Raekwon

00:00Joe Rogan podcast, check it out. The Joe Rogan experience. Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day. We're up. That's it. The chef is in the building, ladies and gentlemen. What's up? What's up? Pleasure to meet you, man. You are a part of the most iconic band in all of hip hop. There is no question. There's one Wu-Tang. There's only one Wu-Tang. Nothing else is even close. You guys were so different than every other band that ever existed. It was a giant group of you. Yeah, man. And everybody was a killer. Fucking mob, man. It's a crazy band, man. Like, no one is, if you think about it, there's been a lot of hip-hop duos.

00:43There's been a lot of producers and MCs. There's been a lot of people that get together in, like, small groups. But there's only one Wu-Tang. There's only one group of nine assassins. I tell niggas that all the time. It's kind of crazy. You ain't going to get another one of these. It's crazy that it worked. Yeah. Because it's so hard to keep all those alphas together. It really is crazy. To make it work, the most illest shit, some shit that I never would have thought would ever exist, it was able to exist because we tried it, but it wasn't normal. It wasn't normal. It wasn't normal. You tried it, but it almost seems like it was just instinct. like it's not like a business strategy that anybody would ever come up with right nine dudes no and nine of the realest dudes like the rawest realest dudes yeah and it worked and it worked and it worked i tell people all the time it was like when rizzo you know he came with this whole philosophy of wanting to do it it was like hitting the lotto for him like he didn't know what to expect it was more reputation thing for us it was like yo i want to do this and you know he came to

01:54block and he talked to some real dudes that was really had other shit planned in their life you know but hip-hop was always like that backpack that we wore every day but everybody had different plans so he really literally came in and started to pick motherfuckers that he felt had potential so it's like the mob it's like you know you know lucky luciano prime example you know he knew that motherfuckers had potential right he knew dudes had potential in any way he's from a different part he's from a different part he's from a different part but yo what we could do right here is we can make money so put your fucking feelings down or whatever the case may be and let's talk about some money. Yeah. And that right there, kind of like, yo, he starts shaking hands across the table. Yo, I know you didn't really fuck with me like that, yo. I never had anything against you like that, though. But it was just something that he felt like at the end of the day. Let me try this shit. Well, Riz is a genius, and it's amazing that he was able to coordinate that because that's often the case, right, with other killers. Like when a dude's a bad motherfucker, They always assume that everybody else doesn't like them. They always assume that everybody else is the enemy or competition So to have nine of you guys together like that as one group, you know

03:17We always I told you when I was when I sent you a message I said that we play protect your neck It's I know whenever we have a police escort. That's what's the most hilarious thing So we do arena shows. We hire a police escort. So it's like fucking sirens and shit protect your neck it's like the perfect song to play when you're getting a police escort I know trust me these young kids that I have at the club I was explaining Wu-Tang Clan to them the other night I go you have to understand how wild this band was when Old Dirty Bastard was in Rikers they went to Rikers and performed in Rikers you remember that? I told everybody you know how crazy that is You're talking about like the biggest rap band in the fucking world. And they're performing in a penitentiary to one of the members who's one of the biggest fucking hip hop stars in the world who's in jail.

04:13And then you guys go into the crowd. God bless his soul, first and foremost. Oh, my God. Old Dirty Bastard was a classic. Yo, Joe is the funniest shit because when we came in and when we seen him, he was eating a cheeseburger laughing and shit. You know, he reminds you, he never was, you know, dirty. I don't even think, I never seen him eat meat like that or whatever the case may be, but we came in, he was eating a cheeseburger and shit, laughing. So we was dying laughing. And they kept, you know, the people up in there, they kept telling us like, yo, y'all can't go into the crowd with everybody, you know, we not going to hold no responsibility if something happened. So, you know, be like, all right, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, Once we got on that stage, it was like, fuck the stage. We out there touching everybody. Wow. It was love, man. It was a lot of love. Man, it had to be what?

05:05I say what? Ninety, what? Ninety, 98, 97? Wow. 98? No internet. Yeah, none of that shit. None of that. Is there even a recording of that anywhere? Nah. God. I don't think so. I don't think so. You know how wild that video would be? Yeah. I never knew that people seen that. I don't know how the fuck you knew that shit. Oh, I heard about it. Yeah, I heard about it. But they loved that stuff. It was in the news back then that you guys performed in Rikers.

05:35Yeah, yeah. The 90s for hip-hop, it was like people need—you have to understand. For young people, you grew up with hip-hop. You're only 20 years old. I get it. But you have to understand from my perspective. In 1980, there was no hip-hop. In 1992, that was all anybody gave a fuck about. That is crazy for a new art form. To emerge, right? Right. I mean, there was like Sugar Hill Gang. There was some hip hop, but it wasn't the thing until the 90s. And 90s hip hop. It got big. It got big. It got so big. I remember it so crazy you said that because I tell people all the time, like, disco to me was hip hop before hip hop was. you know um disco um r&b everything was a mixture it was a mixture so really when hip-hop came like you said it came like maybe i'm gonna say 80s 85 it had to be 84 because i was in junior high school yeah yeah we was young boys right so i would definitely say you heard something and it was

06:47like oh shit motherfuckers is rhyming i ain't you know the shit sound cool though you know what i mean it sound cool but really it was a way to bring people together you know that was going through different shit in their life you know what i mean yeah you know what it was earlier than that because in 84 i was in high school so it had to be 80 because i was in high school i was a freshman in high school in 81 so i heard sugar hill gang when i lived in jamaica plain which was in 1980 Yeah, so that was the first time I'd ever heard any kind of hip-hop. Yeah, yeah, so like yeah like we said you're 80 yeah, I was 10 years old so Me probably really really gravitating to what I probably was like 12 like you said 12 what was the first hip-hop that really grabbed you? Do you remember? Do you remember like what was the shit that you were first into when you were a kid? All right folks, it's that time of year year, everyone is on a mission to improve their health and wellness habits and set the tone for 2025 by sticking to a routine. And while sticking to a healthy routine isn't always easy, it's so worth it. And you all know that I've been using AG1 for years. It's honestly been so supportive of my foundational nutrition. AG1 is a daily health drink that combines vitamins, minerals, superfoods, and more in just one scoop. And many traditional supplements are poorly absorbed, but AG1 is designed for maximum nutrient absorption and is packed with micronutrients that are hard to get in your everyday diet. You can also add a few drops of their vitamin D3 plus K2 for added immune support. It's a game changer, especially during the winter months. So set the tone for a healthy year ahead with AG1. Simply put, it's a way to invest in your health now and in the long run. And that's why I partnered with them for so long. Try AG1 and get a free bottle of vitamin D3,

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10:16And that's why Rocket Money has over 5 million users and has saved a total of 500 million in canceled subscriptions, saving members up to $740 a year when using all of the app's premium features. Cancel your unwanted subscriptions and reach your financial goals faster with Rocket Money. Go to RocketMoney.com slash JRE today. That's RocketMoney.com slash JRE. RocketMoney.com slash JRE. The first shit that grabbed me was, like how you said, Sugar Hill Gang, you know? Rap is the light. Yeah. Rap is the light. Hip-hop, hip-hop, hip-hop, hip-hop. That was the shit. Oh, my God. Now, look, I had cousins. It was everywhere. I had cousins. I had wild cousins and shit. They was wild. They was selling drugs. They was smoking weed and sniffing coke and doing whatever they was doing. and they used to live two floors above me. And I used to sneak up there and shit

11:21and, you know, just be in their business, be in their world. And they would be playing music. They had the record player. You know, you see Coke on the table and weed and everything. And my cousins, they was cool. They was like, yo, come in, man. We don't give a fuck. Like, just don't tell your mother that you was around and shit. You know what I mean? Nah, nah, I ain't gonna say nothing. I ain't gonna say nothing. And I would just be watching And, you know, I would see weed on album covers and, you know what I mean, just motherfuckers running back and forth in the room. And, you know, they in the shit, but they always was playing music. And a lot of the music was R&B, you know, disco. You know, and the next thing you know, I heard this fucking record, Sugar Hill Gang. And I'm like, the groove was dope. I'm like, holy shit.

12:04Like, this is what I want to be. You know what I mean? I'm looking at the whole vibe. I'm like, this is who I am right here, you know. but it was around town. It's so crazy how it emerged. I mean, it emerged. Yeah, nobody expected that, bro. Well, it was a totally new thing. Yeah. And there was a lot of resistance. I mean, for people that don't know, those little warning labels on your, when you used to have CDs, that all came from Al Gore's wife. Get the fuck out of here. Al Gore's wife, Tipper Gore, she was a Democrat. She wanted to censor rap music. Oh, shit. Because this was the first time

12:39anybody heard, like, Ice-T, you know, like six in the morning. Everyone's like, what the fuck is this? Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, and that kind of explicit lyrics, they wanted to put a stop to it. And that's why they put, and these dumbasses, they didn't even understand. It sold way more albums. Yeah. Because that's what kids were looking for. Exactly. Where's the fucking, they don't even swear. Get this shit out of here. Once they got the label on it, it's like, I want it. Exactly. Once the floodgates got open and kids got turned on to like real hardcore hip hop, you couldn't sell the the the regular shit regular shit like get out of here with that yeah but that's a few guys who got through with regular shit but it just didn't last nah it definitely didn't last but like you said though everybody wanted the raw shit

13:22and you got to remember at that time it was a tough time man too much shit was going on i mean it was to the point where it's like yo in our neighborhood we asked we had like crazy people Like, if they catch you at night, they'll kill you. Like, they'll be dressed up like a fucking drag or whatever, all this makeup on. And, you know, I remember one time going to the incinerator room. My mom's made me go. She made me go to the, um, to the, um, take out the garbage and shit. I forgot to take it out. And she came home later that day and I was laying down and she fucking smacked me in the head with a broom. Like, yo, didn't I tell you to take out the fucking garbage? So now I'm going out to the incinerator room, you know, walking. It's on the same floor. and I remember when I cut the corner I seen a motherfucker sticking his head out and he had his hair all wild and shit was like green and red and all this and he had lipstick on all crazy and his eyes was all fucking bugged out looking and he looked at me and when and I got the garbage pail with me and it's like

14:21yo once I seen him I just dropped the shit and ran mom, mom, you know what I mean back then you know you yell your mother name and shit you think that that was something cool back then, you know, she's your hero at that time. Came back, the nigga was gone. But I think if he would have caught me in that incinerator door when it was closed, he was gonna probably try to run in there and probably try to fucking kill me or something. And that shit was going on back then because the drugs, the drugs was crazy back then. Right, that's the big shift is crack. Yeah, crack. That's also in the 80s. Yeah, but see, before crack, you had that dope. That dope, that dope. So motherfuckers was mixing dope and coke together and getting high and shooting it. Yeah, everything.

15:05You know what I mean? It was a serious time back then, man. But, you know, that's how far to me music went back, you know, listening to Ladies Night. You know what I mean? I had people on my store that had a candy store right on the same floor, but it wasn't a candy store. They had a bunch of penny candy just to make kids feel cool, but really they were selling coke in the back. Coke and dope, though. So, you know, all this was going on in the community, man. It was a serious time, scary times back then. But if it's not for those scary times, you don't get the kind of band that Wu-Tang was. That has to emerge from an authentic experience. Absolutely. It has to. And that's part of the appeal of it is that everybody kind of knew that. It was part of the appeal. There's never been like a genre of music like that that's so connected to like the grind and poverty and crime and ghettos. Like the whole genre of music to be authentic. You had to come from that.

