Original subtitles

[swishing sword noises]

[birds singing]

[swishing sword noises]

[man chuckles]

[man] Do you think your Wu-Tang sword

can defeat me?

[RZA] The best sword style

that I've ever witnessed

in a martial art film

was the Wu-Tang sword.

[sword swishing noises]

[man] If what you say is true,

the Shaolin and the Wu Tang could be dangerous.

[fighting noises]

[RZA] Yo, I got this idea

of the Wu-Tang Clan.

♪ ambient music ♪

Some of the best MCs

that I've heard

are the homies I hang with,

my peers.

They was different, yo.

♪ Overachiever ♪

♪ Power-hungry overeater ♪

♪ I-95, whip fly like an overseer ♪

♪ I'm overconfident but some might say I'm overeager ♪

♪ Or over-zealous, especially when it's over cheeba ♪

[RZA] It was something that only Staten Island

had developed.

I named it the Wu-Tang slang.

♪♪♪

♪ What's the deal, Conrad ♪

[RZA] Wu-tang became the style

that identified

the best MCs.

Method Man, Inspectah Deck,

Raekwon, "The Chef."

U-God, Ghostface Killah,

Cappadonna,

Ol' Dirty Bastard,

the GZA, the RZA.

Masta Killa.

♪♪♪

25 years is a long time.

♪♪♪

Even through all the troubles that we may have

amongst each other,

cause each other,

at any given time,

when we come back together,

there's a goodness of energy.

[woman] Drinks?

Look at these.

[indistinct chatter]

[laughs]

[laughter]

It's sick. Know what I mean?

[RZA] Wu-Tang--

We started with camaraderie

and brotherhood.

♪♪♪

That's how I saw it, and that's nothing

to do with business, yo.

The only way it makes sense is in brotherhood,

and that's what we proclaim.

♪ jaunty music ♪

♪♪♪

[man] Brothers of the Shaolin.

Wu-Tang Clan strikes again.

The RZA! The GZA!

[crowd chants] Ol' Dirty Bastard!

♪ Inspectah Deck Raekwon the Chef ♪

♪ U-God, Cappadonna ♪

♪ Masta Killa, Ghostface Killah ♪

♪♪♪

[man] Clan means family.

These are my brothers.

♪♪♪

[ODB] You have to start from the bottom

in order to get to the top. Know what I'm saying?

And once you get to the top,

once you get to the top,

there's only one way to go.

[man] These young motherfuckers

from Staten Island, New York,

had captured the world.

♪♪♪

[indistinct chatter]

[man chuckles]

♪ haunting rap instrumental background ♪

♪♪♪

[RZA] The thing, I think, that made us different

was the experiences that we'd been through.

♪♪♪

[U-God] We was poor,

looking for a way.

♪♪♪

[Ghostface Killah] From where I came from...

Which--which way to on stage?

- This way? - Sure.

I'm grateful for everything.

It was rough.

[grunts]

Hiya!

[Ghostface Killah] I'm from the era where

you're gonna get robbed.

[man] Cot era.

Lawless.

Motherfuckers will punch you in your face for your shit.

[man] It was a nightmare, you know,

but at the same time,

it was home.

♪♪♪

♪ Wu-Tang Clan ain't nothing to fuck with ♪

♪ Wu-Tang Clan ain't nothing to fuck with ♪

♪ Wu-Tang Clan ain't nothing to fuck with ♪

♪ Wu-Tang Clan ain't nothing to fuck with ♪

[RZA] The Bible said

that when the son of man returns,

out of his mouth will come

a double-edged sword.

Our tongue is our sword.

♪ I be tossing, enforcing, my style is awesome ♪

♪ Causing more family feuds than Richard Dawson ♪

- ♪ And the survey say ♪ - ♪ You're dead ♪

♪ The Fatal Flying Guillotine chops off your fucking head ♪

♪ Mister, who was that? ♪

♪ Hey, yo, the Wu is back ♪

♪ Making niggas go "Bo Bo!" Like I'm Super Cat ♪

♪ Me fear no one oh, no, here come ♪

♪ Wu-Tang shogun, killer to the eardrum ♪

♪ Put the needle to the groove, I gets rude ♪

♪ Forced to fuck it up ♪

♪ My style carries like a pickup truck ♪

♪ 'Cross the clear blue yonder, sea to shining sea ♪

♪ I slam tracks like quarterback sacks of LT ♪

♪ So why try and test the Rebel INS ♪

♪ Blessed since the birth, I earth-slam your best ♪

♪ 'Cause I bake the cake, then take the cake ♪

♪ And eat it too, with my crew ♪

♪ We head state to state ♪

♪ If you want beef ♪

♪ Then bring the ruckus ♪

♪ Wu-Tang Clan ain't nothing to fuck with ♪

I was like, "What? What is this?

Who are these people?

Why are they like superheroes

that can rap?"

It was just unlike anything

I'd ever seen.

I was like, "Yo, what--

what is this?"

♪ The Meth will come out ♪

♪ Tomorrow ♪

♪ Styles, conditions bizarre, bizarro ♪

♪ Flow with more afro than Rollo ♪

♪ Coming to a fork in the road ♪

♪ Which way to go just follow ♪

♪ Meth is the legend niggas is Sleepy Hollow ♪

♪ In fact, I'm a hard act to follow ♪

♪ I dealt for dolo ♪

♪ Bogart coming on through ♪

♪ Niggas is like, "Oh, my God, not you!" ♪

[Bobbito] Like, "Yo, what the hell

is that shit?"

I'm like, "I don't know."

You hear about these dudes that roll up

like, 100 deep everywhere.

[man] The lights went out,

and all of a sudden you hear, "Suu!"

[all hollering]

You hear a [sibilant sound]

You're like, "What was that?"

[laughs] What's going on?

These girls in the front, they got it.

Everybody else was like,

"What just happened?"

♪ calm orchestral music ♪

♪♪♪

[Raekwon] Wow.

I think I've seen, probably, The Wizard of Oz

or some shit here.

It be years, though.

Look good, though.

Look good.

♪♪♪

- What up, yo? - It's good, Rae.

[Method Man] Only time we basically see each other now

is at shows or the studio,

if the studio.

♪♪♪

This the Batcave.

[Method Man] But, see,

when we all in the same room,

and you really genuinely miss this motherfucker

because of the lack of communication,

because, you know,

dudes don't hang out with each other

and shit like that,

all that shit go right out the window.

I mean, you don't even think about it no more.

both: Ah!

[indistinct chatter]

Ah, you smell good, Chef.

You know how it goes.

Ah!

[Raekwon] What's going down?

♪♪♪

Love you too, dog. No doubt.

♪ I'm hood, like the C ♪

♪ On my hood, call me the champion ♪

♪ They say we wildin' out in these streets ♪

♪ We popping cannons in that heat, peel 'em ♪

♪ Put 'em to sleep like popping Ambien ♪

♪ Rappers having panic attacks ♪

♪ Go pop a Xanny then ♪

♪ We pop up everywhere that you at ♪

♪ We'll pop your family then ♪

♪ Wu block real and you're not ♪

♪ Make you a fan again ♪

♪ Turn around like Tupac ♪

♪ Spit it right at the cameraman ♪

♪ Method Man handle them ♪

♪ No strings, no mandolin ♪

♪ I spit the gutter ♪

♪ No st-st-stuttering, stammering ♪

♪ Touch of tamarind ♪

♪ With my group we be samplin' ♪

♪ A-d-d-d-d undisputed ♪

♪ Call me the champion ♪

[man] Method Man.

