#2250 - Raekwon

1 Jan 2025 · 2 h 7 min

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In short

The Joe Rogan Experience - Episode #2250: Raekwon

Episode Overview

  • Host: Joe Rogan
  • Guest: Raekwon (Founding member of the Wu-Tang Clan, solo artist, author, and entrepreneur)
  • Discussion Topics:
  • Formation and uniqueness of Wu-Tang Clan
  • Music industry insights
  • Hip-hop history and influence
  • Future projects and personal reflections

Key Discussions

Formation of Wu-Tang Clan

  • Uniqueness: Wu-Tang is noted for its large group dynamic (nine members) which was atypical in hip-hop during their formation.
  • Leadership: RZA is credited as the mastermind who orchestrated the group's formation, driven by a shared vision despite diverse backgrounds and challenges.
  • Philosophy: The group’s approach was akin to a mob structure, valuing potential and unity over individual plans.

Challenges in the Music Industry

  • Record Deals: The episode highlights the pitfalls of early music contracts, emphasizing that young artists often get locked into unfavorable deals.
  • Independence: Raekwon discusses the importance of independence for new artists and the risks associated with signing too early.
  • Evolution: The industry has changed with digital platforms offering artists more control over distribution and promotion.

Hip-Hop Culture and Influence

  • Historical Context: Raekwon and Joe reflect on the early days of hip-hop, its growth from the 80s to the 90s, and its social impact.
  • Cultural Significance: Hip-hop is portrayed as a reflection of socio-economic realities, offering a voice to marginalized communities.
  • Legacy: Wu-Tang Clan’s influence on subsequent hip-hop generations and their role in expanding artistic and cultural boundaries.

Personal Stories and Reflections

  • Memorable Moments: Stories about performing in Rikers Island for fellow member Ol' Dirty Bastard create a vivid picture of Wu-Tang's culture.
  • Raekwon's Inspirations: He shares insights into his personal inspirations and the impact of early hip-hop on his career.
  • Future Projects: Raekwon discusses his upcoming projects, including a documentary on the "Purple Tape" and a new album titled "The Empress’ New Clothes."

Noteworthy Highlights

  • Wu-Tang’s Philosophy: The group’s dynamic and RZA’s vision were crucial to their success.
  • Industry Advice: Raekwon advises new artists to prioritize independence and be wary of exploitative deals.
  • Cultural Impact: Wu-Tang's legacy is significant, influencing countless artists and redefining hip-hop as an art form.
  • Upcoming Works: Raekwon is working on a documentary and a new album, emphasizing storytelling and authenticity.

Conclusion

The episode offers a comprehensive look at the life and career of Raekwon, delving into the formation and philosophy of the Wu-Tang Clan, the intricacies of the music industry, and the enduring influence of hip-hop culture. Raekwon's reflections provide valuable insights into the challenges and triumphs of a storied career, while also looking forward to future artistic endeavors.

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Transcript

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0:13That'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's no question. There's one Wu Tang. There's only one Wu Tang. Nothing else is even close. You guys are 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. No one is, if you think about it, it's been a lot of hip -hop duos. There's been a lot of producers and MCs. There's been a lot of people that get together in like small groups.

0:49But 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 gonna get another one of these. It's crazy that it worked because it's so hard to keep all those alphas together. It really is crazy to make it work. Some shit that I never would have thought whatever exists. It was able to exist because we tried it, but it wasn't normal. It wasn't normal. You tried it, but it almost seems like it was just instinct. It's not like a business strategy that anybody would ever come up with. Nine dudes. Nine of the realest dudes, like the rawest realest dudes.

1:37And it worked. And it worked. I tell people other time, it was like when Risa, you know, he came with this whole philosophy of wanting to do it. It was like hitting a lot off of him. Like he didn't know what to expect. It was more a reputation thing for us. It was like, you know, I want to do this. And you know, he came to block and he talked to some real dudes that was really had other shit plant. And they like, 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.

2:12So it's like the mob. It's like, you know, you know, Lucky Luciano, prime example. You know, he knew that more fuckers had potential, right? He knew dudes have potential. And anyway, he's from a different party. He's from a different party. 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, you start shaking hands across the table. Y 'all know you didn't really fuck with me like that, y 'all. I never had anything against you like that, though.

2:48But it just, it was just something that he felt like at the end of the day. Let me try this shit. Well, it was a genius. And it's, it's amazing that he was able to coordinate that because that's off in the case, right? With other killers like this episode is brought to you by Buffalo trace distillery. Actually, have some Buffalo trace cigars here. They just sent me one of the world's most award -winning distilleries that's been making whiskey the same way for more than 200 years. Made as a tribute to the rugged free spirited pioneers who blaze their own trail to new frontiers. It embodies the perfectly untamed spirit of independence.

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4:1890 proof Franklin County Kentucky Buffalo trace American family owned independent and perfectly untamed. When it was about motherfucker, they always assumed 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, we always I told you when I want to send you a message, I said that we play protect your neck. I know whenever we have a police escort. That's what's the most hilarious thing. So we do a reissues. We hire a police escort. So it's like fucking silence and chin protect your neck.

4:56The whole it's like the perfect song to play when you when you're getting a police escort. I know, I know, trust me. These young kids that I have at the club, like I was explaining Bhutan clan to them the other night. I go, do you have to understand how wild this band was? I go when old dirty bastard was in Rikers. They went to Rikers and performed in Rikers. I told everybody else like, 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.

5:38And then you guys go into the crowd. God bless his soul. First and foremost, oh my god, 30 bastard was a joke. Yo, Joe is the funniest shit. Because when we came in and when we seen him, he was eating a cheeseburger laughing. He remind you never 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 have been here. They kept telling us like, yo, y 'all can't, y 'all can't go into the to the to the to the crowd.

6:13You know, we're not going to hold no responsibility if something happens. So you know, be like, no, no, no. Once we got on that stage, it was like, fuck the stage. We out there touching everybody. It was love. Man, it was a man had to be what? I say what 90, what 90, 98, 97. Wow. 98. No internet. I'll be like, yeah, none of that shit none of that. What is there even a recording that anywhere? No, I don't think so. I don't think so. That would be wild. That video would be. I never knew that people seen that. I don't know how the fuck you knew that shit. Like, oh, I heard about it. I heard about it.

6:56I mean, it was in the news back then that you guys performed in Rikers. 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 the 1980, there was no hip hop. In 1992, that was all anybody gave a fuck about it. That is crazy for a new art form. It was. So I'm married, 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. That's big. It got big. It got so big. I remember.

7:39I remember. It's 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, disco, 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 going to 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 like, Oh, shit. Well, fuck is this ramen? Yeah. It's just sound cool, though. You know what I mean? It's sound cool. But really it was a way to bring people together. You know, that was going through different shit in a life.

8:27You know what I mean? Yeah. You know what it was earlier than now 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 Sugarhill gang when I lived in Jamaica, playing, which was in 1980. 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 gravitated to what I probably was like 12, like you said. So 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?

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12:01Go to rocket money dot com slash J. R. E. today that's rocket money dot com slash J. R. E. rocket money dot com slash J. R. E. The first shit that that grabbed me was like how you said sugar hill game you know on rap is the light. Yeah. Rap is the light. That was the shit. Now look everywhere. I had cousins that had wild cousins and shit they was you know they was wild they was selling drugs they was you know smoking weed and sniffing coke and you know I mean doing whatever they was doing and they used to live too. They used to live too flaws above me and I used to sneak up there and shit and you know just being a business being a world and they would be playing music they had the record player you know you see coke on the table and we didn't everything and my cousins they was cool.