16:06You couldn't be like some rich kid from the suburbs that was talking about some shit you never actually experienced. We wouldn't believe you. Nobody wants to hear it. Right. Which is kind of crazy. Right. That's true. I mean, you know, back then, you know, hip-hop was really an expression for the ghetto. You know, the way that, you know, being that we was living in fucked up situations and nobody had shit, nobody had no fucking jobs like that. It was like, yo, we needed something to keep us cool, keep us in a vibe mode. You know, back then, gangs was still relevant. You know, we never looked at ourselves as a gang. we might have looked at ourselves as a tribe, that, yo, when you from a neighborhood and you stick to your neighborhood, you know what I mean? And that's why even back then, it was like a lot of times, you know, you would beef with people that wasn't from your neighborhood just because you wasn't from here. It's like, yo, what the fuck you doing over here?

17:03You don't live over here. You know, then it creates this animosity thing. And I remember for us, you know, being in an area where it was like you go up the block, up the block, stayed up the block, down the block, stay down the block. So for me, I was in the middle. So, you know, I leaned more towards up the block, you know, but then we would go down the block just to start trouble, and, you know, then they would come up the block, and they would start trouble, and next thing you know, before you know it, we all fucking with each other, you know what I mean? So that was our way of getting to know each other is to test each other's heart, and whatever may happen was happening back then, though. But the music, believe it or not, the music was keeping a peace. Now, the music was keeping a peace because they would do block parties, right? They would do block parties and everybody knew all these different DJs was coming from different places and going to play some music and shit. So we knew every time they did that,

18:09we knew something was going to happen at the end of the night. It was just mandatory. It was just because people from all over, different neighborhoods would come out, and everything would be nice. And next thing you know, you see a motherfucker riding down the street all crazy, you know, trying to hit motherfuckers and swinging a golf club out the fucking window and shit. And, you know, somebody's mother might have gotten knocked out, you know what I mean? You know, but the music is still playing, you know. So, yeah, that's the type of shit that, to me, that made it fun but made it spooky. But it still was fun because it was something to remember. Well, it's fun because you survived. Yeah. Oh, yeah, definitely. The survival. Yeah. But we were young, so we didn't care about whether we lived or died at that time. We didn't give a fuck. It was like whatever's going to happen is going to happen. That's wild. But the music, the music is what kept things in order for us, you know, because we always felt like that was a vessel to being calm. You know, when you come from somewhere that's fucked up, Joe, and there's nothing there, you can't get a job because of your community. Your zip code don't allow you to be like, yo, he's hired. No, it's just too infested over there.

19:29So you kind of become relaxed with that mentality of saying, well, fuck it. I'm going to live off the land. I'm going to sell weed. I'm going to do whatever I think that is going to make me survive, you know. So everything is just survival. You know, when music always kept us calm and you always want to listen to what's the next band played. Like, I grew up on R&B music, like disco and, you know, all that fun shit, roller skating. You know, I knew motherfuckers in the neighborhood that was roller skating. You know, we would get off of Staten Island sometimes and go to these different parks and jams in the city. That was fun, too. That was fun times for us. When was it? So was it RZA that tried? Was it initially all nine guys? Like, how did it get formed? Hmm. Well, number one, it was RZA, his cousin JZA, and his other cousin, Old Dirty Bastard, that they were super close. Now, Old Dirty Bastard and JZA, they were from Brooklyn. RZA was from Staten Island.

20:48You know, we all Brooklyn babies, too, the majority of us in the Klan. We all, you know, resided in Staten Island, but the majority of us grew up in Brooklyn. But anyway, it was those three that were close as shit. So RZA, back then, RZA, he had knowledge of self, which was, you know, being involved with the Nation of Islam. And also JZA and Old Dirty, they were a part of the nation at that time. So they would go to a lot of rallies. This is a place where everybody go when they build They talking about mathematics and all of this But it was Jizz and Old Dirty who instilled the hip-hop into RZA So RZA was a DJ back then But he knew how to rhyme too And he knew how to rhyme because of his cousins So they kind of had this gang called Not a gang, but they had this thing called the All In Together Now Crew Which was them three And they would run around and they would battle you know different guys from different cities and move around so you know some of us kind of knew what they were about you know a lot of us you know found out later who they were but when jizz and old dirty came to staten allen they came and they hang out with their cousin so you know we started to see them a little bit more and know that you know yo i heard about your rhymes and you know and dirty he was just a crazy motherfucker he was crazy but um yeah they had their own little

22:15thing going on and then you know next thing you know jiz a court a record deal he caught a record deal which was rare back then like if you had if you fucking caught a record deal that mean that you had to have relationships you had to know where to go you had to have some some type of connects so that's what gravitated rizza into wanting to to do it because he's seen that his cousin had was able to you know crack the code on making a record so when that happened it was almost like it magnet it magnetized RZA to be like yo I gotta make a record now too you know when the next thing you know that's they had they movement going on so us from the outside looking it was like oh shit yo we know them we know they super passionate about you know being in the game and doing whatever they're going to do but we wasn't thinking that far we just loved the music in general. Wow. So RZA is essentially the mastermind to put all the pieces together and to bring all you killers into one under one roof. Absolutely. Absolutely. Amazing how he saw that because again that's not something that existed. Yeah. It's like Eric B and Rakim. You know there was a few EPMD. There was a few people. You know your

23:32shit. Gangstar. There was a few people that were together but it wasn't like you guys. Nah. Nah, nah, because that was... It was kind of scary. It was like, god damn, when you guys had a show, I mean, I heard stories. It was just like you guys would show up like 300 people. Yeah, that was some neighborhood shit. But yeah, like you said, that was so rare to see a group that come out like that. And it was really a mistake. It wasn't really designed to be that way. But when RZA had a record situation and they tried to make him be something that he wasn't, and then, you know... Always the case. You know what I mean? He was like, yo, fuck that. I don't even care about this shit at this level no more. I want to create this now, and I'm bringing in all my guys. And, you know, he just put that number together. So believe it or not, I was one of the guys that he called first because we used to hang out. Like, I tell people all the time, like, yo,

24:28I might have been RZA's first, you know, big fan. So I kind of seen something in them already. I seen something. I'm like, yo, this guy really, you know, him and his cousins and I'm like yo these motherfuckers really got talent you know not only the ability to rhyme but they was clever like I'm talking about clever rhymes you know and they was mixing it with the knowledge and you know smart rhymes not not these fucking regular Humpty Dumpty lines like I'm talking about serious rhymes I'm like I'm like damn you know what I mean like yo so you know this is something that I felt like I would want to go chill with them just to be in the mix and be a fly on the wall. Wasn't even thinking about being no fucking rapper. I didn't give a fuck. I just love the music but I'm watching these motherfuckers, yo. I'm like, something about these motherfuckers that I love. You know, and next thing you know when RZA, you know, RZA went out there and he came back to the community and he was like, yo, I caught a record deal. So, you know, I was there. I'm like, let me see this shit, looking at this shit. See what the fuck is? Oh, yeah, I'm looking down here. Like you said, the what's the name? Fine print. Yeah, the fine print and shit.

25:40I'm like, yo, this motherfucker, man, wreck it. Holy shit, yo. Wow, Staten Island, that's what's up. We up. You know, but his situation ain't work out the way he wanted it to. And that's when he came back and he started to be like, yo, chef, this is what I'm trying to do. Well, the dangerous thing for young artists in every industry is when you have potential and you're young, You sign a fucking contract and you don't know what's going on and then you get locked into these people and then a lot of times you're getting fucked And you know, it's a mandatory mandatory mandatory you're getting fucked Which is how they make their money. They make money by fucking young artists who don't know any better And by the time someone gets to like a princess level, he's like, oh you owe me I'm I'm a fucking squiggly line suck my dick and he performs as a symbol I mean, that's why he performed as a symbol because they owned him. Yeah, it's crazy You take the most talented people in the world and they get owned by people who provide no value. Especially today. Today it's even crazier, right? Because there is no record sales anymore. It's all gone. It's all gone. So for a young artist, it's so important that they stay independent as long as they can. Like you're hanging off a bridge.

26:51Hang on. Hang on and keep grinding. Don't sell it. Don't sign. If you sign, you're going to be fighting that shit 10 years from now. You're going to be in court 10 years from now. Yeah, you're right. Somebody's going to be getting not just 50%, but like some fucking insane. Like Bill Burr was explaining this about his first comedy CD, that he got a 60-40 deal. He's like, oh, great, 60-40. But it's not really 60-40 because he has to pay for all the distribution, all the printing of the CDs. Everything came out of his money. Let me ask you a question. Let me ask you a question. put yourself in an artist situation, right? You have talent, right? You have talent. Here it is. I got everything you want. Yeah. You're going to have to make some sacrifices.

27:39For sure. Because you know that, yeah, you may feel like, yo, I got talent, but I don't have the resources. Right. So those resources come and tell you, yo, look, I'll give you a shot. I'm going to give you a shot, but either you take this shot or you stay in the hood, what are you going to do? You're going to take the shot. You're going to take the shot. You're going to take the shot. And I agree with everybody who takes that shot. I'm just letting them know. Right. I'm just letting them know. You're getting fucked. You're getting fucked. But see, it's the sacrifice that I'm trying to explain to you that every artist takes. They take that sacrifice because at the end of the day, you have to start from somewhere.

28:20Right. So even when labels are being them, in my mind I'm saying, yo, I get a chance to have a job, Joe. Niggas ain't never had no fucking job in they life. And now we get a chance to do something that you could maybe think that you could change the world with and love. It's like you're going to go for it. So for us back then being kids, we didn't give a fuck. We didn't care about signing. Yo, I signed because what the fuck I got to lose? I done been through everything. I done been over here. I done been kicked out of everywhere. Fuck it. I just want to be heard. So a lot of time that be the protocol is just to be heard, to be heard, to be able to say, yo, something happened. I don't give a fuck. A lot of artists got robbed. A lot. A lot of artists, and especially our OGs that did it before us. Like, you know what I mean? Sugar Hell Gangs, all these different guys. they all have been manipulated to do what they had to do, but it almost gave them power, too, because they became famous. They became big.

29:28They became legendary. There's an argument for that, but I think it should be more fair. Oh, listen, I'm with you. Oh, of course you are. I'm with you on that. Of course you are. But we're just talking about the sacrifice. What you got to do. You have to do it. Sacrifice is everything. If you're a young kid and that's step one and now you're on the runway, okay, you got to take it. You got to take it. But it just should be more fair. Oh, I agree. It shouldn't lock people in for life. And I'm sure later on things worked out. And, you know, now that you proved yourself. Once they become undeniable. It's like I tell a motherfucker this. I'm like, yo, imagine you were a hustler, right?

30:00And you run into the Kinect. And the Kinect say, yo, you talking like you know how to move shit. I'm going to give you 50 pounds of marijuana back then. You know what I mean? Now, you may feel like at the end of the day you can handle it. But a motherfucker tell you, Joe, I'm giving you these fucking 50 pounds. I need my money back today at this time. You can either take the 50 because you're so fucking confident or take one and say, yo, I'd rather take my time. You know what I mean? I don't want to be in debt with you. What are you going to do? You got to take the 50. Oh, you. Oh, yeah. He wants to fucking get his head fucking chopped. You got to take the 50. I don't know. You got to know people and you got to bring everybody in and you got to share the money. See, you got to know people. You got to share the money. You got to know people.