Nobody had his cadence,

his flow. It was unique, original.

Colin Kaep might take a knee.

I need action figure.

That where I'm at

we take a knee just to cap a nigga.

I hear you rappers--

"Take a knee just to cap a nigga." That's nice.

Yeah.

[Method Man] I still write my rhymes

to impress these dudes here.

I know if they like it,

my shit official.

♪ The rhythm of the rhyme that I throw ♪

♪ Is from the island, wilin' ♪

♪ Brothers need to stay out from Shaolin ♪

♪ I feel it's real for my peeps to be taught ♪

♪ That all my rhymes originated ♪

♪ From a goddamn thought ♪

♪ Shimmy, shimmy on shimmy yam, shimmy yay ♪

♪ Gimme the mic so I can take it away ♪

♪ Adapt to the sound ♪

♪ That rocks a ghetto blaster ♪

♪ Pop Glocks to set up shop like newscasters ♪

♪ Radioactive rhyme ♪

[Ghostface Killah] I learned my flows

from the rest of the clan.

RZ, Dirt, Rae.

I'm just a product of them.

[RZA] Ghost-faced killer

was the most dangerous villain

to ever hit the movie screen.

- Ghost-faced killer! - [evil laugh]

[RZA] And I felt that Ghostface energy

was that character.

Just the vibe alone

around that time.

You know what I mean?

Just the spirit was good.

That was the beginning of the--

the journey.

Right?

[Cappadonna] We did everything together.

Like, our mothers

know each other.

Know what I'm saying? Some of--

no, I don't know if our pops know each other.

Shit, where we come from,

most of us come

from broken homes

and shit like-- Know what I'm saying?

[Cappadonna] Like, yo,

that's how far we go back.

[Cappadonna] That's the real glue behind this shit.

Know what I'm saying?

♪ hip-hop music ♪

[Raekwon] This is where we live at, man.

You know what I'm saying?

It's the Wu-Tang monument

right here, y'all.

[RZA] Raekwon the Chef.

You know, Raekwon is, like, the street's

elegance.

This say 2 Cent,

and this say "Case"

right there, right?

[Raekwon] So you see all the names.

Them my other brothers who passed away

that we ain't forget about, you know?

But they still lie in our heart, y'know I'm saying?

[RZA] I always felt that Raekwon

had one of the best voices in the Wu-Tang Clan,

and once he got on the track,

for some reason, it sounded like a record.

♪ It started off on the island, AKA Shaolin ♪

♪ Niggas wilin', gunshots thrown, the phone dialing ♪

♪ Back in the days, I'm eight now ♪

♪ Making a tape now, Rae gotta get a plate now ♪

♪ And ignorant and mad young wanted to be the one ♪

♪ Till I got blaow! Blaow! Blaow! ♪

♪ Yeah, my pops was a fiend since 16 ♪

♪ Shootin' that "That's that shit!" in his bloodstream ♪

[Raekwon] Well, this is where it started from.

This is the green right here.

Y'all right on the soil

right now. Know what I'm saying?

This is--this is-- this is Shaolin right here.

Know what I'm saying? Look, look.

Just look at it.

Flash around. You know what I'm saying?

See a lot of leaves and shit.

[man] In the back of the project was undeveloped land,

and it had two ponds.

One pond was the white boy side of town,

so we kind of went to stay on our black side.

It was our side.

Had mad, crazy imagination.

We just take old, dirty rafts and put tires underneath them

and go out there with long sticks and poles

and just be on the rafts and have raft fights.

Then we find salamanders and spiders

and--and dig up worms.

You know, just kid shit, man.

[man] We was, like, the Little Rascals.

We used to build clubhouses,

go-karts,

bows and arrows.

I mean, we did it all together, man.

[man] Most of the clan members

are from Park Hill.

[Cappadonna] There it go, right there.

There she go.

The Verrazzano.

The virgin I know.

[RZA] U-God...

He always had this aggressive violence

about him, you know?

I mean, he was a beautiful guy.

You know, when he smiles, the whole room lights up,

because to make him smile is a lot.

[laughs]

[RZA] Inspectah Deck...

He was, like, the guy who's seeing everything,

maybe 'cause his window

was in the front of that building.

He could look out that window and see

everything that's going on.

Cappadonna.

♪ Place Staten Island year '76 ♪

♪ Residents Park Hill ♪

[RZA] He's a slang master.

Probably the strongest inspiration

to a lot of the other MCs from Park Hill,

and me and him used to make tapes

when we was kids-- you know what I mean?

14 years old.

♪ Double-check dialect ♪

Oh, look at the kids in the back, playing.

Hear the kids in the back playing?

♪ Staten Island-ry We burn calories ♪

- [Inspectah Deck] Yeah. - [Cappadonna] That's where

we used to play at, right there.

[U-God] Kickball. All that shit.

[Inspectah Deck] Yeah, B.

[Cappadonna] We was real young,

like, uh, Raekwon, g--uh, U-God...

[Inspectah Deck] You come on the block, you see everybody.

Meth was living in 55. I lived in 260.

Raekwon lived down the block, I think it was 225,

and Deck lived in 160.

I used to walk home from school

with Chef every day.

Me and Deck was in

the same home room.

Shit done changed.

Used to come up here, think about the rest of the city

and what's going on.

Used to come up here, me and Cappadonna,

write our rhymes, freestyle,

whatever you call it, whatever it was,

but we used to just have big dreams

of getting away from it all, you know what I mean?

♪ contemplative music ♪

♪♪♪

The hood is like a prison, and you know--

it's like a economic prison.

You can't, you know, move out, can't, you know,

go where you want to go, you can't go to certain blocks.

You don't know what's gonna happen over there.

What you want

is a kind of freedom.

I think, um, Wu--

it felt like the streets

that I knew as a kid.

It felt like the '80s

that I had, you know, just come up out of.

You know, I felt like they were speaking,

you know, to--to me, speaking for me.

The violence, you know, on the streets--

you know what I'm saying-- was just

very, very...familiar to me.

When you come up in the hood,

you can feel like your life is so small

and like nobody sees you

and your story is not important.

I didn't feel like if I got on the TV,

I f--I didn't feel like it represented,

you know, where I had come from.

We feel like that experience is completely erased.

I mean, you feel like these people

don't even see you,

and that's the importance of, you know, Wu

and, you know, all of these cats

for me. I felt like--

I felt seen.

♪ percussive music with vocals ♪

[RZA] You know, Masta Killa

was one of the last MCs

to join the cypher.

He started letting his lyrics loose

and through his realness,

he became the Masta Killa.

[laughs]

This is the first home that I came home to

from Brooklyn Jewish Hospital.

On the right side, you know, that's the window

that I would look out of every day.

My father was a singer, you know?

He was heavy into R&B,

and he would even come up the block,

singing sometimes, you know what I mean?

