The Joe Rogan Experience - #2250 - Raekwon

Episode Date: January 1, 2025

Raekwon is a founding member of the Wu-Tang Clan, critically acclaimed solo artist, author, and entrepreneur.  https://linktr.ee/RaekwonTheChef Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Joe Rogan Experience. Trained by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day. That's it, the chef is in the building, ladies and gentlemen. What's up, what's up? Pleasure to meet you, man. You are a part of the most iconic band in all of hip hop. There is no question. There's one Wu Tang. There's only one Wu Tang nothing else is even close

You guys 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 It's like 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 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, but there's only one Wu-Tang, there's only one group of nine assassins. I tell niggas that all the time like It's kind of crazy. You ain't gonna get another one of these. It's it's crazy that it worked Yeah, cuz it's so hard to keep all those alphas together

It's crazy that it worked. Yeah. Because it's so hard to keep all those alphas together. It really is crazy. To make it work, the most illest shit, some shit that I never would have thought would ever exist, it was able to exist because we tried it, but it wasn't normal. It wasn't normal. It wasn't normal. You tried it, but it almost seems like it was just instinct.

It's not like a business strategy that anybody would ever come up with. Nine dudes and nine of the realest dudes, the rawest realest dudes. And it worked? Yeah, and it worked. And it worked? I tell people all the time, it was like when RZA, he came with this whole philosophy of wanting to do it, it was like hitting a lotto for him. He didn't know what to expect.

It was more a reputation thing for us. It was like, yo, I want to do this. And you know, he came to the block and he talked to some real dudes that really had other shit planned in their life. But hip hop was always like that backpack that we wore every day. But everybody had different plans So he really literally came in and started to pick motherfuckers that he felt had potential. So it's like the mob It's like, you know

You know, lucky Luciano prime example, you know, he knew that motherfuckers had potential, right? He knew dudes had potential in any way. He's from a different part, he's from a different part, he's from a different part. But yo, what we could do right here is we could make money. So put your fucking feelings down or whatever the case may be and let's talk about some money. And that right there, kinda like, yo, you start shaking hands across the table. Yo, I know you didn't really fuck with me like that, yo. I never had anything against you like that, though. But it was just something that he felt like at the end of the day, let me try this shit.

Well, Riz is a genius. And it's amazing that he was able to coordinate that. Because that's often the case, right? With other killers, like when when the dudes a bad motherfucker They always assume that everybody else doesn't like them They always assume that everybody else is the enemy or competition Yeah, so to have nine of you guys together like that as one group You know we always I told you when I was when I sent you a message

I said that we play protect your neck. It's I know whenever we have a police escort. That's what's the most hilarious thing So we do arena shows we hire a police escort. So it's like fucking sirens and shit The whole it's like the perfect song to play when you when you're getting a police escort No, trust me these young kids that I have at the club like I was explaining Wu-Tang 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 You remember that? Yes!

How the fuck you remember that? I told everybody I was 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 He's in jail and then you guys go into the crowd God bless his soul first and foremost. Oh my god. Oh dirty bastard was a Yo, Joe is the funniest shit because when we came in and when we seen him, he was eating a cheeseburger laughing and shit.

He remind you, he never was dirty. I don't even think, I never seen him eat meat like that or whatever the case may be, but we came in and he was eating a cheeseburger and shit laughing. So we was dying laughing. And they kept, you know, the people up in there, they kept telling us like, yo, y'all can't go into the crowd with everybody. We not going to hold no responsibility if something happened. So you know, be like, all right, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, we ain't going in.

Once we got on that stage, it was like, fuck the stage. We out there touching everybody and it was love, man. It was a lot of love. What year was that? Man, it had to be what? I say what? 90... what? 90... 98 97? Wow! 98? No internet? Probably like yeah none of that shit. None of that. What? Is there even a recording of that anywhere? No. God. I don't think so. I don't think so. You know how wild that video would be? Yeah I never knew that people seen that. I don't know how. I don't think so. You know how wild that video would be?

Yeah, I never knew that people seen that. I don't know how the fuck you knew that shit like. Oh, I heard about it Yeah, I heard about it. I mean they lost us in the news back then that you guys performed in Rikers. Yeah. Yeah The 90s for hip-hop it was like people need you have to understand for young people You grew up with hip hop, you're only 20 years old, I get it. But you have to understand from my perspective, in 1980, there was no hip hop. In 1992, that was all anybody gave a fuck about. That is crazy for a new art form.

It will, I mean. To emerge, right? Right, I mean, there was like Sugarhill Gang, there was some hip-hop But it wasn't the thing until the 90s and 90s hip-hop got big it got big I remember I remember it's so crazy said that because I tell people all the time like Disco to me was hip-hop before hip-hop was you know, um 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 gonna say 80s, 85. It had to be 84, cause 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, motherfucker, this rhyming.

Wow, this shit sound cool, though. You know what I mean? It sound cool. But really, it was a way to bring people together that was going through different shit in their life. You know what I mean? Yeah, and you know what? It was earlier than that, because in 84 I was in high school,

so it had to be 80. 80, 82. 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 Plain, 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, yeah, 80? Yeah, I was 10 years old, so. Me, probably really, really gravitating to what I, I probably was like 12, like you said. 12, 82. What was the first hip hop that really grabbed you? Do you remember?

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Jre rocketmoney.com Jre today that's rocket money dot com slash JRE rocket money dot com slash JRE um the first shit that grabbed me was like how you said sugar hill gang you know um rap is the light yeah that was the shit oh now look I had everywhere I had cousins I 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 what I mean, doing whatever they was doing.

And they used to live two, they used to live two floors above me. And I used to sneak up there and shit and you know, just being in their business, being in their world and they would be playing music, they had the record player, you see Coke on the table and weed and everything and my cousins, they was cool. They was like, yo, come in, man, we don't give a fuck.

Just don't tell your mother that you was around and shit. You know what I mean? Nah, nah, I ain't gonna say nothing, I ain't gonna say nothing. And I would just be watching and I would see weed on the album covers and just motherfuckers running back and forth in the room. And you know they in the shit, but they always was playing music.

And a lot of the music was R&B, disco. And then next thing you know I heard this fucking record, Sugarhill Gang. And I'm like, the groove was dope. I'm like, holy shit. this is what I want to be You know what I mean? I'm looking at the whole vibe. I'm like, this is who I am right here, you know, but it's so crazy How it emerged I mean it emerged. Yeah, nobody expected that bro. Well, it was a totally new thing Yeah, and there was a lot of resistance I mean for people that don't know, those little warning labels on your,

when you used to have CDs, that all came from Al Gore's wife. Get the fuck out of here. Al Gore's wife, Tipper Gore, she was a Democrat. She wanted to censor rap music. Oh shit. Because this was the first time anybody heard like Ice-T,

you know, like six in the morning, everyone was like, what the fuck is this? Yeah, yeah, yeah. and that kind of explicit lyrics, they wanted to put a stop to it, and that's why they, and these dumbasses, they didn't even understand, it sold way more albums, because that's what kids are looking for, where's the fucking, they don't even swear, get this shit out of here.

Once the floodgates. Once they got the label on it, it's like I want it. Exactly, once the floodgates got open, and kids got turned on to like real hardcore hip hop, you couldn't sell the- The regular shit. The regular shit. Like get out of here with that. Yeah.

I mean there's a few guys who got through with regular shit, but it just didn't last. Nah, it definitely didn't last. But like you said though, everybody wanted the raw shit. 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, in our neighborhood, 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, all this makeup on. And you know, I remember one time going to the incinerator room, my moms made me go, she made me go to the um, to the um, take out the garbage and shit, I forgot to take it out and she came home later that day and I was laying down and she fucking smacked me in the head with a broom like, yo, didn't I tell you to take out the fucking garbage? So now I'm going out to the incinerator room, you know, walking, it's on the same floor and I remember when I cut the corner, I seen a motherfucker sticking his head out and he

had his hair all wild, his 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 I got the garbage pail with me and it's like, yo, once I seen him, I just dropped the shit and ran, ma, it's like yo once I seen him I just turned I just dropped the shit and ran. You know he back there you know you yell your mother name and shit you think that that was something cool back then you know she's your hero at that time. Came back the nigga was gone but I think if he would have caught me in that incinerator door when it was closed he was gonna probably try to run in there and probably try to fucking kill me or something.

And that shit was going on back then because the drugs the drugs was crazy back then right? That's the big shift is crack. Yeah, that's also in the yeah But see but see before crack you had that dope that dope that dope So more focus is mixing dope and coke together and getting high Yeah, everything. You know what I mean? It was a serious time back then, man. But, you know, that's how far to me music went back,

you know, listening to Ladies Night. You know what I mean? I had people on my store that had a candy store right on the same floor, but it wasn't a candy store. They had a bunch of penny candy just to make kids feel cool But really they were selling coke in the back. Coke and dope though. So, you know all this was going on in the community, man It was a serious time. Scary times back then But if it's not for those scary times

You don't get the kind of band that Wu Tang was 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. 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'd never actually experienced. Nobody wants to hear it, which is kind of crazy. That's true. I mean, back then, hip hop was really an expression for the ghetto, the way that, you know, being that we was living in fucked up situations and nobody had shit, nobody had no fucking jobs like that. It was like, yo, we needed something to keep us cool,

keep us in the vibe mode. You know, back then, gangs was still relevant. You know, we never looked at ourselves as a gang. We might have looked at ourselves as a tribe that, yo, when you from a neighborhood and you stick to your neighborhood, you know what I mean? And that's why even back then it was like a lot of times, you know, you would beef with people that wasn't from your neighborhood just because you wasn't from here. It's like, yo, what the fuck you doing over here? You don't live over here.

