RAW

by Lamont U-God Hawkins

  The other thing nowadays is working with RZA now, it’s a race to get a spot on a good beat. In the old days, we’d all compete against each other, and the best man won. But today, it’s like whoever gets there first gets on it, something RZA started. He pitted everyone against each other, so they were all thinking, “I gotta get on this beat, I gotta get on this record!”

  It should be that you just give me the music I wanna rhyme to, let me go to my spot, listen to it, fuck with it, mess with it, fuck to it, drive to it, squeeze titties to it, drink to it, do everything I got to do to get my inspiration. And I’ll come back in like a month or so, maybe two, maybe three, ’cause if it’s that dope and I can’t get a handle on it, I’m gonna wait on it, because sometimes creativity is a motherfucker. Sometimes the beat you wanna rhyme to gives you a blank. And you’re listening and listening until ping! For whatever reason, the Lord comes outta nowhere and hits you with an idea. And you go, “Oh, shit! Yeah, I got it now, I got it.” And then you’re off and running.

  But RZA won’t let us develop our shit like we used to. Now we get into the studio and he’s like, “We got two months to record.” Two months?! Motherfucker, we can’t do anything in two months! That’s constipated! That kind of window makes you tight and stressed. You can’t get loose with that deadline hanging over your head. When you’re rushing to complete something, often you don’t bring your A-game with you, and more often than not that’ll be revealed on the final track.

  And RZA doesn’t want to relinquish control anymore, even though that would be best for everyone. To go back to the old way of doing shit, like me and Meth are doing right now, like I’m doing right now. Instead everyone’s gonna notice the difference, they’re gonna hear it, and they’re gonna go, “What the fuck?”

  *

  I got into rapping because I just wanted to make a living free from looking over my shoulder, guns, and fucked-up people. I chose the wrong profession, because the music industry is the same fucking shit. You’re dealing with people who want to rob you, who are getting mad at you because you’re successful, who hate you. You can’t show off too much, you can’t show this, you can’t do that. Now it’s about contracts and all this other shit that people want to hold you to, that bind you for life, try to take the credit for the hard work you put in.

  Let me tell you, you sign a contract with anyone, make sure you have a good fucking lawyer review every single line, ’cause people always saying a contract says one thing, but then you turn around and they’re saying it says something else. Then they accuse you of not doing what the contract says you’re supposed to do, or the other side isn’t doing what they’re supposed to do. It’s just messed up.

  During the early contracts, I was just playing the cut and watching. Raekwon, Method Man, and Dirty got solo deals damn near right out of the gate. See, that was a blessing to them, but it was also a blessing to me, Deck, and Masta Killa not to get signed for solo deals just yet. The first ones through the door always take the biggest hit because they’re the pioneers touching new land. They’re explorers who don’t know the terrain yet. I didn’t go through that. I learned by watching other people’s mistakes.

  First, I knew what I was getting into as far as how tricky the industry could be. As a result, I was extra careful about what I was signing and how I was moving. Like I said, I’m not nearly as well known as some of the other members, but I’m also not bound by contractual obligations like those same members.

  And now, the game is very different than it was back then, when we were first starting out. For example, our contracts were executed way back in the day, before CDs, before MP3s, before any kind of streaming service even existed. Nowadays, all that shit’s gotta be licensed as well. And if you own your work, those licensing fees come to you, and those fees can get heavy. That’s where the cake is going to—anyone who controls those rights. This is just one example of how different the business is today and how you gotta keep up on that shit. If you don’t, you will be left behind. And not only that, you’ll leave money on the table for someone else to pick up.

  Ultimately, I can’t be bitter about not going in to get my shit correct and stay on top of my business. That’s my fault now—there’s no one else to lay the blame onto. It’s my fuckin’ fault for not going in and regulating my shit, for letting other dudes get over on me, thinking what was mine should be theirs. I let it happen, I let a lot of shit slide, and because I did that, it left me in a weaker position and made somebody else strong.

