5x5: Wu-Tang Clan Interview

As part of last year’s Red Bull Music Academy World Tour, five hip hop legends – each representing one of the five boroughs of New York, the birthplace of hip hop – took the couch over five days, and each lecture was followed by a show in their own neighbourhood. Coinciding with this week’s Brooklyn Hip-Hop Festival, we present the highlights of each lecture for every day this week. First up, Wu-Tang Clan. Interview by the author of The Wu-Tang Clan And RZA, Alvin Blanco.

Today we’re going to be discussing, focusing on Only Built 4 Cuban Linx, but before we even get to that we gotta talk about Enter The Wu-Tang (36 Chambers). But before we get to that, I always wanted to ask y’all, I remember when RZA was reminiscing on the intro to “Can It Be All So Simple”, he was talking about 1987. What were each of y’all doing in 1987?

RAEKWON

What we was doing in ’87, running around, selling drugs, getting fresh, travelling. You know what I mean, doing a lot of travelling to different boroughs, going to parties all over there, you know what I mean, like anything that was hot, we wanted to be near it. Around that time, definitely, you had what, you know, Union Square, Latin Quarters, all of that. Rooftop. Brooklyn was the place to be for us back then, because we liked to do a lot of shopping. So, we would go downtown Fulton and all of that. So, we was basically urban kids, floating around. Like, we never liked to stay in one spot, though. But back then, you know, crack hit, you know what I mean. It was a phase that everybody was running around high, dusted, smoking cracks and weed, and just, polo down.

No doubt. What was the vibe like, describe for people what was it like on Staten Island here in ’87.

CAPPADONNA

It was in freefall. You see crack, it was about getting paper, looking fly, looking sharp, throwing darts, you know, going to school the same way. We took school like that, too, was like, school was part of rap for us, you know what I mean, so that’s what we did. Just got paper, you know, got zooted, got educated, got studied, threw raps and just hung out.

GHOSTFACE KILLAH

It felt like you was free, like it wasn’t really no problems. You know what I mean, even if the cops was out there, just seemed like, you were just, whether you got high, you were still fly. And you just felt free, like you couldn’t wait to come outside, you know what I mean, to see your boys, get back in the same activity that you did last night. Break of day on the bench, you know what I mean, break of dawn, you know what I mean, I mean, yeah, 40 ounces, just getting into stuff, though, but it was like, the good old days for us. You know, then you had the best music out there. At the same time, you had Kane and Rakim and, I mean, it was just all the greats, they was all balled up into one. So that’s for me, ’87, really a glorious, and ’88, glorious days.

CAPPADONNA

It started from ’86, though. That’s when it really got popular. That’s when it first came, when we started thinking about long, fat chains, and long, fat ropes, and Rakim and Eric B and Slick Rick and everybody. So, it was a big influence on our time, and at the time, soul music was still in, so we them soul babies in that era. We was the last era. Them ‘80s babies, yeah.

Did it really get real when “Protect Ya Neck”, when y’all put in the money to press up that single, were you about to go full blast, or was it half-in, half-out?

GHOSTFACE KILLAH

That was official, that was a stamp. That was the beginning of a whole new era, when we did that, you know what I mean. And it was over after that. And we knew it was going to be over.

What was the recording session like for that?

GHOSTFACE KILLAH

Everybody had to put $50 up, you know what I mean. Get your money up, yo, boom, boom, boom and do what you had to do. And brothers came up, it was all in the studio. Had to lay our verses down, you know, and it was history.

Alright, so you get this deal with Loud Records for the single. Album now, it’s like eight of y’all, split the pie eight ways. That’s not big money. So, how long was it half in the streets, half in this music game? Cuz once you were signed to Loud, did y’all leave the streets completely, or were you still…?

RAEKWON

Street was over back then anyway.