And when I would hear his voice,

I would almost jump out the window

'cause I was so excited

to know that my father was coming home,

so through trials and tribulations,

when he left the home for good,

that was, like, traumatic for me, man,

'cause, you know, it was, like, come on.

Pops was everything, you know what I mean?

That's like your first superhero

is your father, you know what I mean?

One thing he left was all his records.

[laughs]

He left all his records,

and I would play them every day, because

that's how I connected with him.

You know what I mean? I remember him singing

this record, and I would get it

and put it on the turntable

and listen to it just to remember

hearing his voice, you know what I mean?

Looking out of that window right there...

- [Robert James Jones] Right. - [Masta Killa] I was too

little to even come across the street by myself,

right? But I would look

across the street

and I would see legendary DJs

like his self right here,

Divine Sounds, and other brothers

in the neighborhood,

and hip-hop was just everywhere.

You know, I grew up

on that kind of music

in my house,

but I didn't grow up

with someone catching the break

and spinning it back and forth,

and--and that's what I heard coming from the park.

[hip-hop music playing]

[man] Ladies and gentlemen, tonight, in the place to be,

are you all with us?

All right.

♪♪♪

I go down to this block party and, you know,

the DJ's cutting. Never seen this before.

I'm just standing right there next to the DJ booth

watching this dude do this shit,

and one dude comes out there

with a amp and a bass guitar

and all he played was the breaks.

B-boom, boom.

B-b-boom. You know what I mean?

Yo, I used to have skates on at the jam.

Sometimes one. One skate and one sneaker.

That's how nice we was. They used to call us

the roller derby clique. You know what I mean?

♪♪♪

Ghost used to break dance, man. We used to try

to battle Ghost going to school.

Ghost would windmill,

and he--he was the floor general, man.

Got your little, uh--

windbreaker jackets on

on them nice little floors,

slippery floors,

just doing it. Boom.

I was about 12

when my feet

started getting wet

and with the streets

and now I'm--I'm magnetized.

♪ We just do it You just don't ♪

♪ You don't, you don't, you don't stop ♪

♪ Now we're rocking, now you're rocking ♪

♪ You just throw, you throw, you throw ♪

♪ You throw your hands in the air ♪

My next-door neighbor, Silky Dan,

took a Fisher-Price turntable

and he turned the volume down on the spin-back,

and he would cut,

and his man would kick rhymes

to the cuts that he was doing.

Watching him and them do that--

this is something I want to be a part of.

♪ You just shake, the shake, the shake ♪

♪ The shake-a, shake-a, shake-a shake ♪

♪ The shake, the shake, the shake ♪

We used to write on the walls in the hood

Meth used to write "Rugby."

Raekwon used to write "Reemo."

You know what I mean?

My first time meeting RZA

was at a block party

and RZA's DJing.

His name back then was the pr--

was Prince Rakeem.

[laughs] Before RZA.

You know what I'm saying?

We got the prince Rakeem, from Staten Island,

you know what I'm saying?

But I remember, I was checking RZ,

and, yo, this kid

just looked like

he got a glow about him.

RZA started making beats with that little four-track he had.

He used to give us little tapes.

I take 'em home...

♪♪♪

I could just look out the window and just see

everybody in the front of the building,

just dancing, DJs cutting.

It was different, yo.

It was different.

It just became you.

♪♪♪

♪♪♪

I was the only one from Stapleton.

Our project was known for our knuckle game.

Raekwon and them-- they lived in Park Hill.

We had to meet in this middle

to go to the same junior high school.

You know, and that's how we really got to--

to know each other.

Ten-cent chocolate milk shit.

The toasted almond ice cream shit.

You know what I mean? Shit was, like,

probably one of the best ice creams I ever had.

Toasted almond.

Vanilla joints. Ha.

♪ somber music ♪

Life, you know, I mean, is father split

with your mother, like the regular shit.

It's like, okay, mommy taking care of you.

You know what I mean? After a while,

mommy got--mommy got--

had two kids with muscular dystrophy.

You know what I mean? So it's hard on mommy.

Mommy start drinking.

I'm the oldest,

so I gotta take care of the two brothers.

You see what I'm saying? Pick 'em up off the toilet,

put 'em on the toilet,

put 'em in a bed,

dress 'em. Me.

I'm a little-- my little body.

You know, maybe I was depressed

and don't even know

that you depressed.

You know what I mean?

My aunt used to be like, "What's wrong with you?"

I was be like, [soft utterance]

"You know, it's nothing."

"Why you look sad?"

"I don't know." You know?

I don't know I look sad.

You know what I'm saying?

♪♪♪

And I know what my brothers is going through,

because I'm young,

because they can't go outside.

They sit there and watch TV all day,

and I'm not no one like, "Yo, okay, yo,

okay, let's-- let's go outside

and push them around and take them outside,"

'cause now, when I look at it,

shit would bring a tear to my eye,

because I wish I would've did that.

What kids...

...would go through--

wasn't no $300 Jordans.

It was those kind of times.

♪♪♪

♪♪♪

You see? Oh, shit, bro.

I mean... Hold on.

I'm coming over there.

♪ Syl Johnson's "Is It Because I'm Black" playing ♪

♪ Oh ♪

♪ Something is holding me back ♪

Are we gonna be on TV?

♪♪♪

♪ I wonder ♪

♪ Is it because I'm black ♪

♪♪♪

You live in these environments,

and you know you're broke,

but it don't matter,

because everybody else around you

in the same fucking situation.

Hey, yo.

This is--this is my old school right here.

They true-- not even old school.

Just true school, 'cause these brothers

is the same, you know what I'm saying?

What's up, baby? Get up in this...

[RZA] I actually didn't want to go

to the same school with my brother.

We used to go to the same school

and we only had four pair of pants

between three boys,

so... You know what I mean?

If I wore the black ones Monday,

he wore on Tuesday,

but by the time I get to Friday...

[laughing] I'm back with the black ones again,

and my brother already wore them, so

going to different schools gave us a better way

to do the swaps.

Do you know Biggie Small?

Yeah, I know Biggie.

Yeah, I know Tupac. Yo.

[excitedly] Ha!

All right, this is Park Hill, this is Killer Hill

projects, man.

10304.

♪ I wanna be somebody so bad ♪

♪ You see ♪

♪ I want diamond rings and things ♪

[woman] That's nice!

♪ Like you do ♪

[man] Can never get away from the--

the reality of it, you know what I'm saying?

♪♪♪

[RZA] One thing about the projects--

it's almost like a police state,

if you think about it,

'cause you have

housing police

located in your projects

and you're surrounded by a four-block radius.

You got your bodega, your barbershop,

your pharmacy,

your shop-and-save,

your check cashing place.

You know what I mean? It's designed

so you don't have to leave,

and a lot of people don't leave.

[Ghostface Killah] Looking like a jail,

the way the setup is like that.

Like, yo, the tiers.

♪ That they hold us, hold us, hold us back ♪

[Inspectah Deck] We ain't glorifying it.

We just, yo--

firsthand. Y'all want to know

what we're seeing in our lives, y'all want to know

what we talking about, we talking about this.

♪ It ain't right, it ain't right ♪

♪ That they hold us, hold us, hold us back ♪

[Method Man] And somewhere in the middle

of all that shit is that hope

that one of us or all of us

is gonna make it at one point in time

in this lifetime and shit.

