everything together.
Every evening, I met with RZA.
We'd have dinner, talk about tomorrow's plan,
what we gonna do.
We started taking meetings with different labels.
When we went for this deal, one of the things he told me
he need to have, you know,
regardless of what, when, and where, we must have full creative control.
We gonna slaughter it and take over this rap world.
Play with the niggas.
You know, remember.
He had a project before. It was a dud.
"Oh, We Love You, Rakeem."
Yo, this is Prince Rakeem, the Wu-Tang slang master
with the Shaolin posse on Staten Island.
Check out my video, "Oh, We Love You Rakeem,"
because I love you, too.
When I signed to Tommy Boy,
I was 18 years old.
- What label you on? - Tommy Boy Records.
My record came out at 19.
Got a few shows at 20, the chance to go out,
move that record, get some fans and a few dollars in my pocket,
and that was it.
It wasn't successful, right?
The song wasn't the kind of vibe I really was on personally.
I didn't think I was to be sold as a ladies' man.
But I didn't know no better.
Those are very smart people at the top of this music business.
Tommy Boy got their act together.
I didn't know that the label could be wrong.
Yo, it's the Wu-Tang Clan, boy.
It started from my man Genius and Rakeem, you know,
being up in the business and all that.
Things ain't work out.
I had an album out on Cold Chillin'.
They try to get a fellow to cross over
on some crazy stuff and put out something
that wasn't really going with the flow.
"Come Do Me"!
Rakeem was on Tommy Boy, too.
They tried to front on him.
Now they fronting on two members.
Two members of the clan, now,
so what happened now was
it's time to... it's time to do it ourselves, man.
'Cause yo, in the street,
survival and all that.
You gotta protect your neck, man. We from the streets.
Don't let these people
change you, baby.
Do what you gotta do, man.
If they don't want to accept your material,
do it yourself, man.
And I'm cool with a little bit money save up your joint.
Do it yourself. What?
We did it ourselves!
Do it yourself.
- Come on, louder! - Wu-Tang!
- Louder! - Wu-Tang!
I don't think RZA knew
that it was gonna be as big as it is.
I know he always probably wanted it to be.
- Wu-Tang! - Wu-Tang!
That's all he fucking dreamed about,
was being in this music shit.
Give it up for the Wu-Tang Clan!
Power is another brother I knew since I was a kid.
Power's a stone-cold hustling machine.
Money-getting little nigga from the block.
It's two things that make you do good.
Either you're inspired or you're desperate.
Everybody was hustling.
Divine Just, Power Cipher.
Divine is my man, right?
Like, I never really hung out with RZA,
but obviously, yeah, this is my man brother.
He's like, "Yo!
You still want to do this music shit?
Yo, we gotta do it now if you want to do it."
That's when, you know, I started forming my crew,
started forming my company.
What's up? This big Power Cipher,
executive producer on the Wu-Tang Clan joint,
Power came with a shoe box
full of cash.
Shit. "Here."
But yo, who cares about the money, man?
The shot is what it's worth.
Then I went to Mike McDonald,
my man Lask.
I'm originally from the Bronx.
I moved to Staten Island in 1976.
We moved to Park Hill.
I was established in the industry before Wu-Tang, and I ran into RZA.
He said, "I was looking for ya."
RZA introduced MC. "Mike would be a great help with us."
He's like, "Yo, I ain't got no money right now,
but once shit take off, I got you," so I'm like, "Yo, let's do it."
All right, you vice president.
Mook was president of management. I was vice president.
MIKE McDonald VP OF PROMOTIONS.
It wasn't no office, man.
It's street, man.
We got no office. The office is RZA's house.
The room was no bigger than this, kid.
Here's is where his equipment was set up at.
I don't even think he had a bed in there.
He would sleep on the floor in a sleeping bag.
And I already understood, listening to shit,
"Yo, that shit is banging.
If people could hear that on the radio,
they fucking with that."
I was the promotion man. That was my thing.
So we's getting college play, was getting chart action,
so then me and RZA, we put some money together,
we hired a publicist.
Back then, I ain't know Divine was involved.
I found out Divine was involved later.
Divine...
was still doing what he do,
but he was feeding the program,
but he wasn't physically there.
'Cause he was away, doing what he do to feed the program.
We didn't have no guides, so it was a lot of...
trial and error.
It's, like, on-hands learning and fronting a lot,
because we all came in this together.
Didn't know the business.
Only a couple of us knew some of the business.
It didn't matter, right?
I knew whatever we was gonna try,
win, lose, or draw, would probably be better
than what we was already doing.
All right, we're rolling.