GHOSTFACE KILLAH

Yeah, it was on its way out, but we was still in them. I mean, I at least still did what I had to do, though. But uh, it was serious before we even got with Loud. RZA had shopped that tape “Protect Ya Neck” shit everywhere. And he went to Russell and all these guys was like, “Nah, it’s not gonna work. There’s too many a y’all,” this and that. He went to Warner, everywhere, but Steve was the only one that said, “You know what, hey listen, I’ll give you…,” because we wanted control over our shit. And he gave us the right deal. He was like, “And, you know, I’ll let you go solo, get y’all shit together, go solo, do what you gotta do,” and shit like that. And he had no money. He said up top, you know what I mean, he ain’t had no money, but we went because he gave us what we wanted. I mean, the money came after that shit, so all everybody had shitted on us at one time, because they said there was too many motherfuckers, it wasn’t going to work. And I respect RZA for that, because he made the right decision, and we history now.

Trying to think back to that time, it was definitely the Death Row era with these big club sounds, Bad Boy era if you want to call it that. But y’all came sorta as the antithesis to that, sorta the stripped-down beats, hardcore rhymes. Was that something that was purposefully down, or was that just something that y’all do?

RAEKWON

Natural. All that was natural. I mean, one thing about Staten Island niggas is like, we’re a combination of all boroughs, all in one, and I think at that time when we was rhyming, Staten Island had their own flow, their own everything, you know what I mean. And was like all we did was be a part of our environment to the fullest. Like Cap was telling you, it was like, yo, we was still kids, we was still going to school. I remember going to school and saying, alright, I missed one day. Then I missed three days, it’s like, “Three days ain’t bad.” Two weeks. Next thing you know, two months. I’m like, “How am I going to tell my moms this shit.” You know what I mean. But we was still growing up as kids, and like he said, finagling. There was a lot of things going on in our neighborhood, so Staten Island had their own way of delivering their rhymes. And our rhymes is fresh from the neighbourhood, from cats that just was freestyling, and you know what I mean, they was party doctors. Brothers that, you know, this is what they do. We was young students, just watching them, coming inside the rec room and watching how they put they flow together, and they wordplay and all that. And we used to sing them songs in the neighborhood, and then it just hereditary passed down to us. So, Staten Island and had they own delivery.

Did you think that Staten Island sound would get as big as it was?

GHOSTFACE KILLAH

Yep. We came in to crush niggas. We came in looking for Def Squad and them niggas. Because we knew they had “Headbanger”.

RAEKWON

They had a crew.

GHOSTFACE KILLAH

But we knew we had “Protect Ya Neck”. They had a crew, and that’s what it was, so we came in after those dudes, you know what I mean, but when we came in, they fell out, you know what I mean.

No disrespect to Def Squad.

GHOSTFACE KILLAH

Oh no, no, that isn’t, come on, I loved them, but that’s what it was. It was competition to us. Like, yo, cuz we was dark masters, early, you know what I mean. So, when we looking at, you got Erick Sermon, you got Redman, they just murdering every track they got on. They was like the streets to us. So we knew when we came in, it was going to be some shit. You know what I mean. And when we got on, it just so happened that, you know what I mean, things fell apart with them, and we was still here, and that’s, not saying that was our focus. That was our competition. Out of everybody.

RAEKWON

Only because at that time, you know, when you think of so many guys in the group, you think of them, you know what I mean. And we always used to say, alright, you see Redman? We got Method Man. You see EPMD? You got Rae and Ghost. You see this one, you got, you know, so we was always trying to match their group integrity, because we felt like they was the shit, and they was the shit back then.

GHOSTFACE KILLAH

They was the shit, hell yeah.

RAEKWON

You know what I mean, it wasn’t personal, like ‘Yo, we come in a beef with them’, but they was hot, so at the time, we just was worried about making where we from hot. You know, they was from Jersey, and they gettin it in. Long Island, and all of that. So, you know, Staten Island was still a mystery to everybody. So, we was already planning our targets and our attacks on the game, you know. That’s what it was at that time.