♪♪♪

I'll say that about the projects.

This is the hood. Good old Bed-Stuy.

Do or die.

[RZA] The GZA--of course,

the Genius. He is a foundation

of it.

Uh, he's the genius, like, the way he thinks,

and his lyrics has that content.

This is where the All In Together Now

crew started,

right here on this block.

719, Monroe. I used to live right here,

in that--that apartment right there up the steps.

[Method Man] The constant was RZA

and GZA always making moves,

and they got a record deal.

One, two, three, hm.

[beatboxing]

Oh, that sound kind of ill.

Yeah.

[Method Man] Like, Dirty, GZA, and RZA are cousins,

so they had a bunch of routines.

♪ Let me tell you about the Genius, yo ♪

♪ I have a style of my own ♪

♪ My hands are like vice grips ♪

♪ Holding a microphone ♪

♪ I flow smooth with rhymes that are rough ♪

♪ You know why 'Cause I can't get enough ♪

♪ So I want practice ♪

There's a lot of battling, man.

Yeah. Has it--

Walking from borough to borough,

looking for MCs,

and battling, making routines.

And f--and, you know, we thought we was

the ill-est MCs in New York, so we was--

it was a hunger to be known as an MC.

Once we seen these two brothers, the GZA and the RZA,

come through and did their thing,

that's when I knew sooner or later,

it was gonna be a bigger situation.

You know, 'cause it was--

there always somebody from Staten Island.

You know, even old Justice-- Br-Brooklyn

to the f--to the fullest.

You know, it was still-- he was still--

[U-God] That nigga Park Hill. That nigga Park Hill

at heart, nigga.

- [Raekwon] He know, Park Hill- - No, he a hillbilly.

[Raekwon] You know what I mean? But...

One of our brothers from our neighborhood.

And just to have some brothers

that we thought made it

and still come around and to see them

- that we actually knew. - Exactly.

[Method Man] He was our first

superstar, local superstar.

♪ Here I am lounging at a hype party ♪

[GZA] That was the first video.

♪ With a pair of bedroom eyes ♪

[GZA] Ol' Dirty was in there also,

doing the funky Ason slide.

♪ Now check out the game ♪

♪ I said ♪

♪ Girl come do me ♪

♪ Do me, do me, do me ♪

♪♪♪

Do you?

So, um, tell me,

how'd you guys get into, uh,

rapping?

We was, like--

you could say almost born rhyming.

- [woman] Born rhyming? - You know--yes.

In our genes, you know?

That's one way to put it.

And, um,

been doing it for a long time,

tearing up parties, waxing MCs.

Okay, where did you get your, um, style of rapping?

Just, like-- just grew on me.

[ODB] It's from natural talent, you know?

[woman] Natural talent? Raw talent?

Raw talent.

- Raw talent? - Definitely.

[ODB] It's a family thing, too.

We was always the hypest in each town.

Where he lived at, he was the hypest MC.

- I lived at-- - [woman] Where are you guys

- from, when you say-- - Brooklyn.

- [woman] Brooklyn? - Brooklyn, you know?

I was from the east,

he's from Bed-Stuy.

You know, he's the flyest MC in this town,

I am. You know what I'm saying?

But he out from Staten Island,

flyest MC out there.

[woman] Okay. How long you been there?

I've been dancing, you know, since I was a little kid.

- [woman] A little kid? - Yeah.

[ODB] You know, you know, I always had

a funky style

when it came to dancing.

I got this dance called the Ason.

- [woman] The Ason? - You know--yeah.

[ODB] Popular dance, you know.

The funky Ason slide.

- [woman] The funky Ason slide? - Yeah.

[woman] You're gonna teach me that before you leave?

- [GZA] Maybe so. - [woman] Maybe so?

- Yeah. - That's the...

[RZA] Even though GZA's the one that

taught me hip-hop,

and exposed me to it,

the person who I nurtured it with

is ODB.

Howdy!

[RZA] So Ol' Dirty Bastard.

What's up? This is Ol' Dirty Ba--

He was very different from the rest of the people

in his household, so he realized

he was a son that was unique,

and he eventually went on

to choose the name Ason Unique.

♪ Yo, I'm the U-N-I ♪

♪ The Q-U-E ♪

♪ The G from the OD ♪

♪ I said I go by the unforgettable name ♪

♪ Of the man called Unique G well ♪

As my cousin and knowing him...

Big Ra.

[RZA] He had a personality...

We got the RZA in the house.

...That was just raw

and unapologetic.

Yeah, man.

Y'all--y'all just sit in the car, right, baby?

Man, good old New York.

Make me want to sing a song or something.

♪ If you need a strong hand ♪

♪ To guide you through the night ♪

♪ If it means anything to you ♪

♪ To know that I care for you ♪

[ODB] Let's forget about Ol' Dirty Bastard.

You know what I'm saying?

Let's go back to Rusty. Rusty.

You know, m-m-my mama,

Cherry Jones--

she called me Rusty Jones.

That's what my mama called me.

♪ somber music ♪

[Cherry] I had six.

I had them all before I turned 25.

- [man] Yeah. - [Cherry] And I start

at 19.

But Rusty--Rusty was a mama's boy.

[ODB] Well, my mom was the sweetest woman I ever met.

♪♪♪

I love you, mama.

[laughs]

I love you dearly.

Thanks for bringing me here.

[Ramsey] Our musical background

was from our parents, you know?

Matter of fact, Mom, you got to mention

that her sister and her...

- Mm-hmm. - ...Were in--were a group.

- Tiny and Terry. - [Ramsey] Tiny and Terry.

It was my Aunt Paulette and Mom.

Mm-hmm. My music was my life.

[Cherry] I never listened to rap.

[Cherry] I hated it.

[Cherry] I just don't like it.

I never did,

and Rusty never listened to it.

[ODB] I like Marvin Gaye,

you know? Otis Redding.

You know, I grew up on them type of songs,

and all that singer stuff

and all that--man, that's just--that's natural,

man. That's how I feel my mus--

I'm like Patti LaBelle.

I'm like--I'm like Millie Jackson, you know?

[Cherry laughs]

[ODB] And my brother--he used to play heavy metal.

That's all he played, was rock and roll.

[Ramsey] You know, I-I started out playing drums.

My cousin RZA and GZA used to come over to our house

in Linden Plaza.

We would make our own hip-hop tapes,

so I would take a headphone

and plug it into the, uh,

input of the amplifier,

put it underneath a shoebox,

and play break beats on that.

We would turn the volume up

and get this loud sound,

and it sounded killer.

They would just rhyme over--

over the beats I would do,

right in our bedroom.

[Ramsey] They called their crew

the All In Together Now Crew.

RZA had this rhyme about, like,

sex and--and--and I

won't even say it on camera, but...

[RZA] One, two, one, two, yo.

♪ Sitting in my class at a quarter to ten ♪

♪ Waiting patiently for the class to begin ♪

♪ The teacher says "Students open up your texts ♪

♪ And read the first paragraph on oral sex" ♪

♪ Yo, oral sex what kind of class is this ♪

♪ And the gal next to me says "What's wrong with you miss" ♪

♪ Yo, this is the... ♪

[ODB] RZA taught me everything I knew,

by the way, you know?

