RAW

by Lamont U-God Hawkins

  And while we were on the road representing Wu to the fullest, RZA was finishing up Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers). But he told me since I had been fucking up, bouncing in and outta jail and shit, I was only on two and a half songs. “I see you working now, though, U-God,” he said. “You keep it up, and you’ll get much more shine on the next ones.”

  I wasn’t even mad at the time. I took being on only a few songs for what it really was: a great opportunity. We had the Loud Records budget in place, so we were living on the road, sometimes staying in nice hotels, fucked-up spots other times. But we were getting around. And once Loud kicked in this van for us to travel with, it was a wrap. We were in there all day.

  And there was absolutely nothing to miss back home. Once we left the street, we never looked back. Dudes in the street didn’t know what we were doing, because we didn’t brag about any of it. When we came back, and people started getting wind of what we had going on, there was some hate and jealousy. I came from hell all the way up, and when we were getting it together and trying to get up out of the hood, motherfuckers didn’t believe us, didn’t believe what we were doing. They didn’t believe nothing. Why? Because they couldn’t see nothing but what was in front of them.

  That’s a problem with a lot of people in the ghetto. They can’t see nothing past the ghetto, so they can’t fathom that there’s a life outside the hood. I had been like that once, too—I couldn’t see past the projects I was hustling in.

  But by that time, we were already doing what we had set out to do. By the time we came back, people in the neighborhood, including the police, were surprised that we had actually pulled ourselves out, instead of getting ground up in the streets. They were like, “Oh, shit. These dudes went and actually did that shit.”

  There were some old friends that were happy for us and our success. Still, when we left the hood, everything left the hood with us. Clientele, money, everything left. We took all that somehow. We took all the energy with us, and Park Hill was never the same afterward.

  *

  Meanwhile, we just kept moving forward in full-time work mode, totally focused. We played Jack the Rapper and other festivals all over the country. Then we did colleges. So many colleges, from Miami all the way to Rhode Island and back again. After that, we did nationwide radio shows.

  We did the Midwest, we did Texas, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, Virginia, Miami, then back to Hollywood, and then up to Canada. One day we’d be on a beach in Hawaii, and then next thing you know we’d be on a beach in Puerto Rico.

  We did promotion everywhere we went. Promotion, promotion, promotion. It helped that we had serious marketing money behind us. When the record company saw how dedicated we were, they got more comfortable investing to send us places and get the word out.

  As we traveled, we realized just how big the earth really is. People in the ghetto think the world is small, like the size of a pea. The thing is, being in poverty restricts you from traveling. It’s like you’re stuck in confinement. But the world is humongous. Hit Australia. Hit Europe. Hit Japan. Hit South America. You don’t have to limit yourself to just your city, or even just your country. Look at us—we’re loved all over the goddamn planet.

  A lot of artists are still thinking they want to be on the radio. Don’t get it twisted, radio is an endlessly running machine, and it requires an equally endless supply of songs to keep it going. And if you don’t put yours out there, someone else definitely will.

  But radio isn’t the be-all, end-all, either. There are so many touring bands out there that never have a single fucking song on the radio and still tour two hundred dates a year, filling up stadiums, traversing the world. Especially now that album sales are down. People may not be willing to buy music, but they’ll always be down to pay for the experience of live music. We were blessed to establish ourselves early in our career as a touring band.

  At that time though, we weren’t sure if all those promo tours were ever gonna pay off. All the work we’d been putting in, RZA’s beats and know-how and our talents for having wild crazy styles to attack every track with, made us feel fairly confident that we were gonna win, that it was only a matter of time. Some days, though, we just weren’t as positive as others. Even with all our confidence, ability, and drive, we could never see the future with 100 percent clarity—no one ever can. We just had to do the best we could, bringing it every single time, every single day.

  I remember chilling on the beach in San Juan, Puerto Rico, with Masta Killa one day. We had come down for a show and had a few days before heading back to the States for the next go-round, including an appearance on The Arsenio Hall Show, so we were just sitting on the sand, smoking weed and talking. I remember that time because it was the last occasion we ever even contemplated not succeeding as a group.

