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

[JordanWearinThe45]

How u gonna say "incerpts inside"
But not have it in the OP

Facts @JamieFoxxHairline

Gonna cop anyway

 

[mson]

 

[Soymuscle Mike]

Finished it last night. Was entertaining but like others have mentioned, and he mentions it himself, he's definitely bothered by his rep.

He talks about how after Wu Forever Rae/Meth/Ghost all focused on their second albums instead of Deck/U/MK's first ones. Which is true.

He takes credit for a lot of shyt too

Some shyt that stuck with me:

- Came up with CREAM together with Mef
- Gave Meth "shorty I'm here for you anytime you need me" and convinced him to make it into a love song.
- Basically says Meth wasn't cut out to be a street dudeand U's the reason Meth survived on the streets and was able to focus on HipHop.
- Brought Cappa into the Cuban Linx sessions when Ghost/Rae had writers block.
- Was there when Nas did Verbal Intercourse (all even funnier considering U was in prison for most of these sessions, which he also says).
- Barely talks about his relationships with Gza/MK/ODB, but then in his ODB Eulogy talks about how they were closer than the others.
- Claims "Dirty I got yo money" was about Rza.
- Thinks he could've fukked Kim K and Janet Jackson.
- Says he brokered peace between Rae and Big few days before Big got got.
- Rza became a control freak on all Wu albums post Forever.
- It was Rae and Ghost who instigated Wu dropping out of the Rage Against the Machine tour - because they wanted more money.
- Calls METH LAB wack, and says the label wanted a Meth/UGod album but Meth wanted to please his goons.
- Thinks Rza called his Cuban Linx song KNUCKLEHEADZ because Rae/Ghost and U were the troublemakers/street dudes.

I'm sure he's got a point in his beef with Rza and Rzas brothers, but he's definitely petty/bitter. Some of the shyt he says is just throwing darts.

- Mentions like 3 times that Puff's version of All I Need was more succesful than Rza's.
- Mentions multiple times how Rza hangs out with moviestars and "owns ferraris".
- Calls ABT and Rzas modern production wack a few times.
- Calls Rza a nerd a few times (although he also says "he may look nerdy but he's no punk").
- Says his, Decks and MK's debut albums weren't up to par because they didn't have full Rza/Clan support.. Actually critics and fans LOVED MK's debut BECAUSE Rza put his hands on it and the Clan got involved.

He also explicitly states he'll always love Rza for bringing them out of the hood, but I found these things to be a bit petty.

Overall dope book. Would be interesting if the others also do it. We now have U's and Rza's stories.

 

[Take It In Blood]

Anybody got a link?

 

[NYC Warrior]

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?”

 

[patscorpio]

Finished it last night. Was entertaining but like others have mentioned, and he mentions it himself, he's definitely bothered by his rep.

He talks about how after Wu Forever Rae/Meth/Ghost all focused on their second albums instead of Deck/U/MK's first ones. Which is true.

He takes credit for a lot of shyt too

Some shyt that stuck with me:

- Came up with CREAM together with Mef
- Gave Meth "shorty I'm here for you anytime you need me" and convinced him to make it into a love song.
- Basically says Meth wasn't cut out to be a street dudeand U's the reason Meth survived on the streets and was able to focus on HipHop.
- Brought Cappa into the Cuban Linx sessions when Ghost/Rae had writers block.
- Was there when Nas did Verbal Intercourse (all even funnier considering U was in prison for most of these sessions, which he also says).
- Barely talks about his relationships with Gza/MK/ODB, but then in his ODB Eulogy talks about how they were closer than the others.
- Claims "Dirty I got yo money" was about Rza.
- Thinks he could've fukked Kim K and Janet Jackson.
- Says he brokered peace between Rae and Big few days before Big got got.
- Rza became a control freak on all Wu albums post Forever.
- It was Rae and Ghost who instigated Wu dropping out of the Rage Against the Machine tour - because they wanted more money.
- Calls METH LAB wack, and says the label wanted a Meth/UGod album but Meth wanted to please his goons.
- Thinks Rza called his Cuban Linx song KNUCKLEHEADZ because Rae/Ghost and U were the troublemakers/street dudes.

I'm sure he's got a point in his beef with Rza and Rzas brothers, but he's definitely petty/bitter. Some of the shyt he says is just throwing darts.

- Mentions like 3 times that Puff's version of All I Need was more succesful than Rza's.
- Mentions multiple times how Rza hangs out with moviestars and "owns ferraris".
- Calls ABT and Rzas modern production wack a few times.
- Calls Rza a nerd a few times (although he also says "he may look nerdy but he's no punk").
- Says his, Decks and MK's debut albums weren't up to par because they didn't have full Rza/Clan support.. Actually critics and fans LOVED MK's debut BECAUSE Rza put his hands on it and the Clan got involved.