Man, I remember, back in the days, man,

when he used to make me rhyme.

So he used to write lyrics for me, man,

and if I ain't rhyme, we used to fight.

♪ Oh, yes, in pain ♪

♪ She yells out my name ♪

Rakeem! Rakeem!

♪ And then I came ♪

- Peace. - Oh, peace.

Ason in the motherfucking house.

Go on, Cipher, Divine.

Peace.

♪ smooth jazz music ♪

♪♪♪

[Method Man] I went and got a job.

Statue of Liberty was hiring.

A lot of my friends were already working there.

I started working. I loved the job.

It's my first real fucking job and shit.

[U-God] Method used to work full-time,

but I used to work on the weekends.

♪♪♪

I was a janitor.

I used to take out

all the garbages,

clean up all the condiments.

All the fucking tourists used to be nasty.

The bathrooms--

they used to do all type of nasty shit in there.

Had to, um, steam the floors

out on the deck, 'cause the seagulls

come in there and shit all over the goddamn place.

Know the history of the Statue of Liberty?

It was given to us by the French

and supposed to be the black woman?

They say it is.

I don't know.

Now, mind you,

we worked here for years and never went

to go see this woman.

[U-God] Never one time, we went up in there.

[Method Man] Wow.

♪♪♪

[laughs]

- [both] How you doing? - I'm good.

How you been?

Good, thank you.

Still here.

[laughter]

Let me see something.

[U-God] Mr. Hill was the owner of the restaurant

that's on the Statue of Liberty.

And he had a son, Brad.

Oh, that is the man right there.

How are you, sir?

[muffled]

How are you? How you been?

You look great, Brad.

- You too. - Wow.

Wow, sir. How you doing, sir?

- It's been a long time. - Yes, yes, sir. Yes, sir.

You doing well?

Uh, I'm doing well. I'm doing pretty good

for myself.

I see you've transitioned a little bit

to old--old shows.

Absolutely, absolutely.

What are you doing?

Wu-Tang, you know?

- Okay. - Wu-Tang group.

Same group. Same group stuff.

Just, you know, me and him--

you know, we have-- we was best friends,

so, you know, we just transitioned

to something else.

- [laughs] - You know.

You know, I have dreams

about--like, I'll be in the dream

and I'm working here again.

You gotta understand, for me,

these--these are still moments

that are just etched in my brain forever,

because it was a highlight of my life.

Even though with the career and everything,

this is still one of the highlights of our life.

Best job I ever freaking had.

Thank you very much.

You still in Staten Island?

Yeah, same place.

- Same place? - Really?

- Well... - More or less.

- I mean the same borough. - [laughs]

A little nicer-- a little nicer place.

A little bit-- a little nicer place.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. My kids--

they didn't have to grow up

where I grew up at. That's the best part.

- The way it should be, right? - Yeah.

[Method Man] Let me see

if I still remember this.

All right, I still got it.

♪♪♪

How you doing, sir?

Mind if I get this? Thank you.

[U-God] That's what I was telling him.

Like, it's about getting that money.

Only--the only--the only-- only thing--

only thing that's gonna get you freedom

is your money, is money, tell you the truth,

and I know dudes don't like to really, like,

to put--emphasize on money like that,

but that's the only thing gonna get freedom,

because other than that,

this is gonna be--

I don't know, man. They just--

just--it's just fucked-up.

♪♪♪

Look at it, look at it.

♪♪♪

There is no way she's black.

♪♪♪

[RZA] You know, I think New York is like a--

a Mecca of entrepreneurs.

Sometime, we'd be at the highway,

selling the newspapers.

[U-God] We sold newspapers

on the Verrazzano Bridge.

[Raekwon] Yeah, on the Verrazzano,

and I remember,

RZ and them, they--

they had those lanes.

Like, they was smart enough to know

what lanes was jumping and shit.

The worst that you could get is the truck lane.

Papers going for 30¢,

they give you a dime all for every paper,

so you get about 15 bucks a day doing that.

For a welfare family, that's an important income,

$15 a day.

I was working in Grand Central Station

as a messenger, bro.

Packing bags at the supermarket.

I used to work for the, uh, transit authority,

cleaning two cars a day.

My pops died when I was six,

so I'm trying to take a little--

a little bit of the-- of the pressure

off my mom, to try to raise

three kids, you know what I'm saying?

Trying to make money,

just hustling any way I can,

so I was working, man.

♪ melancholy music ♪

[Jim] I grew up in a mostly all-white community,

so for me, like, hip-hop

is the love of language,

and its--its beauty

and what--and what you can do with it,

the amazing things you can do with it.

It's in me because of my appreciation for it.

We live in apartheid in America.

I don't care what anyone says.

This is like apartheid,

and, uh, oppressed people

on any level in the world

in the history of humans--

you cannot destroy the strength

of ideas,

and the Wu-Tang celebrate that.

They are warriors of the imagination,

and the power of the imagination

is far stronger than guns or money.

♪♪♪

[woman singing]

♪♪♪

Staten Island is the-- the most racist, like,

to me, I think, out of all the boroughs.

[Raekwon] Our district was in a white neighborhood,

so, you know, some of us

didn't like going to school

because, you know,

we wanted to have that mixture.

We wanted to see more black people too.

[Inspectah Deck] Park Hill niggas--

we went to 13.

Where was 13? In Rose Bank.

Rose Bank...

...mini-Mississippi. [laughs]

[man] This is Tompkins Avenue,

Rose Bank, Staten Island,

[crowd] Rose Bank! Rose Bank!

Rose Bank! Rose Bank!

Rose Bank! Rose Bank! Rose Bank! Rose Bank!

[Ghostface Killah] Don't be caught in Rose Bank.

They--they'll fuck you up in Rose Bank.

[shouting, whistling]

♪ desolate music ♪

[woman] Black leaders on Staten Island

say a black teenager who was killed by a car

may have been trying to escape from a group of whites.

When I used to go to PS 13,

you know, I don't know. I only coulda been, like,

nine, ten years old, and I used to remember

riding under this bridge trestle.

It used to say "Kill all niggers," you know,

"KKK," and I used to be like,

"Damn, that was really frightening,"

and I had to go to school

every day like that,

and we was, like, kids

on the fucking yellow bus. Dude, like,

who fucking put that shit there?

That shit-- you know what I mean?

That shit stood with me for a long time.

[woman chanting] ♪ Hey, hey, ho, ho ♪

♪ Racism's... ♪

Go home and clean you off--

why, you look like you white!

As a nine-, ten-year-old,

you getting chased

home from school

by grown-ass men.

"Damn, I'm somewhere I'm not supposed to be!

No blacks, not in this shit."

[reporter] Do black kids come around here?

Uh, they walk by freely.

[teenager] So the guy,

he get r--get in his car and he asks--say,

"What you niggers doing down here?"

Calling you "nigger,"

"Get the fuck out of here."

"I'ma kill you, nigger,"

throwing shit at you,

bottles busting in the street.

You nine.

They chase me.

One guy had got in his car

and he started chasing us.

They like, "Oh, we're gonna

have us a whipping right now."

Bro, you running,

and the bottle come--kssh!-- next to you--kssh!