  Masta started off: “Yo, God, I really don’t know if we ever gonna make it. All I know is I don’t wanna go back to the streets.”

  “I know, Killa, that’s why we gotta give it all we got,” I replied. “There is no try, it’s do or die. This shit’s gotta take off, it’s just gotta. We gotta make it, ’cause I ain’t goin’ back to the streets, either. I’m never goin’ back.”

  While we were there, we were playing on the fucking Jet Skis and shit with Divine and General Wah, and I’m gunning it around in the deep water. Just four guys from Staten Island fucking around on Jet Skis. For some apparent reason—I don’t know why—I thought the shit had brakes like a mountain bike. Jet Skis don’t have brakes.

  I decide to try to get closer to those other motherfuckers, right? I got too close to Masta Killa. I didn’t know I’d accidentally hit his Jet Ski. He falls into the motherfuckin’ water like a bobber from a fishing pole. He had his life jacket on, but I still didn’t see him for a good five seconds. He was gone. I was like, “Oh, shit, this dude’s gone.”

  All of a sudden he pops up. “Yo! Help me, dawg! Help me! Help!” Goes back down in the water. “Help me, dawg! Help me!”

  I get over there and pull him out of the water. This motherfucker grabs me with the clutch of death. The grip of life! He grabbed me so hard the front of my fucking Jet Ski pops up on a wheelie. I was like, “Yo, dawg! We both gonna be in the water soon!”

  It was some funny-ass shit, but to this day he still says I was fuckin’ trying to kill him.

  *

  We did The Arsenio Hall Show when we got back from Puerto Rico. This was the black Ed Sullivan Show for us, and we were the Beatles, poised and ready to invade the mainstream.

  The label had everything set up already, their publicity machine was in full motion. They already had the new album. They had the videos shot and ready to go. These motherfuckers had this shit really, really big. Everything we had done over the past year, the thousands of miles on the road, hundreds of shows and interviews and events, was ready to blow up huge.

  The night we performed on Arsenio was crazy. We were all backstage, and we were all nervous, Rae, Ghost, Meth, everyone. Now, we were comfortable performing in general, but this was Arsenio, the hottest show going at the time.

  When we first hit the stage, we all felt the love from the crowd right away. We launched into “C.R.E.A.M.,” and when that money fell from the ceiling, that was it. We killed it. As soon as that episode aired, Loud Records dropped the video and the single.

  Our sales were decent before that. We were hovering around 170,000 units. Once that shit hit the streets and people saw the video, we were outta there. Within hours, “C.R.E.A.M.” went gold. We hit 250,000 units sold, then within a week we went to 500,000, then 700,000, then 800,000, and we were gone after that. It kept going, up to 1.2 million, then to 1.8 million. That’s when we knew that life wouldn’t be the same anymore. My old life was gone.

  After “C.R.E.A.M.,” the other videos came: “Wu-Tang Clan Ain’t Nuthing ta Fuck Wit” and “Da Mystery of Chessboxin’.” We got swept up in a whirlwind. We started doing bigger and bigger shows. We were able to make a living doing what we were doin
g. We did a tour of Europe. Everything changed, and we were becoming hip-hop royalty.

  *

  “C.R.E.A.M.” is a true song. Everything Inspectah Deck and Raekwon said is 100 percent true. Not one line in that entire song is a lie, or even a slight exaggeration. Deck did sell base, and he did go to jail at the age of fifteen. Rae was sticking up white boys on ball courts, rocking the same damn ’Lo sweater. And of course, Meth on the hook was like butter on the popcorn. Meth knew the hard times, too, being out there smoking woolies and pumping crack, etc. That raspy shit he was kicking just echoed in everyone’s head long after the song was done playing.

  The realism on “C.R.E.A.M.” is what resonates with so many people all over the world. People everywhere know that sentiment of being slaves to the dollar. Cash is king, and we are its lowly subjects. That’s pretty much the case in every nation around the world, the desperation to put your life and your freedom on the line to make a couple dollars. Whether you’re working, stripping, hustling, or slinging, whether you’re a business owner or homeless, cash rules everything around us.