You know, then it creates this animosity thing. And I remember for us, you know, being in an area where it was like, you go up the block, up the block, stayed up the block, down the block, stayed down the block. So for me, I was in the middle. So, you know, I leaned more towards up the block, you know, but then we would go down the block just to start trouble. And, you know, then they 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 what I mean? So that was our way of getting to know each other is to test each other's heart and whatever may happen was happening back then though. But the music, believe it or not, the music was keeping a peace. Now just, you know, the music was keeping a peace 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 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 a motherfucker 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 um you know um but the music is still playing you know so um 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, yo. Well, it's fun because you survived. Yeah, yo, yeah, definitely.

Yeah. The survival, yeah, you know. But we were young, so we didn't care about, we didn't care about whether we live or die at that time. We didn't give a fuck. It was like, whatever's gonna happen is gonna happen. That's wild. But the music, the music is what kept things in order for us, you know, because we always

felt like that was a vessel to being calm. You know, when you come from somewhere that's fucked up, Joe, and there's nothing there, you can't get a job because of your community, your zip code don't allow you to be like yo, he's hired No, it's just too infested over there. So you kind of you kind of become relaxed with that mentality of saying well, fuck it I'm a live off the land I'm a sell weed. I'm Do whatever I think that is gonna make me Survive, you know, so everything was just survival.

You know, when music always kept us calm and you always want to listen to what's the next band playing. Like I grew up on R&B music, like disco and you know, all that fun shit, roller skating. You know, I knew motherfuckers in the neighborhood that was roller skating. You know, we would get off of Staten Island sometimes and go to these different parks and jams in the city. That was fun too though.

That was fun times for us. When, so was it RZA that tried, was it initially all nine guys? how did it get formed hmm? well number one on It was RZA His cousin Jizza and his other cousin old dirty bastard that they were super close Now old dirty bastard and Jizza they were from Brooklyn

RZA was from Staten Island. You know, we all Brooklyn babies too, majority of us in the clan. We all, you know, resided in Staten Island, but majority of us grew up in Brooklyn, but anyway, it was those three that were close as shit. So RZA, back then, RZA, he had Knowledge Yourself which was you know being involved with the Nation of Islam and also Jizza 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're talking about mathematics and all of this but it was Jizzen O'Dirty who instilled the hip hop into RZA. So RZA was a DJ back then, but he knew how to rhyme too. And he knew how to rhyme because of his cousins. So they kind of had this gang called, not a gang, but they had this thing called the All In Together Now crew, which was them three.

And they would run around and they would battle different guys from different cities and move around. So, you know, some of us kinda knew what they were about. You know, a lot of us found out later who they were, but when Jizza and Ol' Dirty came to Staten Island, they came in and hang out with their cousin. So, you know, we started to see them a little bit more

and know that, yo, heard about your rhymes and Dirty, he was just a crazy motherfucker back then. He was crazy, but yeah, they had their own little thing going on. And then next thing you know, Jizza caught a record deal. He caught a record deal, which was rare back then. If you fucking caught a record deal, that mean that you had to Like if you had to, if you fucking caught a record deal, that mean that you had to have relationships,

you had to know where to go, you had to have some type of connects. So that's what gravitated RZA 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 magnetized RZA to be like, yo, I gotta make a record now too.

You know, and the next thing you know, they had their movement going on. So us from the outside looking, it was like, oh shit, yo, we know them, we know they super passionate about, you know, being in the game and doing whatever they're gonna do, but we wasn't thinking that far. We just loved the music in general.

Wow, so RZA is essentially the mastermind to put all the pieces together and to bring all you killers into one, under one roof. Absolutely, absolutely. Amazing how he saw that. Because again, that's not something that existed. Yeah It's like Eric being rock him, you know, there was you know, there was a few PPMD. There's a few people You know your shit. Yeah, you know you should you gang star

There was a few people that were together, but it wasn't like you guys no no because it was kind of scary 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 some neighborhood shit, but yeah, like you said, that was so rare to see a group that come out like that. And it was really a mistake. It wasn't really designed to be that way,

but when RZA had a record situation and they tried to make him be something that he wasn't. And then you know- Always the case. You know what I mean? He was like, yo, fuck that. I don't even care about 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 put that number together. So believe it or not, I was one of the guys that he called first because we used to hang out. Like I tell people all the time, like, yo, I might've been RZA's first, you know, big fan. So I kind of seen something in him already. I seen something. I'm like, yo, this guy really, you know, him and his cousins and I'm like, yo, these motherfuckers

really got talent. You know, not only the ability to rhyme, but they was clever, like took them out clever rhymes. Right, right, right. You know, and they was mixing it with the knowledge and, you know, smart rhymes. 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, yo. I'm like, something about these motherfuckers that I love. You know, and next thing you know, when RZA, you know, RZA went out there and he came back to the community

and he was like, yo, I caught a record there. So you know, I was there. I'm like, let me see this shit. Looking at this shit. This shit with the fucking, oh yeah, I'm looking down here. Like you said, the, what's her name? The- Fine print.

Yeah, the fine print and shit. I'm like, yo, this motherfucker made a record. Holy shit. Yo. Bow, Staten Allen, that's what's up. We up. But his situation ain't work out the way he wanted it to. And that's when he came back and he started to be like,

yo, chef, this is what I'm trying to do. Well, the dangerous thing for young artists in every industry is when you have potential and you're young, you sign a fucking contract and you don't know what's going on. And then you get locked into these people. And then a lot of times you're 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 don't even know you're getting fucked. Oh, it's a mandatory.

It's a mandatory. Mandatory. You're getting fucked, which is how they make their money. They make money by fucking young artists who don't know any better and by the time someone gets to like a prince's level, he's like, oh, you owe me? I'm a fucking squiggly line, suck my dick. And he performs as a symbol. I mean, that's why he performed as a symbol, because they owned him.

It's crazy. You take the most talented people in the world and they get owned by people who provide no value, especially today. Today it's even crazier, right? Because there is no record sales anymore. It's all gone. It's over, baby.

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 I keep grinding. Don't sell it. Don't sign if you signed You're gonna be fighting that shit ten years from now. Yeah, you're gonna be in court ten years from now Yeah, you're right. It's somebody's been gonna be getting not just 50% You're gonna be in court ten years from now. Yeah, you're right. That somebody's gonna be getting not just 50%, but like some fucking insane,

like Bill Burr was explaining this about his first comedy CD, that he got a 60-40 deal. He's like, oh great, 60-40, but it's not really 60-40, because he has to pay for all the distribution, all the printing of the CDs, everything came out of his money. Let should question. Yeah, I should 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 y'all 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 the hood. What are you gonna do? You're gonna take the shot? I take the shot you gotta take the shot and I agree with everybody who takes that shot I'm just letting them know right? I just letting them know. You're getting fucked. You're getting fucked. But see, it's the sacrifice that I'm trying to explain to you that every

artist takes. They takes that sacrifice because at the end of the day, you have to start from somewhere. So even when labels are being them, in my mind I'm saying, yo, I get a chance to have a job, Joe. Niggas ain't never had no fucking job in their 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'll sign because what the fuck I gotta lose? I done been through everything. I done been over here. I done been kicked out of everywhere. Fuck it. I just wanna be heard. So a lot of time that be the protocol is just to be heard. Yeah. To be heard.

To be able to say, yo, something happened. I don't give a fuck. A lot of artists got robbed, a lot, a lot of artists, and especially our OGs that did it before us, like you know what I mean, Sugar Hill Gangs, all these different guys, they all have been manipulated to do what they had to do, but it almost gave them power too because they

became famous, they became big, they became legendary. There's an argument for that, but I think it should be more fair. Oh, listen, I'm with you. That's all it is. Oh, of course you are. I'm with you on that. Of course you are. But we just talking about the sacrifice.

What you gotta do. You have to do it. Sacrifice is everything. If you're a young kid and that's step one and now you're on the runway, okay, you gotta take it. You gotta take it. But it just should be more fair. Oh, I agree, I agree. It shouldn't lock people in for life.

And I'm sure later on things worked out and now that you proved yourself. Once they become undeniable. It's like I tell a motherfucker this, I'm like, yo, imagine you were a hustler, right? And you run into the Kinect and the Kinect say, yo, you talking like you know how to move shit I'm gonna give you 50 pounds of marijuana back then you know what I mean now

You may feel like at the end of the day you can handle it, but a motherfucker tell you Joe I'm giving you these fucking 50 pounds, but I need my money back today at this time You can either take the 50 because you so fucking confident or take one and say yeah I'd rather take my time you know what I mean I don't want to be in debt with you what are you gonna do you gotta take the 50 you go oh you oh yeah he's he wants to fucking get his head fucking chopped off you gotta take the 50 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 you got to bring everybody in and you got to share the money. You got to know people. You got to know people. Now if you ain't confident in knowing what the

fuck you need to know, I advise you don't take them. You shouldn't be having that conversation if you don't know anybody. But if you know some people and you're generous, that's the thing. You got to make it worth these people's while. You got to say, listen, we're all gonna get something out of this. And see, now look, that philosophy that you said is what we took on. We took that on. We said, you know what? At the end of the day, we'll take this little bit of money, but we're gonna go, we're gonna be willing to sell ourselves to get to this level because we know what we believe in. See, it all starts from what you believe. Yes. If you don't have the belief in yourself

to make it happen, you fucked. It's a rising tides lifts all boats thing too. Oh, absolutely. And with Wu-Tang Clan, that was for sure a big thing because anybody that was associated with Wu-Tang Clan was automatically respected. Automatically, people wanted to listen. Automatically. Yeah, yeah.

Automatically. So like that just lifts everybody. That lifts everybody. 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, 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 to bond together. That's when everybody, you have to find real people and stick together. You said the key words. You gotta sell that 50.

You gotta know your guy. We gotta sell that 50. Yeah. Talk to Carlos. Go down to the bodega. Let's make a deal, man. We gotta make some deals. We got 10 hours. I guess that's what Reza did is that he danced with the devil for the right reason and we took some scars. we got hit. It was a different world back then too

in terms of the industry because today, all you need is a social media account, Spotify, SoundCloud. You can blow up. You can blow up today. Back then, you needed the radio. You could sell mixed tapes, but it's hard. You had to be some undeniable talent. You know, like we always played the video of Biggie

when he was 17 on the street. Remember that video? Yeah, when he was in his neighborhood, yeah. That's undeniable talent. Like that's the kind of talent, like that dude's gonna, if he stays alive, you can't stop that train. That train's running everything over. You know what I mean?

