[📚 Book 📚] Raw: My Journey into the Wu-Tang by Lamont "U-God" Hawkins (Discussion Thread)

[ZEB WALTON]

Did U mention how the Wu-Tang Records label folded in large part after paying U a near major label advance on Redemption and not recouping it when his album didn't sell in this book?

Not out to call anyone's hands clean in this mess of amateurs coming up in and trying to create their own version of a music business where the blueprint, template & foundation of how to run business is artist exploitation, but U-God's expressions and grievances of how the business went are understandably just his view.

I hope people read & enjoy U's book for what it is, and big-ups to him for branching out in this new lane but just understand that this book is his take on things and don't take it as gospel truth or the whole picture.

Yea i read that and whos fault is that really?

Wutang records
Rzaorsharp records
Wu music group
Wu international
36 records
Soul temple records

And i know im forgetting more

All folded cuz of bad business. If ugod got a big advance good for him even if rza did give him the advance, he certainly didnt give him the album he needed to succeed so to me you just listed more reasons why rza is a bad businessman.

Wu have stated for years, rza diluted the brand for profit.

People stopped fukking with wutang when they went to the store to buy wu albums and came home to not hear method man rae and ghost but instead got 9th prince, islord and the black knights. Im sure rza made bank handing tht w out, but it hurt his brand for sure.

The label situations rza got himself in didnt help matters.

Razor sharp records dropped ironman. Then the pillage. Then rushed out the sexond cap album and put ou cappadonna greatest hits album lmao. Folded

Wutang records was wu chronicals, the swarm, ugods album, killarmys albumsand was done

36 records was rzas new inprint on loud that only put out the third killaarmy album and folded.


My point is im not gonna blame ugod for rzas failure in business all cuz ugod got a nice advance. Rza shoulda made sure ugods album was fire but by that point he stepped back and wasnt focusing on the guys solos anymore.

I read in an old source dude didnt even MIX uncontrolled substance and it was put out without proper mixing... and people wonder why these albums failed.

Rza had too many hands in different cookie jars. Ugod and decks albums shoulda been fire. Datz gangsta, bizzare and pleasure or pain are the best tracks on ugods album... all the rza joints were TRASH as fukk and i love rza and 90 percent of his production but what he gave deck and ugod was not up to par and they suffered for it because rza was too busy making beats for 15 people at once, executive producing each project. He chose money over artistic integrity... he thought he coulda donit all. 98/99 dude was stretched crazy thin

 

[mortuus est]

.

Razor sharp records dropped ironman. Then the pillage. Then rushed out the sexond cap album and put ou cappadonna greatest hits album lmao. Folded

never knew their was a cappa greatest hits album , i just looked it up and that shyt is real

 

[Ardamus]

gotta cop this. its funny that i never noticed how much i have heard everyone else in the Wu speak on things except for U God.

 

[mortuus est]

I hear that point but...

i agree with what you're saying here too

i got alot of love for rza as a creative mastermind but he has fuked up more than a few times

 

[Sonic Boom of the South]

I need the audio book

 

[mortuus est]

i havnt finished the book yet but it seems like ugod felt or feels like rza liked him the least out of everyone but both have respect for each other

im at the part where meth wins the grammy for all i need with puffys remix, is ugod saying rza separated him and meth or Wu and puffy?? shyt seems strange

 

[flah_neon]

Akinyele and ODB were like Batman and the Joker. Usually Dirt was the
one setting it off, so I guess he’d be the Joker. He’d run down on Akinyele at
the drop of a hat.I still don’t know what their beef originally stemmed from. All I know is
no matter the place or time, if ODB saw Akinyele, it was like Uma Thurman
in Kill Bill—an alarm would go off in Dirty’s head. We’d walk up in the club
or whatever, and Dirt would spot him: “I can’t stand this dude.” Even if
Akinyele was up onstage performing, Dirt would run right up on him and
swing. Akinyele would swing back, and the next thing you know they’d be
wrestling on the stage and rolling around on the floor.
It went down between them in ATL once when ODB rushed the stage.
They fought over the mic for about five minutes before they were separated.
And that wasn’t even the best throwdown between them.
The wildest fight between Dirt and Akinyele was somewhere in Brooklyn.
No lie, I think this was the wildest night in history, period. I have a lot of
stories of wild nights, but this one particular time in Brooklyn was the epitome
of wild. Of course, it starts with ODB spotting Akinyele onstage rhyming.
“Oh, this bytch ass is here? fukk this guy. This cornball-ass motherfukker,
what’s he doin’ here? I hate this a$$hole.”
Before anyone can say shyt, Dirt’s onstage fighting with Akinyele. The two
of them are rolling around, cursing and fighting for the mic. As usual, Dirt
emerges the victor, complete with mic in tow. So Dirty goes to the front of the
stage and gets ready to talk his shyt. Someone in the crowd lets off a shot
—POW! Right after that gun went off, “Shimmy Shimmy Ya” dropped right on cue.
The entire crowd, everyone in that building, lost their goddamn minds. That
energy, though it was teetering on a really negative vibe the whole night, still
felt positive. In the crowd, dudes was smokin’ dust in the spot, mad trees is
burning. People pushing and jumping around. A few people got punched in
the face and beat down in the fracas, but ODB was still rocking. Toward the
end of his second song, though, shyt turned into a royal rumble. Everybody
started fighting. There was mad commotion everywhere, so we all congregated in the back
to keep from getting swept up in the shyt. Slick Rick the Ruler was there,