  It’s the same for the Clan as a whole—by letting other dudes be in charge, we let them come in and throw the rest of us off balance. If we had hung together as a solid unit from the beginning and had a lawyer represent the Wu-Tang as a whole, then we wouldn’t be in this situation now. But no, they divided us and conquered us. And they’re still trying to do it to this day.

  Fortunately, in the end the Wu almost always looks out for its own. Like last year, when I filed my lawsuit against RZA, he tried to kick me off our live shows. Again, I’ve been in the Wu for more than twenty-five years, and I’ve never missed a show I’ve been scheduled for—until RZA tried to give me the boot. But after a week, my brothers found out what was going on, and they faced off with RZA and made him reinstate me. Throughout all of it, I didn’t take it personally. I never let my emotions get in the way of business.

  And though I will always have my brothers’ backs, there comes a time when you have to look to taking care of yourself and yours first. So now I gotta get strong myself. I gotta go in and correct whatever I can before I take any other action. And that’s exactly what I’m doing now.

  *

  There was more than just this rift over recording and solo versus group projects forming. There was a major rift over business with Wu-Tang Productions. RZA’s brother Divine, Power, and RZA made up the executive hierarchy of the Clan, also known as Wu-Tang Productions. The three of them, along with Ghostface, executive produced 36 Chambers.

  Now, me and Divine have always been cool since our days at P.S. 57 in Stapleton. Not sure what it is, but we just always got along, never had any real problems. We argue, of course, but deep down we know it’s never serious. We understand and respect each other. We were in public school together and gravitated toward one another way back then. We’re both just some money-getting dudes. Long as money’s coming in, all that bickering goes out the window. We realize what’s important at the end of the day.

  Other members in the Clan don’t always have that understanding. They haven’t been through what I’ve been through. It’s just a different mentality. I can’t talk business or economics with certain dudes. I can talk about investing and credit scores and equity with Divine. Other guys I just talk street shit to. Divine understands that it’s a business. He and I went to court back in 2008 because I sued him over a small amount of money, and we settled that case. But we’re still good friends—to a certain degree. He knows and I know it’s not personal. It’s never personal, it’s business.

  But RZA, he knew more about the music industry—and also, it seems, about our cash flow—than the rest of us. From what I can tell, he got rich, but I still don’t know what I’m due. And while I can’t speak for everyone, I believe that’s how a lot of my brothers see things, too. We thought we were all united, but at the end of the day, it turned out that it was all about Wu-Tang Productions, and we were just the workers.

  Divine controlled all the ledger books and financial information, and RZA, at the expense of the rest of us, went along with it. He could have put a stop to it if he’d wanted, he could have gotten us all together and sat us down and worked it all out, but he didn’t. He stood by and let it happen for years. Finally, I concluded I had no choice but to bring my lawsuit against RZA and the others in 2016, after all those years of not knowing what was happening financially and where I stood. All I’m really looking for is transparency: Where do I stand regarding each album I recorded? What am I owed, if anything, and who owes it to me?
/>   And that’s a fundamental difference between RZA and me. When I was in the drug business, at the height of my operation, I knew how to treat the people selling for me. I knew how to handle my crew fairly to maximize my business. I knew how to deal with people so they felt respected and would work hard for me. I respected them, so they were loyal to me, that’s why they loved me so much.

  But RZA never had a situation like that; he never had to work with employees on that level. Back in the day, when I gave him that package and he fucked it up, I should have known then what I know now, which is that he lacks business skills—the nerd in him won’t allow him to put the right brothers in position to win. Instead, he puts brothers he thinks he can control in positions of power.

  And now that he’s older, he doesn’t have anyone he can really rely on, because he froze out the brothers who would have been the most loyal to him. He put achieving his own dream ahead of helping the rest of the group achieve theirs.

  And yeah, he may have the trappings of a successful rapper and producer, he may have all the cars and houses, but he doesn’t have anyone to share it with. He doesn’t have a Kardashian or an actress or a model on his arm today. So what did he get all that fly shit for in the first place? Just to have it?