  It’s amazing how the song that depicts the harsh life in Park Hill is what ended up taking us out of that very same ghetto environment. That song was just so real, so vivid, it was a no-brainer that it would connect with the people like it did. I mean, “Protect Ya Neck” and “Method Man” had both connected with a fairly large audience, but not like “C.R.E.A.M.” did. If the world wasn’t watching before, they were definitely watching us now.

  We hustled up our shit to get our little first promo records pressed up, but when RCA gave us that deal, that was it. There was no going back. Their money was ten times larger than our shit. They put corporate money behind us. They gave us T-shirts, they got us bigger venues, they gave us the ability to spread our music farther and wider than we ever could have on our own.

  Our budget was huge. They must have invested and marketed about thirty million into the Wu-Tang Clan, and in turn, we made sure to set it off. Once we started gaining buzz in the streets, we signed to Loud, and all they had to do was put gas on the fire, ’cause when we started creeping up and making those numbers, and they were sufficient and legit, they couldn’t do nothing. They had to get behind us.

  We may have been young, but we already had the structure of hard work ingrained into us, the work ethic of the streets ingrained into us. New York is a twenty-four-hour city, so you had to be hustling twenty-four hours a day. Your drug spot wouldn’t be successful unless it was pumping every hour of every day, and if I wasn’t out there, someone else was gonna be selling to my clients. That’s the work ethic the dreads passed down to us, and we just took it and turned it into recording and the touring life. In other words, we weren’t lazy motherfuckers.

  We kept expanding, not just with live shows, but by diversifying our portfolios. For example, we were doing guest spots on other albums. I got on SWV’s “Anything” with Method Man and ODB. We had the St. Ides commercial. We had Wu Wear about to take off. Everywhere you looked, we had different team members representing that W.

  Dolla dolla bill y’all, indeed.

  14.

  SABER-TOOTH TIGER IN THE BOOTH

  While our efforts were finally paying off and we were busting through, I was rusty as hell at rapping. Mind you, I’d been locked up while the rest of the Clan was sharpening their swords over RZA’s beats on 36 Chambers. They were growing and getting iller while I was stuck inside, losing my mojo.

  People think that when you come back out, you can go back to being the same person you were before you went in. That’s not the case at all—it changes you, and anyone who says it doesn’t is lying.

  You need about the same amount of time back in the world as you served in jail. If you did three years inside, you’re gonna need three years outside to get your head on straight. You have to catch up with the world that’s kept moving on while you’ve been separated from it. You aren’t just gonna walk out the gate and pick up your life right where you left off. You gotta readjust yourself, reestablish your routines, and above all, get used to the freedom of not being locked up, because that’s one of the biggest things every convict has to overcome.

  I knew some guys who came home and tried to hit the streets like they never left. Literally they ended up right back in jail within two weeks, with a brand-new sentence over their heads—right back to the plantation.

  I didn’t even write any rhymes while I was locked up, just my little contributions to 36 Chambers. Because of that, I had to get back into the swing of things, which wasn’t easy.

  Would you believe I got booed at my first show? The first time I grabbed the mic at a show after coming home, I got booed. RZA had told me to kick a freestyle, and I wasn’t really ready. I had the heart to try, though.

  I got booed hard. I still remember Fat Joe there at the show, looking on when I got booed. It hurt, but I kept pushing. After shows, I would just go home and try and get my rhyme game right. It was tough trying to get them lyrics proper, especially since I’d been away so long, I didn’t know what topics or even slang was hot on the outside anymore.

  You have to understand, I got tossed into a professional recording situation right out of jail. My brothers were winning and eating well, and the only way I could eat was to do what they were doing. I had to make my shit pop, I had to do what I had to do to at least get nearer to their level of rhyming. I had no other option because I wasn’t going back to the streets. There was no turning back for me.