30:46Now, if you ain't confident in knowing what the fuck you need to know, I advise you don't take them. You shouldn't be having that conversation if you don't know anybody. But if you know some people and you're generous, that's the thing. You got to make it worth these people's while. You got to say, listen, we're all going to get something out of this. And see, now look, that philosophy that you said is what we took on. Yes. We took that on. We said, you know what? At the end of the day, we'll take this little bit of money, but we're going to go. We're going to be willing to sell ourselves to get to this level because we know what we believe in. See, it all starts from what you believe. Yes. If you don't have the belief in yourself to make it happen, you fucked. It's a rising tides lifts all boats thing, too. Oh, absolutely. Wu-Tang Clan, that was for sure a big thing because anybody that was associated with Wu-Tang Clan was automatically respected. Automatically people wanted to listen. Automatically. Automatically. So that just lifts everybody.

31:46But it's hard for people to see that. Everybody thinks about themselves, especially when you're struggling. When you're struggling, then you're scared. And scared money doesn't make money. Don't make money. That's what it is. Everybody gets paranoid. And they think, no, that's when you got to bond together. That's when you have to find real people and stick together. You said the key word. You got to know your value. We got to sell that 50. Talk to Carlos. Go down to the bodega. Let's make a deal, man. We got to make some deals. We got 10 hours. I guess that's what Rizzo did is that he danced with the devil for the right reason. And, you know, we took some scars. We got hit. It was a different world back then, too, in terms of the industry.

32:28because today all you need is a social media account, Spotify, SoundCloud. You can blow up. You can blow up today. Back then, you needed the radio. You needed, you know, you could sell mixtapes, but it's hard. You had to be some undeniable talent. Yeah. You know, like we always played the video of Biggie when he was 17 on the street. Remember that video? Yeah, when he was in his neighborhood. Yeah. That's undeniable talent. Yeah. Like that's the kind of talent, like that dude's going to, if he stays alive, you can't stop that train. Absolutely. That train's running everything over. You know what I mean? It's like there was guys like that back then. But man, to get out there and get your name out there, you had to dance. You had to dance with that devil. You had to work.

33:16And that business was so dirty back then. It still is, but real dirty back then in the record-selling days. Yeah, of course. Of course, of course. I mean, but that's what made us learn is that we had to go through those growing pains. We had to get jerked to learn how to say, yo, that was a lesson. So everything is a lesson at the end of the day. It's like if you're willing to sacrifice yourself and your time to learn something, I would always say go for it. Yes. You know, go for it. Definitely, go for it. It's so much better than not going for it. Yeah, because then you're going to be sitting in the same situation and you're going to realize at the end of the day, damn, I should have took that opportunity. Some people are scared of opportunities when they come. And it's like if a person offers you an opportunity, nine times out of ten it may not work for you the way you want it to work, but it may be an opportunity to help you. Yes. You know, it's all about you trying to help yourself and get out there.

34:18It's like watching Scarface and a nigga told him, he said, Yo, give you five grand. And if you fuck this up, Chico. Scarpies looked at him and said, man, the fuck is you talking about? We built for this shit, man. You know, when he lost his man in the mix, but he was able to prove to himself that I could do it. That's how I look at rappers. Like, yo, I don't give a fuck. yeah we'll take this we'll take this little bit of money but we're gonna prove to y'all later on that we know what the fuck we doing and for young people listening to this every chance you take where you fail that's a lesson learned baby and you just keep taking chances that's right keep going pick yourself back up figure out where you fucked up and learn from that now you're better that's right now you have more experience coming into this next thing just keep going just keep Just keep going especially as artists. It's just like so many artists. They don't hit until they do That's right and then when they do it's like oh and then people want to go back in their past stuff like oh This guy had fucking three albums before this yeah think about it think about all our favorite artists out there, you know Eminem, you know Eminem been trying to fucking get on you know You know Rakim, Slick Reg, all these guys, they went through a lot to get on. You know what I mean? Biz Markie, you know?

35:46Nobody wanted to fuck with Biz at first, but, you know, he finally figured the code out and was like, yo, this is what I'm going to do. You know, he start rocking shows in different communities, and next thing you know, people start hearing about him, and you're like, oh, shit, yo, this guy is dope. But it's that sacrifice, man. I tell people all the time. Yeah, it's time put in. Time put in, energy, effort, determination, and you got to have some talent. Yeah, you got to have some talent. Talent is just God just gives you something or doesn't. Some people just got it. Some people it's also like artistic families like Nas. He grew up in this intellectual artistic family, and that's why his rhymes are so good. Yeah, it's Pops, man. It's Pops as a musician. Yeah. Like Rewind?

36:37Yeah. That's like one of the greatest songs of any genre anybody's ever written. It's a genius song. So crazy. I was listening to that shit yesterday. Genius song. The bullet goes back in the gun. Yeah. Genius song. The whole song backwards. You fuck with lyrics. Oh, I love Nas, especially for lyrics. His lyrics are incredible. They were so good. They were so good. Dump. And unusual like that. Like deciding. I mean, the first guy to make a rap backwards. and make it work perfectly. You know?

37:09I mean, it's just... Hey, did you ever listen to any of the shit where the Brand New Heavies got together with a bunch of rappers? The Brand New Heavies. I know the name, but I'm trying to do it with the music. The Brand New Heavies are like a jazz band. They did a collaboration with Gangstar, Cool G Rap, a bunch of guys. Oh, yeah, yeah, of course, yeah. Some of my favorite shit of all time. Yeah, they was more musical, though. Yeah. They was more musical, yeah. Have you ever heard of Cool G Rap's Death Threat? Oh my God. Jamie, play that. Play that. Find that. We've got to put on the headphones for this. This is in my, along with a bunch of Wu-Tang.

37:45This is in my Spotify playlist. This is Cool G Rap in like, I want to say 92? Yeah, 92. Listen to this. I never heard this shit before. How good is this? Woo! Woo! One of my favorites right there. Turning to chicks with small dicks. Woo! Nice. So good. Nice. So good. So this was on the Brand New Heavies album. Yes. Never heard of it. Brand New Heavies did one with Gangstar. They did a bunch of different artists. Nice.

38:45What year was this? 92. Yeah. Phenomenal. So you just the beginning. Yeah. Yeah. I was on a road trip. I was doing a gig in Connecticut with a buddy of mine who's a comedian. Right. And he turned me on to this. Right. You got to listen to this shit. And I was like, oh, my God. And then I had a CD, and I lost it. And I couldn't find it forever. And then someone brought it up, like, a few years back, like, six or seven years back. And I was like, you got to be able to find it. And that's the beautiful thing about today with, like, YouTube and, you know, so many of these platforms. People upload shit that you totally forgot about.

39:18Like, Tim Dog. People forgot about Tim. Like, fuck Compton. Remember that? Yeah, yeah. He was a wildcat, but he was real. It was good, though. He was good. He was wilding back then. Great shit, man. Yeah, he was wilding back then. But Coogee Rap, that to me was like, that defined road gigs for me in the 1990s when we were Drive. That was when Cockblocking came out. Remember that? Remember that? The wall is shit, man. Oh my God, that song is amazing. Yeah, man. Damn, so you really pay attention to this fucking hip hop shit like that, man. Yeah, hip hop was a big part of my childhood or my young adulthood. when I was driving around a lot

39:58doing comedy gigs, a lot of ghetto boys. I was a huge ghetto boys fan. Yeah, me too. I was playing the other day in the green room. I was playing Fuck A War for these young kids. I was like, listen, this is a song from the 1980s about the Iraq War. This is about George Bush in the late 1980s. And it applies today. You remember Fuck A War? Nah, you fucking... Come on, headphones are coming back on. Let's go. You're not schooling me on shit. I talked to Willie D. Willie D told me he wrote this song in 40 minutes. Wow. Yeah, just angry. Wrote this song in 40 minutes. And this is ghetto boys in their prime.

40:38You know that album. Bushwick Bill. Hello. That was my guy right there, man. This is Bushwick motherfucking Bill. 91. 91. Look at that big phone he's got. Yeah, yeah, I had one of those before, too. Yeah. Fuck a war. Woo! Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Talking crazy. Holy shit Holy shit Yeah Yeah. He was in the N.W.A. chamber.

42:31Dude. He was in the N.W.A. chamber right there. Dude, that shit was good. Davis is public getting me thinking. That applies today. We were all talking about what's going on right now with Gaza and Palestine. I know. Iran. I was like, listen to this. And see, this is why we love hip-hop so much is because it was educational, too. It was giving us jewels. It was talking about things that were going on in the world, and that became the television for us. The music. The music. It became the news, too. Like you need to know what was actually going on. Like fuck a war tells you what's really going on. What's going on, yeah. So when I think about those Compton boys, those N.W.A. cats and all of that, that was expressing themselves, it was like that's what we all were facing and living amongst.

43:21And, you know, like I said, I never heard that song before. So I could tell that was made around the time when N.W.A. was doing a thing. and you know you're hearing about all these riots and shit going on and things happening you know us living all the way on the other side of the world it's like yo we not yo what the fuck was that right you know but you heard it in a song and you knew it was real right you respected it and to me those perspectives and music were important for us because we were learning as we were getting older about society right you know you don't think about society when you poor and and living in and and fucked up positions you just think about survival right you see i'm saying survival is the only thing on your mind and you you you you're dealing with things that's in front of you that at the end of the day you like damn the fuck was that that just happened or what was this shit but then when you heard it in rap and and motherfuckers like these was talking about and all that. It's like now you was like, oh, okay, I see what the fuck is going on. It's not just here. It's all over. It's in everywhere, every ghetto or whatever the case may be. That's what was happening. So I never heard that before though. You just put me on some real shit.

44:36And that's one of my favorite groups right there. I love the ghetto boys. Ghetto boys is the real shit right there. The 1990s ghetto boy era. Crazy. And that like, I remember the day I found out about N.W.A. I was teaching Taekwondo in Revere, Massachusetts, and I was at the gym riding on the stair climber, and I had just picked up this cassette, and I was like, N.W.A., I keep hearing about this, and Fuck the Police was the first song I listened to. And I remember I was on the stair climber going, this is wild. You see what I'm saying? This is wild. You're hearing people talk about the police, like they're getting harassed by the police in a way you never heard before. I heard them say it, yeah, exactly. Fuck the police coming straight from the underground.

45:20It was like, wow. Coming straight from the fucking underground. It was a totally different kind of music. It was like they were rapping and no one was listening. It was like they were rapping for themselves, right? Yeah. Like they didn't give a fuck who was listening. They were rapping like they were doing it for their friends, but they were doing it to the whole world, and the whole world was like, whoa. 100 Miles and Running, the whole world was like, whoa. This is crazy. So look, you had them, you had Public Enemy. Oh, yeah. All of them type of guys were giving us information that was relatable in our community. KRS-One? KRS-One, the teacher, you know. Whoop, whoop, that's the sound of the police. All that shit right there to me was knowledgeable. Knowledgeable rap, hip-hop. I ain't gonna call it fucking rap.

46:13Hip-hop. Informational. Information right they like especially KRS-One and public enemy. Yeah, they were they were saying something It was like very it was but it wasn't contrived Exactly wasn't like you know, you see people say shit today like are you just doing that for claps? Like they were saying shit to let people know about some information that you're not aware of and this is why you're getting Fucked is why we're all getting fucked. Absolutely. Come on. Come on. Even when fucking on Spike Lee made Do The Right Thing. Yes. One of my favorite movies right there. That's a classic right there. Classic. Classic. Classic shit. Wow. Classic. But like you said, we was getting information, and you got to remember, at the end of the day, a lot of people that coming out of the hood and just being like, I know you. You come from the hood.