My first thing in hip-hop was doing A&R at Jive Records.
I was the person that recognized the talent
and then cajoled the label.
So we had gotten the, uh,
Wu-Tang demo with "Protect Ya Neck,".
"Method Man," maybe a couple of other songs,
but nobody could touch it,
because it was a non-exclusive deal.
There was no label that was going to give RZA
a non-exclusive deal, meaning that...
When you... when any label signs a group,
they have the exclusive right to sign every single one of them
if they choose to go do their own solo deals,
so if I sign Destiny's Child,
I get Beyoncé.
We couldn't sign them,
but we met with RZA.
I really liked the music,
but more than the music, I was just so impressed by him.
He had a really unique way
of looking at everything.
Talking about his music,
talking about his group, his whole vision for everybody.
First it's gonna be Meth, and then it's gonna be GZA,
and then it's gonna be Dirty,
and then it'll be Ghost and Rae.
We bonded right away,
and we've been friends ever since.
I'm the longest-running music video show in the world.
Hi, I'm DJ Ralph McDaniels, and, uh, welcome to New York's
number one video show, Video Music Box.
I started in 1983. We still come on.
For 35 years, we've been doing Video Music Box.
Voice of the street till I die!
This is the... the archives.
There's tons of tapes down here.
This is stuff that should be in a museum.
It should be in a better space.
There's stuff here that I don't even remember.
I used to come down here and go, "Yes, right here."
I could do that with everything right here.
If it's back there somewhere, I forgot what's back there now.
Let's go up here.
Um, okay, this is, uh, Wu-Tang "Protect Ya Neck."
RZA said, "I got a video for a song called 'Protect Ya Neck, '
and I'm gonna bring it to you and tell me what you think."
I said, "All right."
So he came and it was all of these guys.
"What's going on here? Who are these people?"
But that was the rest of the Wu.
I throw in "Protect Ya Neck"
in the 3/4-inch deck, the big cassette decks,
and boom.
I'm like, "What the hell is this?"
RZA said, "Would you play it?" I say, "Yeah, I'll play it.
Just clean it up, you know, when you finish it."
He said, "You can play it like that,".
So I said, "It's got time code on it."
He's like, "That's cool. You can play it like that."
And I started playing it for a while.
I didn't know what the reaction was,
'cause there was nothing like that.
Steve Rifkind called me.
"Ralph, what do you think of the Wu-Tang, 'Protect Ya Neck'?"
"It's dope. We're playing the video."
He says, "Should I sign them?" "Absolutely."
It was early '93.
- "Protect Ya Neck." - Steve?
- 'N. - Steven.
I'm like, "What the fuck is this? This is a rock band."
So I tried reaching out to RZA.
No answer.
- Went on for six weeks. - You called him for six weeks?
Six weeks, no answer,
and he just shows up.
He says, "The guys are here.
Do you want to meet everybody?"
I'm like, "Yeah."
So I'm in a guest office...
I want to say from here...
The size of this table.
And all nine guys come in and they start performing.
Somebody comes barging in
and says, "That's that shit."
And then storms out. Never saw them again.
Walked in, said it, left, and that's...
I don't know if I got set up or not...
I thought that was one of his fucking staff people.
I never saw the guy ever again.
He says he ain't know him either.
He said he had no idea, he said some random guy
came in and said, "Yo, that's that shit."
Yeah, no, he wasn't with us, but yeah, it did... that did happen.
I'm looking at him and starting...
The energy in the room that day, even the energy in the record...
To me, that was about survival.
It wasn't like, "Oh, I'm changing the industry."
This was like, "I gotta jump-start this fucking company."
What magazine is that?
This is Beat Down, nigga.
Tell us about it, kid.
A'ight, Beat Down. Get this shit, $2, man.
Hey, y'all. They still be getting two beans for it,
but we got Wu-Tang on the cover.
Nah, they post... they get how much
they want to get, they got us up on that beat.
Wu-Tang on the cover. You'd be like, "This is Staten Island advance."
I almost lost it. I don't even wanna be in the scene.
I ain't even wash up today, and I had pussy.
I told you you done stank.
I still got pussy on my balls and dick right now.
Smell like shit, too.
RZA called me, says, "Guys, Steve Rifkind's
interested in the group."
I was like, "I-I-I don't know."
He's a promoter.
So he can get your shit out there, you know what I mean,
but as far as a label album... You know.
He had this Twist a, and that wasn't really happening.
He had another artist, too. I forget.
RZA said, "There's nine of us.
You know, I need to shop each guy on my..."
I have no problem, as long as I have first right,
because to me, the group is bigger than the solo.