12:57You know come in man you don't give a fuck like just don't tell your mother that you. You know what I mean now I ain't gonna say that I ain't gonna say that and I would just be watching and you know I would see weed on a. Album covers and you know me just more fuckers running back and forth in the room and you know they in the ship but they always was playing music and a lot of the music was R. E. You know disco you know when the next thing you know I heard this fucking record on sugar hill gang and I'm like the groove was dope. I'm like holy shit like this is what I want to be you know I mean I'm looking at the whole vibe I'm like this is who I am right here you know but 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 Al Gore's wife Tipper Gore she was a Democrat she wanted a sensor rap music because this is the first time anybody heard like iced tea you know like that six in the morning everybody's like what the fuck is this 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's so way more albums yeah because that's what you're looking for where's the fucking this they don't even swear get this shit out of here once they got the label on his 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 regular shit like it out here with that yeah but that's what you guys got through with regular shit but it just didn't last no definitely didn't last but like you said though everybody wanted the raw shit and 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 and our neighbor we asked we had like crazy people like if they catch you at night they'll kill you like they'd be dressed up like a fucking drag or whatever or let's make up on and you know I remember one time going to the center rate of room my mom's made me go she made me go to the arm to the arm 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 smack me in the head with a broom like you did not tell you to take out the fucking garbage so now I'm going down 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 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 I got the garbage pair with me and it's like yo once I seen him I just turned I just dropped the shit and ran mine you know are you back there you know you know your mother name is shit you think that that was something cool back then you know she's your hero at that time came back the name is gone but I think if he would have caught me and that incinerated door when it was close he was going to probably try to run in there and probably try to fucking kill me and 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 that's also in the air but see but see before crack you had that dope that dope that dope so mom fuckers is mixing dope and coke together man getting high and shit and everything you know I mean it was it was a serious time back then man but you know that's how far to me music went back you know listening to the ladies night you know I mean I had people on my store that candy store right on the same floor but it wasn't a candy store did you that a bunch of penny candy just to make kids feel cool but really they was selling coke in the back coke and dope though so you know all this was going on in the community man wow 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 like that 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 you know it was part of the appeal it was that 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 me to be authentic you had to come from that you couldn't be like some rich kid from the suburbs that was talking about some shit you never actually experience 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 out you know being that we was living in fucked up situations and nobody has shit nobody has no fucking jobs like that it was like yeah 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're 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 be for people that wasn't from your neighborhood just because you wasn't from here it's like yeah what the fuck you doing over you don't live over it you know then it creates this animosity thing and I remember for us you know being 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 lean 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 we all fucking with each other you know 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 but the music believe it or not the music was keeping a piece now just you know the music was keeping a piece because they would do block parties right they would do block parties and you know everybody knew all these different DJs was coming from different places and going on going to play some music and shit so we knew every time they did that we 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 them all fucking riding down the street all crazy you know you know trying to hit motherfuckers and swinging the golf club out the fucking out the window and shit and you know somebody mother might have got 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 it was like well it's fun because you survived yeah yeah yeah definitely yeah you know but we were young so we didn't we didn't care about we didn't care about whether we love to die at that time get a fuck it was like whatever is 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 be in calm you know when you come from somewhere that's fucked up Joe and it's nothing there you can't get a job because of your community your zip code don't allow you to be like Joey he's hired no it's just too infested over there so you kind of you kind of become relaxed with that mentality of saying well fuck it I'm gonna live off the land I'm gonna sell weed I'm gonna 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 being played like I grew up on R &B music like disco when you know all that all that fun shit roller skating you know I knew more fuckers than a neighborhood that was roller skating you know we would get off a stat now and sometimes and go to these different parks and jams in the city that was fun too that was that was fun times for us when was it so was it riser that tried that there was initially all nine guys like how did it get formed hmm well number one it was riser his cousin Jizz and his other cousin old dirty bastard that they were super close now old dirty bastard and Jizz they were from Brooklyn riser from stat now you know we all we all Brooklyn babies too majority of us in the clan we all you know resided in new in stat now but majority of us grew up in Brooklyn but anyway it was those three that were closest shit so riser back then riser he acknowledged himself which was you know being involved with the nation of his song and also Jizz 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 riser so riser 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 And Together Now group which was them three and they were running around and they would battle you know different gods 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 stat now and 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 you heard about your rhymes and you know and dirty he was just a crazy motherfucker but he was crazy but yeah they had their own little thing going on and then you know next thing you know Jizz and court of record deal he court of record deal which was red back then like if you had to if you fucking court of 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 do it because he 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 Rizza to be like yo I got to make a record now so you know when the next thing you know that 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 a 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 and then so Rizza 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 we saw that because again that's not something that existed yeah it's like Eric being rock him you know there was you know there was a few p .m .d.

