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Remembering the Wu-Tang era
I remember the 'Wu-Tang era' for completely different reasons than most, though. Before 36 Chambers came out and anyone knew who the hell Wu-Tang was, they were creating absolute havoc in my hometown.
I was born, raised, and went through high school in a small Ohio town named Steubenville. When I say small, I'm talking about under 20,000 people. It is about 25 minutes from downtown Pittsburgh, under two hours from Cleveland, and under three hours from Columbus. So, while it is a relatively little city, it is sort of in the middle of a lot of 'big' cities (relatively speaking).
In the late-80s and early-90s, our city (like just about every other urban area in the country) was introduced to crack and serious gang crime. The leaders of Steubenville's drug cartel were a group of guys that referred to themselves as the Godz. Violence was out-of-control for a city our size. There were literally shootings every night.
Packs of guys from New York were also showing up every night and waring with the local 'home grown' gangsters (this was a tough town before they showed up).
I had friends that my older brother went all through school with getting shot and killed on a regular basis. One fight, in particular, that was widely talked about at the time was when Ghostface, ODB, and a lesser known affiliate of the Godz jumped a guy that was on lunch break during school hours because he was a black guy with a white girlfriend.
Little did they know, the guy they were jumping was an All-State football player and took third in Ohio as a heavyweight wrestler. He proceeded to beat the hell out of all three of them. The event was witnessed by about half of my high school and is still talked about regularly today.
When 36 Chambers was released, Steubenville pretty much went into a state of shock. These guys that had been reeking havoc on our city were suddenly the biggest things in the f#cking music industry... Who knew?
RZA grew up in Steubenville, so it is no coincidence that they picked this city to attempt to take over, but it still is pretty amazing looking back. The last real incident with the Godz (ie Wu-Tang) was when one of their producers -- Wise God Allah -- was shot dead in downtown Steubenville in the mid-90s, riddled with bullets. He was shot many times by multiple people, one of which I knew well (his name is Keith West and he just got out of jail a couple of years ago).
There were retaliations and another guy that I knew well was shot dead outside of his house (Spanky Ware). A few months later, several members of the Wu-Tang Clan were pulled over in Steubenville (RZA, Ghost, and several others) with a car full of guns. They got a slap on the wrist and that is really the last that we heard of them, crime-wise.
There were several local Steubenville kids that hopped on board with Wu, though. The most notable were Killarmy, which was a Wu offshoot made up almost entirely of Steubenville rappers.
Killarmy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
What a crazy time to be around for... Just type in Wu-Tang Clan and Steubenville in google and you will get hundreds of results. I was always a fan of Wu and, in the 90s when they were playing Pittsburgh, one of the Wu's promoter whom my brother had known since high school dropped off 20 tickets for me and my buddies... He had Method Man in the car with him.
Pretty cool.
If you listen back to old Wu albums, though, pay attention to all the shoutouts for Ohio and references to Tappan Lake, a pretty big camping spot just outside the city limits where Wu-Tang would go to pen many of their lyrics.
While other 'gangsta rappers' may have been faking it and mere observers to the drug game, take it from me... the Godz were the real thing.