It's like there was guys like that back then but man to get out there and get your name out there you had to dance. You had to dance with that devil. You had to work. 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 go through those growing pains. We had to get jerked to learn how to say, yo, that was a lesson. So everything is a lesson at the end of the day. It's like if you willing to sacrifice yourself

and your time to learn something, I would always say go for it. 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 sitting in the same situation and you're gonna realize at the end of the day, damn, I should've took

that opportunity. Some people are scared of opportunities when they come and it's like, if a person offer you an opportunity, nine times out of 10, it may not work for you the way you want it to work, but it may be an opportunity to help you. You know, it's all about you trying to help yourself and get out there.

It's like, what, watching Scarface? And the nigga told him, he said, yo, give you five grand. Better, and if you fuck this up, he said, yo, give you five grand. And if you fuck this up, Chico. Scarface looked at him and said, man, the fuck is you talking about? We built for this shit, man. You know when he lost his man in the mix,

but he was able to prove to himself that I could do it. That's how I look at rappers, like, yo, I don't give a fuck, yeah, we'll take this little bit of money, but we gonna prove to y'all later on that we know what the fuck we doing. And for young people listening to this, every chance you take where you fail, that's a lesson learned.

And you just keep taking chances. Keep going. Pick yourself back up, figure out where you fucked keep taking chances. That's right. Keep going. Pick yourself back up. Figure out where you fucked up. Where you going? And learn from that. Now you're better.

That's right. Now you have more experience coming into this next thing. Just keep going. Just keep going, man. 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 yeah, think about it think about all our favorite artists out there, you know Eminem, you know Eminem been trying to fucking get on you know, you know Rakim slick rig all these so many they went through they went through a lot to get on you know I mean biz Markie, you know, a lot to get on. You know what I mean? Biz Markie, you know? Nobody wanted to fuck with Biz at first, but he finally figured the code out and was like, yo, this is what I'm gonna do.

You know, he start rocking shows in different communities, and next thing you know, people start hearing about him, and you're like, oh shit, yo, this guy is dope. But it's that sacrifice, man. I tell people all the time, gotta sacrifice. It's time put in. Time put in, energy, effort, determination, and you gotta have some talent.

Yeah, you gotta have some talent. And some of that talent is just, God just gives you something or doesn't. Some people just got it. Some people, it's also like artistic families like Nas You know he grew up in this like intellectual artistic family, and that's why his rhymes are so good There's pops man his pops as a musician yeah Like rewind yeah, that's like one of the greatest songs of any genre anybody's ever written. It's a genius song so crazy

I was listening to that shit yesterday Gene goes back in the gun. Yeah The whole song backwards fuck what lyrics and it's amazing. Oh, I love Nas especially for lyrics His lyrics are incredible. They were so good. So we're so good and And unusual like that like sit deciding is be the first guy to make a rap backwards and make it work perfectly. You know, I mean it's just, hey did you ever listen to any of the shit where the brand new Hevys got together

with a bunch of rappers? The brand new Hevys, I know the name, but I'm trying to think of the music. The brand new Hevys are like a jazz band, they did a collaboration with Gang Starr, Cool G Rap, a bunch of guys. Brand-new heavies like a jazz band. They did a collaboration with gang star cool. Gee. Oh, yeah Some of my favorite shit of all time. Yeah, they was more musical though. Like yeah more musical Yeah, have you ever heard cool? Gee raps death threat? Oh

My god Jamie play that play that find that we're gonna put on the headphones for this. This is in my Along with a bunch of Wu-tang. This for this. This is in my along with a bunch of Wu-Tang This is right. Yeah, this is in my Spotify playlist This is cool G rap and like I want to say 92. Yeah, 92 listen this I One of my favorites right there. Turning into chicks with small dicks. Woo! Nice. So good.

Nice. So good. So this was on the Brand New Hebbies album. Yes. Never heard of it. The Brand New Hebbies did one with Gang Starr. They did a bunch of different artists. Nice. What year was this? 92

Yeah, phenomenal. It's the beginning. Yeah. Yeah, I was on a road trip I was doing a gig in Connecticut with a buddy of mine who's a comedian and He turned me on this like you got to listen to this shit I was like, oh my god, and then I had a CD and I lost it And I couldn't find it forever and then someone brought it up like a few years back, like six or seven years back. And I was like, you gotta 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 Dogg, you know, people forgot about Tim, like Fuck Compton, remember that? Yeah, yeah, he was a wild cat, but he was around. Wow, it was good though, he was good. Fuck Compton remember that yeah, yeah, he was a wild cat, but he was He is wildin back then yeah great shit Yeah, he was wildin back then but coogee rap 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 That was when cockblocking came out. Remember that? Remember that? Oh my God, that song is amazing. Yeah man, damn. So you really pay attention to this hip hop shit like that. Yeah, hip hop was a big part of my childhood or my young adulthood. When I was driving around a lot doing comedy gigs, like a lot of ghetto boys.

I was a huge ghetto boys fan. Yeah, me too. Ghetto boys. I was playing, the other day in the green room, I was playing Fuck a War for these young kids. I was like, listen, this is a song from the 1980s about the Iraq War. This is about George Bush in like the late 1980s. And it applies today. You remember Fuck a War?

Fuck a War. Nah, you fucking- Come on, headphones are coming back on. Let's go. You ain't 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 Bushwick bill that was my guy right there, man. This is Bushwick motherfucking Bill. Ninety one. Ninety one. Look at that big phone he's got. Yeah. Yeah, I had one of those before too. Yeah.

I don't give a fuck about you and all that bullshit you're stressing. Fuck a war. Fuck a war. To explain to me, can you tell me something like this? Motherfucker war, that's how I feel. Send them niggas together to get killed. Cause two suckas can't agree on something. Thousands of motherfuckers die for nothing.

You can't pay me to join in on your camp Or any other motherfucking military branch Or if you're on a goddamn state So that bitch America be a soldier on four They put the niggas on the front line But when it comes to getting ahead They put a foot behind I ain't getting my leg shot off

While I push your ass on TV playing golf When you look back at that trash shit I'm a shit-ass I a shit, I'm a shit, I'm a shit, I'm a shit, I'm a shit, I'm a shit, I'm a shit, I'm a shit, I'm a shit, I'm a shit, I'm a shit, I'm a shit, I'm a shit, I'm a shit, I'm a shit, I'm a shit, I'm a shit, I'm a shit, I'm a shit, I'm a shit, I'm a shit, I'm a shit, I'm a shit, I'm a shit, I'm a shit, I'm a shit, I'm a shit, I'm a shit, I'm a shit, I'm a shit, I'm a shit, I'm a shit, I'm a shit, I'm a shit, I'm a shit, I'm a shit, I'm a shit, I'm a shit, I'm a shit, I'm a shit, I'm a shit, I'm a shit, I'm a shit, I'm a shit, I'm a shit, I'm a shit, I'm a shit, I'm a shit, I'm a shit, I'm a shit, I'm a shit, I'm a shit, I'm a shit, I'm a shit, I'm a shit, I'm a shit, I'm a shit, I'm a shit, I'm a shit, I'm a shit, I'm a shit, I'm a shit, I'm a shit, I'm a shit, I'm a shit, I'm a shit, I'm a shit, I'm a shit, I'm a shit, I'm a shit, I'm a shit, I'm a shit, I'm a shit, I'm a shit, I'm a shit, I'm a shit, I'm a shit, I'm a shit, I'm a shit, I'm a shit, I'm a shit, I'm a shit, I'm a shit, I'm a shit, I'm a shit, I'm a shit, I'm a shit, yeah? Oh fuck. Yeah. He was in the NWA chamber. He was in the NWA chamber right there. That shit was good. And that applies today.

They was public-gaining me thinking. That applies today. We were all talking about what's going on right now with Gaza and Palestine. I know. Iran. I was like, listen to this. And see, this is why we love hip hop so much is because it was educational too. It was giving us jewels.

It was talking about things that were going on in the world and that became the television for us. The music, the music. It became the news too. All that. Like you need to know what was actually going on. Like, Fuck A War tells you what's really going on. What's really 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 anything and You know you hearing about all these riots and shit going on and things happening You know us living all the way on the other side of the world. It's like yo, we not yeah

What the fuck was that right, you know, but you heard it in a song and you knew it was real, right? You respected it. Yeah to me those perspectives and music were important for us because we were learning as we were Getting older about society Right, you know you don't think about society when you poor and and living in in fucked up positions You just think about survival. You see what I'm saying? Survival is the only thing on your mind. And you're dealing with things that's in front of you that at the end of the day you're like,

damn, the fuck was that that just happened? What was this shit? But then when you heard it in rap and motherfuckers like Deez was talking about it and all that, it's like now you was like, oh, okay, I see what the fuck is going on. It's not just here, it's all that. It's like now you was like, oh, okay, I see what the fuck is going on. It's not just here, it's all over. It's everywhere, every ghetto or whatever the case may be. That's what was happening. So I never heard that before though. You just put me on some

ill shit. And that's one of my favorite groups right there, Ghetto Boys. I love the Ghetto Boys. Ghetto Boys is real shit right there. The 1990s Ghetto Boy era. Crazy. Ghetto Boy is the real shit right there. The 1990s Ghetto Boy era, oof, oof. Crazy, crazy. And that, like, I remember the day I found out about NWA. I was teaching taekwondo in Revere, Massachusetts,

and I was at the gym riding on the stair climber. And I had just picked up this cassette, and I was like, 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 wild. You see what I'm saying? You see what I'm saying? Yeah. You're hearing people talk about the police like they're getting harassed by the police in a way you never heard before. I heard them say it yeah. Fuck the police coming straight from the underground. It was like I was like wow. It was a totally different kind of music. It was like I was like wow It was a totally different kind of music 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 give 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 100 miles and running the whole world was like whoa This is crazy. So look, you had them, you had Public Enemy. Oh yeah. All of them type of guys were giving us information that was relatable in our community that they became

the police. KRS-1. KRS-1, the teacher, you know. Whoop, whoop, that's the sound of the police. All that shit right there to me was knowledgeable, knowledgeable rap, hip hop. I ain't even gonna call it fucking rap, hip hop. Informational. Information. Right, especially KRS-One and Public Enemy.