24:56there's a few people you know you're shit yeah you know you show you star there was a few people that were together but it wasn't like you guys no not because it was kind of scary it's like god damn when you guys had a show I mean I heard stories that it was just like you guys would show up like 300 people yeah that was you know 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 Rizza 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 the 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 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 like I tell people all the time like yo I might have been Rizza's first you know big fan so I kind of seen something anymore ready 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 took my clever right right you know and he 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 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 you know I'm like something about these motherfuckers that I love yeah you know and next thing you know when Rizza you know Rizza went out there and he came back to the community he was like yo I quote a record deal so you know I was there I'm like we see this shit looking at the shit with the fuck is on here I'm looking down here like you said the what's the name fine print yeah the fine -printed shit I got this motherfuckin man the record oh shit yo bow Stat Malin 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 your 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 you get fucked because it's mandatory mandatory you get in fuck 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 squeaky line suck my dick 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 like the most talented people in the world and they get owned by people who provide no value yeah especially today yeah today it's even crazy right because there is no record sales anymore it's all gone so for a young artist it's so important that they stay independent as long as they can just like you're hanging off a bridge hang on yeah that's what you gonna keep grind and don't sell it don't sign if you sign you're gonna be fighting that shit 10 years from now yeah you're gonna be in court 10 years from now yeah you right it's somebody's gonna be getting not just 50 percent but like some fucking insane like bill burr was explained in this about his 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 yeah all the all the printing of the CDs everything came out of his mind actually question actually question put yourself in the artist situation right you have talent right you have talent here it is I got I got everything you want yeah you gonna have to make some sacrifices for sure because you know that yeah you may you may feel like 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 gonna give you a shot but either you take this shot or you stay in a hood what are you gonna do you gonna take the shot you gonna take the shot and I agree with everybody 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 but see it's the sacrifice that I'm trying to explain to you that every every artist takes they takes that sacrifice because at the end of the day you have to start from somewhere right so even when labels are being them and my mind I'm saying yo I get a chance to have a job don't think it's anything about no fucking job in a 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 gonna 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 gotta lose I haven't been through everything I didn't I didn't been over here I didn't been kicked out everywhere fuck it I just want to be heard so a lot of time that be the protocol is just to be heard yeah 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 our old geez that did it before it's like you know what I mean sugar L 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 this episode is brought to you by life lock tax season is already stressful you shouldn't have to worry about identity theft on top of everything else and trust me it's a big worry 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Kentucky Buffalo trace American family owned independent and perfectly untamed famous they became big they became there's an argument for that but I think it should be more fair oh listen I'm what you are but we just talking about what you got to do you have to do it sacrifices every 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 it should be it shouldn't lock 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 them all fuck it is I'm like your imagine you were a hustler right and you run into the connect and the connect say yo you talking like you know how to move shit I'ma give you 50 pounds of marijuana back then you know what I mean now you may feel like I think the day you can handle it but I'm all fucking tell you Joe I'm giving you these fucking 50 pounds but I need my money back today at this time you could either take the 50 because you so fucking confident or take one and say y 'all I'd rather take my time you know I mean I don't want to be in debt but you what are you gonna do you got to take the 50 you go oh you oh yeah he's gonna take he wants the fuck you get his head fucking shop though you gotta take the 50 you gotta know I mean you gotta know people yeah you gotta bring everybody in and you gotta share the money you gotta know people you gotta know people you ain't competent and knowing what the fuck you need to know I advise you don't take you shouldn't be having that conversation if you don't know anybody but if you know some people and you're generous oh that's the thing you gotta make it worth these people's while you gotta bring you gotta say listen we're all gonna get something out of this and see now look that philosophy that you said yeah we took on yes we took that on you say you know what at the end of the day we'll take this little bit of money but we're gonna go we're gonna be willing to sell ourselves to get to this level yeah because we know what we believe it see it all starts from what you believe yes if you don't have the belief in yourself then make it happen you fucked it's all it's a rising tides lifts all boats think too oh and it was Wu Tang clan that was for sure a big thing because anybody that was associated with Wu Tang clan was automatically respected automatically people want to listen automatically yeah automatically so like that that just lifts everybody that lives there but 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 you know and scared money doesn't make money that's what it is everybody gets paranoid and they think no you got that's when you got a bond together that's when everybody you have to find real people and stick together you said the key word you gotta sell that 50 you gotta sell that 50 yeah talk to Carlos go go down the book day let's make a deal man we make some deals I guess that's the rules I guess that's what it is yeah he danced with the devil for the right reason and you know we took we took some scars we got hit there was a different world back then too in terms of the industry because today all you need is a social media account Spotify sound cloud you can blow up yeah you can blow up today yeah back then you needed the radio you needed you know you could sell mix tapes but it's hard well you had to be some undeniable talent yeah you know like I we always play 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 like that's the kind of talent like that dude's gonna if he stays alive you can't stop that train absolutely that trains 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 it you had a dance you had a dance with that devil yeah the work mm -hmm 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 I mean but that's what made us learn is that we had to grow through the we had to go through those growing pains we had to get jerk to learn how to say yo that was a lesson yeah everything is a lesson at the end of the day it's like if you want to sacrifice yourself and your time to learn something I was 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 gonna be you're gonna be sitting in the same situation and you're gonna 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 or for your 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 and get out there it's like what watch a scarf facing the niggas told them he said yo give you five grand better and if you fuck this up Chico yeah yeah look at him and said man the fuck is you talking about we built for this shit man yeah you know when um he lost he lost his man in the mix but he was able to prove to himself that I could do it yeah that's how I look at rap it's like yo I'm gonna 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 listen to this every chance you take where you fail that's a lesson learn and you just keep taking chances keep going pick yourself back up figure out where you fucked up and learn from that now you're better now you have more experience coming into this next thing just keep going just keep going just keep going especially as artists it's just like so many artists they don't hit until they do 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 think about it think about all our favorite artists out there you know um M &M you know M &M been trying to fucking get on you know um you know um rock him slick reg all these so many they went through they went through a lot to get on you know I mean Bismarkey you know nobody wanted to fuck with biz at first but you know he finally figured the code out and was like oh this is what I'm gonna do you know he start rocking shows and different communities and next thing you know people start hearing about them and like oh shit y 'all this guy is dope but it's that sacrifice man I tell people all the time gotta say it's time put in time put in energy effort determination as you gotta add some talent yeah you gotta dance talent is just god or doesn't you know some people just got it you know and some people it's also like artistic families like Nas you know he grew up in this like intellectual artistic family and that's why his rhymes are so good yeah his pops man his pops is a musician yeah good for the rewind yeah that's like one of the greatest songs of any genre anybody's ever written it's a genius so crazy I was listening to that shit yesterday genius back in the gun yeah genius song the whole song backwards and it's a me oh I love Nas especially for lyrics his lyrics are incredible they they were so good so we're so good and and unusual like that like saying just hiding only the first guy make a wrap backwards and make it work perfect yeah you know I mean it's just hey did you ever listen to any of the shit where um the brand new heavies got together with a bunch of rappers the brand new heavies I know the name but I'm trying new heavies like a jazz band they did a collaboration with gang star cool jeera a bunch of guys yeah some of my favorite shit of all time yeah they was more musical though like yeah if you ever heard cool g -wraps death threat oh my god Jamie play that let me just play that find that we'll put a gutter put on the headphones for this this is in my uh along with a bunch of Wu -Tang this is in my yeah this is in my Spotify playlist this is cool g -wrap and like I want to say 92 yeah 92 listen this

42:14what do you call mac it's so simple but it's too simple fuck I got to give a nigga permanent I never heard it simple cool is this

42:35one of my favorites right there turn this chicks with small dicks

42:44you get back nice so good nice so good so this was on the brand new heavies out yes the brand new heavies did one with gang star they they did a bunch of different artists nice and it's what year was it 92 yeah yeah I was on a road trip I was doing a gig in Connecticut with a buddy mine was a comedian right and uh he turned me on this like you got a list of 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 ever and then someone brought it up like a few years back like six or seven years back and I was like it's god 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 like Tim dog you know people forgot about like fuck compton remember that yeah he was a wild cap but he was good though he was good yeah he was wiling back then yeah great shit man yeah he was wiling back then but could you wrap to that to me was like that defined like road gigs for me in the 1990s when we were drive that was when cockblocking came out remember that yeah that's awesome man damn so you really you really pay attention oh yeah yeah hip hop was a big part of my my childhood or my my young adulthood you know when I was driving around a lot doing comedy gigs like a lot of ghetto boys yeah me too you know I was playing the other day in the green room I was playing a 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 like the 1980s and it applies today you remember fuck war wow you come up headphones are coming back let's go school with me on shit like I talked to Willie D Willie D told me wrote the song in 40 minutes wow yeah just angry wrote this song in 40 minutes and this is ghetto boys in their prime you know that out bushwick bill I was my guy right then man this is bushwick mother fucking bill 91

45:11yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah I was suffered look at that big phone he's got yeah yeah I have one of those before too yeah I don't give a fuck about you know that bull shit you stressing fuck a war fuck a war

45:36fuck a life but nothing you can't play me to join in on you can't or any other mother fuck a military friend of the Johnny got that state to that bitch America be a soldier one four they put you into the front line when it comes to get in the head they put it in the back I ain't getting my leg shot off while I put a show last on TV playing golf haha haha wow so get crazy look at that bro you're bush I ain't you damn wrong oh shit