He signed the Wu-Tang Clan as a group,
but not the individuals.
If get my guys signed somewhere else, they good.
We give you opportunity to bid it, but you pass on it,
you know we're going with them.
He had first right to each member.
You know, if somebody offered them a solo deal,
you run it past him.
If he could match it, he match it. If he can't, you was free to go.
That was revolutionary. It wasn't done before.
A month later, the deal was done.
All he had was 60 grand, he said.
What I got out of that? I probably got about a G out of that.
He lucky, 'cause I don't remember getting nothing.
"But," he say,
"I'm gonna let you do anything you want to do.
No restrictions. I support anything y'all want to do."
That's all we wanted to hear.
It wasn't about just getting all the money now.
You know, it wasn't about the dough. It was about the plug.
You know what I mean? And the doing something
that you could feel good about,
you know, when it's time to get pulled over or...
You know, like, "What?
You're fucking with me?
You don't want to fuck with me, officer.
You don't want to fuck with me, man.
I got a fucking rap fucking contract, man."
Y'all can't stop with that camera.
What's up? Yo.
Look at this shit. Turn around. See that shit right there?
They fucking sweating us. Listen. They sweating us for no reason.
They on our dick 'cause they see us with a little bit of something.
And they want to come fuck with us. That's my manager!
Know what I'm saying? Focus on that shit. Word up.
Why they fucking with us? They always bring that shit
to the minority, man.
We can't have shit.
A'ight, no problem.
They searching people's shit like that, man.
That's sad, man.
We political, man. We rap stars, and look what we gotta go through.
See, this shit is real.
You find your gun?
All right, listen to me.
If you want to discuss this,
go back to the station, we'll talk about it.
You want to take it to that level? We can take it to that level.
And you just see it's so hard for people in the ghetto
to fucking be able to make it, 'cause nine times out of ten,
we all criminals in they eyes,
and that's fucked-up.
You know what that's for? They said they heard
somebody had a gun in there.
They heard.
We're here with babies, man. All this shit for nothing. Look.
They acting like they had M16s
or some shit over there.
Look at that shit, man.
Killer Hill! Stay out!
THE WAVE NIGHTCLUB STATEN ISLAND 1993
A shout-out to my girl, Jennifer!
...I love you! What's up? Yeah, b-bum-bum-bum.
"Peace" to my brother Haas, the nigga in C94. Peace, boy.
I'd like to give a shout-out to Marissa, Jennifer, all my girls...
A shout-out to my nigga born scientifical Van Dyke projects.
Shout out to my sister Peggy. I love you!
I want to give a shout-out to MGP! We in here, bring your full effect.
Zulu king's in the house.
You too, Mom! Sue 60...
I want to make a shout-out
to my motherfucking brother, Method Man.
Wu-Tang in the house!
- A shout-out to the whole GP crew! - Hey, yo, Now Born.
Now Born's in the house!
I'd like to give a shout-out to all my peoples in Shaolin.
Wu-Tang!
Shaolin's coming through.
Protect your neck, kid.
Protect your necks. This world is real.
Now check it.
I'm cool with the peoples from Park Hill,
I'm cool with peoples from Stapleton,
I'm cool with peoples from the wild, wild west, the jungle.
Now what I'm saying is, right,
there's some shit being spread.
Know what I'm saying?
Niggas is going and shit... Whatever, whatever. Do your shit.
But don't involve my peoples with that.
We out here trying to get our shit legal,
you know what I'm saying?
Don't knock us because we trying to get our shit legal.
We realm, we came from the same place y'all came from.
You know what I'm saying?
If y'all with me, where y'all at?
My peoples if you with me, where y'all at?
Everywhere! Fuck that Shaolin!
Now RZA, bring that back...
I was actually born in Long Island.
'71, March 2nd,
to Genola Williams
and Clifford Smith, Sr.
My old daddy was young, my mom was young,
and I think they had kids too early.
Either both of them wasn't ready,
one of them wasn't ready... I don't know.
I'm not here to judge Dad.
I just know that as a child, we would move around a lot
without him.
Sometimes, he would probably be sleep in the bed
and we packed up and we gone,
'cause Genola done packed up the kids
and went back home to Indiana.
He would always find us, though.
He loved his kids, you know.
I know for a fact my father loved me, man,
'cause he used to try and steal me.
You know?
He would try and take me.
"I want my son." You know what I mean?
My mother wasn't having any of that.
We wound up going to
a shelter for battered women
in Brooklyn.
I had to be, like, six, seven years old.
It was an experience that I cherish,
because it's the reason why I even ended up
in Staten Island.