47:04Well, I was born in Newark. Yeah, he was born in Newark. Shout out to Newark. So you seen it firsthand. I wouldn't exactly say I come from the hood because I went to high school in the suburbs. Yeah, but you, yeah, that's true, bro. I lived in Newark. I was telling you, I lived in Newark when I was 23 for about six or seven months. And I told you my next door neighbor, he was selling dope. And the police raided his house while I was there. They battering rammed his door and everything. He had a nice Audi. Right, right. I looked at him like, how does this dude have a nice car? Right, right. Selling dope. He was selling dope. And they got him. But he was around it, though. So he was able to, you know.

47:39Well, that was also the time that I was the most into hip hop, too. I mean, that was. Nice. 1991, I guess. 90, 91. That was a wild era because that's when hip-hop was just exploding. Yeah, yeah. Exploding. Yeah, I would say definitely 91. You had Naughty by Nature. Oh, yeah. They had emerged on the scene, like you said. Rakim and Big Daddy Kane. Oh, yeah. Easy E's and Ice Cube. To this day, I go to work. It's one of my favorite workout songs. What? Which one? Big Daddy Kane. I go to work.

48:10Da-da-da. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Da-da-da. Yeah, that's one of our icons right there. Oh, my God. I got to work. One of our icons, yeah. Oh, he was so smooth and so fast, too. Yeah. You know? Big Daddy Kane had, like, a very particular style. Absolutely. It was energetic. You know? You heard his style. It was like, God, your blood started pumping, you know? Yeah. You started getting moving. And see, those are the type of guys that paid the way for us to be so, you know, outspoken on the mic. When I sit here and I think about the Klan, the Wu on how we formed Voltron,

48:48each one of us had a superpower that related back to those guys. All these guys that we talking about today, they was the light bulb in the house. You screw that shit on. This is what I see right now. I see Slick Wreck. I see Rakim. I see Cube. I see fucking, you know, all these guys that paid the way for us. So the Klan at that time, we were so, you know, inclined on knowing about all these guys, knowing majority of them. We kept a piece of them in us that helped us become who we are. Like I tell motherfuckers all the time, I say, yo, let me tell you something. When we came out, Naughty by Nature was the shit. They was fucking shit up on the East Coast side of things. you know and at that time you had them you had epmd you had queen latifah roxanne shante all these you know artists back then were blowing up ll can't front on ll ll oh yeah um ll was huge coogee rap one of my favorites i know that's one of your favorites um you know the fat boys all these guys were just that's right fat boys you know these guys was giving us so much food for thought that we knew that if we didn't come on that level we wasn't built to be in a game at that time well there was so much high quality yeah the high quality that's the word the level was very high there was the lyrics were so good like you would hear lyrics and just go oh yeah that was the thing that was the thing about the lyrics i love that oh i'm i love lyrics everything that's

50:36You know, it's like that was the style back then it was like the most clever guy the most clever lyrics It was it was so important, you know So many guys that just had everybody was battling for so it was like more and more Cleverness and more and more intricacies and more and more twists with what they were saying Yeah, and it was just a vibrant art form man I get like how many people cheated on their significant other because OPP right? How many? Exactly. How many relationships? You know, OPP, yeah, you know me. People were cheering. It was like a license to fuck. People were cheering. Exactly. I mean, hip-hop had so much influence on the culture, and it emerged out of nowhere. Out of nowhere. That's what's so crazy. Like, 10 years ago, it doesn't exist. Boom. I mean, even rock and roll.

51:25I mean, rock and roll, you had the 50s, it starts to emerge, and then the 60s really takes off, and, you know, it had been around for a while. Right, absolutely. Something like hip-hop just explode and make a lot of other things look lame. Yeah. You know, especially for young kids. Because when you hear guys like you and, you know, Ghostface and, you know, Method Man. And, like, you're dealing with real dudes who are talking about real shit. And everybody else just looked kind of lame. You know? That was stupid, man. You know? It was like they didn't even swear. You know? It was like you guys were wild. It was fun. And it was clever. And I think RZA did a genius thing by naming it Wu-Tang Clan. Because it connected it to like this Kung Fu mindset. And I know that you're big on Kung Fu shit.

52:15Because I'm coming through your shrine and shit. He got all kind of fucking Shogun warriors. Oh, a real samurai outfit out there. But nah, but you know what's so crazy? I tell people it's like when RZA, when they was on their Wu-Tang shit, we wasn't on that. I grew up watching more like Scarface and Mafia movies. Once Upon a Time in America. Oh, yeah. One of my favorite movies. Oh, it's a great one. People forget about Once Upon a Time in America. That's my fucking movie right there. That's my movie. So we were living in this. We were living around a lot of hustlers. A lot of drugs was being sold in my community at that time, right? So when Rizak came with the whole Wu-Tang philosophy, it was almost like yeah we love karate flicks we would watch them you know about the karate flicks three o'clock three o'clock yeah we come over school them shits is on channel five all of that shit but if you notice and you look at those karate movies it was about a place that you know was filled with a lot of crime and aggressive people that were doing things that bothered other

53:30people and you either had to protect your people or you had to make a name for yourself now when you think about Wu-Tang I'm gonna just give you a quick lesson on what Wu-Tang was Wu-Tang was a school that was in Shaolin this particular school these niggas was crazy they was fucked up they got kicked the fuck out of Shaolin really they got kicked out yo y'all bugged out y'all wowing y'all But these guys were very good, but they just couldn't sit in Shaolin because they had a different way of looking at shit and doing shit. So when RZA came with the whole philosophy of it, it's this movie that's called Shaolin vs. Wu-Tang, right? Check it out whenever you get a chance. So whatever was going on in that movie, he made a reality of it because really at the end of the day, that's how we were living back in Staten Island. You know, so we wound up changing the name and calling it Shaolin because we were the forgotten Barrow. You know, when you think about Brooklyn, Bronx, Queens, Manhattan, we don't really talk too much about fucking Staten Island. That bothered us. So we didn't, we felt rebellious like, yo, you come out here, you ain't from here, you better know somebody. You're not fucking coming into projects thinking you're going to fucking act like you're going over to your friends. I remember we used to see UFOs come through. We call them UFOs, unidentified flying objects. What the fuck he doing here? Yo, follow him. Yo, we came to see. You know what I mean? Because we had so much to prove, but it was the same thing that was going on in the karate flicks. Like, yo, you go to a new neighbor.

55:07Who is this guy? Either he's coming to play you, he's coming to play you, or you going to play him. This is all the shit that's going on in the karate movies. You know, the brotherhood. Yo, oh shit, my brother got hurt. What happened? Oh, hold up. Let's go. We got to go get back to that. We got to go figure that out. All this shit that RZA was thinking about at that time was a reality check for us in Staten Island. So even when he came with the name, it was almost like, yo, wow, that shit is interesting. You know, Wu-Tang Clan, yo. And back then he was hanging in Ghost's community, which was Stapleton. So Stapleton was a place that was Maybe like 10-15 miles away from Park Hill Where I'm from I'm from the hill I'm from Up there they were selling drugs And getting crazy with it And Jamaicans and Westerners and Guyanese And you know it was a melting pot You know it was a melting pot of different nationalities of motherfuckers You had the Spanish motherfuckers over here selling dope

56:07You know what I mean You had the white boys over here fucking doing what they doing You know all these things was going on but in Stapleton it was nothing but criminals and motherfuckers that want to fight and rob and steal and you know RZA was hanging out there a lot you know so they came up with this whole you know Wu-Tang mentality thing that they brought up the block to us so when RZA came with it was like oh shit we like that That's kind of dope. But, you know, we see the vision of that, you know. But it was never for us to look at it at any given time. Like, yo, you trying to portray us as some fucking ninjas or some shit.

56:52You know, a lot of times people thought, yo, your niggas know karate? You know what I mean? You know no fucking karate, motherfucker. We don't do that. But we grew up, our older brothers and sisters, they grew up on that. That was some early 70s shit right there. Yeah. So, you know, back then you might have had a cousin that was a martial art. he knew the arts and shit you know you looked up to him like yo this motherfucker's l right here he know he know the arts and shit he know how to fight you know your motherfucker would be in back of the building with two doberman pinches and shit you know what i mean beating him with fucking laundromat hoses and shit and you know grabbing him and hanging him on shit and you know back then that was you know that was dope to see your cousins and all of them do it but risen when he came with this philosophy it kind of like fucked us all up and then but we agreed with it right away. Because Wu-Tang to them was always something like an expression. So if you drinking, this is Wu-Tang. You over here, this is some Wu-Tang shit or whatever. Because he was trying to say that we were just like them in the flicks. It was crazy. Want to hear something crazy?

57:59Whenever I kill an elk, I go bow hunting every year. Whenever I kill an elk, when I text my friend Cam, I text Wu-Tang. like whenever I kill something I'll show you I'll show you that that's true I've seen some of the pictures in there I know but I want to show you that that's true I'm not making this up it goes back years it goes back years this is like our tradition whenever I kill an elk well I'm going to find this I'm going to find one the last time I said Wu-Tang I text him every day so it's going to take a second to get back into some pictures but whenever I get one I say Wu-Tang and then I send him a picture

58:31oh shit crazy crazy it's going to take a while Because I do scroll but this is important to show you this is real come on motherfucker go back and search Wu-Tang It'll show you. Oh, we'll show you yeah. Oh, okay Oh look at Jamie under cam hands or just Wu-Tang We then when you find cam hands it'll show you. Oh look at Jamie tell me how to do it Here we go see all here it is Right there Wu-Tang holy shit And then the elk is down. Wow. That was from October. But I go back like five years of doing that. Like every time I shoot an elk, I text Wu-Tang. Wow. Crazy. When you started hunting, since you came out here? No, I started hunting in 2012. Oh, shit.

59:19I shot that deer, that deer, that head that's right there. That was the first animal I hunted. And then I was like, okay, that's what I'm doing. Wow. Crazy. It was either for me, it was that, or become a vegetarian. I watched too many of those PETA films You know those animal factory farming films and torture films I was like fuck this Like either I'm going to be a vegan or I'm going to learn how to hunt And my friend Steve Ranella took me hunting I shot that deer I'm like alright that's what I do now And I've been doing it ever since So I've been hunting for 12 years 12 years? Yeah So you consider yourself a marksman then? Well it's like I'm not really good like compared to real marksman You know, that's like saying you're a black belt when you're not really a black belt. You know, like.

60:04I go through the courses. Yeah, like how good are you? I mean, I'm good for regular people. Yeah, if you didn't know, you would think I'm really good. You said for regular people. Yeah, but like for people that are really good? No. I'm not nearly at their level. Gotcha. But, you know, there's like professional archers that are like super accurate out to 100 yards. They can shoot like a softball-sized group at 100 yards consistently. I got a couple of homeboys who can shoot like that, though. It's a lot of discipline. Yeah. A lot of discipline. Yeah, but they come from, they live on this side of town too. Yeah, well, there's a lot of bow hunting in Texas. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. A lot of bow hunting in Texas. Yeah. It's fun.

60:39Yeah, yeah. I like it. I got to get out there one day, man. I got to, you know. I told you, like we were talking before the show, like you want to learn. I could put you on some people that will 100% teach you how to do it. Fuck that. I'm down. Because you're fairly close. Yeah. Like that's an easy thing to do. Nah, nah. Look at it up. Yeah, definitely. You would enjoy it. It's also a nice discipline to clear your mind. You set a target up in the backyard and just shoot the target. It just clears your mind because you have to really concentrate on it. And while you're doing it, you don't think about nothing else. For a guy like you, busy, so much shit going on, it's good to have a thing like that.