46:15oh shit yeah

46:32what the fuck do I know

46:41yeah he was in an NWA chamber he was an NWA chamber dude that shit was good and that applies to me thinking yeah 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 tools yes 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 became the news too like you need to know what was actually going on like fuck of war tells you what's really what's going on yeah so when I think about those Compton boys those NWA cats and all of that that was expressing themselves it was like that's what we all were facing and living amongst and you know like I said I never heard that song before so I could tell that was made around the time when NWA 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 go we're not what the fuck was that right you know but you heard it in the song and you knew it was real right you respected it yeah 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 living in and fucked up positions you just think about survival right you seem saying survival is the only thing on your mind and 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 and rapping and motherfuckers like these was talking about and all that right it's like now he was like oh okay I see what the fuck is going on yeah it's not just here it's it's all over it's and every everywhere every ghetto or whatever the case may be yeah that's what was happening yes so I never heard that before though you just you just put me on some ill shit and that's one of my favorite groups right the ghetto boys ghetto boys real shit right there the 1990s ghetto boy era oh crazy that in that like I remember the day I found out about NWA I was uh teaching Taekwondo in Revere Massachusetts and I was at the gym riding on the stair climber and I just picked up this cassette and I was like NWA I keep hearing about this and I fucked the police was the first song I listened to and I remember I was on the stair climb going this is why you see I'm saying you see I'm saying yeah yeah yeah you're you're hearing people talk about the police like they're getting harassed by the police in a way you never heard them say yeah exactly the police coming straight from the underground it was like I was like wow straight from the fuck it was a totally different economy music it was 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 get a fuck who was listening they were rapping like they were doing it for their friends but they were doing to the whole world the whole world was like whoa yeah 100 miles in 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 that they be KRS once KRS won the teacher you know that's a son of the police all that shit right there was knowledgeable knowledgeable rap hip -hop I don't even call it fucking rap hip -hop information information right they like especially KRS one and public enemy yeah they were they were saying something it was like very it what but it wasn't contrived right right exactly wasn't like you know you see people say shit today like ah 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 um Spike Lee made dude do the rap yes one of my favorite movies that's a classic right there classic classic shit world classic well like you said we was getting information and you know you got to remember you know at the end of the day you know a lot of people that coming out of the you know the hood and just being like I know you come from the hood you know I was born in Newark yeah he's born yeah shout out the nook so you you seen it I was exactly that come from the hood because I went to high school on the suburbs yeah but you yeah 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 rated his house while I was there they've battering rammed his door and ever he had a nice outie right I looked at my I just do has a nice car right right selling dope it was selling dope and they got him but he was around it though so yeah well that was also the time I was the most in the hip -hop too you know it's nice 1991 I guess 90 91 that was wild error because that's when hip -hop was just explode yeah yeah exploding yeah I would say definitely 91 yeah naughty by nature you oh yeah they had emerged on the scene like you said rock him and big daddy came oh yeah easy easing ice cubes to this day I go to work cuz one of my favorite workout songs what big daddy king I'm gonna work oh my god I gotta work oh he was so smooth and so fast too yeah you know big daddy came had like a very particular style it was energetic you know you heard his style like god you like 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 I was spoken on the mic you know when I when I sit here when I think about the you know the woo on how we you know form we form vulture each one of us had a super power that related back to those guys you know all these guys that we're talking about today they was the they was the light bulb right in the house you school that shit on you this is what I see right now I see slick wreck I see rock him I see cube I see fucking you know um all these guys that paid the way for us so the clan 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 my fuckers all the time I say yo let me tell you something when we came out naughty by nature was the shit they was 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 Latifa Roxanne Chante all these you know artists fact then we're blowing up LL can't front on LL LL LL yeah LL was huge Fuji rap one of my favorites I know that's one of your favorites you know the fat boys all these guys with just 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 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 shit yeah that was the thing that was the thing about it to the lyrics I love it all my I'm for you 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 so what they were saying yeah and it was just a vibrant art for man I get like how many people cheated on the significant other because of OPP right how many you know you know you know cheer it yeah it was like a license to fuck yeah people were cheering exactly it had so the hip -hop had so much influence on the culture and it emerged out of nowhere that's what's so crazy like 10 years ago doesn't exist boom I mean even rock and roll I mean rock and roll you had the 50s it starts to immerse then the 60s really takes off and you know it'd been around for a while that's something like hip -hop just explode and make a lot of other things look lame you know especially for young kids because when you hear guys like you and you know ghost face and you know method man and like you're dealing with real dudes we're talking about real shit and everybody else just look kind of lame you know it was like they didn't even swear you know it's like you guys were wild it was fun and it was clever and I think Risa 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 big on I know you big on Kung Fu shit cuz yeah I'm coming through your shrine and shit he got all kind of fucking show gun warrior yeah yeah but you know it's so crazy I tell people it's like when Risa when he was on a 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 oh it's a great one people forget about one spot time in America my fucking movie right there that's my that's my movie so we were like we were living in this we were living around a lot of hustlers a lot of a lot of drugs was being sold in my community at that time right so when Risa came with the whole Wu Tang philosophy it was almost like yeah we love karate flicks we were watching you know about the karate flicks 3 o 'clock 3 o 'clock yeah when we come over and school them shits is on channel 5 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 people 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 y 'all but these guys were very good but they just couldn't say that Shaolin because they had a different way of looking at shit and doing shit so when Risa came with the whole philosophy of it it's this movie that's called Shaolin versus 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 want to change in the name and calling it Shaolin because we were the forgotten barrel you know when you think about Brooklyn Bronx Queens Manhattan why don't we 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 in the projects thinking you're gonna fucking act like you're going over to your friends I'm in Wisa C UFOs come through we call them UFOs unidentified flying objects the fuck he doing it yo follow him go yo yo you know me 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 name who is this guy either he's coming to play you he's coming to play you or or you're gonna 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 right we gotta go get back to that yeah we gotta go figure that out all this shit that Rizzo was thinking about at that time was a reality check for us at Staten Island so even when he came with the name it was almost like yo wow that shit is interesting you know who's saying clan y 'all you know 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 well 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 West Indians and 90s and you know it was a mountain pot you know it's a mountain pot of different nationalities and more fuckers you had the Spanish motherfuckers over here selling dope you know what I mean you had the white boys over here fucking doing what they doing you know um all these things was going on but in Stapleton it was nothing but criminals and motherfuckers that want to fight and and and rob and steal and you know and um Rizzo was hanging out there a lot you know so they came up with this whole you know Wu Tang mentality thing that they bought up the block to us so when Rizzo 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 um it was it was never for us to look at it at any given time like yo you trying to portray us as some fucking ninjas and some shit you know a lot of times people thought yo your niggas no karate you know you don't know fucking karate motherfucker we don't do that but we grew up our older cat our older brothers and sisters they grew up on it that was some early 70s shit right there yeah so you know back then you might add a cousin that was a martial art he knew the arts and shit you know you looked up to him like y 'all this motherfuckers ill right here you know he know the arts and shit he know how to fight you know you motherfuckers were being back at a building with two doberman pinchers and shit you know what I mean beating them with fucking laundry man hoses and shit and you know grabbing them and hanging