They were saying something. It was like very, but it wasn't contrived. Right, right, exactly. They were saying something it was like very it but it wasn't contrived Exactly wasn't like, you know, you see people say shit today Like are you just doing that for claps like they were saying shit to let people know about some information That you're not aware of and this is why you're getting fucked. This is why we're all getting fucked. Absolutely Come on, even when fucking on Sp Spike Lee may do do the right. Yeah, one of my favorite Yeah, that's a classic right there classic classic shit Classic but 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 you know, the hood and just being like I know you you come from the hood You know was born in Newark. Yeah, he was born in Newark. Shout out to Newark. So you seen it firsthand. I wouldn't exactly say I come from the hood because I went to high school in the suburbs. Yeah, but you, yeah, that's true.

I lived in Newark, I was telling you. I lived in Newark when I was 23 for about six or seven months. And I told you my next door neighbor, he was selling dope and the police raided his house while I was there, they battering rammed his door and everything, he had a nice Audi. I looked at him like, how's this dude has a nice car?

Selling dope, he was selling dope and they got him. But he was around it though, so you see with a, you know. Well that was also the time I was the most into hip hop too. I mean that was 1991 I guess, 90, 91. That was a wild era, cause that's when hip hop was just exploding. Yeah, yeah. Exploding.

Yeah, I would say definitely 91. You had Naughty by Nature, you know me. They had Emerged on the Scene, like you said, Rakim and Big Daddy King. Oh yeah. Eazy E's and Ice Cubes. To this day, I go to work, cause it's one of my favorite workout songs. What, which one? Big Daddy Kane. Oh, yeah easy ease and ice cubes to this day. I go to work. It's one of my favorite workout songs What Big Daddy Kane? I go to work

Oh my god, I gotta work Oh, he was so smooth and so fast too. Yeah, you know Big Daddy Kane had like a very particular style so fast too. Big Daddy Kane had a very particular style. It was energetic. You heard his style, like, God, your blood started pumping. You started getting moving. And see, those are the type of guys that paved the way for us to be so outspoken on the mic. When I sit here, when I think about the Klan, you know, the Wu on how we, you know, formed, we formed Voltron, each one of us had a superpower that related back to those guys. You know, all these guys that we talking about today, they was the light bulb in the house. You screw that shit on. This is what I see right now.

I see Slick Rick, I see Rakim, I see Cube, I see fucking all these guys that paid the way for us. So the Klan at that time, we were so inclined on knowing about all these guys, knowing majority of them, we kept a piece of them in us that helped us become who we are. Like I tell motherfuckers all the time, I say, yo, let me tell you something.

When we came out, Naughty by Nature was the shit. They was fucking shit up on the East Coast side of things. And at that time, you had them, you had EPMD, you had Queen Latifah, Roxanne Shante, all of these artists back then were blowing up. LL, Camp Front on LL, LL was that guy. Oh yeah. LL was huge.

Kuji Rap, one of my favorites. I know that's one of your favorites. You know, the Fat Boys, all these guys were just- That's right, Fat Boys. You know the fat boys all these guys were 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 mm-hmm We wasn't built to be in a game at that time well there was so much high quality. Yeah Quality that's the word the level was very high those lyrics were so good. You would hear lyrics and just go, oh! Oh!

That was the thing. That was the thing about hip hop. You listen to the lyrics, I love that. Listen to that, I love lyrics. You a lyric guy. That's right. Lyrics is everything. That's right.

Lyrics is everything. That's what I wanted. That was the style back then. It was like the most clever guy, the most clever lyrics. 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 of what they were saying. And it was just a vibrant art form, man. Like how many people cheated on their significant other because of OPP right how many? License to fuck people were cheering I mean 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 ten years ago doesn't exist boom I mean even rock and roll

I mean rock and roll you had the 50s it starts to emerge and the 60s really takes off and you know It'd been around for a while like hip-hop just explode and make a lot of other things look lame Yeah, you know especially for young kids because when you hear guys like you and you know ghostface and you know method man And like you're dealing with real dudes who are talking about real shit and everybody else just looked kind of lame. You know? You know? It was like...

That was stupid, baby. You know? It was like they didn't even swear. You know? It was like you guys were wild. It was fun and it was clever. And I think RZA did a genius thing by naming it Wu Tang Clan because it connected it to like this Kung Fu mindset.

You know, it just sophisticated. I know you're big on Kung Fu shit because I'm coming through your shrine and shit. He got all kind of fucking Shogun warriors. Oh, real samurai outfit out there. Yeah. But nah, but you know what's so crazy? I tell people it's like, when they was on they Wu-Tang shit, we wasn't on that.

I grew up watching more Scarface and mafia movies, Once Upon a Time in America. Oh yeah. One of my favorite movies. Oh, it's a great one. People forget about Once Upon a Time in America. That's my fucking movie right there. That's my movie. So we were living around a lot of hustlers.

A lot of drugs was being sold in my community at that time, right? So when Rizad 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. We come over and school them shits, it's on, Channel 5, all of that shit. But if you notice and you look at those karate movies, it was about a place that 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 wildin', y'all. But these guys were very good, but they just couldn't sit in Shaolin because they had a different way of looking at shit

and doing shit. So when RZA came with the whole philosophy of it, it's this movie that's called Shaolin vs Wu-Tang, right? Check it out whenever you get a chance. So whatever was going on in that movie, he made a reality of it, because really at the end of the day, that's how we were living back in Staten Island.

So we wound up changing the name and calling it Shilin because we were the forgotten barrow. You know when you think about Brooklyn, Bronx, Queens, Manhattan, why you don't really talk too much about fucking Staten Island? That bothered us. So we didn't, we felt rebellious like yo you come out here you ain't from here, you better know somebody. You're not fucking coming in the projects, 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 remember we used to see UFOs come through, we called them UFOs, unidentified flying objects. What the fuck he doing here? Yo, follow him. Yo, yo, yo, who you came to see? You know what I mean? Because we had so much to prove, but it was the same thing that was going on in the karate flicks.

Like, yo, you go to a new name, who is this guy? Either he's coming to play you, he's coming to play you, or you going to play him. This is all the shit that's going on in the karate movies. You know, the brotherhood, yo, oh shit, my brother got hurt. What happened? Oh, hold up, let's go. We got to go get back to that. We got to go figure that out.

All this shit that RZA was thinking about at that time was a reality check for us and Staten Island. So even when he came with the name, it was almost like, yo, wow, that shit is interesting. You know, Wu-Tang Clan, yo. And back then, he was hanging in Ghost's community, which was Stapleton. So Stapleton was a place that was maybe like 10, 15 miles away from Park Hill, where I'm

from. I'm from the Hill. I'm from... Up there they were selling drugs and getting crazy with it, and Jamaicans, and Westernians, and Guyanese. It was a melting pot. It was a melting pot of different nationalities of motherfuckers. You had the Spanish motherfuckers over here selling dope. You know what it was a melting pot. You know, it was a melting pot of different nationalities of motherfuckers. You had the Spanish motherfuckers over here selling dope. You know what I mean?

You had the white boys over here fucking doing what they doing. You know, all these things was going on, but in Stapleton, it was nothing but criminals and motherfuckers that wanna fight and rob and steal. You know, and RZA was hanging out there a lot. You know so they came up with this whole you know Wu-Tang mentality thing

that they brought up the block to us. So when RZA came with it was like, oh shit we like that, that's kinda dope. You know we see the vision of that you know. But it was never for us to look at it at any given time, like, yo, you trying to portray us as some fucking ninjas or some shit. You know, a lot of times people thought,

yo, your niggas know karate and all this shit? I don't know fucking karate, motherfucker. We don't do that. But we grew up, our older brothers and sisters, they grew up on it. That was some early 70s shit right there. So you know, back then you might have had a cousin that was a martial art.

He knew the arts and shit. You know, you looked up to him like, yo, this motherfucker's ill right here. He know the arts and shit. He know how to fight. You know, your motherfucker with being back in the building with two doberman pinches and shit. You know what I mean?

Beating them with fucking laundry mat hoses and shit and grabbing them and hanging them on shit. And back then that was dope to see your cousins and all of them do it. But RZA when he came with this philosophy, it kinda like fucked us all up in it. But we agreed with it right away. Cause Wu-Tang was to them was always something like

an expression. So if you drinking, this is Wu-Tang to them was always something like an expression. So if you're drinking, this is Wu-Tang. I'm drinking. You over here, this is some Wu-Tang shit or whatever because he was trying to say that we were just like them in the flicks. It's crazy. When I hear something crazy, whenever I kill an elk, I go bow hunting every year. Oh shit. Whenever I kill an 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 some of the pictures of that. Yeah. I know, but I want to show you that that's true. I'm not making this up. Holy shit. It goes back years.

It goes back years. This is like our tradition. Whenever I kill an elk, well, I'm going to find this. I'm going to find it. The last time I said 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 it's gonna take a while because I do scroll but this is important to show you this is real come on motherfucker

go back and search Wu Tang and it'll show you. Oh, we'll show you. Yeah. Oh, okay Oh, look at Jamie under cam Hanes or just we time. We then when you find cam Hanes, it'll show you Oh look at Jamie. Tell me how to do it Here we go See all here it is Right there Wu Tang Wow Holy shit. Holy shit. And then the elk is down. Wow. That was from October. I go back like five years of doing that.