61:14It's like a sport to me. It's like something to learn and kind of master. That's important. But it's one of those things like shooting a free throw. At that moment, you can't think of anything else other than what you're doing. If other shit gets in your head It's like you don't have any room for it You gotta push it all out And that kind of stuff cleans your mind It's like it flushes your mind out That's what it's all about At the end of the day man Just kind of like get a peace of mind And vibe to something different I always say that for artists too You should find some other thing you like to do Just to give you a little break mentally From whatever you're trying to do You could get too close to something and lose sight of the big picture if you're all wrapped up in it you see something else that you also enjoy outside of it and then you can

62:04look at what you do different exactly maybe I should put a new wrinkle in this maybe I should take a new turn you know mix it up yeah you know what was another cool thing about today is that it used to be thought at one point time I think I think it was like the early 2000s that rap had, that hip hop had a shelf life and that there wouldn't be classics. You know what I mean? Like the Rolling Stones were still touring. You know, they were 58 years old back then. Like this is crazy, the Rolling Stones are back on the road. But that was like a new thing. It was like old rock and roll guys out touring was a new thing. But with hip hop artists, like if you weren't in now, if you weren't new now, it kind of, People weren't into going to see you. Right, yeah. Well, when I see guys like LL and Kane and them perform and Slick Rick and Ice Cube, it kind of gives me more leverage and more strength to want to do it because I see some of my legends still doing it today.

63:11But, yeah, man, like you said, just to see a lot of guys like the Rolling Stones and Mick Jagger and them still performing, it's like, why not? Why not? Why give up on it? But with hip-hop, it wasn't really a thing for a long time. No, because you didn't think that it would last. Right. You know what I mean? So you felt like you would get a five-year run. They say any artist that was coming out back in the 90s, they was already putting a cap on how long or how far they felt you was going to go. So even for us, we was like, yo, hey, we do this shit for like three or four years. We good. yo we'll be cool with that so they always put us in a what's the word i want to say what's that what's a box put us in a box yeah to make us feel like at the end of the day yo shit is going to be here for a minute then it's over you know but seeing guys still doing it you know i don't give a fuck like i listen to billy joe i'm a billy joe fan that's my fucking guy right there. That's hilarious. I know people would be like, get the fuck out of here.

64:20That's hilarious. I love his old shit. Until he had that supermodel wife, then everything got real soft. He fell in love. Too much good pussy. He got supermodel pussy. And it's like, uptown girl, she's been living in her uptown world. Before that, you go back to his other shit, you know, Owen the Good Die Young. Oh, that's a great jam. He's got some great stuff, man. Scenes from an Italian restaurant, that's a great song, man. Captain Jack, ooh, Captain Jack's a great song. Billy Joe, man. But when he got older, it just became, you know, he was changing as a human. He in New Yorker too, right? Yeah. New Yorker to the heart right there, right? I mean, that guy sold out Madison Square Garden like 300 times.

65:04See what I'm saying? Kind of crazy. Still going. Yeah, still going. So those are our heroes. Those are guys that we look up to that, you know, they still do anything, man. Yeah. It's just beautiful that hip-hop is like that now. Yeah. Because I feel like in the 2000s, only it was more overseas was showing you guys love. Yeah. Like a lot of Europe. Yeah. Like a lot of my friends that were like maybe bigger in the 90s, they had to go over to Europe. To come check out. Yeah. Come check out hip-hop. Yeah. And I tell people all the time, like, being from the States, being where we from, I think they appreciate it more because they never really got a chance to grasp it as much as we did. Right.

65:47So they come out more. Right. Right now, today. They're more enthusiastic. They more. They love it more. Right. They can't believe you're there. Yeah, they can't believe it. Yeah. But for me, I think I love performing a lot more when I go out there because they come out and they never, ever make you feel like they don't appreciate you. You know what I mean? And even to this day, it's like the Klan still goes out there and makes a ton of cash. We see a lot of people. And we see young generations of kids now, too. It's like, yo, you look in the crowd, you're like, yo, how old is that fucking kid that? We just put him on stage and he knew the fucking words. Like, yo, he might have been like 17, 16 years old. Like, yo, he wasn't even fucking born. Well, there's classic hip-hop now. You know what I'm saying?

66:39Like, when I was a kid, there was classic rock. You listen to Led Zeppelin. It was classic rock. Now there's classic hip-hop, which is amazing. Yeah, you're right. Well, it just shows that the culture has completely accepted it as an art form. And so now young kids that get into hip-hop, maybe one of their friends will be like, Hey, you ever heard of this? And then they turn them on to new stuff. Exactly. And they're like, wow, yeah, yeah, this is 1992, you know? That shit, you know, and I think that that's how we were. We always were infatuated with the music before our time, you know? I'm like how you just said, like, yo, you know, listening to the Sugar Hill Gang, you know? I actually had them in one of my videos before. Really? And I brought them to my hood, too. So you know how that felt for me. Oh, wow. To have fucking Sugar Hill Gang come out to my community. That's amazing.

67:29That was dope, though, right there, man. But yeah, man, you know, that's why I always feel like, yo, I tell people all the time, you have to respect the people that did it before you, man, because they gave you something to dream about. Yes. To be able to instill in yourself. Like, if you don't have that, then you're not moving the way you're supposed to be moving. You know, I remember old man would tell us, if you don't know where you came from, you'll never know where you're going. So having that history, that history is an experience that sticks with you forever. You have to have that. Don't try to front on that. You know, and I think a lot of times people, you know, they look at hip hop and they think certain things is hip hop. it's like history of hip-hop is something that you gotta know man you gotta know it you gotta know it you gotta know it you should know it like the history of the united states exactly it's it's something if you're an artist like that that's what lit the fire somebody had to light the fire and if these young guys don't know like hey this shit didn't even exist in 1979 didn't even exist that's not that long ago and then all of a sudden now it's everywhere like What happened? Somebody lit the fire, and if they didn't light that fire, you wouldn't have it. Exactly. You wouldn't have the embers. You wouldn't have this desire to try this thing.

68:49Exactly. Now look what it's doing. Look what it did. It's like, yo, one of the biggest genres of music is like, you know, and there's a lot of times people take shots at it. Like, you know, y'all ain't talking negative. Y'all ain't talking this. They talking that. But it's like my thing to that is always like, yo, it's no different from going to see a scary movie. Exactly. Jason. Exactly. Motherfuckers killing motherfuckers in the woods. I hated camp. You know what I mean? Based on that. Heat is one of my favorite movies. Great fucking movie. I love Heat. You know, De Niro and that. But why is it okay to do that in a movie, but it's not okay to do that in a song? Right.

69:26I don't understand it. I don't, you know. It's hypocritical. You know, it's hypocritical. It is. It's hypocritical because they say it encourages violence. And that's the same thing they'll say about video games. Like, you know, it doesn't hit everybody. So what's going on really? What's going on really is you have a bunch of disenfranchised people that don't have any hope. And if they are around a lot of violence, maybe something will get them excited about violence. If they're not disenfranchised and they have hope, they're not inclined towards violence. It's a societal problem. It has nothing to do with the art itself. The art itself is representative of real experiences. So if you're telling people that they can't express themselves about real experiences, you're just going like this. La, la, la, la, la. I'm not listening. That's all you're doing. That's how you feel at the end of the day. This is these people's lived expression, which is why Wu-Tang was so good.

70:15The reason why it was so good is because it was real. No one was questioning the authenticity of anybody that was in the Wu-Tang Clan. So it's like the message that you guys were putting out, the way you were putting things out, like Wu-Tang Clan ain't nothing to fuck with. Like that is, it was like from you to the world, you know? And if someone doesn't like that, you don't have to listen. Exactly. You don't have to listen. Right, right. But if you slap a warning sticker on it, you're just going to sell more albums. You're going to listen to it anyway, right? You're going to get caught up in it anyway. Yeah. It's like, look, prime example. When we made the record Cream, right? um cream was a record that didn't have nothing to do with anything but the real the realness of what we were looking at it wasn't really a a song to rap to or have fun with it was a reality it was a picture we was trying to paint cash rules everything around me cash rules like around me not me should never fucking rule you but around me you know and a friend from the neighborhood he actually came up with that acronym but i tell people all the time my cousin i had a cousin from brooklyn that he used to come to statin allen and he used to sell drugs for us and he came up with that word cream because he was like yo yo as long as i can make my cream i'm good i'm like

71:37what the fuck is cream like you know what i mean he's like yo cream yo you ever see tom and jerry the movie and you know he make those big fucking sandwiches and all of that and he splash all that cream on it and you know i'm like oh the time and jerry the sandwiches right yeah when you made the big sandwiches and stuff them in your mouth and all nah real shit real shit so the cream that the cream that was splashing all over the place he was looking at that as that's his money like i just want my cream i just want my you know what i mean so we're like yeah you're gonna get your cream you you sit up in the fucking spot all day you're gonna make your cream you're gonna get So who came up with the acronym? A good friend of ours from the neighborhood. His name is Raid, right? And him and Method, man, they was like real close, like brothers. So when we was in the studio, right into it, he was there. And he just sat back, and he just came up with Cash Rules, everything around me. And him and Meth, they put it together. And next thing you know, that was a hook. You know, at that time, for me, I was still writing a lot of stories, you know. So I wrote, believe it or not, I wrote two verses for Cream. I didn't write. My rhyme never started off as I grew up on the crime side. I was writing about drug dealers in the neighborhood. Like, yo, I know this kid by the name of Giganti.

72:58Giganti, a Teflon, Don with a Diamante. You know, the Diamantes back in the days was like the, you know, the five-series Benz as far as back then. and a good friend of mine was like, yo, that rhyme is cool. I think it's all right. I'm like, yo, why you don't like the rhyme? Everybody else like it. He was like, it's cool. I like it. So he made me go back and change it. And when I changed it, I started to think before I wrote it. I'm like, damn, he said, yo, we need to rhyme about shit. That's something that we could relate to that we're dealing with around what the fuck we wake up to every day. And that's when I came with, I grew up on the crime side, you know, the New York Times side. So he just told you harder? Yeah, he just told me to think harder.

73:45Harder, yeah. He said, yo, chef, you could be a little bit more creative. Well, Cream is crazy because it became viral. Saying dollar-dollar bills, y'all, became viral. But you know where that come from, the dollar-dollar bill, y'all. Dollar bill, y'all. Dollar-dollar-dollar Tee La Rock. That's what he's doing. Oh, wow. You remember that record? Yeah. Money. It takes money. Yeah. Whatever he was saying back then. I haven't heard that forever. Right, that was a serious record right there. Yeah, that's an old school record right there. Wow. Fly shit, though. But, yeah, Meph and my man Ray, they sat down and they came up with Cash Rule, everything

74:25around me, and it was a perfect symbol of what we were trying to express, that we were always trying to get money but we was dealing with certain things in our community that you know that we were trying to get past first to try to make some money and and it was a sacrifice it was like yo you do this shit you might be able to get out of it alive or you might not you know so that record you know wind up blowing up so big it wound up being one of our biggest records and it didn't had nothing to do with it i guess to me it didn't feel hip-hop it just felt like real realization like real shit is is we need to start listening like how you just played the ghettos boys shit you know what i mean you're trying to give off a message a message and that's what i think that people love about wu-tang is that we give out messages we give out we be like an emotional roller coaster group we can give you the wu-tang clan ain't nothing to fuck with and then we can give you the tears where it's like oh shit yeah the fuck he's right you know what i mean yo we gotta be careful we gotta look at things for real so all i had a lot to do with being around smart guys you know what i mean the the smartness allowed us to write the way we wanted to write Right. It's contagious. It was contagious back then. But that's what I'm saying about really good lyrics and high-quality rap. It's contagious. Yeah, yeah. Because then everybody else's shit has to be tight, too. Yeah, and you know when you come in with a group of guys that, yo, he kill it, you better come in.