​

watching the whole thing go down in the back with us. He’s in there in all his
big-ass gold truck jewelry. There were bar stools getting thrown, glass
breaking, someone got shot in the ass outside the club, people were getting
stomped. All around us was chaos and bedlam, but no one touched Slick Rick.
He was like the Statue of Liberty, motherfukkers just had respect for him like
that. We made sure he was just shining with a sea of us goons separating him
from the melee. The brawlers ended up taking their shyt outside into the street.
With most of the fight outside, we took advantage of the little lull in action
to gather up the soldiers and head out. As we’re getting everybody together,
one dude walks up to us. He had obviously been fighting, judging from his
head leaking all kinds of blood down his face. He didn’t seem fazed at all,
though. In fact, he was hyped. He recognized some of the Clan and saluted us.
“Yo!” he shouted. “This the illest party I ever been to in my entire life! I
fukk with y’all!” That’s all he said. Didn’t wipe the blood off his head or
anything. Just said his piece and walked off.

​

I got hype reading this..........this is ridiculous

 

[flah_neon]

well I've always said Cuban Linx was wu's 2nd album. Raekwon gets entirely too much credit for an album that he gets out shined by damn near every feature.

lowkey you ain't lying ghostface was killing that shyt...........meth deck and gza all had stand out verses

 

[mortuus est]

cot damn the writing from ugod talking about his child's struggles then the transition to him checking himself into a mental asylum is phenomenal

should win a book award off the strength of that

 

[BuddahMAC]

Yea i read that and whos fault is that really?

It's everyone's fault which was my point in asking if U detailed his part in the label's demise in his book. If not, you know the lens you're looking through is tinted, so just warning to take any finger-pointing as his view and not the whole truth of the situation.

Wutang records
Rzaorsharp records
36 records
Soul temple records

And i know im forgetting more

All folded cuz of bad business. If ugod got a big advance good for him even if rza did give him the advance, he certainly didnt give him the album he needed to succeed so to me you just listed more reasons why rza is a bad businessman.

Like I said, it's all part of them adopting the system as is an applying it to their people. Recoup-able advances have always sucked overall but it's an industry standard they applied to their own label and they made the family over business choice and let the label suffer with the larger overall loss by not recouping. It is bad business, as you said, but it's a show of loyalty to U-God which is unacknowledged.

Razor sharp records dropped ironman. Then the pillage. Then rushed out the sexond cap album and put ou cappadonna greatest hits album lmao. Folded

Many of those later things came after RZA had stepped away from the label/imprint following the suit by Gee Street regarding RZA's involvement on the Ghost Dog soundtrack (Razor Sharp Records) & RZA's distancing himself from Ghost/Cappa when they went all in with Mike Caruso. Razor Sharp was done as an imprint after Ying & Yang. Bulletproof Wallets was under Stark Enterprise/Epic/Sony. Cap's Hits was Epic/Sony.

Wutang records was wu chronicals, the swarm, ugods album, killarmys albumsand was done

Pretty wrong there. Wu-Tang Records was the independent label the Wu established to start with and released the Protect Ya Neck single on before they got signed to Loud.

They retained the label & put out the early Sunz of Man singles & then signed a distribution deal under Priority to drop Killarmy's debut, dropped their sophomore & Swarm in 98 which is when Mook started taking over (also why RTW producers are on Dirty Weaponry) and then they go full in with Wu-Syndicate, U-God, Wu-Chronicles and Shyheim in 99. They don't release another album until their final one in 2001. (Shyheim's album gets pulled after already being pressed for legal reasons, Royal Fam's half-recorded album for Wu-Tang Records leaks overseas in 2000, somehow released singles for the Ghost Dog sdtk during that mess & Mook leaves to focus on his own Protect ya Neck records)

36 records was rzas new inprint on loud that only put out the third killaarmy album and folded.