Like every time I shoot an elk, I text Wu Tang. Wow. Crazy. When you started hunting, since you came out here? No, I started hunting in 2012. I shot that deer, that deer, that head that's right there. That was the first animal I hunted. And then I was like, okay, that's what I'm doing.

Wow, crazy. It was either for me, it was that, or become a vegetarian. I watched too many of those PETA films. Those animal factory farming films and torture films. I was like, fuck this, either I'm gonna be a vegan or I'm gonna learn how to hunt. And my friend Steve Rinella took me hunting. I shot that deer, I'm like, all right, that's what I do now. Oh, shit. And I'm gonna learn how to hunt. And my friend Steve Ranella took me hunting. I shot that deer.

I'm like, all right, that's what I do now. And I've been doing it ever since. So I've been hunting for 12 years. 12 years? Yeah. So you consider yourself a marksman then? Well, it's like, I'm not really good. Like compared to real marksmen, you know,

that's like saying you're a black belt when you're not really a black belt. You know, like- Now I go through the courses. Yeah, like how good are you? a black belt when you're not really a black belt, you know, like like go through the courses Yeah, like how good are you? I mean I'm good for regular people Yeah, you think I'm really good. Yeah, but like for people that are really good. No, I'm not Nearly at their level got 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.. I got a couple of homeboys who can shoot like that though. It's a lot of discipline. Yeah. A lot of discipline. Yeah but they come from, they live on this side of town too though.

Yeah well there's a lot of bow hunting in Texas. Yeah that's what I'm saying. A lot of bow hunting in Texas yeah. It's fun. Yeah. I like it. I gotta get out there one day man. I told you like we were talking before the show like you want to learn I could put you on some people little 100% teach how to do it and cuz 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, you set a target up in the backyard and just shoot the target It just clears your mind cuz you have to really concentrate on it For a guy like you busy so much shit going on like it's good to have a thing like that to just it's like a sport

To me, yeah Learning 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 for focus We got to push it all out right and just think oh and that kind of stuff like cleans your mind It's like it flushes your mind out. That's what it all that's what it's all about at the end of the day man Just kind of like get a piece of mind 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 get too close to something and lose sight of the big picture if you're all wrapped up in it. Because you're so stuck into one. Sometimes you need something else that you also enjoy outside of it. And then you can look at what you do. Oh, OK, 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. That's important, man. Yeah. You know 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 were still touring, you know, they were 58 years old back then, like this is crazy, the Rolling Stones are back on the road. But that was like a new thing. It was like old rock and roll guys out touring was a new thing. But with hip hop artists, if you weren't in now, if you weren't new now, people weren't in to go and see you. Right, yeah.

Well, when I see guys like LL and Kane and them perform and Slick Rick and Ice Cube, it gives me more leverage and more strength to wanna 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 them still performing, it's like, why not?

Why not? Why not? Why do I give up on it? But with hip hop, it wasn't really a thing for a long time. Like, older hip hop. You didn't think that it would last. Right. You know what I mean?

So you felt like you would get a five year run. They say any artist that was coming out back in the 90s, they was already putting a cap on how long or how far they felt she was going to go. So even for us, we was like, yo, hey, we do this shit for like three or four years. We good. Yo, we'll be cool with that. So they always put us in a, what's the word I wanna say?

What's that? A box? Put us in a box. Yeah. To make us feel like at the end of the day, yo, this shit is gonna 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 Joel. I'm a Billy Joel fan Fucking guy right there. That's Larry People I know people would be like get the fuck out. That's hilarious. I love his old shit until he

Had that supermodel wife. Oh, then everything got real soft He got supermodel pussy and it's like uptown girl She's been living in her uptown world for that. You go back to his other shit, you know, oh and 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 Joel but when he got older it just became you know he's changing as a human in New York it too right yeah I'll get to the heart right there I mean that guy sold out Mass Square Garden like 300 times crazy still see what I'm saying?

Kind of crazy. Still going. Yeah, still going. So those are our heroes. Those are guys that we look up to that, you know, they still doing anything man. Yeah, it's just beautiful that hip hop is like that now. Yeah. Because I feel like in the 2000s only, it was more overseas was showing you guys love. 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 come check out. Yeah, they was like. Come check out hip hop.

Yeah. And I tell people all the time, like being from the States, being where we from, I think they appreciate it more because they never really got a chance to grasp it as much as we did. So they appreciate it more because they never really got a chance to Grasp it as much as we did right so they come out more right now today more enthusiastic They more they love it more. You know so they can't even there. 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 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, yo, you look in the crowd, you're like, fuck, how old is that fucking kid?

We just put him on stage and he knew the fucking words. Like, yo, he might have been like 17, 16 years old. Like, yo, he wasn't even fucking born. Well, there's classic hip hop now. You know what I'm saying? When I was a kid, there was classic rock. You listen to Led Zeppelin, it was classic rock. Now there's classic hip hop, which is amazing.

Yeah, you're right, you're right. Well, it just shows that the culture has completely accepted it as an art form. And so now young kids that get into hip hop, maybe one of their friends will be like, hey, you ever heard of this? And then they turn them on to new stuff. Exactly.

And they're like, wow, yeah, yeah, this is 1992. 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? Like how you just said, like, yo, you know, listening to Sugarhill Gang, you know, I actually had them in one of my videos before. Really? Well, you know how that, and I brought them to my hood too. So you know how that felt for me? Oh, wow. To have fucking Sugarhill Gang come onto my community. That's amazing. That was dope. Really? Well, you know how that, and I brought them to my hood too, so you know how that felt for me? Oh wow. To have fucking Sugar Hill Gang come out to my community?

That's amazing. That was dope though right there, man. But yeah, man, 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. they gave you something to dream about. To be able to instill in yourself. Like, if you don't have that, then you're not moving the way you're supposed to be moving.

You know, I remember old man would tell us, if you don't know where you came from, you'll never know where you're going. So having that history, that history is, is an experience that sticks with you forever. You have to have that. Don't try to front on that. You know, and I think a lot of times people,

you know, they look at hip hop and they think certain things is hip hop. It's like history of hip hop is something that you gotta know, man. You gotta know it, you gotta know it, you gotta know it. You should know it like the history of the United States It's it's it's something if you're an artist like that what that's what lit the fire somebody had like the fire Mm-hmm, and if these young guys don't know like hey this shit didn't even exist in 1979. Yeah 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 light that fire you wouldn't You wouldn't have it exactly you wouldn't have the that fire you wouldn't you wouldn't have it exactly you Would have the embers you wouldn't you wouldn't have this desire to try this thing exactly and now look what he's 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 Yeah, honey talking negative. Yeah, they talking this they talking that It's like My thing to that is always like yo at it like you know y'all ain't talking negative, y'all ain't talking this, they 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. This motherfucker's killing motherfuckers in the woods. Or Heat. I hate it, Kim.

You know what I mean? Based on that, Heat is one of my favorite movies. Great fucking movie. I love Heat. You know De Niro and that. But why is it okay to do that in a movie but it's not okay to do that in a song, right? I don't understand it. I don't you know, it's a critical You know, it's hypocritical you said 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 need 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 will get them excited about violence if they're not Disenfranchised and they have hope they're not inclined towards violence It's a societal problem has nothing to do with the art itself The art itself is representative of real experiences So if you're telling people that they can't express themselves about real experiences. You're just going like this That's how you feel it at this is these people's lived expression

Yeah, 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, it was like from you to the world. And if someone doesn't like that, you don't have to listen. You don't have to listen. But if you slap a warning sticker on it, you're just going to sell more albums.

You're going to listen to it anyway. You're going to get caught up in it anyway. Yeah, it's like, look, prime example, when we made the record Cream, right? Cream was a record that didn't have nothing to do with anything but the realness of what we were looking at. It wasn't really a song to rap to or have fun Where's the reality is a picture? We was trying to paint cash rules everything around me cash rules like around me

Not me should never fucking rule you but around me, you know in a friend from the neighborhood He actually came up with that acronym But I tell people all the time, my cousin, I had a cousin from Brooklyn that, he used to come to Staten Island and he used to sell drugs for us and he came up with that word, cream, cause he was like, yo,

yo, as long as I can make my cream, I'm good. I'm making, what the fuck is cream? Like, you know what I mean? He's like, yo, cream, yo, you ever see Tom and Jerry the movie and you know, he make those big fucking sandwiches and all of that and he splash all that cream on it and I'm like, oh, the Tom and Jerry, the sandwiches, right? Yeah, when he made the big sandwiches, stuff them in your mouth and all.

Nah, real shit, real shit. So the cream that was splashing all over the place, he was looking at that as that's his money like, I just want my cream, I just want my cream. You know what I mean? So we so we like yeah you want to get your cream you you sit up in the fucking spot all day you want to make it green you want to get it and all so who came up with the acronym um a good friend of ours and a neighbor his name is raid right and him and method man is like they was like real close like brothers so when we was in the studio, writing to it, he was there and he just sat back and he just

came up with cash rules, everything around me and him and Meth, they put it together and next thing you know that 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 Crane. I didn't write... My rhyme never started off as I grew up on the crime side. I was writing about drug dealers in the neighborhood. Like, I know this kid by the name of Giganti.

Giganti a Teflon Don with a Diamante. The Diamantes back in the days was like the five Siri Benz's for us back then. And a good friend of mine was like, that rhyme is cool. I think it's high up. Why you don't like the rhyme? Everybody else like it. He was like, it's cool. I like it.

So he made me go back and change it. And when I changed it, I started to think before I wrote it, I'm like, damn, he said, yo, we need to rhyme about shit that's something that we could relate to that we're dealing with around what the fuck we wake up to every day. And that's when I came with, I grew up on the crime side, you know, the New York Times side.