them on shit and you know back then that was you know that was dope to see your cousins and all them do it but Rizzo when he came with this philosophy it kind of like fucked us all up in it but we agreed with it right away because Wu Tang was to them was always something like uh um an expression so if you're drinking this is Wu Tang drinking you know you you over here yo this is some Wu Tang shit or whatever because he was trying to say that we were just like them in a in the flicks it's crazy when I hear something crazy whenever I kill an elk you know I go uh bow hunting every year when I kill elk when I text my friend cam I text Wu Tang like whenever I kill something I'll show you oh my god I've seen you some of the pictures today no but I want to show you that that's true I'm not making this totally shit it goes back years it goes back years this is like our tradition whenever I kill an elk well I'm gonna find this I'm gonna find one the last time I say Wu Tang I text him every day so it's gonna take a second to get back into some pictures but whatever I get one I say Wu Tang and then I send him a picture oh shit crazy is gonna take a while because I do this for all but this is important to show you this is real come on motherfucker go back and search Wu Tang and we'll show you yeah oh okay oh look at Jamie under camhands or just Wu Tang when you then when you find camhands I'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 wow that was from October but I got I go back like five years of doing that like every time I shoot a elk I text Wu Tang no I started hunting in 2012 I shot that deer that deer that head that's right there that was the first wow animal I hunted and then I was like okay that's what I'm doing why I was it was either for me it was that I become a vegetarian watch 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 gonna be a vegan or I'm gonna learn how to hunt and my friend Steve Renella took me hunting I shot that deer I'm like all right that's what I do now oh shit I've been doing it ever since I've been hunting for 12 years 12 years yeah so you could say to 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 I 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 think I'm really good yeah but like for people that are really good no I'm not right nearly at their level but you know there's like professional archers that are like super accurate out to a hundred yards they can shoot like a softball sized group at a hundred yards consistently I got a couple of homeboys who could shoot like that though it's a lot of discipline yeah a lot of discipline yeah but they they come from they live on this side of town yeah well there's a lot of bow hunting in Texas yeah a lot of bow hunting in Texas yeah it's fun yeah I like it I got to get out there one day man I don't you know I told you like we were talking before the show like you want to learn I could put you on some people a little one hundred percent teach how to do it and because you're you're fairly close like that's a easy thing to do you would enjoy it it's a it's also it's a nice discipline to clear your mind yeah yeah 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 what you're doing it you don't think about nothing else for a guy like you busy oh so much shit going on like it's good to have a thing like that to just like a sport to me yeah something to learn and and and kind of master yeah that's important but it's one of those things like like a shooting a free throw like 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 focus you got to push it all out right and just think oh and that kind of stuff like cleans your mind exactly it's like it flushes your mind out nice of the door that's what it's all about at the end of the day man just kind of like get a piece of mine and Bob Bob to something different though yeah 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 exactly you could you could get too close to something and lose sight of the big picture if you're all wrapped up in it sometimes you need something else that you also enjoy outside of it and then you can look at what you do like okay what am I doing different exactly maybe I should put a new wrinkle in this maybe I should take a new turn you know mix it up man that's important yeah you know what what's another cool thing about today is that it used to be thought at one point in time 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 are still touring you know they were 58 years old back then like this crazy the Rolling Stones are back on the road but that was like a new thing was like old rock and roll guys out torn 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 in to go and to see you right yeah well when I see guys like out loud and can and then perform and slick rick and ice cube it kind of it gives me more leverage and more strength I want to do it because I see some of my legends still doing it today but yeah man like you said just to see a lot of guys like the Rolling Stones and Mick Jagger and I'm still performing it's like why not why not yeah I'll give up on it you know but with hip hop it wasn't really a thing for a long time like because you didn't think that it would last right you know that means so you felt like you would get a five year one they say any artists that was coming out back in the 90s they was already put in a cap on how long or how far they felt she was going to go so even for us we's like yo hey we threw this shit for like three or four years be good yo we'll be cool with that so they always put us in uh 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 this 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 man fucking god right there that's hilarious um people I know people would be like get the fuck out of that's hilarious I love his old shit until he he's didn't tell you how that supermodel wife then everything got real soft he got too much good pussy he got supermodel pussy it's like uptown girl she's been living in her uptown world before that you go back to his other shit you know oh in the good die young oh that's a great job he's got some great stuff man scenes from an Italian restaurant that's a great song man captain jack oh captain jack's a great song Billy Joe but when he got older it just became you know he was changing as a human you in New York it's too right yeah I got sold out mass square guard like 300 times yeah still going yeah still going so those are heroes those are guys that we we look up to that you know they still do anything yeah it's just beautiful that uh hip hop is like that now because uh I feel like in the 2000s only it was more overseas was showing you guys love yeah like a lot of Europe like a lot of my friends that were like maybe bigger in the 90s they had to go over to Europe to go do yeah there was like a hip hop yeah and I tell people all the time like being being from the states being where we from I think they appreciated more because they they never really got a chance to grasp it as much as we did right so they come out more right right now today they more they more they love it more you know they can't believe it yeah they can't believe it yeah but for me I think I love performing a lot more when I go 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 um even to this day it's like the clan 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 oh you looking around like oh fuck out what does that fucking kid that he just we just put him on stage and he knew that he knew the fucking words like girl he's about he might have been like 17 16 years old like he wasn't even fucking born well there's classic hip hop now you know what I'm saying like when I was a kid there was classic rock you like you listen to Led Zeppelin it was classic rock now there's classic hip hop why which is amazing yeah you know what's it well it just shows that the culture is like completely accepted it as an art form and so now young kids that get into hip hop maybe one of their friends would 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 had like y 'all you know listening to Sugar Hell gang you know I actually had them in one of my videos before really well you know that and I bought them to my hood too so you know that felt for me I'm fucking Sugar Hell gang that's my community that's amazing that was dope though right there man but yeah man it 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 be able to instilling yourself like if you don't have that then you not you're not moving the way you supposed to be moving you know I remember old man would tell us if you don't know where you came from you never know where you going so having that history that history is is an experience that sticks with you forever you have to have that yeah don't try to front on it 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 yeah you gotta know it you gotta know it you should know it like the history of the United States it's it's it's something if you're an artist like that's what that's what lit the fire somebody had like 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 a long ago and then all of a sudden now it's everywhere like what happens somebody lit the fire and if they didn't like that fire you wouldn't you wouldn't have it exactly you wouldn't have the embers you wouldn't you wouldn't have this desire to try this thing exactly and now look what it is doing look what it did yeah 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 ain't talking this ain't talking that 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 killing all fuckers or he's I hated Kim you know what I mean based on that he just one of my favorite movies great fucking movie I love heat you know Danero Danero why is it okay to do that in the movie but it's not okay to do that in a song right I don't understand it I don't you know it's hypocritical you know it's hypocritical you say 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 doesn't everybody yeah 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 we'll get them excited about violence if they're not disenfranchised and they have hope they're not inclined towards violence right it's a societal problem has nothing to do with the art itself the art itself is representative of real experiences right 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 I'm not listening that's all you're doing that's how you feel in that this is these people's lived expression this is that which is why Wu Tang was so good the reason why it was so good