76:06Right. You have to come in and say some shit that makes sense. Like, I give a lot of credit to our first record, right, Protect Your Neck, and I know that's one of your favorite shits. when Inspector Deck said, I smoke on a mic like smoking Joe Frazier, the Hellraiser, raising hell with the flavor? Yeah. That right there opened up something with all of us. Yeah. You know, and I always tell Deck, I'm like, yo, Deck, you are like a Scotty Pippen. You're always going to hit if you get the ball in your hand. You know, and he did that. He created that first verse that you notice me, I jumped right in behind him. Yeah. I'm drunk and it built like Schwarzenegger. Yeah. Then meth came and you know what I mean? Everybody kind of like- That's what's so amazing about all these killers, all these different voices, all these amazing lyrics all on one song.

77:04Yeah, yeah. But we wanted to show the world that each one of us had a style that was unreckoned. each one of us can paint a picture within our own way that you will love all of us so it's better to get us all now you know we'll sacrifice the little the little look for the bigger look later right you know and that was one of the situations where we had to dance a certain way to be like okay yeah we'll take a little bit of money but we know we're going to be able to sell like you said yeah give We'll sell them. Now, you're telling me you don't got the money, but you got the relationships. Okay, cool. As long as you got the relationship. As long as you got the money. Yeah. We're going to go out there, and we're going to work to make it happen. But this is what's got to happen. And, you know, I give all the credit to Steve Rifkin. You know, Steve was the guy that owned Loud Records back then. He was a part of RCA back then. and he believed in us. He's like, yo, I'll give y'all that deal.

78:15I'll give y'all that deal. And next thing you know, when everybody started taking off, now you got Method Man over here. You got Jizz over here. You got O'Reilly Bastard over here. So we did something that was so new to the world that it's like, oh, shit. From the outside, it felt different because it felt like a movement. It's like Wu-Tang was like a movement. Exactly. It was different. It was like it had more of gravity. Everybody tried to box us as a group. So even though we knew we were a group, in our minds, we looked at it, like you said, as a movement being created that would eventually spread out and hit all corners of everything. And that was the plan all the time. That was a premeditated plan because they wanted us to still be a group. It was like, nah, look, we sacrifice and this and that, but we not going to box ourselves. Right. So by us doing that, it kind of really paid the way for other groups and other artists and everybody to kind of follow this blueprint.

79:20So now you have these other guys coming out and creating their own labels and bringing in artists that they wanted to do. So to me, this kind of made hip-hop a little bit more interesting because it showed that artists were starting to get more smarter, which is important. You know, we didn't want to be just like you said, yo, just coming in and you sell your soul and you just stay there. Nah, we can't just stay there. Is one of the hardest parts getting the right beat? Oh, the beat is everything, bro. Because it seems like all you guys are very prolific. Everybody can write. But if you don't have a great beat and how many great beats can you make? Right. If you got an album, then another album is coming out next year. Like, whoa, you got to have 16, 20 great beats. Yeah. And then you got to pick from those beats what, you know, what goes, what song and try different ways out. And you got to make sure everybody shows up at the studio. How hard was that? That shit was real, bro. I mean, I tell people all the time, like, number one for us, like, you know, being around so many different lyricists, lyricist guys, beats are important. And, you know, I remember one time a fan asked me, he said,

80:38yo, what's the most important thing to you, the rhyme or the beat? He fucked me up the whole day with that. I was fucked up. And I answered him. I gave him an answer, like, probably, like, three or four minutes later. And I was like, you know what? Nobody never asked me that. I said, the beat. I said, you know why the beat? Because the beat makes you think about what you want to say and what you want to get across. You know, anybody could make rhymes. I can have you sit with me for fucking a month and you could be an ill fucking rapper. You, I can take you there. But to be able to have that combination factor of making a body of work or that sound that you want, you need to have the right production. So a lot of times Wu-Tang wrote to whatever they felt. It's like how you can listen to Protect Your Neck and you get that energy from us. You get a certain energy because of that production. Then you get this energy. When you get a cream, you get that. So for me, I always tell people that beat is everything.

81:46And us just sitting down and waiting for RZA to come up with something. One thing about RZA, he was so clever. He had a team of guys that was around him that was assisting him to helping him come with different sounds. And he played with different things. And, of course, you know, just having his ear for music and listening to other people's stuff, he was able to isolate himself away from everything and start brainstorming for us. So it's like he was like the Steelers back in the fucking 80s, you know what I mean, when they won four Super Bowls in a row. He was like that when Terry Bradshaw and I was playing, Lin Swan. He was in a zone. He was really in a zone lane. Especially because it became successful. Yeah. And then there was a lot of motivation behind it, a lot of energy behind it. Yeah. I hear what you're saying, but without the lyrics, the beat is not the same. I see from your perspective as a lyricist and as an MC that you would think that the beat is more important. Because it's important to you to get started. To get started. But damn, as a fan, you have to have those lyrics. Just the beats by themselves, that's not enough. Look.

82:59No, no, no, no. You know how many times me and Rizzo would argue about that? And I would tell him, like, yo, listen, bro, it took all of us. It took, yeah, you had that. Yeah. You had this, we had that. That's what, you know. It's a 50-50 proposition. It's always like that. I think it's more 60-40. I think it's more 60 lyrics because the thing is the lyrics are the thing that make you go, oh. Holy shit. Like a great beat makes you move your head and gets you going, but lyrics make you go, oh, shit. Yeah. Like rewind that. Well, you know, me is 50-50 all the time because if I have nothing to give me that energy to write, then how can I give it to you if I don't have nothing? It's a collaboration for sure. It's a collaboration for sure. But it's interesting that people would think, like, what's more important? Like, what's more important, breathing or having a heartbeat? Shut the fuck up.

83:51Like, you need both. You need both. Yeah, you gotta balance it. You have to have both. But that's where the collaboration comes in. I had Scott Storch in here the other day. Oh, yeah, I love that dude. He's so fucking talented. So out there, you know? His glasses on, his fucking chin. Like, you see him, feeling the music. He's like a rare savant. There's dudes like that that are like beat machines, you know? Like, he just feels it. It comes into his head, and he feels it, and it's just coming out of his fingers, you know? Yeah, he's a super talented. Oh, so talented. I love him. But, like, that kind of guy is so special. and to team the kind of guy like that up with Dre or with 50 or any of these people that he collaborated with, that's special.

84:38And that's why, like I said, you know what I mean, you can't never front on the maestro, you know what I mean? You got to remember that DJing started it all, let's be honest. You know what I mean? The DJ game that was so important, scratching, you know they created a a synergy to the artist to be like yo let me let me try this even even if you go back to like i said look at look at quincy jones man look what the fuck he did right right you know look at look at frank sinatra like who the fuck was handling his fucking music man right he was so clever he needed a vibe though he needed something who was that guy you ever hear Frank Sinatra when he was young? Oh, he was fucking... Before he was smoking all those cigarettes? It's a super high-pitched voice. It's crazy. It's crazy, right? It's crazy. You listen to the difference, like, wow, it had so much range. Who was the production, though?

85:31I don't know. I don't know. You know, somebody... He never really got famous, I guess. Well, I think the whole thing back then was Elvis or whoever it was. You know, whoever was the person that was in front, everybody behind the scenes didn't really get that much respect. Right, right. Yeah. But he was a talent. Yeah. Fucking boy. Who was that crazy dude that wore the wigs that shot that lady in L.A.? He produced all the Beatles shit.

85:55He got tried for murder, and every day in the courtroom he'd wear a different wild wig. He created the wall of sound. Fuck, what's his name? He was really insane. Phil Spector. Phil Spector. Phil Spector, back in the day, he was known for pulling guns on people. He'd pull guns on people, stick them in their mouths and shit. He was a complete psychopath. White guy? Yeah. Holy shit, Phil Spector. Jewish guy, I think. And he shot this lady in the mouth. Was he Jewish? I don't want any Jewish people mad at me. Jewish people get mad when you say someone's not Jewish and they did something terrible. Hey, look, guys. I'm just saying a lot of talented, successful Jewish people in the entertainment business. Be clear, man. But that dude, he was responsible for the wall of sound, the Beatles.

86:43That was a big thing with him. He was known for being a guy that would change people's music. Russian Jewish, boom, nailed it. And he was from the Bronx, right? From the Bronx, yeah. Holy shit. Wild, wild boy. Wow. And shot some lady, picked up some lady at a bar, took her back to his place and shot her in the mouth. Holy shit. Yeah, he would put guns in people's mouths. He was known for threatening people. You want to get out of this fucking contract and just shove a gun in your mouth? Wow. What's that? He pulled a gun on Cher. He pulled a gun out on Cher? Cher recalls stopping Phil Spector in his tracks when he pulled a gun on her. He couldn't pull that shit with me. Right, right, right, right. We had this really strange relationship.

87:26You don't say. You don't say. Well, it's like the music business at one point in time was run entirely by gangsters. Of course. That's the story about Hendrix. You know, the story about Hendrix is that his manager killed him. That's the conspiracy. was that his manager killed him because it's more valuable for Hendrix to be dead. His music, he's a maestro, like a one in a billion year talent. And that they knew that they had all these recordings of him and they could kill him. And so that's why his girlfriend jumped off the top of a building. Yeah, to own his shit. Because he was going to leave his management. His bodyguard wrote a book about it years later and it just came out like, I want to say like 10 years ago. wasn't that long ago whereas the bodyguard said yeah the manager killed him

88:13killed Hendrix and threw the girlfriend off a roof did they do a movie of him too? oh yeah they did a bunch of movies on Hendrix they need to do a real Wu-Tang movie I know Hulu had a series but they need a real like Quentin Tarantino needs to do a Wu-Tang that's me man I know Quentin Tarantino that's what I think I think we talk Quentin Tarantino cause he wants to do one more movie

88:33how about he does a fucking Wu-Tang movie the real Wu-Tang movie tell Quentin No, I'll laugh. Because Hulu is great, but it has to be on Hulu. You can only get that so wild on Hulu. For it to be real real, it has to be a movie. Let me tell you something. I wrote a book, right? Inside my book, I talked about how Q-Tip, a good friend of mine, Q-Tip, he had me and Leonardo sit down. Leonardo DiCaprio? Huh? Leonardo DiCaprio? Leonardo DiCaprio, right? and I remember Q-Tip was like, yo, set up a meeting for you and Leonardo to meet in Brooklyn at this small pizza shop, one of Leonardo's favorite spots, and he wanted to talk to you. I said, yeah, that's what's up. So me and Leonardo, we started talking, and he was like, yo, Q-Tip was telling me that you was thinking about trying to, you know, get guys together to create a movie.

89:29I was like, yeah, this is what I was thinking. So making a long story short I set up a meeting with RZA Myself Leonardo's people in LA And I told RZA I said listen Before we do this Hulu thing Which at the end of the day It was a RZA's Production thing or whatever he was doing I said I think we need to make A realistic Real life movie of us Said it shouldn't be nothing that we should play with because people need to know our real story. So RZA entertained the conversation, but I don't know. For some reason, I guess he felt like he was committed to doing whatever he wanted to do with Hulu. He might have already had a deal. Yeah, yeah.

90:18And you know, like I said, at the end of the day, the Klan, you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. Jamie fast with him. Jamie's the best. It was that night, and I remember that. Wow. I wish we could have been able to sit down with him because the way I had him looking at it, it was almost like I told him, I said, this would be like a slash of Goodfellas and Menace to Society. Yeah. Mixed in one. Yeah. You know, to kind of talk about our story and whatever. And he was super open. He was like, yo, chef, what we got to do, yo? Who do we need to talk to? But at that time, RZA was already in pocket on what he wanted to do. So I said, you know what? One day, you know, maybe I might get a chance to show my version of it. Because, come on, how many Pablo Escobar movies we looked at? Right, right, right, right. You know what I mean? You got these guys telling it.