He also explicitly states he'll always love Rza for bringing them out of the hood, but I found these things to be a bit petty.

Overall dope book. Would be interesting if the others also do it. We now have U's and Rza's stories.

i finally got this book for my tablet...need to find time to read the shyt...but U-God definitely has a love hate relationship with the RZA and the rest of the Wu..he never had an album that blew up or had any real notoriety as a solo artist...Deck at least was still killing his guest appearances around that time and Masta Killa's debut had that critical acclaim..shyt even Cap went gold man

 

[Pazzy]

U God should have been a star though. He had the personality, he did have a female following, and he did have memorable verses from time to time. If him and Deck would have dropped albums between the 93 to 97 period, they would have been straight. Masta killa too. RZA and them drop the ball by not releasing everyone's solo before forever. They would have been a superpower but it still worked out for them though. Dayum near 30 years and they are still relevant more than ever. It's crazy.

 

[mr x]

Picked this up today.

Gonna get started on it soon, hopefully.

 

[mr x]

"During that tour, we were dealing with english pounds. I gave the woman at the desk one thousand dollars, and she gave me back four hundred pounds. I was like, "motherfukker, where's the rest of my money?"
She said, "this is currency exchange."
I said, "oh, a'ight.""

 

[mr x]

So when uey and mk got caught with weed...how were they able to finesse out of a charge by simply running from the room?

I take it the hotel rooms were booked under fake names, and were paid for in cash?

 

[Self_Born7]

Fucc it...somebody gotta Ask....why does he call himself U-God

His full righteous name is Universal God Allah, bka U-God

 

[Alvin]

the overall story for ugod is really a great story man

father RAPED his mother... she didnt know him, he never knew him
grew up in the jects
selling drugs going to jail
being the 8th member of the clan
his son being shot
his album not doing well
his solo career being littered with failures
looked down upojn by fellow clan members

he rebounded crazy with dopium, keybotespeaker, this book and hioefully Venom droppin this month i believe.

wu would not be the same without ugod. ill always believe that. dude was the bass. the raw savage of it

damn

 

[Alvin]

Excerpt courtesy of tidal
Excerpt From U-God’s ‘RAW: My Journey into the Wu-Tang’ Book

Every fan of the Clan knows Wu-Tang ain’t nuthin’ ta F with and in this excerpt from rapper and Wu member Lamont “U-God” Hawkins’ forthcoming memoir, RAW: My Journey into the Wu-Tang (out March 5), U-God keeps it real about life on the road.

From random beatdowns to impromptu parties, U-God recalls falling into a bash thrown by 2 Live Crew’s Uncle Luke, wild nights with their entourage homie, Reef, and that time the late great Tupac helped RZA recover a chain. Allow U-God to take the mic from here.

* * *

Now that I was getting ill in the booth and the album was dropping, we had to hit the road again. With the release of Wu-Tang Forever in ’97, we were practically a household name. This round of promotions and touring was gonna be a much bigger deal. Before, when we were doing shows promoting the first album, the venues were up close and personal— which sometime made things crazier. Things were haphazard, security was shaky, and promoters were shady.

Regardless of the unprofessionalism that went on in those early days when we were learning the industry, the tours were still a lot of fun. Even when shyt got thick, we had each other to hold it down. Sometimes we fought to protect ourselves against a mob at a venue with inadequate security. Sometimes we were the aggressors. We stomped a few dudes out on some rah-rah shyt, for no real reason other than angst. That was just the era. Rolling deep with a crew in fatigues, skullies, and hoodies was just the aesthetic, but we had a head start on everybody. Why do you think people always make metaphors and similes about being deep like the Wu?

We had so many other soldiers and cousins and producers and offshoots of the Clan and MCs in training on the road with us at times that we’d wind up sixty deep on a regular day, omnipresent forties and blunts getting passed around, etc. It was like we brought the hood with us everywhere we went. Rolling with a mob might get you sweated by the punk-ass cops, but it could save your life, too. These were the days when hip-hop clubs were still grimy. A shootout with a few fights sprinkled throughout the night was almost a given.

You had to have some dudes that were experienced in throw-downs and were gonna hold it down if shyt got hairy. Every man in the Clan was already just that on his own, so together? We were definitely a problem when we wanted to be. Dudes were always testing back then, out of boredom maybe, or looking for a rep. Maybe some of ’em had that crab-in-the-barrel mentality, just didn’t like seeing other brothers getting successful. Whatever the reasoning, we were gonna get tested at some point.