See, the thing about the shelter was
they would take women in
off the street like, right then and there.
Extreme cases, whatever.
That's a dangerous situation regardless, men beating on women.
I've never put my hand on a woman.
The lady that ran the place was a Muslim lady named Ummi.
Ummi means mother, of course.
Just the people that lived there
there was an African family, Renaldo and his family,
and Wayne and Ronnie, who had been there
before I was there,
and just I took to them off top, 'cause we were, like, besties.
They gonna bug out when they see this shit.
They probably think I don't remember them
or they don't know it's me.
It's me, Ronnie, Wayne, and Sean. Yeah.
I used to go through depressions, 'cause all my friends were leaving.
You couldn't stay there that long, and I remember Jose
was the first one who left.
Wayne, Ronnie...
It was sad, 'cause I didn't have friends there anymore.
I used to just sit by myself. I wouldn't eat.
Just thinking about, like,
"When is it our time to get the fuck out of here?"
And that time came.
Our first month in Staten Island, we lived with Ummi...
and then my mother found a place.
The apartment we moved in... I did not like it.
The look... it smelled funny, it was weird-looking and shit,
'cause I'm a Long Island kid. Green grass... You know, suburbia.
Black middle class. Very black middle class.
But I adjusted, made friends,
and this was my first exposure to hip-hop.
It feels good to still be out, performing,
25 years later.
I mean, it's always good to be in a studio as one, as a single unit,
sharing thoughts and ideas and rhymes.
It always feels good to be together and get around each other.
One thing about the Wu-Tang Clan:
Most people don't know that it started
with a man with an idea and a business,
pursuing a dream.
- And that's you. - That's me.
It started with me, Mr. Robert Diggs,
having the experience in the industry...
A bad experience, but an experience
that also gained me knowledge.
I went and formed Wu-Tang Productions.
I have my own record label.
So Wu-Tang Productions is a company,
similar to Def Jam,
and I pursued talent to join me...
and the talent did join me.
I then went and got contracts drafted up,
and I signed a 50/50 production deal
with each individual.
But the Holy Qur'an says
make it work with your brother,
but put it in a contract
to secure it on paper.
I was never signed to Loud.
I was signed to Wu-Tang Productions.
We was all signed, except for Genius.
I was never signed to Wu-Tang Productions.
I told RZA, "Man, we family. I mean, we don't...
I don't need to sign anything.
Long as I keep my word and you keep yours, we're good."
- And rolling. - Okay.
Back in those days, you had signing directly to the record label,
or, in some cases, you had the option of signing a production deal,
and a production deal was basically,
you have a company that signs to the label
and you sign artists underneath your company.
It's easier, in a sense, to tell these labels,
"Hey, I am Whatever Productions.
These guys are under me. You deal with me directly."
But in the long run,
you know, when people realize
that the label went through you,
they paid you and you paid them,
they wonder why they don't get all the money from the label.
It becomes a problem.
"How come I ain't get paid as much as you, blah, blah,
and you didn't do much for this record."
And it... you know, it gets touchy,
and, you know,
it's a form of control, too, so I could see that being a problem,
'cause people don't want to be controlled.
Yeah, yeah, yo, what's up?
I'm Lefty Left on the left-hand side and I'm right here now
at Firehouse Studios.
We'll check out the Wu-Tang Clan.
Follow me.
"Protect Ya Neck" was out there. Ralph McDaniels playing a video...
When you think about "Protect Ya Neck,"
we just displayed all the swordsmans we got.
So now it was time to record.
Yeah, Firehouse. Yeah, we in here now, y'all.
Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers).
You know, Prince Rakeem's...
Here we are. This is it.
'Sup? Look into the camera. What's going on?
Fuck you want to know.
I'm gonna get rich this shit. You know what I'm saying?
Old GZ back in this piece, what you eating, fish?
What's going on?
Wanna give me some freestyle off the dome a little later on?
It's the manager, Mike.
What's going on, baby? How you doing?
What's going on? Peace. My man, Inspectah Deck.
What's up, baby? What's up?
Firehouse Studios.
It was like a little hole-in-the-wall spot.
It had some okay equipment.
I remember the pipes coming through there.
It used to get hot and we used to have mad people coming in and out.
It was a party every night.
Method Man, what's up, baby?
Love, love. What's up, yo?
My man, Raekwon the Chef. What's going down up in this piece?
It's on, baby, I'm telling you. This year is our year, man.
I was excited, you know, from looking at something on TV
to saying, "Damn, I could do that,"
to now, I'm getting that shot!
It's like, "Holy shit. Niggas giving me the floor?
Oh, I'm gonna..."
