RAW

by Lamont U-God Hawkins

  We were walking around Ratner’s crib cuffing our bottles and just slamming that shit back. I got more shit-faced than I’d ever been before. Ghost was getting into his mischievous mode the more he drank.

  That was the night I got into a fucking argument with Leonardo DiCaprio. Me and him had words. To this day, I don’t know exactly what happened or how that came about, because he was with Q-Tip. Now, A Tribe Called Quest and Wu-Tang are like family, we all go way back. I hadn’t seen Q-tip in a while, so I was giving him extra love and hugs and all that shit. Even so, he was acting real funny.

  What happened was that Leonardo said something slick to me. I was like, “What? I don’t give a fuck if you’re a movie star. I will punch you in your fucking face.” We almost had an altercation right then and there. Q-Tip was just like, “Nah, man, chill.” So I calmed down, and we went on our merry motherfucking way.

  On our way out, Ghost just ransacked Brett’s crib. He tore the fuckin’ house up, just did him dirty. Ghost pissed all on his floors. He pissed off his fucking balcony. At one point, when we decided to move on to the next party and we’re outside waiting for the cars to pull up, Ghost starts tearing up the landscaping around Ratner’s crib. Ripped up his goddamn flower bed outside. Why he did it, I don’t fucking know—to this day I still don’t know why he did it. He just had a total wild-out moment and just started laughing and trashing shit.

  When Ghost was ripping up the plants outside, Heavy D was right there watching. He was just shaking his head. I’ll never forget Heavy’s face—he couldn’t believe what the fuck we were doing, why Ghost was acting this way. Aaliyah, who was hanging out with us at the time along with Kidada Jones, was looking at us like we were crazy.

  I was laughing, but toward the end, it started getting a little embarrassing. It had seemed like a good idea when we were inebriated to just wild out, but eventually we got ourselves back under control. We got back in our limo and left. I don’t know if that’s the reason why, but Brett Ratner was the one who filmed the “Triumph” video.

  I think we hit one more party, but we were all so faded we just went back to the mansion and fell the fuck out. When we got home, we barely made it into the house before Ghost fell on the kitchen floor and passed out, pants sagging, drawers showing. Think he was even drooling and shit.

  It was a great fucking night. Regardless of all the crazy drama and shit, I bet those dudes never forgot us when Wu-Tang hit the party. And I haven’t seen Leo since. He came to the studio with Meth one other time, but I missed him.

  That wasn’t the only crazy mansion we went to, either. One time we went to Mike Tyson’s house, but he wouldn’t let us in, the motherfucker. 50 Cent ended up buying the place later on, and this place was so fuckin’ big, I couldn’t believe how huge it was. At least two blocks long, it was humongous—too big, if you ask me. I never want a house where I gotta get on a scooter to go to my bedroom. Even if I had a family, I want to be able to just walk down the hallway and see my son. I don’t want to have to get on the intercom to go find him. Even if I made ten million a year, I wouldn’t want a place that large.

  There’s some hotels that are like that as well. Like in Las Vegas. I’ve been there, it’s an experience. I’m not fond of the city in general. One time I went to Caesars Palace. I will never stay at a Caesars again as long as I live—the shit is just too fucking big. Room service took an hour to get to me. I wanted to go to the pool—it took a half hour to get there from my room. And then I was at the wrong goddamn pool! I had to walk through the entire casino in my flip-flops, take another elevator. I was like, “Yo, man, this shit sucks!” And Lord forbid you forget something and have to go back for it. They need a shuttle to get you around there.

  Then there was another time when we almost got into it with Biggie Smalls, two or three days before he died, God bless. At the time, Ghost and Rae and Biggie had a little gripe going on because Rae and Ghost are troublemaking asses, and they’d started some shit with Biggie.

  It was at the Billboard Live, right on the Sunset Strip. We were going out that night, gonna have a good time.