  Because it wasn’t just RZA or just Divine or just Power that got Wu-Tang into the music industry—it was all of us, a combined force. And as such, we all had to learn and go through certain things. That’s the problem with my crew, especially when you have a small majority making most of the decisions. We were blind to certain aspects of the music industry, and other aspects we didn’t even know existed. And as we grew, some of us learned that we’d been left out of certain parts of the business of Wu-Tang.

  If the next person knows more than you, and gets a better deal, and gets over on you a bit, you can’t be mad at them. You have to learn from that and correct what you did wrong for next time. It’s not about getting mad when someone got over on you because you were still wet behind the ears. It’s about working to fix the problem so you can make it better. That’s the music industry. It’s treacherous and shady. But if you wanna play, you have to realize you’re gonna get dirty and a bit bumped and bruised until you learn all the rules.

  Same goes for Wu-Tang Productions. Those deals might have reflected the lack of knowledge we had about the paperwork side of the business, but it still got us into the game. Looking back, though, we left it to RZA, Divine, and Power to handle those deals for us at the labels; they weren’t negotiated in front of the rest of us. And instead of saying we’re a family, it feels to me like it was more about RZA putting himself ahead of the rest of us. That was okay (not really, but at least I understand where he’s coming from) when we were practically kids in this shit, but now I feel that they’re still trying to keep us in the other room. That’s harder to swallow as a grown man.

  That’s why we still kinda fucked up to this day. We can’t get it together because at this level of the game, dudes feel like they’re being taken advantage of. I still got love for RZA for what he did for me, but it is what it is, and I gotta call it like I see it. As I’m arguing in my lawsuit, it’s time for some transparency. And some answers.

  *

  If Dirty hadn’t died, I think the Wu would be in better standing, and we’d be on a more harmonious wavelength with one another. It still wouldn’t be perfect, but it’d be a little better.

  Dirty’s element—that wild, chaotic energy that helped keep the entire group on the same page—is missing. His element isn’t just missing in the Clan, it’s missing in today’s hip-hop altogether. A raw, wild style of performing. Dudes can’t perform the way he could. ODB fans wanted that grit, and Ol’ Dirty always gave it to them.

  Dirty was always the most paranoid out of all of us; he was on drugs, drinking, and all this crazy shit, but at the end of the day he could pinpoint shit and he saw things we didn’t see coming. He was always the one to call people out when he thought they were pullin’ shit. Like when RZA bought a mansion in Jersey; it was supposed to be the Wu mansion. But it turned out it wasn’t no Wu mansion, it was RZA’s mansion, and he ran it like it was some kind of church. He wouldn’t let anybody bring girls there. No parties, we couldn’t get shit popping, we couldn’t do none of that fly shit. After a while, we stopped going. He kicked us out and put the keys in it. In other words, it basically was running just like his mansion, but he spun it to seem like it was our mansion to soften the blow that he was in charge.

  Dirty used to say this shit all the fucking time. He was the first Clan member to call RZA out; he boycotted shows until he found out who was getting what. “Where’s my money at, RZA?” His song “Got Your Money,” that song’s about fucking RZA.

  But Dirty always used to be about, “I want my money. Gimme my money.” Dirty was always one step ahead of the rest of us. He was the first motherfucker to call us robots. He basically believed RZA was taking our money. That’s why the rest of us can’t leave RZA to tell the whole story, Dirty said, because he’s going to try and make out like, “No I didn’t.” If he had his way, he’d try to make out like he was some kind of savior. To which I say get the fuck out of here. I guess we’ll find out when the Court gives me the accounting I’m asking for.

  If I’m wrong, I will apologize straight to RZA’s face. I will man up and stand in front of him and say, “Yo, I didn’t know, and I’m sorry for coming at you like I did.”

  But if I’m right … well, it’s a good thing I’m not that scrapper in the streets anymore, that I settle my business with lawyers and lawsuits nowadays, instead of with my fists and guns.