CAPPADONNA

What made our shit so ill, though, is we had that combination of all the brothers, and we had all that witty, unpredictable talent. Natural game. It wasn’t all about hardcore rap at that time, or softcore. It was just about, you know, who could say the slickest and the illest shit, you know what I’m saying, at the same time drop a jewel, some education up in there, you know what I’m saying. We was the first nine born, we was the ones, you know, besides Rakim that brought knowledge to the game, and gave the younger brothers and sisters on the block some identity, you know what I’m saying, how to look into theyself and study theyself to find the best quality within theyself. And then, also we had a combination of styles, cuz we had Staten Island, and then a lot of us from Brooklyn, like Masta Killa, and in Queens. So, you know, some of the best rappers, Biggie Smalls, you know, Run-DMC and all of them, you know, that’s Queens and Brooklyn right there. So, when you combine all of that right there, it’s like, come on, man. It go beyond style after that. Now you dealing with chambers, you know what I’m saying? And that’s how you get them 36 chambers right there, man. Them flavours just keep coming at you. That’s why they can’t mess with us cuz it’s like, each one of us got a chamber individually, you know what I’m saying, and then all together it’s like we the 36 chambers, too! You feel me?

So, let’s take it forward a little bit, to Only Built 4 Cuban Linx. Rae, were you always slotted as like that third soloist, after Method Man and the late Ol’ Dirty Bastard, rest in peace?

RAEKWON

I was afraid at that time to do it solo. I always came into this whole Wu-Tang compound as a family, as a team player. So, I wasn’t even thinking that far, but I knew I had my own chamber, because everybody around me was like, “Yo, you rhyme this way, you got your own flavour.” That’s how I even got the name The Chef. But make a long story short, I didn’t feel like that was something that I felt excited to do, because I was always for the family, and Wu-Tang, we was raining back then and we knew that at the end of the day that this guy was going to come first, this was going to come next, and you know, when it was just my time I was like, I wanted to do it, but it wasn’t what I wanted to do, really, you know what I mean. But being that we was, you know, I guess, people was loving what I was doing, it was a request. So now, you know what I mean, it was something that I had to do. And I already was saying to myself, ok, well this is my style right here. I’mma bring in you know that mafioso rap, slash like you said, that 80s baby flow, you know.

Now what made y’all have a narrative. Cuz the albums before that, it was just joints, joints, joints. This definitely had a story. What inspired y’all to present a story for the first time?

RAEKWON

It was just, like I said, that was going on around our lives at the time. We looked at it like we done did everything, we done tried everything, we done, in the streets, doing this, and just doing everything to win, you know, anything we felt like was gonna really help us, that’s what it was about. But this particular project right here was the gusto. We already knew that this shit had to be a classic. It wasn’t hoping to be a classic, it wasn’t hoping to be dope, you know, it was supposed to be. And when Ghost was saying everything, you know, all that wasn’t premeditated, that’s once he get up in the studio. That’s how he is, you know what I mean. He get up in there, he get to talking, you know what I mean, that’s what he talking at that time. It was just all about our livelihood at that time, yo, this is the last time, man. I keep doing other things, and I ain’t getting to that level, of winning, you know what I mean. But this shit right here better work and it gotta work. And you know I was saying is like, the same thing, like, we gonna make something happen with it. We ain’t gonna just, you know what I mean, get some wind, just fall back down again. Because that’s how we were, we you know, a couple of times you may throw a lick in the street and then you up. And the next thing you know, couple of months you down. So when you been on both sides, where you had it and you lost it, it’s like it really doesn’t mean nothing to you no more. But to try to get it and keep it now. So it was all about, holding on to something that’s gonna be strong, and [in] my eyes was always about being legit. I wanted to be legit, and get out the street. Type of kid never had a job, my last job might have been a summer youth job. You know what I’m saying, so anything that could just tell the cops, ‘Listen, I can stand in front of my building, like I got a job’, you know what I mean. Like that was the main thing for me though too, but at the same time we was in that life. We was around it and we wanted to escape it in a great way and do something positive.