So he just told you harder. Yeah, he just told me to think harder. Harder. He said, yo, Chef, you could be a little bit more creative. Well, Cream is crazy because it became viral. Saying dollar dollar bills, y'all, became viral. But you know where that come from, the dollar dollar bill, y'all. Dollar bill, y'all. Dollar dollar dollar teal or rock that's oh wow you remember that record yeah money it takes money yeah oh we were saying back then I haven't heard that for it yeah that's an old-school record right fly shit but um yeah Mephine them you know Meph 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 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, wound up blowing up so big.

It wound up being 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 we need to start listening. Like how you just played the Ghetto's boys shit. You know what I mean? We 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 like an emotional rollercoaster group. We can give you the, Wu-Tang Clan ain't nothing to fuck with. And then we can give you the tears, where it's like, oh shit. Yeah.

The fuck, he's right. You know what I mean? Yo, we gotta be careful. We gotta look at things for real. So all I had a lot to do with being around smart guys. You know what I mean? The smartness allowed us to write the way we wanted to write. Right.

It's contagious. It was contagious back then. Yeah. It was being spoken for knowledge. But that's what I'm saying about really good lyrics and high quality rap. It's contagious. Yeah, yeah. Because then everybody else's shit has to be tight too.

Yeah. And you know when you're coming with a group of guys that, yo, he kill it, you better come in. Right. You have to come in and say some shit that makes sense. I give a lot of credit to our first record, Protect Your Neck, and I know that's one of your favorite shits. When Inspector Deck said, I smoke on a mic like Smoke and Joe Frazier, the Hellraiser, raising hell with the flavor.

Yeah. That right there opened up something with all of us. Yeah. You know, and I always tell Dick, I'm like, yo, Dick, you are like a Scottie Pippen. You always going to hit if you get the ball in your hand. You know, and he did that. He created that first verse that, you notice me,

I jumped right in behind him. Yeah. I'm drunk and it built like Schwarzenegger. Yeah. Then Mev came and you know what I mean, everybody kinda 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. But we wanted to show the world that each one of us had a style that was un-reckoned. 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 look for the bigger look later. And that was one of the situations where we had to dance a certain way to be like, okay, yeah,

we'll take the little bit of money, but we know we're gonna be able to sell, like you said. Yeah, give us those 50. We'll sell them. Now, you telling me you ain't got the money, but you got the relationships. Okay, cool. As long as you got the relationship,

as long as you got the money. Yeah, we gonna go out there and we gonna work to make it happen. But this is what's gotta happen. And you know, I give all the credit to Steve Rifkin. You know, Steve was the guy that owned Loud Records back then. He was a part of RCA back then. And he believed in us.

He was like, yo I'll give you all that deal. I'll give you all that deal. And next thing you know when everybody started taking off, now you got Method Man over here, you got Jizz over here, you got O.J. Bastard over here. You got Jizz over here. You got Oli Bastard over here. So we did something that was so new to the world that it's like, oh shit. From the outside, it felt different because it felt like a movement. It's like Wu Tang was like a movement. It was different. It was like it had more gravity. Everybody tried the boxes as a group. So even though we knew we were a group, in our minds,

we looked at it, like you said, as a movement. So even though we knew we were a group, in our minds we looked at it, like you said, as a movement being created that would eventually spread out and hit all corners of everything. And that was the plan all the time. That was a premeditated plan because they wanted us to still be a group. It was like, nah, we look, we sacrifice and this 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 kind of, you know, followed his 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. We didn't want to be just, like you said, yo, just coming in and you sell your soul and you just stay there. Nah, we can't just stay there. Is one of the hardest parts getting the right beat?

Oh, the beat is everything, bro. Because it seems like all you guys are very prolific. Everybody can write. But if you don't have a great beat, and how many great beats can you make right if you got an album then another albums coming Out next year like whoa, you gotta have 16 20 great beats Yeah, and then you got to pick from those beats what you know what goes what song and try different ways out And you gotta make sure everybody shows up at the studio How was that?

I mean I tell people all the time, like, number one for us, like, you know, being around so many different lyricists, lyricist guys, beats are important. You know, I remember one time a fan asked me, he said, yo, what's the most important thing to you, the rhyme or the beat? He fucked me up the whole day with that. I was fucked up.

And I answered him, I gave him an answer 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 wanna say and what you wanna get across.

Anybody could make rhymes. I can have you sit with me for fucking a month and you could be an ill fucking rapper. You, I can take you there. But to be able to have that combination factor of making a body of work or that sound that you want, you need to have the right production. So a lot of times Wu-Tang wrote to whatever they felt.

It's like how you can listen and protect your neck and you get that energy from us. You get a certain energy because of that production. Then you get this energy when you get a cream, you get that. So for me, I always tell people that beat is everything. And us just sitting down and waiting for RZA to come up with something. One thing about RZA, he was so clever. He had a team of guys that was around him that was assisting him to helping him come with different sounds and he played with different things.

And of course, just having his ear for music and listening to other people's 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 a, he was like the Steelers back in the fucking 80s, you know what I mean? When they won four Super Bowls in a row.

He was like that when Terry Bradshaw was playing, Lynn Swann. He was in his own. He was really in his own way. Especially because it became successful. Yeah. And then there was a lot of motivation behind it, a lot of energy behind it. Yeah. I hear what you're saying, but without the lyrics, the beat is not the same.

I see from your perspective as a lyricist and as an MC that you would think that the beat is more important because it's important to you to get started to get started but damn for as a fan you have those lyrics just the beats by themselves that's not enough look no no no no no how many times me and Rizzy would argue about that? And I would tell him like, yo, listen, bro, it took all of us. It took, yeah, you had that. You had this, we had that.

That's what, you know. It's a 50-50 proposition. It's always like that. I think it's more 60-40. I think it's more 60 lyrics, because the thing is the lyrics are the thing that make you go, oh! Holy shit.

Right, right. A 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 don't have nothing to give me that energy to write, then. Right, right, right, right.

How can I give it to you if I don't have nothing to do? It's a collaboration for sure. That's a collaboration. It's a collaboration for sure. 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 You need both You have to have both but that's the where the collaboration comes in you had Scott Storch in here the other day Oh, yeah, I love that dude. He's so fucking talented. So out there, you know, his glasses on just fucking

Yeah, it's like a rare savant there's dudes like that that are like beat machines You know like he feels it it comes into his head and he feels it and just coming out of his fingers You know, yeah, he's a super talent. 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 like, yeah, that's that's special And that's why like I said, you know what I mean? You can't never Front on the maestro, You know what I mean?

You gotta remember that DJing started it all. Let's be honest. You know what I mean? The DJ game that was so important, scratching, they created a synergy to the artist to be like, yo, let me try this. Even if you go back to, like I said, look at Quincy Jones, man. Look what the fuck he did, man. Look at Frank Sinatra.

Who the fuck was handling his fucking music, man? He was so clever. He needed a vibe, though. He needed something to... Who was that guy? You ever hear of Frank Sinatra when he was young? Oh, he was fucking... Before he was smoking all those cigarettes? It was a super high-pitched voice. It's crazy. It's crazy It's a crazy you listen to the difference like wow, it had so much range the production though

I don't know. I don't know Well, I think the whole thing back then was Elvis or whoever it was, you know Whoever was the person that was in front everybody behind the scenes didn't really get that much respect Who was that crazy dude that wore the wigs that shot that lady in LA he produced all the Beatles shit He had that why he got tried for murder and every day on in the courtroom. He'd wear a different wild wig He created the wall of sound fuck. What's his name? He was really insane Phil Spector those spec Phil Spector back in the day. He was known for pulling guns on people You pull guns on people stick them in their mouths and shit. He was a complete psychopath like yeah, yeah, and he

Jewish guy I think and he shot this lady in the mouth. Oh, was he Jewish I Don't want any Jewish people mad at me. Jewish people get bad when you say someone's not Jewish and they did something terrible. Hey, look, guys, we not here to fuck with nobody. I'm just saying a little lot of talented, successful Jewish people in the entertainment business. But that dude, he was responsible for the wall of sound, the Beatles. That was a big thing with him. He was known for being a guy sound, the Beatles. That was a big thing with him. He was known for being a guy that would change people's music.

Russian Jewish, boom, nailed it. What's up? And he was from the Bronx, right? From the Bronx, yeah. Holy shit. Wild, wild boy. Wow. And shot some lady, picked up some lady at a bar, took her back to this place and shot

her in the mouth. Holy shit Yeah It would put guns in 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 What's that? He pulled a gun on Cher he pulled the gun out of shit Cher recalls stopping Phil Spector in his tracks when he pulled the gun on her he couldn't pull that shit with me right right? We had this really strange relationship. You don't say you don't say Spectre in his tracks when he pulled the gun on her, he could pull that shit with me. Right. Right, right, right.

We had this really strange relationship. You don't say. You don't say. Well, it's like the music business at one point in time was run entirely by gangsters. Of course. That's the story about Hendrix. 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 Yeah And that they knew that they had all these recordings of him and they could kill him and so that's what his girlfriend jumped on the building Because he was gonna leave his management his Bodyguard wrote a book about it years later And it just came out like I want to say like

Ten years ago one that long ago where as the bodyguard said yeah the manager killed him killed Hendrix and The girlfriend off a roof 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 real Wu Tang movie. I know Hulu had a series, but they need a real like Quentin Tarantino needs to do a Wu Tang. That's me, man. I know Quentin Tarantino. That's what I think. I think we talk Quentin Tarantino, because he wants to do one more movie. How about he does a fucking Wu Tang movie? The real Wu

Tang movie. Tell Quentin all that. It's like Hulu is great, but it has to be on Hulu. You can only get that wild, so wild on Hulu. You know, like for it to be real real, 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 inside my book I talked about how Q-Tip,

a good friend of mine, Q-Tip, he had me and Leonardo sit down. Leonardo DiCaprio? Leonardo DiCaprio? Leonardo DiCaprio, right? And I remember Q-Tip was like, yo, set up a meeting for you and Leonardo to meet in Brooklyn at this small pizza shop,

one of Leonardo's favorite spots. And he wanna talk to you. Said, yeah, that's what's up. So me and Leonardo, we started talking, and he was like, yo, Q-Tip was telling me that 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 RZA

Myself Leonardo's peoples in LA And I told RZA I said listen before we do this Hulu thing which at the end of the day it was a RZA's production thing or whatever he was doing I said I think we need to make a realistic real-life movie of us said it shouldn't be nothing that we should play with because people need to know our real story. So RZA entertained the conversation, but I don't know, for some reason,

I guess he felt like he was committed to doing whatever he wanted to do with Hulu. He might already had a deal. Yeah, yeah. And you know, like I said, at the end of the day, the Klan, you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. But Jamie fast with him, and 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 cuz the way I had him looking at it it was almost like I told him I said this would be like a smack like a slash of of goodfellas and Menace's Society, next in one. To kinda talk about our story and whatever. He was super open, he was like, yo, Chef, what we gotta do, yo? Who do we need to talk to? But at that time, RZA was already in pocket

on what he wanted to do. So I said, you know what, one day, maybe I might get a chance to show my version of it. Because come on, how many Pablo Escobar movies we looked at? Right, right, right, right. You know what I mean? You got these guys telling it, you got the people from the community.