  After Dirty died, it shifted my brain. He was the wild, crazy motherfucker the fans wanted to see, too. When he died, it took a piece of us away. I know I definitely started seeing things differently.

  *

  By the time 8 Diagrams was released in 2007, more Wu-Tang members were voicing their disapproval of RZA’s style.

  I kept my thoughts to myself, though. I’d released a half-assed attempt at another solo project called Mr. Xcitement (2005) that got all fucked up a year or two prior, including the shutdown of the label, Priority Records, so I was willing to go along with RZA’s plans for 8 Diagrams. When the story broke of how it came out, I think the other members redoubled their efforts to put out more solo projects so each of us could have more creative control.

  After four years of work, Rae and Ghost put out Cuban Linx II in 2009. Part of the reason Linx II was delayed was because we all came together for 8 Diagrams. That same year, I put out a solo project on Babygrande Records called Dopium that drew some critical praise. Ghostface, Cappa, GZA, and Meth all got on tracks for that one.

  Then Method Man, Raekwon, and Ghostface put out a project called Wu-Massacre in 2010 that had one track produced by RZA. Raekwon took it a step further by releasing Shaolin vs. Wu-Tang in 2011, an album with no RZA involvement at all.

  The supergroup was splintering apart. When it came time to work on A Better Tomorrow in 2013—during the twentieth-anniversary year of the release of Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)—things were still in disarray.

  By this time RZA had gone full Hollywood. He was off making pictures, rubbing elbows with movie stars, and pulling down millions; he didn’t need this bullshit. Even so, the twentieth anniversary was still an opportunity, so he decided to try to get us all back on the same page by recording A Better Tomorrow. Problem was, that better tomorrow never came. Shit wasn’t getting better—shit was getting worse.

  Before we started recording, RZA went on a world tour of studios and musicians from the Motown days. We heard he took trips to Nashville and Detroit, hunting down that sound so he could chop up the sessions into new beats. I ain’t gonna lie, I thought it was a good marketing ploy and was excited to hear what he’d come back with.

  During that time, Divine tried to get the rest of us to go to L.A. to record, then to Vegas for a week or two, trying to rekindle the vibe we had when we made those early albums. Bu
t this one went the same way as the last three records; a lot of my brothers felt it was too soft. Method Man wanted some hard shit, as did the rest of us. Although I felt like it wasn’t that gritty, raw, high-energy sound that we were used to coming with, that made us who we were, I felt I couldn’t go against RZA like that … most of us couldn’t. I think RZA just felt like we’re all forty years old now, we can’t keep rapping about slanging and banging anymore, we need to be at the BBQ with our families.

  I think the thing with RZA is that he’s accomplished a lot more. He’s been acting, scoring films for Quentin Tarantino, and now he’s even directing feature-length movies. He’s got Ferraris and millions of dollars. He’s in another space altogether, so his music reflects that.

  And he had put up his own money—well, I guess it was our money, too—to make the album, so ultimately it was his decision as to the direction we were gonna take. Also, some others didn’t want to record until the paperwork was redone. It caused us to implode on a small level. We ended up laying down some stuff, but we were never all in one place; it was disjointed, with themes picked out of thin air, so the album never came together as a cohesive unit. We couldn’t get it off the way we wanted to get it off.

  But it went even deeper than that. First, the music: The beats weren’t there, so the foundation was missing. RZA was acting like it was all fine, but the rest of us weren’t having it, saying we wanted him to find some new shit. But he wouldn’t go and do that, so we were stuck with what he put forward. Then he didn’t want to use any outside producers, because he’s RZA. And finally, he tried to do a record in two months, which, as I’ve already said, is practically impossible to do and come up with something great.

  And finally, it wasn’t just that RZA was, as usual, trying to control every aspect of the production, but I felt like the others just weren’t attacking their rhymes like they used to. It seemed like maybe the industry had beaten my brothers all down so that they didn’t believe in the power of their rhymes anymore. And when we finally heard the end product, I don’t think many of us were happy, but we all decided to roll with it in the end.