If it make it, it make it.
If it don't, it was just about being there.
You know, we making some noise and we about to blow the fuck up.
Genius is just the beginning of what's about to take place.
We gonna rock the fucking rap industry.
We gonna fuck everybody up.
I don't give a fuck. We fucking running all this shit.
'Cause shit definitely ain't gonna be the same no more. Trust me.
I got three babies out here.
I like to see my children and they wake me up.
Where I grew up,
it was always a struggle.
Being with the Wu-Tang Clan,
I could change a lot of things in my life.
I got my earth, my wife right here.
Shaquita be earth in the name of Allah.
I love my wife, dearly.
We had our first two children while we lived here.
Yeah, 112 Putnam Avenue.
We used to put our milk out on the, um...
On the ledge.
We had no refrigerator.
We went through a lot.
We were righteous people
in the nation of gods and earths.
They're not like other kids
because they have knowledge.
Knowledge, wisdom, and understanding. They know the true meaning of it.
He was god, and I was considered as the earth,
and earth has to be watered.
So being watered means that he nourished me,
take care of me, teach me how to take care of myself.
By this time, he done gave me my name and everything.
"Shaquita be earth in the name of Allah,
for I be the one who reflects the light of Allah into His seats,
thus bringing forth these positive reactions
of the one and only.
I be the reproducer for what Allah borns.
Being black is being beautiful, for all things come from original.
Peace, I sincerely love Allah's mathematics
is good for the mind and the body."
Uh, sorry.
He, um...
He made me, um,
remember that, 'cause when we were in a...
In a bathroom in his apartment,
I wasn't allowed to leave the bathroom until I knew it.
He wouldn't let me out of the bathroom.
He said, "When you learn that, what your name means,
then you can come out of the bathroom,"
and I stayed in there for hours,
'cause I didn't like to study, and I didn't want to learn it,
but I see that he wasn't letting me out of the bathroom,
and he's seeing I have problems with studying,
so he was on the other side of the bathroom,
and we would go over, word for word, sentence for sentence,
and I would learn how to... What it meant,
and it took me a long time to get it, but I got it,
and then, by me going through that, it meant a lot to me,
'cause he made me learn it, and once I learned it,
I kept it with me all my life.
Yeah, yeah, it did.
It sort of... at that point, it just changed my whole life,
'cause I had a meaning to my name.
No one never gave me a meaning to my name.
My grandma named me Tracy, but it was just real special.
I think that
what was different about them was that you could really hear
the truth through their lyrics.
That was definitely one of the things that we had in common
because we was coming from this...
We was cut from the same kind of cloth.
You know, I was able to just let my frustration off
on the microphone.
It was like... I got that out.
You know.
One of my friends, Saul Moskovich, had, uh, 36 Chambers on tape,
so I was, like, nine or ten, and we listened to it
just, like, over and over and over and over and over and over again.
You know, I remember, like, we were really into.
"Cash Rules Everything Around Me," and my friends would listen to it,
and it's a really sad song in a lot of ways,
and the beat is kind of sad
and it just always seemed like
the music I listened to had a very hard approach
to these terrible circumstances,
and, I think,
some of the Wu-Tang songs were the first songs
that I heard that had, like,
an approach that really acknowledged the sadness,
um, and, like, the pain of it.
And I think even to take it further,
I think that's why they was
the most successful,
because... they was masters at expressing
their pain. You know?
Being able to speak it where you could understand it
and, you know, it didn't... It never went over your head,
you know?
WKCR 89.9 FM. My name is Bobbi to Garcia.
DJ Stretch Armstrong.
I heard them up on Stretch and Bobbito's show,
and then I found out they weren't signed to Loud.
They had individual options.
Peace to Bobbi to! Shout out to everybody in Shaolin!
And I took a cab up there.
And I went to meet them. RZA knew who I was.
He said, "You knew me when I was with Tommy Boy Records."
RZA, Masta Kill a, and Dirty
all came to my office.
I thought that Meth was the standout star.
"Where's Meth?" and he said,
"I'ma put Meth over here with Russell now,"
like he's gonna be on Def Jam.
I'll sign that piece today.
Def Jam.
It's going DZA.
Hell yeah. Ah!
Go... Ah, shit, nigga.
Yeah.
Sitters said they'll buy it.
Getting fucked up now to celebrate.
"But I want to put Dirty here with the gods."
He was a smart guy, RZA.
He knew what everything was. He's playing chess.
So he had already in his mind...
Even before I met him, he probably wanted to put.
Dirty on Elektra.
I think he thought that was the place for him to be.
We had labels that
would usually be competing against each other
actually working with each other for our cause.