A rock comes skipping

and some shit actually hits you in your back.

They calling for more guys to come.

"Hey, Johnny! [nasal nondescript utterances]

Come over here! Yo!" [nasal nondescript utterances]

You thinking they really gonna kill you, man.

So I'm like, "Oh, shit."

Scared to death. Scared to death.

♪ uneasy music ♪

Knew it all. Fights.

I remember sometimes,

a riot would jump off.

White boys chasing you.

You gotta fight a bunch of these football dudes

hoping to make it to the bus.

You know, 'cause back then, you know,

Italian white boys--

they tough.

They grew up like fucking

Richie Cunningham and all them niggas.

The Fonz.

Coming to school with leathers on

with no shirt under.

You know, bold motherfuckers

like Grease, like--

you know, those type of dudes.

You know what I mean?

That's why Grease is one

of my favorite movies,

'cause it just remind me

of those kind of dudes

we went to school with.

You know, in Park Hill, you--you go to 350, 320,

that's--that's Little Spain.

Them niggas will whoop your ass.

Know what I'm saying?

We got the Africans over here.

They'll whoop your ass.

We got the Jamaicans over here.

They'll whoop your ass.

You got us. We'll whoop your ass.

The all the different sections of people

that there is

fighting for everything.

Fighting for closet space,

fighting for parking space,

fighting for the same jacket

from the same store.

It was always conflict.

♪ hip-hop music ♪

[indistinct chatter]

[man] All right, if I could get your undivided attention,

you'll get a chance to learn

what the Five Percenters are all about.

We're about elevation.

All y'all and us are one family,

so we build to teach our babies how to live

right and exact

by giving them the knowledge of themselves

so they can elevate themselves.

[cheers]

[RZA] Being part of the Five Percent at that time--

the Mathematics and the knowledge of self.

The brothers was very unified.

We all could say we was, like,

totally converted into that,

totally immersed into it.

♪ pensive music ♪

So the Five Percent Nation

has its origin

with a brother who was called

the Father, Allah.

His birth name was Clarence 13X Smith.

He was a student at temple number seven

under Malcolm X,

Malcolm X being the student

of the honorable Elijah Muhammad,

but the Father said

these lessons belong

in the hands of the youth,

so he left the temple,

took the lessons,

and brought them to the streets of New York.

See, we are Five Percent, the poor righteous teachers.

Five Percent is going to do their job

in the poor part of Planet Earth.

That's why we're the high, intelligent people

of this planet Earth.

See, we gonna be building.

We gonna build a black nation

that's gonna be all wise and righteous.

You hear me speak-- ain't no difference.

We all as one.

[RZA] I was given knowledge of myself

from my cousin,

the GZA.

The GZA was the one

who enlightened me.

At the time,

his name was Allah Justice,

and he explains the Mathematics.

The Supreme Mathematics--

knowledge, wisdom,

understanding,

culture or freedom,

power or refinement,

equality, god,

build or destroy,

born, knowledge, cipher,

is the essence of the lessons we study.

Knowledge is to look, listen, whole soul respect.

Wisdom is the way we keep the snakes in check.

Understanding is to what? See things clear.

The culture frees the dumb so the deaf will hear.

The first lesson of the Five Percent teaching--

it says,

"Who is

the original man?"

The answer is the original man

is the Asiatic Blackman.

It's a powerful thing at a young age,

learning about yourself.

[RZA] We are not just the children of slaves.

You know what I mean?

The original man is the--

is the father of civilization.

♪ Say who is the original man ♪

♪ Who is the original man ♪

♪ Say who is the original man ♪

♪ Who is the original man ♪

♪ The Asiatic Blackman ♪

♪ Asiatic Blackman ♪

♪ The maker, the owner ♪

♪ The cream of the planet Earth ♪

♪ The father of civilization ♪

♪ Father of civilization ♪

Pop it!

I felt like the Mathematics

gave brothers, like, high self-esteem.

[U-God] You know what I mean? It just

gave you a different outlook on, um--

- On life. - [U-God] On life.

[U-God] You know, when you heard the Blackman was God,

it was like, "What? Blackman is god?"

It was like, "Unh!" Your chest got poked out.

[U-God] You're like, "Yeah, it's real."

- Made you responsible. - Yeah.

And that wisdom and knowledge--

that's why we ended up,

you know, who we are.

A whole new outlook.

[RZA] People would say, "Why do you go off-track, RZA?

You got knowledge of self."

I had mental freedom,

but I didn't have economic freedom.

Yeah.

♪ How many MCs must take a chill ♪

♪ Before somebody says don't fuck with Park Hill ♪

♪ Well, this one here is called [indistinct] ♪

♪ Straight from the island of Shaolin is direct ♪

♪ [indistinct] killer bee out to bust you ♪

♪ Pockets stay fat like a muscle ♪

♪ Sharpen the mental ♪

♪ Hard to tell what a nigga been through ♪

[Cappadonna] Storm of Jamaicans

come through our hood,

like, '85, '86,

with big chunks of gold on,

gold in the mouth, know what I'm saying?

That's when I first seen that shit.

I was like, "Yo, how are you getting that?"

♪♪♪

[Method Man] The majority of people I grew up with

was drug dealers now.

Everybody was selling crack.

Typical work day, I get up

5:00 in the morning,

we get our little sandwich,

which was a little pastrami and Swiss,

they go around the corner,

find your stash...

Mm-hmm. [muffled]

♪ A hand in your pocket and one by your side ♪

[U-God] And then you rockin'.

I was moving, like, probably, like, a brick a week, man.

You know, you've always just tried to live

this American dream, paying for itself

to get through college, all that shit.

I ain't gonna say we was partners.

We definitely wasn't partners.

I was out there, selling his shit.

Boom. Next thing you know,

I'm out there with the pack.

I'm scrambling, I'm scrambling.

All of a sudden, this epidemic hit, you know,

and now, your neighborhood is worth

$1/4 million a day.

That's interesting to me. You know what I mean?

My older brother

Divine was the hustler.

He was the source of the family, in a way.

Come to my house, you see a pair

Technic 1200 turntables.

My brother got that from hustling.

[Method Man] And in the midst of all this,

we had been making,

you know, little tapes and shit

at RZA's house for years.

Gotta go to Rakeem's house,

work on this music.

After we doing our little hustling

on the front of the building,

and we should just say, "The hell with it, man."

We go see Ra down in Stapleton,

go hit them beats up, okay?

♪ Ooh, what, grab my nuts, get screwed ♪

♪ Ah, here comes my Shaolin style ♪

♪ True B-A-ba-B-Y-U ♪

♪ To my crew with a ♪

♪ Suu ♪

It's gonna blow, boys.

[RZA] It was my dream,

but Divine contributed to that dream,

but he got locked up.

You know a child can be guided on the right path

if you put that proper knowledge,

wisdom, understanding inside of his head.

You know what I mean?

And the proper opportunities.

When I got knowledge of self,

I had to choose a name for myself.

I came with the name Rakeem.

Uh, there's not really a Arabic word for it, either,

so I had to find the word

that's--it means to be original.

Zig-zag-zig

actually means "knowledge, wisdom, understanding."