  All around me, everything was moving, my brothers were moving, but I was barely getting any burn. Raekwon got his solo deal. Then Method Man and ODB snatched their deals. RZA was doing the Gravediggaz album 6 Feet Deep. I was still trying to find my style and my voice. I had to play catch-up with everybody else in the Clan.

  But me flipping back and forth between the Island and jail meant I missed a lot of studio time. I literally got out and recorded my verse on “Chessboxin’,” then got violated and went back inside a week later. By the time I finally came home for good, they were recording Only Built 4 Cuban Linx …, but I was all fucked up and off beat. I wasn’t ready yet.

  Keep in mind, we were touring at this time, but doing a live show is different than recording in the booth. A concert is all about output—I’m sending all my energy out to the crowd, and taking theirs in as well and using that in my performance. But being alone in the booth, it’s all input—I’m taking everything I know and have done along the way, along with the beat and the vibe and everything else I have to keep up on, I take all that and swing it in my own unique style. Nowadays, it comes second nature, but at the time, I was having mad problems setting it off in the booth.

  I’ve always been a team player, though, and even though I wasn’t gettin’ on tracks, I knew when others could—and should. Like when Raekwon and Ghost were trying to wrap up Cuban Linx. They were too stubborn, they had ego problems, and they got stuck while finishing it. I don’t know why they didn’t reach out to Cappa—I think they thought he wasn’t a good fit for the album. But that was crazy. I remember thinkin’, Damn, you all are stupid. We on our way, just dropped a double-platinum album, and you not gonna go get this dude?!

  I put my own ego aside and jumped in my truck to go get Cappa, who was working as a security guard in 260 and selling belts as a side hustle. I found him and said, “Come on, man, jump in my truck, we goin’ to record right now.”

  He said, “Word?”

  I came back with, “I said right now, man!”

  I dropped him off at Michelle Court, where he laid down “Ice Cream” right there. Then he came back later on and did “Winter Warz,” for Ghostface’s album Ironman. And after that, the dude was done—he didn’t have to be a belt-selling security guard ever again. And that’s why Cappa loves me to this day. One time he said, “Yo, man, you the only dude who came back for me. Rae and Ghost wouldn’t have come back for me.”

  I went to get Cappa because I knew he had what we needed to complete that
record. There’s certain songs that you just can’t get that rhythm to, no matter how much time you put in. Then you bring in the right someone else, and bam—that’s exactly what it needed!

  Plus, I know how to win. I’ve always been a team player; I can put my ego aside if it benefits the team. I can let someone else jump ahead of me if he’s got skills that I don’t have. Cappa was ready. I wasn’t. That’s why he was on Cuban Linx and Ironman. That all led to him getting a lot more verses on Wu projects, and he got on 8 Diagrams as our official tenth member. And all of it furthered our cause. If he won, then the whole team won.

  Plus, I think it added to the mystery of Wu-Tang that there were dudes like Masta Killa and Cappadonna and me still popping up on the fans here and there. It’s hard to hear that, though, when you wanna get your rhymes off, too. But the most successful crews know when it’s time to let your man rock instead of you. Let the stronger teammate go to bat and hit a home run. So long as the whole team wins. Having all those different styles within the Wu to inspire us, and the willingness to compete hard with one another, made us better.

  Matter of fact, it made us invincible at the time.

  *

  The recording booth and I were just not getting along. It was a nightmare—I actually had nightmares about trying to get a verse off and not being able to. I’d try to get on songs with the other members, but I got laughed at and kicked out of the booth over and over. It happened at least fifteen times—literally, they would laugh at me until I left the booth. I sounded off beat.

  Of course, RZA put me on a song called “Knuckleheadz,” on Cuban Linx. Like he was making a quiet statement that Rae, Ghost, and me were fucking knuckleheads. Before I could even really get started, he’s already labeling me a knucklehead.

  Plus, he only gave me one take—I didn’t even get a chance to get familiar with the verse and get a couple takes down. What you’re hearing on “Knuckleheadz” is my first and only take, and it really pissed me off. It made me feel like I really was a fucking knucklehead, already fucking my shit up. Anyway, I got the lyric off.