I mean, Loud itself folded the next year...

My point is im not gonna blame ugod for rzas failure in business all cuz ugod got a nice advance. Rza shoulda made sure ugods album was fire but by that point he stepped back and wasnt focusing on the guys solos anymore.

It's not the advance, it's the choice not to recoup, which, to repeat is a bad business decision but good for U-God's pocket yet that's never brought up when he has these RZA eruptions. Just saying... Also, yeah, RZA wasn't behind these albums like the earlier ones, but who's the one guy deejaying on U's national live set for his debut album? RZA.

I read in an old source dude didnt even MIX uncontrolled substance and it was put out without proper mixing... and people wonder why these albums failed.

That was Deck's baby, including him producing the majority of the tracks himself. Not sure what "dude" you're blaming there...

Rza had too many hands in different cookie jars. Ugod and decks albums shoulda been fire. Datz gangsta, bizzare and pleasure or pain are the best tracks on ugods album... all the rza joints were TRASH as fukk and i love rza and 90 percent of his production but what he gave deck and ugod was not up to par and they suffered for it because rza was too busy making beats for 15 people at once, executive producing each project.

The decision to walk away from RZA's sound and production at the time was largely the individual Clan members and not RZA's.

 

[mortuus est]

at raewon getting mad and leaving condoms on ugod's bed

imagine rae fuking a bytch on your bed like

and leaving condoms on your bed thats some grimy shyt

 

[mortuus est]

breh, rhyme stalker

ugod dont fuk with rza at all

 

[MoneyBags]

Good read but uey contradicts himself continuously

Kind of annoying

My man did the u-God documentary, and that along with various other accounts, I take what u-God says with a grain of salt. Not saying that his story is a fake, but dude is a legend in his own mind

 

[REAL6]

tell us more about this story lol

Ratner’s story about filming Wu-Tang’s “Triumph” has got to be one of the GOAT dinner-table-yarns of all time….

“It was the first million dollar rap video. When Steve Rifkind asked me, I said, ‘Are you sure about this record? There’s no chorus!’ He says “Trust me, its gonna be the biggest record of the year. Only Wu-Tang could pull this off.’ So, I set up the video—Joseph Kahn was my cinematographer. I hear that they want eleven Suburbans—they each want their own…

“It’s a five day shoot, and it’s crazy. The greatest fukkin’ experience, they’re eating mushrooms the whole time. Ol’ Dirty never shows up. I was like, Oh my god, this is fukking insane! The most fun I ever had. After shooting ends, they all leave to go on tour in Europe, but Ghost never would travel, because he had diabetes. So he checks into a hotel, and they said, ‘Yo Ghost, you watch Brett, and watch over that edit, man. White devil could fukk it up!” So, we’re in the edit room, and we call the group on speakerphone. And it’s the funniest thing, this is embedded in my memory. They’re all on the phone like, ‘White muthafukkin’ devil, man, tryin’ to rob us motherfukker!’ And Ghost is looking at me while on speakerphone, just winking at me like, I love you man! [laughs].”

The best part of the story, after the jump….


“So three days into the edit, I get a call that Ghost had had been kicked out of like eleven hotels, and I’m like, ‘Why were you kicked out?’ He’s like, ‘I don’t know man, I got fukked up, and I just start breaking shyt. Can you come get me? I got no place to stay.’ So I let him stay at my house. Suddenly my phone rings, and it’s Steve Rifkind, ‘Whats going on?’ I go, ‘Nothing, I’m just bringing Ghost over my house ’cause he got kicked out of the hotel.’ Then there’s silence on the other end of the phone. I say, ‘Whats wrong?’ He goes, ‘I gotta call you back.’ Five days later, he calls me up and goes, ‘Are you okay? Oh my God, you scared the shyt outta me, man. How can you let this guy stay at your house? I don’t even let these guys know where I live!’ I go, ‘What do you mean? He’s the nicest guy in the world.’ He goes, ‘You don’t know what Ghostface has? He hallucinates, he hears voices like kill your mom, kill your mom. He has to be medicated because he has homicidal thoughts.’ So a month goes by, and I would edit all day, and Ghost would just chill at my house until we finished. A month later, I’m with my girlfriend in the backyard, and the cat starts going fukking crazy and starts digging into the dirt. We dig up a bucket of fried chicken. Ghost buried a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken in the backyard. How fukkin’ freaky is that?”

 

[REAL6]

It's there an audiobook for this???

It's coming soon he said.