91:12You got the people from the community. Oh, for sure. It can still be made, for sure. So it can still be made. A hundred percent. Just because there's a Hulu suit, that doesn't mean shit. Right. But I think that at the end of the day, you know, God willing, we would really give you guys another taste of really how we really see it. I think it would be hugely successful. I think for music, from a movie rather perspective. Would you rather see it as a movie? A movie. A movie. A movie. There you go. Or you do it like on Netflix where you can get wild. Yeah. You know, do it like, you know, like Netflix has shit like Ozark. They get wild on Netflix. You can get wild. That's how it has to be.

91:52It has to be grimy. It has to be. That's how you want it, right? It can't be in any way ABC After School specialified. You know what I'm saying? It can't be cleaned up through a filter. It has to be good, too. It has to be good narrative. It has to be set up. The scenes have to be set up. Because it's very hard to take an insane career of nine of the best MCs to get together under one mastermind with all these genius talents and they form this movement. And you're going to condense that to two hours? Yeah. See, that was one of his beats right there. He was like, yo, Ray, yo, yo, blah, blah, blah, yo. But I think he could be done. That's what I said. I said, yo, look, come on now. I said, people do it all the time. I said, yo, look at prime example. Look at NWA.

92:41I thought NWA movie was dope. You know what I mean? Straight out of Compton. I thought they did a good job, but that was Dre and Cube and, you know, I'm sure you're always going to have somebody around that be like, yo, no, that ain't it. But it was so realistic that when I seen I was, it was like, all right, I get it. You know, Riz even said to y'all, you know, this is more for the younger generation to kind of gravitate to. And once everybody loved it, they loved it. So it was like, okay, y'all love it. We love y'all for loving it. It's great. It's great. But hear me out. Opening of the movie, Rikers. Opening of the movie, you guys show up at Rikers to do the concert. We're all daddy bastards inside.

93:28That's the opening of the movie. That's the opening of the movie. You want all the real gritty. You want the gritty. But that should get everybody on the hook right away. And then you bring them back to the beginning. Right after that you you know you put the year when I saw you make movies you Pick all the greatest moments. Yes, then you Right, yeah, that's a no-brainer for a Wu-Tang movie you start with Rikers you start with Rikers, which is what year was that? 95 what years that when did Dirty bastard and Rikers concert with you about to say look up that and what year did you guys start? What was the very first year started we started in 90 90 late 92 so you start you start the movie With Rikers and then you bring it back to 92 back to 92. That's what it is That's what it is. I mean you just think about the incredible Amount of talent not just not just rap Billy Jizz is like a world champion caliber chess player 99, 2000 or so? 99, 2000? RZA, yeah, I got our interview, RZA talking about it. And doesn't JZA have some degree in physics? Smart motherfucker, man. Doesn't he have some crazy degree?

94:45Smart. He's like a... Look that up, please. Yeah. So, you just, that alone in the movies, like, come on, this is real? Yeah, this is something people was looking forward to looking at. Yeah, think of a movie like that. like that think of a movie that starts up with the gates opening and you guys going in put your put all your belongings in the basket the whole shit getting frisked checking everybody down the guy reading you the rules the warden telling you do not go into the crowd do not do that yeah yeah yeah okay cool yeah we got you yeah yeah wow think about it yeah that's the beginning of the movie yeah that's an incredible opening for a movie and it really happened this isn't bullshit This is a bunch of dorks sitting around a table coming up with some nonsense. This is some shit that you lived through. That would be an incredible opening for a movie. And it's just so even credible even more on how we connected because, like I said, everybody come from almost the same poverty bullshit, but everybody had different philosophies on how they felt their lives was going into. You know, I tell people all the time, you know, my neighborhood was about making money. You know, Ghost Neighborhood was about taking money, you know what I mean? Taking shit from you. You know, JZA, you know, being one of the MCs that could have been down with the Juice Crew. You know what I mean? You know who the fuck the Juice Crew is. He turned it down.

96:18It's like they was the hottest shit back then. Master Ace, Biz, Kane, Cool G Rap. All these dope MCs, they asked me, yo, we want you to come and get down with us. He's like, nah, you know what, nah. All these things I remember yesterday, like, you turned down the Juice Crew? He was like, I love the Juice Crew, but I just was in this chamber right here. You know, us with Old Dirty, like, yo, you know, Old Dirty always wanted to be like Biz, Biz Markie. He had that personality, that charisma, that energy. So, like you said, these are the things that I wanted to see. Each individual, like, you know, and like I said, you know, shout out Hulu, man, for doing a great job. But I do agree, like you, we need another movie where it really defines who we are. Yeah. You know, RZA, you know, RZA, you know, that was his side of how he wanted to tell it. You know, it's a great story. It's fine. Great story. It's fine. The Hulu thing's fine. But I think there's something missing.

97:26And I think there's something missing is a movie. It's got to be a movie. It's got to be a big screen, big thing. And it could be done, man. You heard it first, man. You heard it first. I ain't have to argue with my brothers about it. I mean, just imagine when ODB does Baby, I Got Your Money. Oh, my God. Come on. Imagine that. And that becomes this massive hit. Come on. Massive hit. You know he had the most hits out of all of us, right? He was so fucking talented, man. And so real. You remember when he was on MTV and they started talking about, like, what are you going to give? Who are you going to give your money? He's like, I gave my money to nobody.

98:06He was like, yo, you're going to give back? He was like, yo. Yo, yeah, I remember that shit. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And everybody was crying. Yeah. Everybody loved him, though, man. Because it was so real. Because it was so real. It wasn't like, well, I think it's really important that we establish some sort of a community fund. Shut the fuck up. He was just having fun. You make nothing. You know what I mean? But, you know, we always gave back in our own ways. Of course. Well, by existing, you give back. By existing, you inspire others. By existing, how many rap careers, how many hip-hop careers were inspired by Wu-Tang Clan and all the members? Countless, countless. Yeah.

98:43So many. I say that we definitely had a piece of watching the new generation grow and, you know, kind of, you know, build their arc the way we built ours. You know, that's important, you know, to reflect on that. you know back then like you said nobody wasn't giving motherfuckers this kind of money like we was the first group that ever had a million dollar video wow um i remember that day me and rizzo was coming up with the with the storyboard what video was that triumph wow we did the triumph shit it was like we came up with all this shit it was like yo this shit's gonna cost a million dollars like what the fuck is what's a million dollars like do it you know and at that time you know Is this it? Oh, let me hear this. Yeah, yeah. This is with my guy Brett Ratner. By swarms of killer bees. The first jump. They've been seen approaching from Brooklyn, the Bronx, Queens, and Staten Island. See the bees coming through and shit. As we will be bringing you up-to-the-minute information. This just ends. Police are reporting that there's a man on top of a skyscraper ready to jump. I'm told that he is possibly old dirty. A member of the Wu-Tang Clan

100:01The police suspect that there could be Some connection between this Old dirty man And the killer beast Old dirty man Ooh We perform armed robbery. Flee with the lottery. Possibly they spotted me. Battle scarred Shogun. Exposing when my pen hits. Tremendous. Ultraviolet shine blind forensics. I inspect you through the future. See millennium. Killer beast sold 50 gold, 60 platinum. Shackling the matches with drastic rap tactics. Graphic displays melt the steel like blacksmiths. Black Wu-Tak is queen bees. He's jumping. He's jumping.

100:47Bumble with patrolments and gas. Makes the function. Heads by the score. Take flight inside of war. Ticks hit the floor. Diehard fans demand. Woo! Woo! Woo! Is it weird looking back now? Does it feel almost surreal that you guys did it? A little bit to me, yeah. It has to. Yeah, to me for sure. I mean, you know, I always believed in my group, man. I mean, these guys is, like you said, very talented, very talented. Sometimes we don't know our power when we come together, but we might be the only group that stuck together so long, you know, because we all feed off each other every time. So to be able to reflect back when we was in our prime, it was like we still didn't even give our best.

101:56It was almost like, okay, yeah, we're going to do it because we have to. Not do it because we're all in a happy vibe, a happy moment. A lot of times we made great things happen out of nothing. You know, and the pressure might have been turbulence in the room, might have been an argument that happened that day, but we still managed to come out with something great out of that whole time of that moment. you know but um that's what's incredible is that through all the disputes you guys still stay together yeah yeah that's because there's no way you're gonna have nine dudes and not have disputes exactly i mean especially nine alphas nine killers it's hard man it's hard because you know everybody has an opinion and and you want to respect everybody's opinion you know but it it made me think about sports and it made me think about how coaches and people you know outside of the group was so important. See, how we were designed, we huddled up, but we never really had people around us kind of, like, push the narrative more to show us our true power. So we made a lot of mistakes, you know, of being great, but still handling the business a little bit different from if we had some coaches. Some guidance. Some guidance.

103:18The problem was back then no one knew what was going on nobody know because it was so fresh It was so new the whole genre had only existed for six or seven years Right, so it was it was it was emerging and it was chaotic and was so exciting But there wasn't a lot of experts in how to manage it. Yeah, you know It's like today, you know, you could you could you know a young artist to come to a guy like you and say hey What should I do help me out? Like what what is what's the path that you think that I should take? And you could give them real advice where back then like who knew no, who knew who was gonna work? They would have told you that's not gonna work. They would say you can't get nine dudes in a that's crazy How you doing that? Yeah, but it worked But it didn't just work it like accelerated everybody like amplified all the voices That's what was so crazy about it Is it just it didn't just work it worked better than being by yourself? Yeah, yeah, I tell people all the time. I don't the clan. I think we all got better based on us as a collective 100% no no has to nobody can have did it by themselves and be great iron sharpens iron That's right, and that's what it is. Yeah, you guys had so many killers together. There's no way couldn't be great That's what's incredible. It's like it's so hard for people to do that Yeah, that's why it's never been done before which is amazing if you think about the history of hip-hop How many artists have come up and not one? Group has come together and made like oh, they're just like Wu-Tang not one. Yeah, not one Yeah, even when it comes to you know sales and you know each one of us was blessed to be able to go platinum and gold But we talk about that, you know sometimes when we all look together we we laugh and we say damn

105:06You know no other groups did what we did like come with guys that everybody in the group went gold and platinum and this and that and I can't I couldn't name one person They was like yo name one person name one group that did what we did at that level back then I couldn't name it. You know what I mean? Because Well, the Ghetto Boys branched out you know Scarface obviously went on to have a massive career Yeah, did you see his little tiny desk performance? Oh, yeah fucking incredible fucking incredible. Yeah Incredible that's one of my greatest friends to man so different than anything else like the way he did it like he adapted The lyrics to the environment. Yeah. Oh, it was incredible incredible Scott faces a real guy to man a real one of the all-timers one of the all-time greats Yeah, I'm great. I'm coming you show you haven't yet. No, I'd love to have him on. I love that dude I've had Willie on okay I think that there's so many amazing talents that came out of that 90s hip-hop era that for a young guy coming up, someone who's interested in a career in it now, it's imperative that you go back. Go back. You have to. You have to. You've got to explore the classics. You've got to see what started this whole thing. And you've got to put yourself in this mindset. It's hard to imagine my experience of it because you're not going to be able to have it. It's always been around. But for me, it was like when it came around, it was this totally new thing.