Alright, so what goes through your mind when RZA throws on [an] instrumental?

GHOSTFACE KILLAH

You have to take that shit. We took that, go to Barbados with that, you know what I mean. We picked out a lot of beats before we left, you know what I mean. And that, when shit came on, was like, alright, that’s in the bag. You take that one, because it’s just, that’s how it is. You know what I mean, that sound is just what we looking for, and it was just one of those shits. That’s real shit, that’s real hip hop.

MASTA KILLA

Anything at that time, anything that RZA put his finger on is just crazy, you know what I mean.

RAEKWON

He was on fire.

GHOSTFACE KILLAH

Shits was jewels. Know what I mean, a number of jewels. It’s like he said, everything touched was like, it just turned to gold. And we just knew, like, from “Criminology” to all that shit was like, ok, all that’s coming, and we try to make every song, every song like a fuckin’ hit. It could be a single, at that time. That’s what I think what made that Cuban Linx shit a real classic, too, because we ain’t, each song is so dope, that’s how we planned that shit to be. Nothing less. Not just an album cut. We don’t want an album cut. We want singles on every song, and that’s what it was.

So Rae, put you on the spot. You didn’t like “Ice Cream” at first, right?

RAEKWON

Never did. I like the beat, though, you know what I mean, and I like the hook. But like Ghost said, at that time, we was going hard right there. You know, we was really representing that box of music at that time that we felt like shit was jut built for real niggas. Niggas that go to jail, niggas that kill people. Like, it was just the negative, but, still a positive in it, but a negative. Like, I was rhyming for drug dealers. Keepin a hundred.

GHOSTFACE KILLAH

I look at this shirt right there, says, “I roll with God, killers, and drug dealers.” Got it?

RAEKWON

That’s why we called it “Only…” Because it wasn’t for the whole world. It was only for people that could relate to that lifestyle at that time. That Tommy Hil, Ice Rock and shit. You know we’s wearing jury for a long time, because in our neighborhood, you know, we was always in a neighborhood where drugs was big. Like Ghost’s neighborhood, of course you got the old school cats out there that really, niggas is knockout artists but they smoke dust and all that shit. So, these are motherfuckers that will take the coat off your back and be dusted as hell. You know, and in my neck of the woods, it was like all drug dealers. Like, Jamaicans, Guyanese, you know they was all about hustling and making a way for theyself and demanding that respect. So, just having both of these kinds of environments just made us who we are. Like, we are really a product of that, you know what I mean, and at that time that’s all we knew. You know, stay fly, you know what I mean. You better have some good product, you know what I mean, even though around that time we might have been… I’ll probably say I was sniffing blow probably like 16, 15 probably like.

That’s kinda early, son.

RAEKWON

We was already grown men, you know what I mean? Fly, slacks on, coming out with good silk shirt on. You know, slacks, you know, ironing your shit everyday, waking up, you know, we was men. All that. Going to school like that.

Yo Rae, um, “Incarcerated Scarfaces”, brother. Yo, what? You gotta explain how that just came together.

RAEKWON

I wrote that shit in ten minutes.

GHOSTFACE KILLAH

He the fastest nigga. He’s the only nigga that write rhymes on milk boxes, cereal boxes, he’ll bust a box open and write on the inside of the box. Paper bags, he just do shit. For years. Fast, though. Fly shit.