Oh, for sure. It can still be made, for sure. So it can still be made. 100%. Just because there's a Hulu suit, that doesn't mean shit. Right. But I think that at the end of the day, you know, God willing, we will really give you guys another taste of really how we really see it.

You know? Well, I think it would be hugely successful. I think for a music, from a movie rather perspective. Would you rather 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 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 as you want it, right? It can't be in any way ABC after-school specialized You know saying like it can't be it can't be cleaned up through a filter Like it can't be cleaned up through a filter. It has to be good too. It has to be like a good narrative.

It has to be set up, the scenes have to be set up. Cause it's very hard to take an insane career of nine of the best MCs to get together under one mastermind with all these genius talents and they form this movement. And you're gonna condense that to two hours Yeah, you know, there's one of really good right there. He was he was like, yo radio I think that's what I said. I said yo, look, come on now. I said people do it all the time

I said yo look at the prime example look at NWA. I thought NWA movie was dope You know what I mean? Straight out of Compton. I thought they did a good job, but that was Dre and Cube and, you know, I'm sure, I'm sure, you always gonna have somebody around that be like, yo, now that ain't it, that ain't, but it was so realistic that when I seen ours,

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 to and once everybody loved it they loved it so it was like okay y'all love it we love y'all for loving it. It's great it's great but hear me out mmm opening of the movie Rikers opening in the movie you guys show up at Rikers to do the concert where old daddy bastards inside that's the 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. You want all that?

That's the opening of the movie real gritty you want that just get everybody on the hook right away Right then you bring them back to the beginning Right after that you you know you put the year when that's how you make movies you pick all the greatest moments yeah and then you start someone else right in right yes 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 is that when did what year was the old dirty bastard and Rikers concert we're about to say look up that and what year did you guys start? What was the very first year? We started we started in 90 90 late 92 so you start you start the movie With Rikers, and then you bring it back to 92 back to 92. That's what it is. That's what it is

I mean just think about the incredible That's what it is. I mean just think about the incredible Amount of talent not just not just rap Billy jizz is like a world champion caliber chess player 99 2000 Interview is it talking about it. It doesn't jizz. I have some degree in physics Smart motherfucker doesn't Jizza have some degree in physics? Smart motherfucker, man. Doesn't he have some crazy degree? Smart. He's like a... Look that up, please.

So you just, that alone in the movies, like, come on, this is real? Yeah, this is the stuff that people was looking forward to 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 all your belongings in the basket the whole shit getting frisked Checking everybody down the guy reading you the rules the warden telling you do not go into the crowd do not do that

Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay cool. Yeah, we got you. Yeah. Yeah Think about it. 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 dorks sitting around a table coming up with some nonsense. This is some shit that you lived through. That would be an incredible opening for a movie. So many. And it's just so incredible 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 making money. Ghost Neighborhood was about taking money, taking shit from you. Jizzah being one of the MCs that could have been down with the Juice Crew. You know who the fuck the Juice Crew is? He turned it down. It's like they was the hottest shit back then. Master Ace, Biz, Kane, Kooji, Rack these dope MCs they asked me, yo we want you to come and get down with us. He's like nah, you know what, nah. All these things I remember like yesterday like, you know you turned down the Juice Crew. He was like, I love the Juice Crew but I just was in this chamber right here. You know, us with Old Dirty, like yo,

you know, Old Dirty always wanted to be like Biz, Biz Marky. He had that personality, that charisma, that energy. So like you said, these are the things that I wanted to see, each individual, like, you know. And like I said, shout out Hulu, man, for doing a great job, but I do agree like you, we need another movie where it really defines who we are.

That was his side of how he wanted to tell it. It's a great story. It's fine. It's fine. The Hulu thing's fine, But I think there's something missing. And I think that something missing is a movie. It's gotta be a movie. It's gotta be a big screen, big thing.

And it could be done, man. I heard it first, man. Yeah, I heard it first. I ain't have to argue with my brothers about it. I mean, just imagine. Imagine when ODB does Baby I Got Your Money. Oh my God. Come on, imagine that.

And that becomes this massive hit. Come on. Massive hit. You know he had the most hits out of all of us, right? He was so fucking talented, man. And so real. You remember when he was on MTV and they started talking about like,

what are you gonna give, who are you gonna give your money? He's like, I give my money to nobody. He was like, yo, you gonna give where you gonna give your money I gave my money nobody like it was like yo you gonna give back he was like yo yo yeah yeah yeah yeah and everybody was crying yeah everybody loved him real cuz it was so real it wasn't like well I think it's really important that we established some sort of a community fun shut the fuck up he was just having fun nothing you know what I mean? But you know, we always gave back in our own ways though.

Of course. Well by existing you give back. By existing you inspire others. By existing, how many rap careers, how many hip hop careers were inspired by Wu-Tang Clan and all the members? Countless, countless. So many.

I say that we definitely had a piece of watching the new generation grow and kind of build their arc the way we built ours. That's important to reflect on that. Back then, like you said, nobody wasn't giving motherfuckers this kind of money. We was the first group that ever had a million dollar video. Wow. You know, I remember that day, me and RZA was coming up

with the storyboard. What video was that? It was like, yo, this shit's gonna come on. Triumph. Wow. We did the Triumph shit. It was like, we came up with all this shit, and it was like, yo, this shit's gonna cost a million dollars it was like, yo, this shit is going to cost a million dollars.

We're like, what the fuck is, what's a million dollars? Like, do it. You know, and at that time, you know- Is this it? Oh, I want to hear this. Yeah, yeah. This is with my guy Brett Ratner. By swarms of killer bees.

The first jumps. They have been seen approaching from Brooklyn, the Bronx, Queens, and Staten Island Island See the bees coming through a shit as we will be bringing you up to the minute information This just in police are reporting that there's a man Possibly old dirty Wutang clan the police suspect that there could be some connection between this old dirty man philosophies and hypotheses can't define how I be dropping these mockery Lyrically perform armed robbery, flee with the lottery Possibly they spotted me, battle scard show gun Exposing when my friend hits, tremendous Ode to violence shine blind forensics

High in spec view through the future see millennium Killer B's soul 50 gold 60 platinum Shackling the masses with drastic rap tactics Graphic displays melt the steel like blacksmiths Black Roochak and Queen B's east-dunceton The masses with drastic rap tactics graphic displays melt the steel like blacksmiths black Wu-chan is queen easy I'm a man for Prince of Solid Rock. Who got a lot performing live on your hottest fly? As the world turns, I spread like germ. Ooh. The hard-headed never learned.

It's my testament to those burned. Play my position in the game of life standing strong. Woo. Takes me back to the good old days of the Klan. Is it weird looking back now? Does it feel almost surreal that you guys did it? A little bit to me, yeah. It has to.

Yeah, to me for sure. I mean, 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 stick together so long. 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're gonna do it because we have to not do it because we're all in a happy vibe a happy moment A lot of times we make great things happen out of nothing not do it because we're all in a happy vibe, a happy moment. A lot of times we make great things happen out of nothing. You know, and the pressure might've been turbulence in the room, might've been argument that happened that day, but we still managed to come out with something great out of that whole time of that moment, you know, but. 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 from if we would have had some coaches.

Some guidance. Some guidance. The problem was back then no one knew what was going on. Nobody knew. Because it was so fresh. It was so new. The whole genre had only existed for six or seven years So it was it was it was emerging and it was chaotic and was so exciting But there wasn't a lot of experts and how to manage it

Yeah, you know it's like today You know you could you could you know a young artist who come to a guy like you and say hey? What should I do? Help me out. Like, what's the path that you think that I should take? And you could give them real advice where back then, like, who knew? Who knew Wu-Tang was gonna work?

They would've told you, that's not gonna work. They would say, you can't get nine dudes in an ad. That's crazy. How you doing that? But it worked. It didn't just work, it likeelerated everybody like amplified all the voices. That's what was so crazy about it Is it just it didn't just work it worked better than being by yourself? Yeah. Yeah, I tell people all the time I don't the clan. I think we all got better based on us as a collective a hundred percent

No, nobody nobody couldn't it by themselves and be great. Iron sharpens iron. That's right. And that's what it is. Steel sharpens steel. 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.

That's why it's never been done before, which is amazing. If you think about the history of hip hophop How many artists have come up and not one? Group has come together and made like oh, they're just like Wu Tang not one Yeah, not one yeah, even when it comes to you know sales And you know each one of us was blessed to be able to go platinum and go, but we talk about that You know sometimes when we all are together, 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 couldn't name one person. They was like, yo, name one person, name one group that did what we did at that level back then. I couldn't name it. You know what I mean? Because everybody- did what we did at that level back then I couldn't name it you know what I mean because well you know branched out you know Scarface obviously went on yeah massive career yeah did you see his little tiny desk performance oh yeah fucking incredible fucking incredible yeah incredible that's one of my greatest

friends too 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 to man One of the all-timers one of the all-time greats. Yeah, all time greats. I'm coming to your show. Yeah 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 for a young guy coming up,

someone who's interested in a career in it now, it's imperative that you go back. Go back, you have to. You gotta explore the classics. You gotta see what started this whole thing. Because, and you gotta pull yourself in this mindset like It's hard to imagine my experience of it because you're not gonna be able to have it It's always been around but for me it was like when it came around it was this totally new thing

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 it's like a tendency to think you're the fucking man and everything else sucks. I'm telling you got a band Abandon that thinking yeah, go I'm telling you, you gotta abandon that. Abandon that thinking. Go back and educate yourself, you know, cause it's free.

