Wu tang

Through the peak years of hustling and partying and getting fresh , we never lost focus . Most people don't realize that the Wu - Tang Clan was eight years in the making . We were hungry to be creating , focusing on our art , while other Escobar - emulating motherfuckers were running ten keys . My friends all felt the same way I did . RZA , Raekwon , Ghost , Meth , we all had one thing in common : we wanted to be stars . We wanted to be fucking rappers , to get our music out , make money and be rich and famous , and we wanted out of the fucking ghetto immediately . Didn't know how we were gonna do it . Didn't know how it was gonna happen , but for some reason , we just always knew it was gonna happen . I just always knew , and Meth knew , and Rae knew . We were all certain , we just knew . That's why we were able to do what we had to do , ' cause we were all going in the same direction toward the same goal . Besides , by this time I was nineteen and tired of the game . It didn't help that dudes were falling like flies in the drug game , either . I was trying to get off the streets entirely . I was still in school , but looking for something more than even what college had to offer as a way off the block . Music turned out to be the vessel that took me and my cohorts away from the ghetto violence we grew up around .

Ever since the Baby Crash Crew , we were always rhyming and making up little songs together . That didn't change when we started hustling in front of the buildings of Park Hill . At the time , I wasn't really rhyming seriously yet , but I was the beatbox guy in the hallway for other dudes to get their own shit off . It was nothing for me to beatbox for people , because that got me my rhythm , which gave me certain things , like beat coordination as well as improved physical coordination , that other motherfuckers didn't have . I'd beatbox for Cappadonna and Raekwon while they caught wreck . When RZA came along , we started taking our beats and rhymes more seriously . I already knew him as the DJ from the Stapleton block party . By 1989 , he'd moved out of his mother's place and got his own apartment , which was actually his family's old apartment that he sublet from his mother ( in the city , once you get an apartment , you never let it go ) . He'd also moved away from DJing and started making his own beats . He was getting serious about the rap game , and so were we . The nights I got tired of ducking the cops and dealing with junkies and stashing guns around where we were posted up and keeping an eye out for any potential drama that might pop up - those were the nights I'd go to RZA's place . Even though it was in Stapleton , another project just like ours , when we were at his crib , we didn't have to worry about all the shit going on back in Park Hill . We could concentrate on what really mattered : our music . I'd walk into his building and take the elevator up to his floor . You could hear the beats and smell the weed before you even stepped into the hallway . The door was never locked at RZA's joint . Stapleton apartments were like that . First off , there's not much to steal , but also , who's gonna try anything up in RZA's pad with an endless cycle of hood - ass , slanging - ass , gun - toting individuals coming in and out all day ? Now , I was still hustlin ' , so I'd walk in wearing all fly shit , new sneakers . I was strapped back then , so I'd take out my gun and put it on the glass table near where Ghost would usually be sitting . RZA , on the other hand , wasn't hustlin ' like that , so when I came on looking fresh , he'd be smelling like a goddamn onion . We used to call him " RZA Radish " back then , ' cause he never wore deodorant . We'd bring our forties and weed and whatever else and just write and rap and listen to beats and build for hours and hours . RZA's brew back then was Brass Monkey , a premixed cocktail of dark rum , vodka , and orange juice . Ghostface and RZA were living together at the time , so they'd be eating ramen noodles and watching kung fu flicks . For a while , those two were like me and Meth , on some Dynamic Duo shit . RZA and Ghost would just be in that crib all day long , eatin ' Oodles of Noodles , watching kung fu movies , and making beats on a little four - track recorder .

I'd walk in and the beats would be blasting . Dudes would bring the mic cord out onto the terrace and be rhyming . Sounds fancy , but it's far from it . Like I said , the Stapleton ' jects looked like jail facilities . The terraces looked like the tiers in prison . But we'd have the mike out there , and weed be blowin ' , and the Brass Monkey be flowin ' , and everybody was just getting high and throwing darts ( rapping ) . It was a getaway from 4 the drama , a way to transcend our surroundings and the day - to - day grind . RZA's crib was our first studio , and that four - track was our first real equipment . That was our lab . When you have a whole bunch of possessions you don't do anything with , you don't have anything . When you got that one piece of machinery that you really master , though , that enhances your art . A lot of motherfuckers don't know how or don't have the discipline to just stay right there , in that chamber , until you've mastered it . They move on too soon , and lose that potential mastery and end up losing themselves altogether . That's the struggle of being an artist . You can't keep coming out with the same shit , but you can't lose yourself , either . With RZA's four - track , we kept making bangers . At the end of the night we'd leave his place with a tape of what we'd done . We'd go back to Park Hill , listen to our songs , and critique our shit more . We'd compare ourselves to other people and their verses and just sharpen one another's steel . Then we'd write even more rhymes to improve our lyrics , some of us working harder on it than others . Meth was really working on it harder than other dudes . One night , while working on one of our first original Wreck Posse cuts , " I Get Down for My Crown , " Meth wrote a verse from which a portion would later be used by Ghost on one of his biggest hits , " Cherchez La Ghost . " Once Meth laid this verse down , I went into my rhyme books and put down my verse , and Deck came behind us and laid down the last verse . RZA even sampled the flushing toilet and added the sound effect to the joint as well . It was the first song that we laid down and felt good about as a group . Back then we would dub tapes and pass them off to other brothers in the hood . That's how you used to do it back in the day , you'd make a bunch of tapes and pass ' em around the project , and it would spread through word of mouth . Next thing you know , everybody in our fucking neighborhood had the shit . Then that person would take it to another project , and someone there would take the shit and listen to it and they'd dub it and take it to another project . Next thing you know , everyone in the ' jects was jamming " I Get Down for My Crown . " That song right there was an epiphany . We noticed when we did our first couple of songs together , they came out kinda hot . Meth , Deck , and me did a couple of other songs during the early days of fucking around with RZA , like " Let Me Put My Two Cents In . " We were EPMD babies and Public Enemy babies , Big Daddy Kane babies and Rakim babies . We just incorporated all that into our early little sounds . We would record ' em on tapes and listen to them and critique ourselves .

Once we got on those beats , when I first heard my voice over the music on tape , it seemed like the dream was even closer to being real , like it was something tangible that we could touch . ' Cause we weren't just rhyming and beatboxing in the project hallways anymore , we were actually laying down vocals now . And even though we were still wildin ' in the streets , that dream of music saved us from getting too far gone . Once we got a taste of hood success , RZA kept recording more joints . Deck put down a solo joint called " This Ain't Your Average Flow . " That joint was crazy good , and it became a hood anthem . When we started going to RZA's on the regular , we started seeing who the MCs really were . Here comes Rae getting on a song . Then Genius is up there . And here's Ol ' Dirty , who RZA said was his cousin .