  But by the time we got there, they were closing the Billboard down. We got a chance to slide up in there like fifteen minutes before the place closed. When we did that, the vans were parked outside of the front of the joint. We were riding in a rented Suburban, the same kind of car that Biggie, God bless, got shot in. All the rappers had pretty much the same cars; he had a Suburban, we had a Suburban. He had his entourage, we had our crew.

  So we were all parked outside and shit. We walked inside the club and saw Biggie and Lil’ Cease. Now, Meth had been on the track “The What,” on Biggie’s album, but Ghost had thrown some shade, comparing the cover of Biggie’s album with Nas’s Illmatic.

  When we came in, I told them to squash the beef; we New Yorkers needed to be making music together, not going at each other. We all came up and gave big hugs and all that fly shit. It was cool.

  All of us came out the club together, Biggie, Cease, all of us. Gave ’em daps, told ’em where we were staying. We both pulled out at the same time. He was behind us. We was in front of them. We did the U-turn at the same time in the middle of the street. Little did we know, that was going to be the last time we’d ever see him. A few days later, he was dead, shot in the street.

  When we heard the news, we were in shock. I mean, dudes got shot all the time and pulled through. Besides, Biggie was a big guy, so I would have thought that would have saved him. I’ve known big fat dudes who got shot, and their blubber saved them. But not this time—those dudes fucked him up. That was heartbreaking, ’cause we all came up from the streets of New York together. It was Biggie, Nas, the Wu-Tang, and Mobb Deep representing the East Coast.

  We were the only crew that stuck around the city afterward. Everyone else from New York took off when Biggie got shot, they all left L.A. We stayed—we were still recording. Matter of fact, we went out on the town a couple of times. We were at the House of Blues and there was a bunch of Crips up in there. Me and Meth were walking through the crowd, and the Crips said, “Yeah, man. These fucking Wu-Tang brothers. These motherfuckers are the realest. Y’all ain’t running like little bitches. Them other NYC dudes ran like little bitches, man.”

  “Whatever’s going on with them, we don’t got nothin’ to do with that shit,” we told them.

  They gave Meth a fucking gun inside the fucking House of Blues, both as a symbol of respect from the street and also as protection. They wanted him to put it in the van. Meth was like, “Nah, I’m good, man. I don’t want that shit.”

  They said, “Nah, man. We love y’all out here, man. Y’all is real, man. The rest of them is just a buncha punk-ass motherfuckers.” It wasn’t the first time someone had tried to pass one of us a hammer, and it wouldn’t be the last.

  That night at the HOB was poppin’—we had a blast there. That was also the night I swear I could have gotten with Kim Kardashian. This was before she got famous and all that. This lil’ girl with long black hair was in the back by the bar. I was sittin’ there, I got her number and all that, but we couldn’t get together that night. And fuckin’ Deck ruined the whole thing.

  See, Deck wasn’t gettin’ any at the time—he had no game. So when she called the spot we were stayin’ at, he picked up the phone and was like, “No, U-God ain’t here right now. Are you comin’ over to fuck both of us?” And that was the end of that—I couldn’t get her to return my calls or nothin’. I was so mad, ’cause she was so fine.

  Years later, when Kim blew up everywhere, I remember thinking, “Was that the shorty at the House of Blues?” And our paths have never crossed again, so I’ve never gotten the chance to ask her. But if we ever do, I’m gonna find out. And if she says yes, I’m gonna go, “Motherfucker, I blame Deck, that son of a bitch.”

  After Biggie got shot, the world was all on fire. It was going crazy out there. Me and Deck were sharing a room at the time. We had the mansion, and we had a little hotel spot, too.<
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  One night, we were out in the Suburban, just gliding. We ended up back at the Billboard Live again, back to the spot where we last saw Biggie alive. We were just sitting there, on the side over in the corner. We were just sitting real low, watching the traffic go by. We were just sitting there like, “Yo, I can’t believe he’s dead, man. I can’t believe it. What the fuck is going on?” We were smoking a blunt in the car and shit. We were just mad low, observing traffic. You couldn’t see us. Well, we thought we couldn’t be seen.