Insane.
Unheard of.
RZA had the plan, but who knew?
And, uh...
I guess I got lucky.
I guess we all did.
That's pretty cool. Pretty cool.
Yo, yo, yeah, yeah.
Getting ready to do something with Elektra.
Watch out for it. It's called "Dirty Kung Fu."
You know, it's gonna come to you loud.
Yo, ignore these niggas, yo.
All right, what's going on, man?
Hi.
This is my little sister over here.
I'm saying? Just chilling and shit, you know what I'm saying?
So when I signed him, RZA brought me the two-inch reels,
and he was like, "Here's the record."
I was like, "What the fuck?"
- Yo. - That finish weak.
Nigga dissing me.
- Go ahead, man. - Yo, check it out. Yo, yo...
Dirty was a genius. You know, he was a brilliant guy.
The whole album cover was his idea.
"I want to make my album, uh, my welfare card,"
and he brought his card.
It's strictly fucking welfare.
'Cause I've been living in a shelter all my life.
He sold a lot of records. He was a star.
White people love Ol' Dirty Bastard. And it's fucked-up why they love him.
They love him because he's like Flavor Flav.
He's a fucking clown.
You know, some liberal clandestine racism to me.
Dirty was being Dirty.
To me, he was never a clown. He was brilliant.
This is how I get my money.
You know? I'm not ashamed.
Don't you be ashamed!
There was a food stamp card that I had as an ID.
He didn't have one, but I did. It had my picture on it.
And he put his face on it and used the same thing.
He put "36 Chambers" or "ODB." He just fixed it up.
That's what was his album cover, and he just did that, and he's like,
"Oh, I got a great idea, Shaquita."
I'm like, "Really?"
"You can't do that. It's embarrassing,"
I was embarrassed to be on food stamps.
I never was ashamed of welfare. I love being it. I don't care.
You owe me 40 acres and a mule anyway.
For real.
I wasn't asked to come here. Know sayin'?
From a bad action, you're gonna get a bad reaction, you know?
You make a dollar bill
and it's only paper.
That's all it is, is paper.
And then you make us fight and kill one another over paper.
That's how I feel about it.
That's how I will always feel about it.
It felt good after leaving Cold Chillin'.
Boy. Yes, yep.
I just remember just hearing them beats
for the first time.
Almost like striking back.
We'll show them.
I mean, I sat there watching RZA make the beat, you know.
Well, you see him have the record. It was... it was you know, a lot of...
playing it, looping it.
Playing the shit, looping it.
But what I paid attention most to was when he caught the melody.
It was like, "Oh, that sounds dope."
Raekwon and Power, Deck, and Meth
would come over often.
God bless, you know, RZA's mom.
She used to welcome us in and then kick us out.
She used to make us go out on the balcony,
so RZA had to get the long mic cord,
and while he's inside the house
we on the balcony, on the mic, and he's working the beats
and we just passing the mic back and forth,
and he's just recording everything.
RZA wanted that dusty,
45 record...
"shit popping off the needle"
style of music, you know what I mean?
He felt that the more closer we are to the streets,
the more respect it's gonna get.
I pick the beat up,
and let Deck and Raekwon go...
and they got on this track, yo,
and they both did
about 64 bars apiece.
Me and Rae did, like, three verses apiece on that.
Anyway, that song was called "The Lifestyle of the Mega-Rich."
That's "Lifestyles of the Mega-Rich,".
It's simply that freestyle shit, G.
But it had no hook.
Method Man had the best hooks, hands-down.
And if I wanted a hook,
"Yo, Meth, I need a hook for this shit."
My boy Raider Ruckus got locked up.
He used to write me these letters
and I remember him putting "C.R.E.A.M." in one of them.
Gotta get this C.R.E.A.M. Cash Rules Everything Around Me.
C.R.E.A.M. Cash rules everything around me.
Because cream rises, you know?
So money make you rise, so "cream" was money.
And I was like, "S... that's it right there."
Deck and Rae, man.
Like, that is Wu-Tang right there when I think of Wu-Tang and shit
in my... in... in my head.
Yo, Rae, come here, man.
What up?
Hey, Rae, you ready?
I can't even hear it!
I got the shit jacked, G.
I can hear it, but turn it up.
- You all set, Rae? - Here we go.
Raekwon's first verse just was a...
I think a great way to describe growing up in New York.
His voice and his cadence followed by Inspectah Deck.
"Twenty-two long, hard years and I'm still struggling."
"And I'm alive on arrival."
Instead of dead on arrival, I'm alive on arrival.
They describe his life.
A man with a plan, a dream.