RAEKWON

I came to RZA’s house that day, and he was in the basement, he was having his moment, you know what I mean, cuz RZA, one thing about him, he lived in his basement. You know, it’s like he had his kids up at the top, but always would be down in his basement. And it’s almost like he lived in there. And you know of course sometimes we go through things with our old ladies and all of that. And I guess at that time he was just chilling down there, you could tell, he ain’t washed up or nothing. Hair all crazy, but he was in a zone, and when I came down there he played that beat. It was around the same time that, I think we had did “Criminology” the night before, if I’m not mistaken. So that’s actually what made me come back the next day, cuz we was in the zone. And once he put the beat on it’s like, my mind just started moving like that machine again. And I just wrote according to how I felt. And he was like, “You need a hook,” and automatically I was thinking about all the people that’s not around us no more, you know what I’m saying, all our friends. We was losing a lot of friends at that time. You know, getting caught up, getting incarcerated, you know. And at the same time, you know, Scarface, that movie was like, it was like our street drug dealer Bible back then, you know what I mean. So I was just like, yo, I want to talk about the cats that’s, you know, I want to make this hook dedicated to cats that’s not here, but still let them know they’re here. You know, like I said, this whole album was just designed for street cats, cats that’s felons and they ain’t gonna make it, you know what I mean, they’re not going to make it. You know what I’m saying, you’re sitting around 20 cats and it’s like, “How many of us is really going to make it?” So, you know, that song was like dedicated to them to keep they spirit up, you know, especially cats behind the wall. You know, we had a lot of friends, like I said, locked up at that time. Doing real time. You know what I mean, like ten years and up. My best friend, he actually did like ten years. You know what I mean, this is somebody that I really feel that raised me in a great way as a brother, not like a father figure but like a brother. And he wasn’t here, and all these cats was on my mind, so I was like, “Yo, I gotta give them something, too. I gotta do something for them.”

Was it always a solo record, with just you on it?

RAEKWON

Yeah. I was vibe, I was zonked out. I did three verses that day. You know what I mean, and RZA, he was like, “Yo, you did what you had to do,” and we just left that song like that. But even when we was making Cuban Linx, I didn’t never take it like it was a solo project. Cuz every project that we was making at that time it was always a Wu-Tang album to us, it just was his chamber, his chamber, his chamber. You know what I mean, and that particular chamber was something that they knew was my style, you know what I mean, and I needed everybody to support that, and I don’t think it would have been the same if everybody wasn’t on it. So, I really tried to take the credit for it alone. Of course, me and Ghost we was Batman and Robin on it, but you know what I mean, we had brothers like Inspectah Deck, Cappa, you know what I mean, Killa, everybody came through and put that support in it and made it more stronger, because they felt like this was all levels of Wu-Tang getting even bigger. So, even when Ghost said, when we ain’t care about what we was saying and how we was saying it at that time, was because we were starting raise a stake in Staten Island, you know what I mean. When you come from a borough that nobody don’t mention, when you going out, you hanging out and they think something sweet it’s like, you know, it was a revenge move for us to get back on. So ,when things was happening, Enter The 36 Chambers popped off, you know what I mean, that was successful, Return Of The 36 Chambers, Ol’ Dirty was successful, Method Man. It was like the plan was going according. By that time we was already professional, we was already in it. But our confidence was just, it was probably bigger than the Empire State Building at that time.

Now y’all kept kinda your outside features to a minimum back in the era. I can only think of maybe a couple of Mobb Deep joints that y’all jumped on. Like, the “Right Back At You”. Were cats just not reaching out, were they scared to rock with you, just in general? Cuz it would seem like cats would be thirsty just to get y’all on tracks.

RAEKWON

Nah, we was all one particular family at that time. Like, Mobb Deep was signed to Loud as well. And Big Pun, you know what I mean. So at that time, we felt like we was the broke Def Jam crew over there. Def Jam is like a first class ticket. We was riding coach, but we had comfortable seats there. You know what I mean. Just being there, Mobb, all of us, we just felt like misfits. You ever seen the Santa, you know the shit that be coming on TV with “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town”, and all the misfit presents is like, they don’t, nobody don’t want them. Word, but we just felt like we was our own division that wasn’t really at the level that Def Jam was at that time. And we knew it was a bunch of talented cats. But we just knew each other. We just see each other vibe. “Yo, feeling y’all music”, you know what I mean. “Yo, come to Queens, radio, what’s up, I’m with it. But you got to come to the island, too.” So in a way it was like, yeah, I wanna go see if y’all really live the way y’all say y’all live, and the same for me. You know I brung them to my neighborhood, you know what I mean, sat up in the Chinese restaurant, cats is swinging they little things….you know, it was just like I say, we was young, like Ghost Say, young, dumb, full of cum ass niggas. That’s all.