I was going on the right path,

and then I got caught

into a world

of trouble, turmoil,

doing the wrong things,

and I zagged away,

which led to nothing but more trouble for me.

Once Divine got locked up,

my mother had left New York City.

She went to Ohio:

Steubenville, Ohio,

the birthplace of Dean Martin.

♪ somber synth music ♪

I was, you know, 18 years old.

That's when me and Ghostface became roommates,

and next thing you know,

we got months behind the rent,

and the only way to put bread on the table

was to get back to street hustling.

♪♪♪

[Method Man] Crack damaged the fucking hood

in an explosive way, like, overnight.

[Cappadonna] It was a lot of cash flow

involved, but the consequences

w-was big.

I hated that shit.

I hated selling on the block.

Dudes was getting murdered.

My brother got shot in the stomach couple of times.

- You know what I'm saying? - [gunshots]

I got the phone call that Ghost got shot.

- My stomach dropped. - [gunshots]

"Yeah, a bitch nigga shot me, my neck up."

No. I got shot out there,

but that's not the reason why we wrote "Protect Ya Neck."

That was a very scary time right there.

A lot of niggas gone, in jail.

I got locked up

for 3 1/2 ounces of coke and a gun.

Cappa was gone, in jail.

Yeah, I got smack

around '87,

and they sent me to Rikers Island.

Deck was gone, in jail.

I sold crack

to an undercover officer.

Instead of stopping,

we went harder.

[two gunshots]

It was just a bad night, you know what I mean?

[sirens wailing]

I got into some trouble to--as, uh, violence ensued.

[gunshot]

- Kid got shot. - [gunshot]

Led to me facing eight years in jail.

♪♪♪

I went to trial.

You know, black dudes don't really go to trial

to win, you know what I mean?

The prosecutor wasn't making no deals with me.

He was taking me all the way.

♪♪♪

I'm in prison, y'all.

I felt totally alone.

[cell doors slamming]

And, you know,

I was blessed to-- to beat that one.

My mother came out and she saw me.

She looked me in my eyes

and said this was my second chance.

Don't look back. Walk straight.

Walk that straight and narrow path.

I did that.

I zigged back.

You know, it was like, "Nah,

I'm not Prince Rakeem."

I'm the RZA.

I'm Rakeem Zig-Zag-Zig Allah.

♪ Yo, life is a struggle ♪

After I got out of jail,

I drove back to New York

and started making music.

[indistinct rapping]

♪ I be the best by far ♪

♪ Bust it up ♪

I was ready to get serious again, you know what I mean?

[indistinct chatter]

Hey, they don't know where you coming from.

[Inspectah Deck] When RZA moved to Morningstar,

that's around the time

where he got the idea

of putting the clan together.

Kick that shit, Deck.

♪ I smoke on the mic like Smokin' Joe Frazier ♪

♪ The hell-raiser, raising hell with the flavor ♪

♪ Terrorize the jam like troops in Pakistan ♪

♪ Swinging through your town like your neighborhood

Check him out, man. Yo, what he just said---

it sounded crazy, crazy threatening,

but it wasn't really no actual violence being spoken.

[RZA] Terrorize the jams.

He terrorizing jams-- not--not--not old ladies,

not little kids, not--not spu--

He terrorizing the jams like troops in Pakistan.

Troops in Pakistan.

You know, they was terrorizing Pakistan.

[RZA] I identified Staten Island

and these crew of dudes

that I go have cyphers with,

and these dudes is coming

to my house, making demos

all the illest.

♪ I'm blow up your projects ♪

♪ Then take all your assets ♪

♪ 'Cause I came to shake the frame in half ♪

♪ With the thoughts that bomb shit like math ♪

Like mathematics. You understand?

[Inspectah Deck] Being around with my brothers

and we rhyming and we getting down,

it's like, "Damn,

have we heard that shit?" Like,

"Say that part again. Like w-what was that?"

♪ So if you want to try to flip ♪

♪ Go flip on the next man ♪

[GZA] Oh, don't flip on us.

♪ 'Cause I'll grab the clip and ♪

♪ Hit you with 16 shots... ♪

And that's when the vision hit me.

Everything--the righteousness-- everything came to me.

A'ight, this is-- this the road manager here of Wu-Tang.

I don't know how in the world

you keep all these brothers together.

I must shake your hand on that,

'cause I know it's a hard job.

Mook was our manager,

our first manager back in the days.

♪ somber music ♪

[Mook] Well, my cousins. You know,

RZA.

Not only my cousin.

He's also my god-brother.

Yeah, I was a entrepreneur,

just like everybody else, you know.

Had my first child

and I knew my life had to change.

Then I became a New York City bus driver.

RZA came to me and said, "Look,

I really want you to help me,

help me, you know, with my music," and,

"Uh, man, I ain't got time

for that bullshit."

I was driving the bus.

And when I was talking to him,

I'm just looking at his eyes.

I-I see something in his eyes

that was, like, he ain't bullshitting.

He's for real.

So I told him, "A'ight,

I'll work with you,

but don't fuck with me, man.

If we're gonna do this shit,

you gotta give me all you got,

'cause I'm gonna give you all I got.

That's the only way I know how to do something."

I knew nothing about the music business.

I was brand-spanking-new.

I just knew how to move a product.

To me, records was product.

First thing to come in, "Protect Ya Neck."

We gotta make people listen to it.

♪ Wu-Tang Clan coming at ya ♪

♪ What, what, Protect Ya Neck, yo ♪

♪ Russell, set it off ♪

♪ What, what the Inspectah Deck ♪

♪ I smoke on the mic like Smokin' Joe Frazier ♪

♪ A hell-raiser raising hell with the flavor ♪

♪ Terrorize the jam like troops in Pakistan ♪

♪ Swinging through your town ♪

♪ Like your neighborhood Spider-Man ♪

♪ So, uh, tick-tock, keep ticking ♪

♪ While I get ya flipping off the fresh that I'm kicking ♪

♪ The Lone Ranger, code red, danger ♪

♪ Deep in the dark with the art ♪

♪ To rip the charts apart ♪

♪ The vandal too hot to handle ♪

♪ You battle, you're saying goodbye like Tevin Campbell ♪

♪ Roughneck, Inspectah Deck's on the set ♪

♪ The Rebel, I make more noise than heavy metal ♪

♪ Yo, the way I make the crowd go wild ♪

♪ Sit back, relax, won't smile ♪

♪ Rae got it going on, pal ♪

♪ Call me the rap assassinator ♪

♪ Rhymes rugged and built like Schwarzenegger ♪

[Bobbito] December of '92--

I don't remember the exact date--

we were on Thursday nights.

Stretch happened to be

out of town.

I was not FCC-licensed.

I was not technically allowed to do a show on my own.

I don't even know how to DJ.

Now, the door rings, so I open up the door

and there's five cats.

"Yo, B, we got this new record, yo.

Yo, play that song.

Yo, play that.

You know, yo,

Yo, yo, play that. Play that right now."

I'm like, "Yo, chill, chill."

I go into the studio.

Yo, it's all white labeled.

That shit don't even have no fucking writing on it.

I put it on, I'm-- I'm hearing, like,

martial arts. Hoo! Ha! Ha!

Like, what the fuck is this shit?

But I'm like, "Oh, this shit is dope,"

so I played it.