Just get on YouTube, 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, you know? Being in the studio, smoking a lot of weed, you know being in the studio smoking a lot of weed you know and a lot of times when we were smoking and just vibing it's like we were mentioning things that you know like today like prime example you

know I own I own a cannabis business in Newark called Hash Floria you know see you representing us you know we said in rhymes like can it be also simple? Yo, I want to have me a fat y'all and enough land to go and plant my own cess crops But for now is just a big dream, you know so we kind of like spoke things into existence that at the end of the day like You know now as I sit here and I'm an owner of a cannabis business, I'm like, wow, he was talking about things. Yo, my first joint in it went gold.

I put it on my mother's, you know, my mother's liver moon wall. You know, we did that. So we were kinda like saying things that meant so much to us back then, but still dreaming of it being a reality. The next thing you know, it happens. Like how you said, Jizzah being so intelligent and talking about science and meth, talking

about certain things. And now today he's in the movie world and Riz is a director. These were 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 is like Yo, it's just sounding too fucking repetitious like let's make it bigger. Let's Let's take it over here over here over here

But it just sometimes it 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 the hip hop shit is just being controlled by one person that's saying, yo, we want y'all to stay right there. We want you to talk ignorant. We want you to not grow.

We want you to just- Whatever they think is gonna sell. That's what it is. Why is that the case? I don't get it. Because the same reason why they were trying to take the RZA and change him and turn him into something he's not. People always do that.

They do that in comedy. They do that in podcasting. They do that in music. There's always some executive that thinks they know better and they're gonna mold you and shape you and change you and this is what we're gonna do we're gonna hire an image team we're gonna do it's all just bullshit it's not artists interfering with art that's what it is it's when you have middlemen you know you have these people that profit off of your talent and they think they're gonna steer it

in a way that's gonna be the most profitable they don't give a fuck if you're like earnestly and honestly expressing yourself. That doesn't mean anything to them. They just want you to stay in that box because that's the box they're selling and once it sells once they don't want you to change it up. Remember when Ice-T started a fucking heavy metal band? Oh my god, yeah. Ice-T who played a cop on TV for like fucking 30 years. He had a song called Cop Killer. who played a cop on TV for like fucking 30 years. He had a song called Cop Killer, Body Count. And everybody wanted him to be the rapper. And Ice D was like, I'm gonna do a hardcore album.

It was like, what? I'm a motherfucking cop killer. It's like, what is this? What is this? This is crazy. But it's like, he just didn't listen. He's like, I don't give a fuck what you say. I'm gonna do what I wanna do.

This is what I wanna do now. And you have to give an gonna do what I wanna do. This is what I wanna 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, cause whatever got them to the dance is gonna keep them dancing. And they might dance to the beat of a different song, but it's gonna be the same person,

that same creative force that created whatever you liked in the beginning. Well, you probably like this new direction they're going to go into because it's going to be just as good. It's like we all like different, like you were saying you like Billy Joel, we both like Cool G Rap, it's very different, you wouldn't want to see the two of them at a concert together, 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 and go hold on hold on do that again stop that stop stop stop Do it again. Do it again. Do it that way. Okay, can you make it echo? Do it give me an 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 sees something. Right, right, right. He's barefoot and shit and fucking doing yogos. One of the geniuses. Super weirdo. A Scott Storch type character. Yeah, you, those guys. These guys be great in their own way though, you know.

They're artists though. That'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 Rayquan 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's this new thing? You're doing what's this new thing? We talk about discipline

You like that again. Like, what's this new thing you're doing? What's this new thing? We're talking about discipline. Uh-uh, uh-uh, uh-uh. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, like I said, like yo, this shit became knowledge to us, man. That's what I miss about hip hop is the knowledge factor, raising our kids to be smarter and not hiding anything from them. Like you said, once you put that warning stick on there, don't look at it. They're going to look at it anyway, so why not let them see

for what it is and then say, yo, look, you can make these choices, but you go that way, you know what you're getting. You go this way, you know what you're getting. I think all it takes is someone today to do what you guys were doing and blow up. And then everybody would wanna do it that way. If someone today became like this genius lyricist

It was like pointing out things in society and became a huge artist But you think that music is still you think do you think the radio? 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 Sound, 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 and you go, oh! Be confident, yeah. And you have your friends like, you gotta listen to this, listen to this, listen to this. Listen to the first lines, first lines.

Yeah. Yeah, listen to that shit. Oh my god. That's how we always sold it anyway. Oh my God, yeah, come out of the gate with a fucking haymaker. Boom! This is what we do though, you know? Yeah.

See, damn, you talking like, ah, I feel about my album I'm about to drop. Ha, when is it coming out? I feel that way. Well, you know shit, I just been working on this documentary right for the Purple Team. Let me just be honest with you, take you back. I've been working on this documentary right for the purple team. Let me just be honest. Would 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 thrill album that I made 30 years ago this year 20 25 would be 30 years So what we done was we went back and decided to do a documentary about it, a real life film. So it's 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 this album The Purple Tape. So now, you know, we came back and we decided to do, you know, me and my team from my camp, you know, not this is, you know

The clan of course the clan, but this is something that was my intellectual property that I said yo You know what me and my guys 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. So I said damn you know what you're right. So what I did was I said you know what let me invest in it and kind of tell the story of what helped us inspire that album, 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 He's still wearing Cuban link chains. Yeah, you know what I mean? Yeah, who would ever thought that I'm calling my album only built for Cuba link niggas

Everybody's 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 actually go out there and start pitching it yet.

We're finally getting ready to do it right now, as we speak. As we speak, once the new year kick in and all that, we will be ready to go out there and position ourselves to go do a deal with a network with this project. It's going to be ill. It's a great idea. You know what I mean? So my thing is to talk about it in a way to where the way we made the album, all the experiences, all the experiences, all the things that we went through, and eventually that would wind up becoming a movie later on because the storyboard of how I talk about it is going to blow people's minds because

it's like damn, this is what you was going through, this is how your mindset was because I just want people to know that That album was made because I love hip-hop man, and 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 Mark Scorsese mindset because when I came in a 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 here to there 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 on

You know, we had conflictions with some artists out there, like Biggie back then, everybody thought we had a beef. It becomes interesting, but the bottom line is that's what I've been working on alongside with working on some other music. So I just said that, yo, let me get this done the right way first. And then I'm gonna drop some new music. So I got a definitely new album getting ready to come out. Where's that gonna come out, you think?

The new album, I say probably like between second quarter right now. Yeah, and I never even mentioned the name of the album, but I'll mention it on your show. The name of the album is gonna be called The Emperor's New Clothes. You ever heard that Dutch folk tale? Yeah. You familiar with it? The Emperor Wears No Clothes. Yeah. So that's gonna be the name of it because I feel like the status quo today everybody follows bullshit nobody wants to be genuine no one nobody wants to call out shit that

makes sense it's like oh if you believe it or I'm supposed to believe I was 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 saying about you have to do it From this way fuck that fuck fuck radio. Whatever is gonna stop you from being you You know what I mean? So this is the same mindset that I'm thinking with my hip hop. My new album that's coming. Like yo, I'm not going to let you tell me that this is not what people still love. You know what I mean? I don't care. I know what I know from coming up as a kid who loved hip hop and what inspired me. So I'm going to have a ball this year, man. I got a lot of great things that I wanna give the world,

but yeah, that's gonna be the name of my new album. People still love it, and I'm telling you, these young kids that I have at the Comedy Mothership, when I play them 1990s hip hop, they go, oh! They just don't know yet. Yeah, yeah. They just don't know. And we can't fault them because they wasn't alive,

probably, at that time. Also, they got so much shit coming their way. Exactly. They're getting inundated by all these new artists, all these new TikToks. There's so much shit going on. There's so much shit going on. There's so much going on, but I always say that it's always a lane for people that love music. I don't care.

It's like you could be 50. Today I'm sitting here as a 55 year old man that still have that kid in him to love what helped me be who I am today. So I'm still at my best when it comes to making music, you know. Like today the Chef is more of an architect artist now. I don't consider myself a gangster rapper, or a funny rapper, or I'm an architect rapper. You know, because I like to reflect on things

about growth and development. You know, when people hear this album, they're gonna be like, damn, like yo, he still fucking got it. I tell people all the time, don't ever think we gonna lose that shit. That's like sitting here saying Mike Tyson can't fight. When you know at the end of the day, he ain't lose a fucking bit

when it comes to how he feels that passion for boxing or whatever. I feel the same way with my music, so get ready. But then like I said, the name of the album is called The Emperor's New Clothes. Check for that shit. I'm ready, I'm ready. Listen brother, thank you very much for being here. It was a real honor, a real pleasure. You my god, man.

And thank you for everything you guys have done over the years. I've been endlessly entertained by Wu-Tang Clan for a long fucking time. And I hope somebody listens to this and makes that fucking movie. Make that movie. Do it the right way.

Well we gonna make it happen. Do it the right way. We gonna figure it out. I wish I made movies. I wish I was a movie maker. Cause that's what I would make it that way. I would open up with that fucking Riker scene. Listen Joe, it's never too late for us to do

what the fuck we wanna do. Never too late. Never too late. Never too late. Thank you sir. Love you. Love you too. Thank you very much.

Appreciate it. Bye. Bye. Lovely. Thank you very much. Appreciate it.