  We pull off, slide up out of there. Gone. We jetting. All of a sudden, I look in my rearview mirror, I see somebody doing the same moves I’m doing. It was a BMW. I’m like, “What the fuck? Yo, son, we being followed.”

  Deck said, “Word?” He’s looking through the back. We can’t see. When I move this way, the car moved this way, too.

  I said, “What the fuck is this? Watch this.” So I did a whoop-a-doop and made the right turn real quick. I call it the whoop-a-doop. They did the right turn real quick, too. I said, “Yo, son. It’s on.”

  Deck said, “Word. Pull up in front of the hotel.”

  I said, “A’ight.” We get to the hotel. I pull up. I stop. I get out the car. I got a beeper on me. I use an old hood tactic and hit the clip on it to sound like a gun being cocked. Make it sound like I’m packing. A lotta guys been backed down just by that sound. I know a guy who backed down an entire posse with just his beeper.

  Now, I ain’t got no gun in fucking California. I’m looking at who’s in the fucking car. Guess who the fuck it is?

  Queen Latifah, along with three beautiful ladies.

  I was like, “Latifah?”

  She was like, “U-God! Yeah!” She gave me a kiss.

  “What the fuck?”

  “Nah, you know. This shit is going down here with Biggie and all this mad shit. We looking at you.”

  “No, we were doing the same shit you were, seeing what the fuck is going on!” Turned out we were all just looking around, trying to find some answers about what had just happened to the Notorious.

  She looks at the hotel, was like, “This is where you staying?”

  “Yeah yeah yeah,” I said.

  “Okay, I’m out,” she said. And she peels off on me, taking her carful of lovely friends with her. I love Latifah, always have.

  *

  The purpose of the whole mansion arrangement was so we could bond. There was a pool and a pool table, and big TVs everywhere, saunas, music blaring, smoking, drinking, gambling, everything. We had a spectacular time. The way we figured it, you want to feel successful when you’re recording, that way you’re at your top-notch A game.

  I took the room in the mansion that nobody wanted. My room was right by the front door, so it seemed too in the mix. I took the room to keep everybody from fighting, and God blessed me with a nice patio with the killer view of the surrounding hills. I could see the whole canyon, plus look down onto the pool.

  Standing on that patio, looking out over all that, made Park Hill and 160 and especially prison seem like a million years ago and a million miles away. I was very grateful for the opportunity that had been bestowed upon me. I couldn’t complain about not having been on the Wu-Tang albums as much as the others, but it was time for me to really step up in this moment and ensure my placement on this new project.

  For me to get back into that mode I was hitting right before my son got shot, I had to block all my doubts and fears about rapping in the booth and all the extra stress on my mind due to my baby boy’s injuries and having medical complications that might last for the rest of his life. It wasn’t easy to get that shit off my mind. There were so many unanswered questions to the specifics of what had transpired on that day. I had to push all that out of my mind and get creative and have fun.

  One day I was prepping for the studio with my usual ritual. First I smoked a bean on the patio and then went and got a massage. I came downstairs to where RZA had one of the makeshift studios set up. When I walked through the doors the beat to “Triumph” was playing. I still remember what it felt like hearing that beat for the first time. It was rumping. I come into the room and look around. That’s when I heard Deck set it off:

  I bomb atomically, Socrates’ philosophies

  and hypothesis can’tdefine how I be droppin’ these

  mockeries, lyrically perform armed robbery

  Flee with the lottery, possibly they spotted me …

  Devastating. That shit was insane. He literally bombed that track. After you hear a verse like that, what the fuck do you do? How do you profess to get on after that? Who the fuck could follow that up? Deck went all in, and he nailed it.