it was because it was real like no one was questioning the authenticity of anybody that was in the Wu Tang clan so it's like that 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 that 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 but if you slap a warning sticker on it you're just going to sell more listen to it anyway right you're going to you're going to get caught up in it anyway yeah it's like look prime example when we made when we made the record cream right on cream was a record that didn't have nothing to do with anything but the the realness of what we were looking at it wasn't really a song the rap to have fun where's the reality is a picture he's 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 at time my cousin I had a cousin from Brooklyn that he used to come to Staten Island and he used to sell drugs for us and he came up with that word cream because he was like yo you know long as I can make my cream I'm good I'm gonna fuck his 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 that and he splashed all that cream wanted it and you know I'm like oh the time and Jerry the sandwiches right yeah when he made the big sandwiches it stuffed him in your mouth and all nah real shit real shit so the cream that the cream that was splashed and all over the place he was looking at that as that's his money like just want my cream I just want my ah you know what I mean so like yeah you want to get your cream you you sit up in the fucking spot all day you want to make it cream you want to get it and um so who came up with the acronym um a good friend of ours from the neighborhood um his name is Raid right and him and method man is like he was like real close like brothers so when we was in a studio um right into it um he was there and um 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 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 well I didn't write my mom never started off as I grew up on the crime side I was writing about drug dealers in the neighborhood like y 'all I know this kid by the name of gigantee gigantee a tough long dawn with a DM auntie you know the DM aunties back at the days was like the you know the five seary bends as far as back then and um a good friend of mom was like oh that rhyme is cool hmm my thing is I like it why you like the rhyme everybody else like it he's like 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 you know you need the rhyme about shit that's something that he could relate to that we're dealing with around with 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 time side so he he just told you harder yeah he just told me to think harder harder yeah he said y 'all chef you could you could you could be a little bit more creative well cream is crazy because it became viral that that saying dollar dollar bills y 'all became viral like spread across from the dollar dollar bill y 'all dollar bill y 'all dollar dollar dollar teal around that's oh wow you remember that record yeah money it takes money yeah whatever you been saying back then I haven't heard that right I said it's right there yeah that's an old school record right fly shit though but um yeah meffin them you know meffin my man Ray they sat down and they came up with cash rule everything around me and it was a perfect a perfect you know 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 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 want to blow it up so big it want to be in one of our biggest records and it didn't have 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 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 we like an emotional rollercoaster group we can give you the Wu Tang clan ain't nothing to fuck with and then they 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 the smartness allowed us to write the way we wanted to write right and it's contagious it was contagious back yeah but that's all saying about it really good lyrics and high quality rap it's contagious yeah yeah because and 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 killed it you better come in right you have to come in and say some shit that makes sense like I'll give a lot of credit to our first record right protect your neck and I know that's one of your favorite shits when inspected deck said a smoke on a mic like smoke in Georgia the hell razor reason hell with the flavor yeah that right there opened up yeah something with all of us yeah you know and I always tell deck I'm like your deck you are like a you are like the Scotty Pippin you always gonna hit if you get the ball in your hand you know and he did that he created those that first verse that you noticed me I jumped right in my honor yeah wow I'm trying to build like Schwarzenegger yeah then mev came and you know to me 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 yeah yeah yeah but we wanted to we wanted to show the world that each one of us had a style that was unrecognized 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 gonna be able to sound like you said yeah give us those 50 we sell them now we know we you telling me you don't got the money but you got the relationships okay cool learn you got the relationship long you got the money yeah we're gonna go out there and we're gonna work to make it happen but this is what got to happen and you know I give all the credit to Steve Rifkin you know Steve was the guy that own loud records back then um he was a part of RCA back then and um he believed in us like yeah I'll give you out that deal I'll give you out that deal and next thing you know when everybody started taking off now you got met the man over here you got just over here you got to be 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 right it's like Wu Tang was like a movement exactly it was it was different it was like everybody tried the boxes everybody tried the boxes as a group yeah so even though we knew we were a group and our minds we looked at it and like you said as a movement being created that would eventually spread out and and and hit all corners of everything and that was the plan all the time that was a pre -meditated plan because they wanted us to still be a group it's like nah we look we sacrifice an SNS and that but we not going to box ourselves right you know so by us doing that it kind of like really paid the way for other groups and other artists and everybody that the kind of you know follow this blueprint so now you have you know these other 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 yeah you just stayed in 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 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 try different ways out and you gonna make sure everybody shows up at the studio how hard was that this 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 lyruses lyruses guys beats are important you know I mean one time a fan asked me he said yo what's the most important thing to you to rhyme with a beat he fucked me up the whole day with that I was fucked up and 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 a 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 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 could listen to protect your neck and you get that energy from us yeah you know you get a certain energy because of that production then you get this energy when you get you get a cream you get that right so for me I always tell people to beat is everything you know and us just sitting down and waiting for risotto come up with something like one thing about risotto he was so clever you know he had a team of guys that was around him that was insisting him to helping him come with different sounds and you know 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 he was like he was like the stealers back in the fucking 80s you know what I mean when they won four Super Bowls in a row he was like that with Terry Bradshaw on his plan Lin Swan he was in a zone he was in a he was really in his own way especially because it became successful yeah and 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 it's 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 for as a fan you have the lyrics to it just the beats by themselves that's not enough look no no no no no no no no you know me times me it wasn't what I'll give about that and I would tell him like go listen bro it took it took all of us it took yeah you had that yeah you had this we had that that's with you know it's a 50 50 proposition it's always like 60 40 I think it's more 60 lyrics because the thing is the lyrics of the thing that make you go oh shit great great beat makes you move your head and gets you going but lyrics make you go oh shit like rewind that well you know that you know me is 50 50 all the time because if I have nothing to give me that energy to write right right right right how can I give it to you about I have nothing it's a collaboration for sure it's a collaboration for sure but but it's interesting that people would think like what's more important like what's what's more important breathing or having a heartbeat shut the fuck up wow you need both you need both you have to have both but that's the where the collaboration comes in yeah I had Scott Storch in here the other day oh all right oh yeah I love that dude he's so fucking talented so out there you know his glasses on just fucking like 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 he feels it and just coming out of his fingers you know he's a super talented oh so talented but like that kind of guy is so special and you know to team the kind of guy like that up with Dre or you know with you know 50 or any of these people that he collaborated with it's like that's that's special and that's why like I said you know what I mean you you can't never front on the maestro you know what I mean I don't remember the you know DJ has started it all is let's be honest yes I mean the DJ game scratch your records for his scratch and you know they created a a synergy to the artist to be like y 'all 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 hailing his fucking music man right he was so clever he needed a vibe though he needed someone who was that guy you ever hear Frank Sinatra when he's young oh he was before he was smoking all those cigarettes this is super high -pitched voice it's crazy it's crazy it's crazy you listen to the difference like wow it had so much range with the production though I don't know I don't know you know he never really got he never really got