To make cream, which fail
I went to jail at the age of 15.
Each one of them describing their lives
was powerful.
When this nigga came home from camp,
I looked for Deck for three days 'cause everybody was buzzing,
talking about, "Yo, Deck is... Deck... Deck...
This nigga nasty."
Haven't even heard the nigga rhyme. Used to be in his house all the time.
Do you remember when he spit? I think it was the one...
"The rhyme where I shine like gold." That was the first verse.
I told him. "Average Flow."
When he came over and dropped "Average Flow Niggas"...
- He blew niggas out of the water. - We was all at Stapleton.
You used to come from Park Hill, and then we would go to Stapleton?
We knew we was gonna see Ghost, RZA, GZA might be there,
Dirty might be on his way on the ferry.
Let me tell you something. This like a test.
Everybody keep their little doss to themselves,
but it's like, "It's hard."
No, niggas are still sharing. Niggas are still sharing bars, dog.
- A few lines. - I crumpled up mad papers,
writing lines with these niggas, yo.
We wrote rhymes together.
We write rhymes together, but... but not everybody.
When Inspectah Deck came out with "I smoke on the mic,"
that's when I knew that "Yo, you know what?
I ain't waiting for nobody else.
I'm getting up next."
We knew how to feed off each other.
'Cause RZA started to learn who sound good with who.
That's the worst you can do to an MC in the studio while he writing.
- Bug anybody? - "Check this shit out I just wrote."
"Nah, nigga, I'm writing right now."
He might come through with the crazy shit
and then just kill your shit. Like, "Damn, hold on, B."
- Deck was known for that. - Yeah, yeah, yeah.
He... he the first. He go first.
He humble as fuck.
He had us in that studio for hours, trying to follow one of his verses.
It's a... it's a challenge, B.
Deck was a little fucking monsters.
All of us was around each other
for that first album.
Everybody was there all the time.
There was a lot of input.
Everything was critiqued, tight.
There was no feelings involved.
Yo, shit is getting 'tiqued out here.
Hey, you, it's nighttime.
And it was just fun.
We was just there.
The spirit was in the air.
And it's like, "Yo, what's happening?"
Yeah, we just looking at each other
like, "You ready? You ready?"
But that's Mister Smith, right?
That's all Inspectah Deck killing that shit.
- What's the name of this joint? - Enough about here.
It's called "C.R.E.A.M."
Mm, yeah.
And I'm hearing from Steve from Loud Records.
Kick a little song for me, Steve.
Waiting to have Wu-Tang finish their album
so we can get this out and go platinum with it.
- That's about it? - Yes.
I don't like to talk.
All right, I hear that. Oh, Steve, yo.
- Everybody was young. - Pan that shit the fuck up.
To sell a product, people gotta know you got one,
and then they gotta know that that shit is good.
I had to market that album, mold it,
hit the streets with the dudes.
Interviews...
We're a group of righteous men.
We the gods, man, and our job is to teach.
Shows...
Wu-Tang is coming soon.
Power Cipher, Divine! Power Cipher, Divine!
Guest appearances, walkthroughs...
- Hey, thank you. - Everybody else was full.
Anything I could find to get them noticed,
get them out in the street, to make people listen to them.
You know, it was all new. You put a single out and it took off.
Next thing you know, you're doing shows, you're in demand,
and we're all learning.
We're all making mistakes.
We here to show and prove the realism.
We ain't here just to be rhyming.
They was hungry.
We was going for Boston...
to Florida, back up, Virginia, Philly...
Sometimes we'd do two, three shows in one night.
You know, I remember going to Philly and do a show
and then we had to be at the Fever in the Bronx the same night,
and we just on the highways, speeding, 100 miles an hour,
zipping back to the Bronx.
My name is Tonya. I want to give a shout-out to my son, Dontae,
and a shout-out to my man, U-God.
Peace, baby, you.
You'll be home in a minute. I love you, my nigga.
U-God was in jail at the beginning.
I came in out of the fucking can,
so I'm trying to adjust to all this shit that was going on.
I got two felonies, so I gotta report to the parole officer.
Is it cool to go to Baltimore to do the show?
For the most part, he was working with me.
If they see you're making moves...
That's just the beginning. It's just the beginning!
We did it the only way we knew how to do it.
We just did it.
If you came out here to see Wu-Tang,
let me hear you say "Wu-Tang!"
Wu-Tang!
- Wu-Tang! - Wu-Tang!
We up in this Wu-Tang Clan record release party.
I got the clan right here. I got Inspectah Deck, I got U-God.
Shaolin is in the house, man. 36 Chambers.