Are there any lost cuts that haven’t been released that y’all got, that y’all are holding back.

RAEKWON

RZA had a flood at his house, um, like maybe two years before the album came out. So he lost mad shit.

GHOSTFACE KILLAH

When he lost that shit, after Cuban Linx or before it?

MASTA KILLA

Right around there somewhere.

GHOSTFACE KILLAH

Right around that time. He lost a lot of shit. He lost a lot of shit, a lot of fly shit, too. You know what it is, it’s like, coming out of that house, that’s the balance of life, you feel me?

MATHEMATICS

Hey yo, pardon me, it was like two floods, right? Morning Star Road and Michelle Court, right?

GHOSTFACE KILLAH

Oh, Michelle Court, yeah, he right. Two floods. You feel me? All beats down the drain, you know what I mean. So it’s like for all the good that happened, it was like that had to happen for the balance of life. See what I’m saying, every time something goes good, something always go fucked up. You never gonna have the full fuckin slate and think you gonna enjoy it without having to feel some type of pain. That’s just I how life is. So I had to look at it like that. Like , “Okay, God, I understand what you doing here,” you know what I mean? But like he say, yeah, RZA was fire. He was the motherfucker that took us there, you know what I mean. Even when probably we ain’t had the belief all the way, he just got up every morning, jetted to Manhattan, took care of business. And he’s so intelligent. He’s like one of the most intelligent brothers I know. And handled his business, and this is where we at right now. You know what I mean. I mean, you know, Allah’s first, but without him RZA’d be in that vehicle. Not to say we wouldn’t be where we at, but it’d been hard as hell, trying to be on some Wu-Tang shit without him right now.

Like how, looking back at that time, y’all are all individuals with strong personalities, like you had your own opinions, like how was he able to make it go?

RAEKWON

Because we believed in him. Once you deal with somebody who you feel has enough knowledge and confidence and credibility to take us somewhere, we just felt like everything he believed in we believed him. And sometimes that’s the greatest way of being a winner is to be confident. Sometimes you can have nothing, but if you sit around with brothers and everybody is in the same frame of mind, you’re going to win. And that’s what it was. He was the general. He was the one that we felt like… you know, he was the Phil Jackson, you know. On top of it, cuz we already seen that, he went out there and became successful alone, with even accomplishing to do a record. Cuz you gotta remember, the GZA and RZA had a deal back then. We was still in the street. These brothers is coming back to the block with they album covers, and to us that was like trophies, that was like bringing home a championship ring. Just to get one, just to get a record deal. That was something that we admired. But, you know, he was so smart, you know, he had knowledge of self. The way he carried his self, you know what I mean, he was a respectable brother. And he was just one of them guys that we was like, “Yo, we believe you,” and everybody said, “Yo, we wanna sit in the back. We wanna be the passengers, and you gonna drive.” And that’s how it was.

Yo, Ghost, were you the first one to use ‘Wu-Tang’ as slang?

GHOSTFACE KILLAH

Yeah, I brought the name to RZA. Through the movie, though. Through the Enter Shaolin Vs Wu-Tang. I mean, at that time, he never really, he never seen it, so, you know, brought it to him, bugged out. You know. Riz just turned it in, into the, “We gonna make it a crew.” And, you know, one thing led to another, and this is how we all under that umbrella.

RAEKWON

Mmm... I ain’t even know that shit.