If I saw a problem comin’ at us, I didn’t let it fester and always addressed it right away. As I got older, though, I learned how everything was a test. When you’re young, the answer is violence, or at least being abrasive—either you pop off or you knuckle up. Over time, you learn how to handle those tests differently. Then maybe, as a last resort, if you absolutely have to wash somebody up in the streets, you do it. Took my whole life to get to that level of maturity. We were wildin’ for years before I outgrew that nonsense.

Sometimes dudes would try to rush the back door so they wouldn’t have to pay and try to fukk some people up in the process. Some dude and his crew tried to come through the back door at one show. I knocked him down with a two-piece (two punches), and Masta Killa stomped his face. The rest of the Clan was right behind us, so his boys backed down real quick.

It’s awesome when you have your mob behind you; it’s like having a weapon you can’t get frisked for. But sometimes that Clan mentality gets out of hand, too. Like one night after a show in Europe, we thought someone had stolen Ghostface’s jacket. At the time, there was a dude on the bus with us. I don’t know if he was a fan or something, but he was the only outside dude that wasn’t down with us. We were conducting our own little investigation, and we were like, “Yo, dawg.” We brought him up into a fukking hotel room and started beating his motherfukking ass, trying to find out if he’d stolen the fukking jacket. I mean, I’m jumping off the bed onto his head, smashing him with chairs, all this shyt. We were tearing this motherfukker up. We whupped his ass so fukking bad, I thought we was gonna kill this guy.

Then it turns out we did all that fukking sucker shyt for nothing. Popa Wu had taken Ghost’s jacket and hidden it downstairs behind a goddamn vending machine. So we just let the poor, fukked-up guy go. Live and learn, I guess. It was unfortunate, but the violence we inflicted was born from a place of loyalty. That’s not an excuse, it’s just the way things went down.

And sometimes shyt goes down and you don’t even know what the fukk’s goin’ on. We got shot at in Chicago once. That was a crazy night. Some dudes shot at us over there. We were just coming out of the venue when somebody started shooting. fukking bullets flyin’, so we hit the floor and shyt. To this day, I don’t even know what the fukk it was about. It was just more drama.

Another time, we were touring in Florida. Me and Meth are sitting in a room, smoking, drinking, playing video games, whatever. We were invited to go to this little gathering Luke Skyywalker from 2 Live Crew was having. But Me and Meth were like, “Man, we ain’t gonna do that shyt.” We’re just keeping to ourselves.

Then one of my peoples, General Wah, calls up. “Yo, son, you gotta get down here. There’s fukking mad bytches everywhere. This dude Luke is off the chain.”

At first, we were like, “Ah, fukk this, man.” But he called so many times, we finally said, “fukk it. Let’s go.”

So me and Meth skate off to the motherfukking party with our crew. We get to the spot, and there’s a long corridor. This dude named Born was also with us at the time. Raekwon and his cousin Rico were there. We had these dudes who had just came out of prison, you know? Part of the entourage. All these motherfukking gangstas was already there.

We get there, Wah’s already coming out of the party like, “Yo, son. You ain’t gonna believe. Your man’s in there bugging the fukk out.”
We were like, “Who you talking about?” This dude Born was Busta Rhymes’s man. He just came home from doing eight or nine years. He was having a fukking good time. But I didn’t know the extent of the good time he was having yet.

We walk up in the door. And General Wah was like, “Yo.” He was on his way out.

I said, “Hey, man, how you gonna tell us to come to the spot and you leavin’ when we come here, motherfukker? fukk is wrong with you?”
“Yo, son, you gotta go inside,” he said.

We get inside. Mad commotion goin’ on. Women are doing their little strip-dancing shyt. As we got closer, the shyt started opening up. In the middle of this fukking parted sea of people, this dude Born’s in there eating this girl out right in front of everybody.

Luke is looking at us like, “You! You with this dude? Is he with you?” I don’t know this motherfukker from a hole in the ground. I just met him that night, so I didn’t really know him all that well. He’s a 5 Percenter and had just come home after doing eight years, that was about all I knew. But we felt his pain, so we accepted him into our crew that night.

The clan rolling through with a army brigade of people

this goofy who just got out of jail eating that bird out and he supposed to be god body

 

[Morose Polymath]

the overall story for ugod is really a great story man

father RAPED his mother... she didnt know him, he never knew him
grew up in the jects
selling drugs going to jail
being the 8th member of the clan
his son being shot
his album not doing well
his solo career being littered with failures
looked down upojn by fellow clan members

he rebounded crazy with dopium, keybotespeaker, this book and hioefully Venom droppin this month i believe.

wu would not be the same without ugod. ill always believe that. dude was the bass. the raw savage of it

@Freddie.Cane read this post, this is why I fux with Golden Armz so tuff

 

[LevelUp]

Dl # Raw | Hawkins Lamont U-God | download