106:37It's totally new sound, totally new like avenue of music that existed. And everybody was like, wow. And all the young people were excited. Everybody was excited. Like, this is crazy. This is so different than everything else. You know, and so for the people that are like making a career in it now, like, ooh, you know, I know there's like a tendency to think you're the fucking man and everything else. sucks i'm telling you gotta abandon that abandon that thinking yeah go back and educate yourself you know because it's free just get on free go get on youtube get on spotify educate yourself there's so much classic shit from the 90s that you're you're missing and all we were doing really was just like you said just expression you know yeah being in the studio smoking a lot of weed And a lot of times when we were smoking and just vibing, it's like we were mentioning things that, you know, like today. Like, prime example, you know, I own a cannabis business in Newark called Hash Story. You know what I mean? See you representing us. We said in rhymes like, can it be also simple? Yo, I want to have me a fat y'all in enough land to go and plant my own sass crops. But for now, it's just a big dream. You know, so we kind of like spoke things into existence that at the end of the day, like, you know, now as I sit here and I'm an owner of a cannabis business, I'm like, wow, he was talking about things. Yo, my first joint and it went gold. I put it on my mother's, you know, my mother's living room wall.

108:13You know, we did that. So we were kind of like saying things that meant so much to us back then, but still dreaming of it being a reality. The next thing you know, it happens. You know, like how you said, you know, JZA being so intelligent and talking about science and, you know, meth, you know, talking about certain things. And, you know, now today he's in the movie world and RZA's a director. And, you know, these were the things that were going through our minds as we were just smoking and listening to production and just saying, yo, what the right next? Where do we want to go, you know? And I think that that is important as an artist is to dream and be creative. Don't sit in one box. Like, that's the shit that just be driving me crazy a lot. With hip hop today, it's like, yo, it's just sounding too fucking repetitious. Like, let's make it bigger. Let's take it over here, over here, over here.

109:16But sometimes it's just sitting in one fucking box where it's like, yo, come on. It's not just that. It's about opening up the doors for everybody to be able to see so many sides. Like now it just seems like the hip-hop shit is just being controlled by one person that's saying, yo, we want y'all to stay right there. We want you to talk ignorant. We want you to not grow. We want you to just... Whatever they think is going to sell. Why is that the case? I don't get it. The same reason why they were trying to take the RZA and change him and turn him into something he's not. People always do that. They do that in comedy. They do that in podcasting. They do that in music. There's always some executive that thinks they know better and they're gonna mold you and shape you and change you And this is what we're gonna do. We're gonna hire an image team. We're gonna do it's all Just bullshit. It's not artists interfering with art. That's what it is It's when you have middlemen, you know You have these people that profit off of your talent and they think they're gonna steer it in a way

110:21It's gonna be the most profitable. They don't give a fuck if you're like earnestly and honestly expressing yourself That doesn't mean anything to them. They just want you to stay in that box because that's the box they're selling. And once it sells once, they don't want you to change it up. Remember when Ice-T started a fucking heavy metal band? Oh, my God. Yeah. Ice-T, who played a cop on TV for like fucking 30 years, he had a song called Cop Killer. Body Count. And everybody wanted him to be the rapper. And Ice-T was like, I'm going to do a hardcore album. It was like, what? I'm a motherfucking cop killer. It's like, what is this? What is this? This is crazy But it's like he just didn't listen He's like I don't give a fuck what you say I'm gonna do what I wanna do This is what I wanna do now And you have to give an artist that ability to do that They have to be able to change it up anytime they want

111:10Whatever Because whatever got them to the dance Is gonna keep them dancing And they might dance to the beat of a different song But it's gonna be the same person That same creative force That created whatever you liked in the beginning Well you probably like this new direction they're going to go into because it's going to be just as good it's just like we all like different like you were saying you like billy joel we both like cool g rap it's very different you wouldn't want to see the two of them at a concert together you know but the but that's what you have to give room for an artist and these executives and these people that are profiting off of art without being creative their input's always terrible it's always terrible because they don't have a vision they don't really unless you're like a rick rubin like one of those cats it's just like super eccentric weirdo genius dude who just knows what he likes and go hold on hold on do that again stop that stop stop stop do it again do it again do it that way okay can you make it echo do it do it give me an echo so but he's working with you because he's right right right right he's barefoot and shit and fucking doing yoga one of the geniuses super weirdo a scott stortz type character yeah you those guys be great in their own way though you know they're artists though it's like that's But when you get these suits and the suits get involved and they know that oh we made you know Raekwon sold a million and seven hundred thousand CDs doing it like this

112:34So this is what we want from this one too. We want it to be the exact same way We want to do it like that do it like that again like oh, no, no, what's this new thing you're doing? What's this new thing? We talk about discipline? No, no, no, no, no, no, you know But that's one of the most important things about hip-hop too is like songs inspire people to change their lives like Like gang star song discipline like that song inspires you to have discipline It's a great fucking song Like I said like yo this shit became knowledge to us man. Yes, you know That's what I miss about hip-hop is the the knowledge factor you know raising our kids to be smarter and you know not hiding anything from them like like you said once you put that warning stick on there don't look at it they're gonna look at it anyway so why not let them see what for what it is and then say yo look you can make these choices but you go that way you know what you're getting you go this way you know what you're getting i think all it takes is someone today to do what you guys were doing and blow up and then everybody would want to do that way if someone today became like this genius lyricist was like pointing out things in society and became a huge artist but you think that music is still you think do you think the radio or play it I don't think the radio means jack shit anymore I think what means something now is people sharing it that's what means so how do they get it out there someone put it on Spotify put it on SoundCloud put it on YouTube someone sees it someone hears it you send it to

114:07somebody they send it to ten people and then it goes viral that's what it's all about now I think it's just be undeniable be undeniable have some shit where you listen to it you go oh be confident yeah and you have your friends like you gotta listen to this listen to this listen to this listen to first first lines first lines yeah yeah listen to that shit oh my god that's how we always sold it anyway oh my god yeah come out of the gate with a fucking haymaker boom this is what we do though yeah see damn you talking like how I feel about my album I'm about the drop. When is it coming out? I feel that way. Well, you know, shit, I just been working on this documentary right for the Purple Team. Let me just be honest with you. Take you back. I've been working on you know, Only Built for Cuban Links is my What's Going On album, my Thriller album that I made 30 years ago. This year, 2025, will be 30 years. So what we done was we went back and decided to do a documentary about it. A real life film. So it's

115:05called the purple tape files because remind you only built for cuban links was the name of the album but being that i came with it as a cassette everybody started to call this album the purple tape so now you know we came back and we decided to do you know me and my team from my camp you know not this is you know the clan of course the clan but this is something that was my intellectual property that I said, yo, you know what? Me and my guy sat down. My team sat down and said, yo, you need to do a documentary about this album because you can make 50 albums. People are still going to talk about Only Built for Cuban Link. So I said, damn, you know what? You're right. So what I did was I said, you know what? Let me invest in it and kind of tell the story of what helped us inspire that album would help us be a part of the culture and how it still allows me to still exist today. Like if you see a lot of these guys today in the game, they still win Cuban link chains. Yeah. You know what I mean? So who would ever thought that I'm calling my album only built for Cuban link niggas? Now everybody in their mother is wearing Cuban link chains today, 30 years later. So, you know, that's been something that I've been working on. And believe it or not, we've been working on it for 10 years.

116:24Wow. So I got over 50 influential people that was in my life that was affected by that album to be a part of this documentary. So now this is all in the making. We didn't actually go out there and start pitching it yet. We're finally getting ready to do it right now as we speak. As we speak, once the New Year kick in and all that, we will be ready to go out there and position ourselves to go do a deal with a network with this project. It's going to be ill. It's a great idea. You know what I mean? So my thing is to talk about it in a way to where the way we made the album, all the experiences, all the things that we went through. and eventually that would wind up becoming a movie later on because the storyboard of how I talk about it is going to blow people's minds because it's like, damn, this is what you was going through? This is how your mindset was? Because I just want people to know that that album was made because I love hip-hop, man, and we were in a position to make something golden that at that time I was already thinking cinematic. I was already in my Scorsese mindset because when I came into Klan, I was like,

117:42yo, I don't do all the karate shit. I don't know how to rhyme like that. I don't even know about drugs and hustlers and trying to get from here to there and turn my life around for the positive. So we talk about this in a documentary and we go through some of the songs. And like I said, I got some of my guys that we had conflictions with some artists out there, like Biggie back then. Everybody thought we had a beef. It becomes interesting, but the bottom line is that's what I've been working on alongside with working on some other music. So I just said, yo, let me get this done the right way first, and then I'm going to drop some new music. So I got definitely a new album getting ready to come out. When is that going to come out, you think? The new album, I'd say probably like between second quarter right now. Yeah. And I never even mentioned the name of the album, but I'll mention it on your show.

118:43The name of the album is going to be called The Emperor's New Clothes. You ever heard that Dutch folk tale, The Emperor's New Clothes? You familiar with it? The Emperor Wears No Clothes. Yeah. So that's going to be the name of it because I feel like the status quo today, everybody follows bullshit nobody wants to be genuine no more nobody wants to call out shit that makes sense it's like oh if you believe it oh i'm supposed to believe i'm supposed to believe nothing that don't feel like what it's supposed to be to me goes back to like you said and i'm listening to everything you're saying about you have to do it from this way fuck that fuck fuck radio whatever is going to stop you from being you you know what i mean so this is the same mindset that I'm thinking with my hip-hop, my new album that's coming. Like, yo, I'm not going to let you tell me that this is not what people still love. You know what I mean? I don't care. I know what I know from coming up as a kid who loved hip-hop and what inspired me. So I'm going to have a ball this year, man. I got a lot of great things that I want to give the world. But, yeah, that's going to be the name of my new album. People still love it. And I'm telling you, these young kids that I have at the Comedy Mothership,

119:53When I play them 1990s hip-hop, they go, oh. They just don't know yet. Yeah, yeah. They just don't know. And we can't fault them because they wasn't alive probably at that time. Also, they got so much shit coming their way. Exactly. They're getting inundated by all these new artists and all these new TikToks. There's so much shit going on. There's so much shit going on. There's so much going on. But, you know, I always say that it's always a lane for people that love music. You know what I mean? I don't care. It's like you could be 50, you know, today I'm sitting here as a 55-year-old man that still have that kid in him to love what helped me be who I am today. So I'm still at my best when it comes to making music, you know. Like today the chef is more of an architect artist now. I don't consider myself a gangster rapper or a funny rapper. I'm an architect rapper. You know, because I like to reflect on things about growth and development. You know, when people hear this album, they're going to be like, damn, like, yo, he still fucking got it.

121:00I tell people all the time, don't ever think we're going to lose that shit. That's like sitting here and saying Mike Tyson can't fight. When you know at the end of the day, he ain't lose a fucking bit when it comes to how he feels that passion for boxing or whatever. I feel the same way with my music. So get ready. But like I said, the name of the album is called The Emperor's New Clothes. Check for that shit. I'm ready. I'm ready. Listen, brother, thank you very much for being here. It was a real honor. Of course. A real pleasure. You my guy, man. And thank you for everything you guys have done over the years. I've been endlessly entertained by Wu-Tang Clan for a long fucking time. There you go. And I hope somebody listens to this and makes that fucking movie. Make that movie. Well, we gonna make it happen. Do it the right way.

121:46We gonna figure it out. I wish I made movies. I wish I was a movie maker. Because that's what I would make. I would make it that way. I would open up with that fucking Riker scene. Listen, Joe. It's never too late for us to do what the fuck we want to do. Never too late. Never too late. Never too late. Thank you, sir. Love you. Love you too. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Bye. Bye. Thank you.