famous I got well the 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 yeah but he was a talent yeah who was that crazy dude that wore the wigs that shot that lady in LA he produced all the Beatles shit he had that he got tried for murder and every day on in the courtroom where a different wild wig he created the wall of sound fuck what's his name he was really insane Phil Spector Phil Spector back in the day he was known for pulling guns on people he pulled guns on people stick him in their mouths and shit he was a complete psychopath like a yeah and he's a Jewish guy I think and he shot this lady in the mouth was a Jewish I don't want to hey look guys we died I'm just saying a little about it's a talented successful Jewish people in the other game of the clip yeah but that dude he he was responsible for the wall of sound the the Beatles like that that was a big thing with him like he was known for being a guy that would change people's music Russian Jewish boom yeah yeah what and he was on the Bronx on the Bronx yeah holy wild wild boy and shot some lady picked up some lady at a bar took her back this place and shot her in the mouth holy shit yeah he would put guns at people's mouths like he was known for threatening people like 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 chair he pulled a gun out on shit share recall stopping Phil Spector in his tracks when he pulled a gun on her he could put and pull that shit with me right right right we had this really strange relationship you don't say you don't say you know 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 Mike Maestro like a one in a billion -year talent and that they knew that they had all these recordings of them and they could kill him and so that's what his girlfriend jumped on the mouth of a building yeah don't want to 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 one that long ago whereas the bodyguard said yeah the manager killed him killed Hendrix and threw the girlfriend off roof oh yeah they did a bunch of movies on that true 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 I know Quentin Tarantino that's what I think I think we talk Quentin Tarantino because he wants to do one more movie how well he does a fucking Wu Tang movie it's the real Wu Tang movie it's like Hulu is great but it has to be on Hulu you can only get that so wild on Hulu you know like for it to be real real it has to be a movie let me tell you something I wrote a book right and um inside my book I talked about how Q -tip a good friend of mine Q -tip he had he had me and Leonardo sit down you know the capital huh Leonardo DiCaprio right and I remember Q -tip is like yo set up a meme for you and Leonardo to meet in Brooklyn at this small piece of shop when a Leonardo's favorite spots and um he want to talk to you say yeah that's what's up so me and Leonardo's we started talking and he was like yo Q -tip was telling me that you was he was thinking about trying to you know get guys together to create a movie I was like yeah this is what I was thinking so make a long story short I set up a meeting with Riza Riza myself Leonardo's peoples in LA and I told Riza I said listen before we do this Hulu thing which after the day it was a Riza'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 Riza 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 already had a deal yeah yeah and you know like I said at the end of the day the clan look at that yeah yeah it was Jamie faster than Jamie's the best it was that it was that night and I remember that 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 smat like the um slash of goodfellas and um medicine society yeah next thing one yeah you know the kind of talk about our story and whatever he was super open he was like yo chef we gotta do y 'all who do we need to talk to but at that time Riza 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 how many Pablo Escobar movies we looked at right right right you know you got these guys telling it you know for sure you can still be made for sure still be made 100 % just because there's a Hulu sir 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 a another taste of really how how we really see it you know I think it would be hugely successful I think for a music from from a movie rather perspective would you have to see it as a movie a movie a movie a movie 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 yeah that's how it has to be it has to be grimy it has to be it can't be in any way ABC after school specified you know saying like it can't be it can't be cleaned up through a filter well it has to be good too it has to be like good narrative it has to be set up the scenes have to be said because it's very hard to take an insane career of nine of the best MCs to get together under one mastermind but all these genius talents and they form this movement right you're going to condense that to two hours yeah yeah I was one of really good right there he was he was like yo I think 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 I thought NWA movie was dope you know in me straight out of Compton I thought they did a good job but that was drain cube and you know I'm sure I'm sure you always going to have somebody around that be like no that ain't it that ain't but it was so realistic that when I seen I was it was like all right I get it you know Rizzy even said to y 'all you know this is more for the younger generation to kind of gravitate too and 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 he can hear me out um opening of the movie rikers opening in the movie you guys show up at rikers to do the concert we're all deady bastards inside that's the opening of the movie that's the opening of the movie you want a real gritty you want to bring that just get everybody on the hook right away right away and then he'll 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 of you pick all the greatest moments yeah and then you start someone in the 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 year was that when did what year was the old dirty bastard from rikers concert yeah I'm about to say look up that and what year did you guys start what was the very first year we started we started at 90 the 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 just think about the incredible amount of talent not just not just rap bully jizz is like a a world champion caliber chess player 99 2000 or so 99 2000 yeah I got an RR interview Rizah talking about it and doesn't jizz have some degree in physics smart boy doesn't he have some crazy degree smart 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 just that people is looking for what's looking at yeah think of a movie 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 cool cool yeah we got you 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 isn't a bunch of dork sitting around a table coming up with some nonsense this is some shit that you lived through that would be an incredible opening and it's just 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 is going into you know 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 I mean taking shit from you you know jizzah you know being one of the MCs that could have been down with the juice crew you know I mean you know what the fuck the juice crew is he turned it down really it's like they was the hardest shit back then master ace bids came kooji rat all these all these dope MCs asked me oh we want you to come and get get down with us he's like now you know what now you know all these things I remember like yesterday like wow he turned down a juice crew he was like I love the juice crew but I just was in in this this chamber right here you know us dirty us with old dirty like yo you know old dirty always wanted to be like bismarky he had that personality that charisma that 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 whole new 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 um rissa you know rissa you know that was his his side of how he wanted to tell it you know um it's a great story it's great story it's fine it's fine the whole thing's fine but I think there's something missing and I think the something missing is a movie it's a it's gotta be a movie it's gotta be a big screen big thing and it could be done man first man you already first I have to argue with my brothers about I mean just imagine imagine when oh db does baby I got your money oh my god come on imagine that and that becomes this massive hit massive hit yeah you know yeah do you know you had the most hits on out of all of us right he was so fucking talented man and so real remember when he was on MTV and they started talking about like what are you gonna what are you gonna give where are you gonna give your money it's like I gave my money to nobody he's like he was like you know you gonna get back he was like go y 'all yeah I remember I said yeah yeah yeah and everybody was crying yeah everybody was so real cuz it was so real yeah it wasn't like well I think it's really important that we established some sort of a community fun shot the fuck up he was just having fun you know nothing 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 you know how many rap careers how many hip -hop careers were inspired by Wu Tang clan all the members countless countless yeah so many I say that we definitely out of a piece of watching the new generation grow and you know kind of you know build it build it off the way we built hours you know that's important you know to to reflect on that you know back then like you said nobody wasn't given more fuck is discount on money like we used the first group that ever had a million dollar video wow remember that day me and risen was coming up with the with the story button what video was that triumph wow he did the triumph shit just like we came up with all this shit he's like oh this shit is gonna cost a million dollars you're like what the fuck is this a million dollars like do it you know and at that time you know is this it oh yeah yeah yeah this is what my guy Brett Ratner by storms of killer bees they've been seen approaching from Brooklyn the Bronx Queens and Staten Island see the bees coming through is shit as we will be bringing you up to the minute information this just is police are reporting that there's a man on top of the skyscraper ready to jump I'm told that he is possibly old dirty remember of the Wu Tang clan the police suspect that there could be some connection between this old dirty man