♪ For short, Mr. Meth ♪

♪ Moving on your left, uh ♪

♪ And set it off, get it off, let it off like a gat ♪

♪ I want to break, fool, cock me that ♪

♪ Small change, they putting shame in the game ♪

♪ I take aim and blow the nigga out the frame ♪

♪ And like Fame my style will live forever ♪

♪ My style will live forever ♪

♪ Niggas crossing over but they don't know no better ♪

♪ But I do, true can I get a ♪

♪ Suu ♪

♪ 'Nuff respect to the 1-6-ooh ♪

♪ I mean, oh, yo, check out the flow ♪

♪ Like the Hudson or PCP when I'm dusting ♪

♪ Niggas off, 'cause I'm hot like sauce ♪

♪ The smoke from the lyrical blunt make me, uh ♪

♪ Ooh, what, grab a nut, get screwed ♪

♪ Oow, here comes the Shaolin style ♪

♪ True badass who, baby, you ♪

- ♪ To my crew with a ♪ - ♪ Suu ♪

♪ Yeah-eah, yeah, yeah ♪

♪ Come on baby, baby come on baby come on ♪

♪ Baby, baby, come on ♪

♪ Oh ♪

♪ Yo, you best protect ya neck ♪

[Bobbito] My man calls up

right after it's done.

He's like, "Yo, what the hell is that shit?"

I'm like, "I don't know."

There's no video out.

Steve Rifkind wasn't in the picture.

This is just

straight out the trunk

selling shit.

♪ Yeah out loud my style is wild so book me ♪

♪ Not long is how long that this rhyme took me ♪

♪ Ejecting styles from my lethal weapon ♪

♪ My pen that rock from here to Oregon ♪

♪ There's more again, catch it like a psycho flashback ♪

♪ I love gats; if rap was a gun ♪

♪ You wouldn't bust that ♪

♪ I come in in all types of shapes and sounds ♪

♪ And where I lounge is my stomping grounds ♪

♪ I give an order to my peoples across the water ♪

♪ To go and snatch up props all around the border ♪

♪ And get far like a shooting star ♪

♪ 'Cause who I are living the life of Pablo Escobar ♪

♪ Point blank as I kick the square biz ♪

♪ There it is, yo, with pros and there it goes ♪

[Mook] I'm taking the record to the DJs,

I'm taking it to the stores,

I'm taking the record to the clubs.

I mean, anywhere music is being played,

I'm taking the record there.

Rock and Soul--that was the number one

hip hop store, back in the day,

and the young lady there-- you know,

at first, she didn't want to take the record,

so then I came up

with a little...plan.

I can stand up? Want me to sit?

[man] Yeah, stand up.

[Mook] I'm gonna send someone

in the store

and ask for the record.

"That record.

That record, you know.

There's a bunch of guys

and they're MCing..."

It was my cousin, Vince.

I swear to God, this is true.

And so I come back in

another time.

My cousin in there,

and I play the record for him.

[record static]

All of a sudden,

he's like, "That's it!

That's that shit

I was talking about!

I heard it on Bobbito's show!"

'Cause Bobbito--

Stretch Armstrong-- their show?

First motherfuckers to play the record.

And I swear to God, out of nowhere,

this other motherfucker just came.

"Yeah! I love that song!

Yeah, I heard that shit on Bobbito's show, too!

I've been looking for that shit!"

And then another motherfucker--

"Oh, shit! I've been looking all over

for that record!" Next thing you know,

everybody in the store,

so I pulled out the box.

I'm like this:

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, I could buy this--

They said, "No, no, no, no, not in my store."

She grabbed the box

and said, "No, no, no, no, no, no.

She came over this--

She bought the whole box.

That was the first fucking box I sold,

so I said, "Damn, that shit work like that?"

Mm. I did that shit in the Bronx,

I did it in Brooklyn, I did it in Virginia,

I--

we went from here to North Carolina.

I did that shit everywhere.

Shit was just going crazy.

- Wu... - [crowd] Tang!

- Wu... - [crowd] Tang!

And we out.

Brothers,

Wu-Tang Clan, y'all!

[indistinct]

[Cappadonna] I remember we was in the house.

I was with Rae

waiting for "Protect Ya Neck"

that we heard on the radio.

Just hearing that shit

on that radio

all the way through.

Man, I saw Rae jump so fucking high, yo.

Yo, he jumped like, "Yeah!"

Like, "Oh, shit."

Once I heard it on the radio,

oh, my fucking God.

I was like, "We going."

And we was in front of 160,

and I was still selling drugs.

Niggas was amped

the fuck up and shit, you know what I'm saying?

Everybody listening for their part.

And my boy Shabby let a shot off and shit.

He has a little-- it looked like a little .22,

might have been a .38-- who knows--and shit.

Like, Bao! Bap! Bap!

♪♪♪

Eh, it just gave you your battery.

Like, "Oh, shit! Yo.

Yo, we made it!"

Nobody thought this shit was going

to be anything. Know what I'm saying?

Like, I was one of them dudes

that came with RZA to every meeting

in the beginning,

when he was shopping everything.

We met with different labels.

With Russell Simmons

and Def Jam

and everybody was all-- at first,

was like, "Yo, it's just too many, man.

[Raekwon] It's too many of y'all, man.

Like, how the fuck?

No, this ain't gonna work.

[Inspectah Deck] "Ah, nine members.

How you gonna split the money? How's this gonna work?"

And our thing was like, "Why are you worrying

about how we gonna split the money, bro?"

And we all sat

with one goal in our minds.

"Like, yo, if y'all ain't taking all of us,

you can't have none of us."

It's like this. You know what I'm saying?

'Cause people, they looking at us

as nine individuals,

then we ain't gonna make it.

We ain't gonna let this money shit

break us up, and we know

that money is the root of all evil,

you know what I'm saying?

We gonna do this, man. We ain't gonna--

Wu is gonna never break the fuck up, man.

[Cappadonna] You know?

[Raekwon] They know.

[RZA] The word Wu-Tang itself

means "he who is deserving of God."

The legend is

that General Wu

goes to the top of this mountain to meditate,

and he pondered all the questions of life,

and the legend says

that he decides

to jump off the mountain,

and when he jumped off, he re-emerged, it says,

as a spirit or a dragon

and became immortal,

and thus, they named the mountain

Wu Tang.

♪ Uh, I bring it back to that boom-bap ♪

♪ Original gun claps and the moon's black ♪

♪ Now tell Stella this is how she get the groove back ♪

♪ Way before The Source, my main source was the move pass ♪

♪ That extra P in 9-1 used to walk this way ♪

♪ When DMCs might run ♪

♪ Son, my trends are culture in the slum ♪

♪ I done bleu cheese telling you I'm Cs where I'm from ♪

♪ Be real, you don't wanna get killed in Cypress Hill ♪

♪ Them boys get beastie and they licensed to ill ♪

♪ And out-scratch what my homies have for real ♪

♪ Need a hit squad starring the gang mass appeal ♪

♪ I got a tribe and a so-called request ♪

♪ 'Cause I'm nice on the mic with a little salt and pep ♪

♪ Yep, that's a fact, salute, that's respect ♪

♪ You get beat nuts, you know I go psycho for less ♪