  I gathered my thoughts and got a copy of the beat. I put my headphones on and went off into my corner of the studio and just sank into the beat. Then it came to me:

  Olympic torch flaming, it burns so sweet

  The thrill of victory, agony of defeat

  We crush slow, flamin’ deluxe slow for

  Judgment Day cometh, conquer, it’s war

  Allow us to escape, Hell glow spinnin’ bomb

  Pocket full of shells out the sky, Golden Arms

  Tunes spit the shitty Mortal Kombat sound

  The fateful step make the blood stain the ground

  After you hear a verse like Deck spit on “Triumph,” if you’re a true MC, you have to come better, or at least on that level he took it to. If your shit ain’t up to snuff, there’s no way it’s gonna stack up next to a verse like that. That was the thing about being in Wu-Tang when we were at our best. You’d hear a crazy verse, and you either try to top it, or come damn close. Not exactly like crush it, but at least try to come as hard as you can, or at least come with your own style.

  That’s what makes our group so ill. You have nine or ten MCs trying to outdo each other on every song. It’s not in a bitter, competitive way, but in a way that raises everyone’s level. That’s some ill competition right there, the kind that breeds champions. It raises the bar every time somebody spits their verse.

  But the thing about Forever that still pisses me off today is that RZA came after me on a lot of fucking songs. Several times when I’m on, RZA’s right behind me, like a fucking rhyme stalker or something.

  Sometimes it would spiral out of control. Nine MCs going at each other, battling for who gets on the song can lead to some hard feelings, too. With the creative process, there’s no way all nine of us would be on the same page at the same time. But the moment you hear a heavy beat, you wanna get on it, and you gotta come with your shit harder and better than everybody else. It didn’t work all the time, mind you. The same sword you swing can sometimes chop your own hand off. It was a fine line, and at least for most of Forever, we walked it.

  *

  Now that I’d regained my bounce, I was all for some competition among my brothers. I was in prime form. I think everyone was a little shocked at the way I took over Forever.

  I set it off on the “Severe Punishment” beat so hard I went first. As the first performer, I set the tone of the entire song with my verse. The rhyme just came together. I was always working on my writing, so I already had a rhyme ready.

  Same with “Bells of War.” That was something that was already written. Sometimes I just write a bunch of sixteens and then when I hear the beat, I see which one fits the moment. I blacked out (completely lost myself in the music) on that joint too, so they let me set it off again.

  I took over that album. I really took my time to perfect my flows. I would live with the beat I was gonna rap over. I’d ride around in the whip all day with it. I’d talk to it. I’d eat with it playing in the background. My whole day moving around, I’m listening to that beat.

  Sometimes, though, that wasn’t the case. Sometimes things were more orchestrated than that. For the song “A Better Tomorrow,” me, Deck, and Masta Killa were alone in the studio together. RZA had already hooked up the beat, and it was playing over and over again. While it was playing, we just talked about
different topics. We were always a diverse group, and sometimes you just don’t wanna rhyme ’bout grimy shit all day. Sometimes you want to come with some conceptual shit that has some jewels for the listeners going through hard times. As the 5 Percent, it was our duty, after all, to try to always guide people in the right direction. So we came up with the concept for the song to be about hardships and the state of the world and how the babies were being led astray.

  I try to talk about all the things I’ve gone through in my music. My pains, my weaknesses, all that. I want to try and put all that out there for the listener to build on. I put those elements in my music because unfortunately, hardship is more relatable than success. So I poured my heartache, my betrayals, my incarcerations in the cage, out of the cage, the mistrust, the things I did, the things I still want to do … I just let my imagination run wild.

  Cops must think I’m still on the block, ’cause my rhymes are so vivid it seems like I’m still seeing that chaos every day. I rhyme like my shit is a movie. I wanna give you the epic journey. Make you feel what I went through. Make you feel like you can go through all I went through and still make it out of a fucked-up situation.

  I don’t just listen to rap when I write; I’m trying to get in that Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash mode. I want to kick some relatable shit that will make people aware of the similarities in all of us, as opposed to the differences.

  With “A Better Tomorrow,” I decided I’d address my baby boy getting hit with a stray shot. I’d been through a lot, but that was a very traumatic part of my life. So I sat down and penned my thoughts and emotions and got it all on the page. Sometimes music is like therapy, but not in this case.

  I didn’t feel better. It wasn’t therapeutic whatsoever. Shit, I wish it had been more therapeutic, but that was just me expressing some pain I was living with.