1:44:31I'm on my time and clean soccer teams for us a piece and how far the seas can't the final I'll be dropping these mockery and we leave a bomb on robbery flee with the lottery pass it by me battle scarred show gun is both here when my minions tremendous hold your ball and shine blind for insects high and spec view through the future see millennium killer bees so fifty gold sixty platinum shackling the masses with drastic rap tactics graphic displays melt the steel like blacksmiths black Wu Tang is going to be a lot of fun but we'll put on and take it and it's about to score take flight inside the wall takes hit the floor die hard fans the man more behold the boat so just control the flow slowly proceed the flow swinging so it's like sylope so where's the fair for princess solid brown we've got a lot performing live on your high slide the world turns I spread like whoo the clan is it weird looking back now is 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 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 ain't even give our best it was almost like okay yeah we going to do it because we have to not do it because we're all in a happy five a happy moment a lot of times we made great things happen out of nothing you know in the pressure might have been turbulence in the room might have been arguing that happened that day but we still managed to come out with something great out of that whole time of of that moment you know but 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'm especially nine alphas nine killers it's hard man it's hard because you know everybody has an opinion and you want to respect everybody's opinion you know but it made me think about sports and it made me think about how coaches and people you know outside of the group are so important see how we were we were designed we 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 different from if we that has some some coaches some guidance some guidance the 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 yeah and how to manage it yeah you know it's like today you know you could you could you know a young artist could 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 we're back then like who knew who knew who time was going to work they would have told you that's not going to work there so you can't get nine dudes and that's crazy how are you doing that but it worked it didn't just work it like accelerated everybody like amplified all the voices that's what was so crazy about it because 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 a hundred percent nobody could have did 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 it 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 a oh they're just like who time 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 go but we talk about that you know sometimes when we all of the together we we laugh and we say damn you 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 I couldn't name one person names like go 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 you don't always branched out you know Scarface obviously went on to a massive career yeah did you see his little tiny desk performance oh yeah fucking incredible fucking incredible yeah incredible one of my greatest friends two man and so different than anything else like the way he did it like he adapted the lyrics to the environment yeah oh it's incredible incredible Scarface is a real guy two man a real one of the all -timers one of the all -time greats all -time great Adam come to you sure 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 like there's so many amazing talents that came out of that 90s hip -hop era that like for a young guy coming up someone who's like interested in a career in it now it's imperative that you go back go back you have to yeah you got to explore the classics you got to see what started this whole thing because and you got to pull yourself in this mindset like it's hard to imagine my experience of it because you you're not going to be able to have it it's always been around but for me it's like when it came around it was this totally new thing it'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 yeah this is so different than everything else you know and so for the people that are like making a career in it now like oh you know I know this like a tendency to think you're the fucking man and everything else sucks I'm telling you got to abandon that abandon that thinking yeah go back and educate yourself you know because it's free just get on go get on you to get on Spotify educate yourself there's so much classic shit from the 90s that you're missing and all we were doing really was just like you said just expression yeah being in the studio smoking a lot of weed you know and a lot of times when we was smoking and just vibing it's like we were mentioning things that you know like today like prime example you know I own I own a cannabis business I'm in Newark core hash story you know I mean see you representing us you know um we said in rhymes like can it be also simple y 'all I want to have me a fat y 'all and enough land to go and plant my own sats crops but for now it was 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 him and I'm ona of a cannabis business I'm like wow he was talking about things you know my first joint and it went gold I put it on my mother's you know my mother's living on wall you 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 and the next thing you know what happens you know um like how you said you know jizz are being so intelligent and talking about science and you know math you know talking about certain things and you know now today he's in the movie world and Rizz is a director and you know these are the things that were going through our minds as we were just smoking and listening to production and just saying yo what what the right next where 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 repetitions like let's make it bigger let's let's take it over here over here over here but it's just sometimes it's just sitting in one fucking box where it's like yo come on we gotta it's not just that it's about opening up opening up the doors for everybody to be able to see so many sides like now it just seems like like the hip -hop shit is just being controlled by one person that's saying yo we want you to stay right there we want you to talk ignorant we want you to not grow we want you to just whatever the thing is going to sell that's why is that the case the same reason why they were trying to take the Rizza 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 going to mold you and shape you and change you and this what we're going to do we're going to hire an image team we're going to 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 going to steer it in a way that's going to 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 iced tea started a fucking heavy metal band oh my god yeah iced tea who played a cop on TV for like 30 years he had a song called cop killer body count and everybody wanted him to be the rapper and iced he was like I'm going to do a hardcore album it's like what I'm on the top 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 going to do what I want to do this what I want to do now exactly and you have to give an artist that ability to do that they have to be able to change it up anytime they want whatever because whatever got them to the dance is going to keep them dancing and they might dance to the beat of a different song but it's going to be the same 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 like we all like different like you were saying you like Billy Joel we both like cool G rap you know it's very different you wouldn't want to see the two of met 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 inputs 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 you go hold on hold on do that again stop that 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 he's barefoot and shit and fucking do it yo goes one of the geniuses super weirdo a Scott's door type character yeah you those guys be great in a own way though you know their artists though it's like that's different but when you get these suits and the suits get involved and they know that oh we made you know Rick won sold a million and seven hundred thousand CDs doing it like this so 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 what what's this new thing you're doing what's this new thing we're talking about discipline no no no no no no no you know like 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 great like I said like yo the shit became knowledge to us man yes you know that's what I miss about hip -hop is the the knowledge fact that you know raising our kids to be smarter and you know not hiding anything from them like like you said once you put that one in stick on it 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 get you go this way you know what you get 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 it 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 you think the radio you'll 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 I get it out there someone like put it on Spotify put it on soundcloud put it on YouTube someone sees it someone hears it you send it to somebody they send it to 10 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 he got it yeah and you have your friends like you gotta listen listen listen listen first first lines first lines yeah listen that shit oh my 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 I feel about my album I'm about the job ha when it's gonna wait on well you know shit I just I just been working on this documentary right for the purple tape so let me just be honest with you take you back um I've been working on you know only built for Cuban links is my my what's going on album my thriller album that I made 30 years ago this year 2025 up to 30 years so what we done was we went back and decided to do a documentary about it a real life so it's called 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 us 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 god sat down my team sat down said yo you need to do a documentary about this album because you can make 50 albums people still going to talk about only built for Cuban links I said damn you know what you write 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 what helped 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 yeah who would ever thought that I'm calling my album only built for Cuban link niggas now everybody name mother is wearing Cuban link chains today 30 years later so you know that been something that I've been working on and believe it or not we've been working on it for 10 years wow 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 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 kicking 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 that album all the experiences all the things that we went through and eventually that that would wind up becoming a movie later on because the storyboard of how I talk about it is going to blow people minds because it's like I just want people to know that that album was made because I love hip -hop man and I you know we were in a position to make something golden that at that time I was already thinking cinematic I was already in my my Scorsese mindset because when I came in the clan I was like I don't do all the karate shit I don't know how to rhyme like that I only know about drugs and hustlers and trying to get from head to ear and and and turn my life around for the positive you know so we talk about this in a documentary and we go through some of the songs and like I said you know I got some of my guys that you know we had we had um you know we had um confliction with some artists out there like big bigy back then everybody thought we had a beef and you know just 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 that yo let me get this done the right way first and then I'm gonna you know drop some new music so I got I got a definitely new album getting ready come out the new album um I say probably like between second quarter right now yeah and I never even mentioned the name of the album but I mentioned it on your show the name of the album is going to be called the emperors new clothes um you ever heard that Dutch folk tell them yeah you're familiar with them where I know where's no clothes yeah yeah so yeah it's gonna be the name of it because I feel like the status quo today everybody follows bullshit nobody wants to be genuine normal nobody wants to call out shit that makes sense it's like oh if you believe it or I'm supposed to believe we're 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 yeah I have to do it from this way fuck that fuck fuck radio whatever is going to stop you from being you you know that 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 gonna let you tell me that this is not what people still love you know what I mean I don't care I'm just I know what I know from coming up as a kid who loved hip hop and would inspired me so I'm gonna have a bowl of shit man I got a lot of great things that I want to give the world but yeah that's going people still love it and I'm telling you these like young kids that I have at the comedy mothership when I play them 1990s hip hop they go oh yeah they just don't know yet yeah yeah they just don't know and we can't for them because they wasn't a lot probably at that time they got so much shit coming their way they're getting in the data by all these new artists it's so much shit going on it's so much shit going on it's so much going on but you know I always say that it's always a lane for people that love music you know 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 them to love what I what what what what 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 is more of a architect artist now I'm not I don't consider myself a gangster rapper funny rapper my architect rapper you know because I like to reflect on things about growth and development you know and when people hear this album they're gonna be like damn like oh he's still fucking got it I tell people all the time don't ever think we gonna lose that shit that's like sitting there saying Mike Tyson can't fight when you know at the end of the day he means 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 then like I said the name of the album is called the Empress New Close check for that I'm ready I'm ready listen brother thank you very much for being here it was a real honor real pleasure you my god thank you 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 and I hope somebody listens to this and makes that fucking movie make that movie do we go make it happy to do it the right we go figure it out I wish I made movies I wish I was a movie maker because that's what I would make it that way I'll open up with that fucking riker scene listen Joe it's never too late for us to do what the fuck we want never too late never too late never too late thank you so

From the publisher

Raekwon is a founding member of the Wu-Tang Clan, critically acclaimed solo artist, author, and entrepreneur. 

https://linktr.ee/RaekwonTheChef

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