This the RZA's sister. Sharif. What's up?
Yo, this party is mad phat.
Mad industry people, mad girls.
We got mad celebrities up in here.
Loud Records up in this piece.
My man Dres from Black Sheep. How you doing?
Ah, just taking it easy, bro.
We got West Coast flavor here. We got MCA up in this piece.
- What's up, baby? - Yeah, I'm just chilling.
Over here on the East Coast at the Wu-Tang Clan party.
Shit, we got Sadat up in this piece. What's up, bro?
Lounging. You got some hot-ass lights.
I got my man from Black Moon up in this piece.
Fucking Buckshot Shorty and Dru-Ha and shit.
Yo, get a look at this crowd!
Say it now, motherfucking house!
Wu!
- Wu-Tang! - Wu-Tang!
Wu-Tang!
It was just new.
It was different, it was grimy, it was hard.
It was the essence of us from the streets,
and we was really living it.
Shaolin representing this joint.
Just, like, you can absorb energy
and that shit just stick to you.
It just spilled out in the music.
But yo, Cream, that stand for money, man.
Cash rules everything around me, man.
When "C.R.E.A.M." dropped,
that's when shit got funky.
They dropped the fucking music video
and the record the next day after.
More things just started popping off, then.
We did Arsenio Hall.
Please give it up for Wu-Tang Clan. Go, yo. Go, go, go.
Since tonight is the night of all nights!
Most people gather around
to see the show
that is coming through your town.
My name, besides you don't know,
is Wu-Tang!
That shit went from 200,000 sales,
that shit went to 500,000, then 500,000 to 700,000,
then 700,000 to 1.2 to 1.5.
Then shit just went nuts after that.
After that, I knew life was never gonna be the same.
Music, to me, is a reflection of what you go through.
We in the hood. We don't go to therapy.
We just take it for what it was.
If somebody get their head blown off, or we duck shots and we fuck around
and we get into scuffs and fight and get cut or shot, or grazed,
we just wipe it off and keep it going.
Then my son got shot.
U-God, one of our members... His son Dontae...
He got blasted, understand, around the way...
Force-fire shootout, man, you know what I'm saying?
- Mommy! - What?
Method Man.
That's nice.
Dontae, he lost his spleen.
- How old is he? - He's two.
Two years old and lost his spleen.
Yeah, he's paralyzed in one leg.
He's going through therapy right now. We gonna push it.
Up a little bit more. High up. High up.
High up, high up. There.
And so let's see if you can do this.
One, two.
Oh, you're doing such a good job.
We just realized that all that gold record and all that
will not... will not really save you from the brutality
or from the subtext you gotta go through.
- Wu-Tang. - Wu-Tang!
Welcome home, Dontae Hawkins, Staten Island's littlest hero.
There's a lot of Dontaes out there.
Look at Dontae!
And we, as a society, owe it to these young people
to make life safer for them, so that's our mission.
This is a Staten Island story.
This is our story.
We're not gonna let them forget Dontae. We can't.
Arsenio Hall?
Forget about it.
Shit was perfect.
It was beautiful.
We came out and we made our mark,
and I think dudes lost sight
of how that actually really happened.
Man, we done came a long way.
Yo, this is Rakeem's brother...
Divine was always my man, right?
Wu-Tang, baby. Watch out!
Watch out! It's coming down, baby!
Well, Divine, I mean, early on, I didn't really see him that often.
I started seeing him a little later.
Like, I remember one time, RZA came and he say,
"Power and 'Vine's gonna be part of management."
You know what I mean?
More or less. So I was like, "Okay, you know, whatever."
Mook and Lask... a lot of people don't know our business
and didn't know our business.
They just seeing everything coming together
and yeah, those guys worked for us.
When they came, they was work for hire,
and we was growing,
so we needed somebody to be a manager every day.
I ain't know they were investors. I was like, "Yo, okay," but like,
I didn't understand.
I'm thinking.
"Okay, now we got to split this four ways."
Like, "Oh, man." You know?
We starting to make money,
now my cut's getting lower.
This is, uh, Divine interview, take one.
RZA's kept a ban on my ability to speak publicly.
He's just been like, "No, they're not ready for you."
RZA's like, "Vine, you are a fucking tyrant."
I am a tyrant,
and not in the negative sense of the word.
I'm a businessman.
I think about business
when I'm asleep,
but I can honestly tell you that them motherfuckers drove me
to the point whereas I lost it,
and I lost myself
because I stopped believing in who I was.
I wasn't allowed to speak,
but now he's like, "Your 25 years is up.
Do whatever you want."
Subtitles: Patricia Rosemberg plint.com