RAW

by Lamont U-God Hawkins

  We’re still doing eighty miles an hour. Then I see Born hanging out of the fucking sliding door for dear life. Reef is trying to kick him out of the door at eighty fucking miles an hour. Finally, Born loses his grip and falls out of the van. He rolls into the fucking grass. I thought the dude was dead for sure. I was like, “What the fuck!”

  The other van stopped. We kept going. “Man, keep going. Keep going. Fuck them dudes,” Meth said. So we kept going back to our hotel.

  Everyone went upstairs, but I hung around in the lobby, waiting for the others to show up. The van finally pulls up, and Born’s back inside—somehow he survived being kicked out of a moving van without getting too busted up. However, Reef’s in there still fucking him up, still punching this dude in the face.

  I get out there and said, “Yo, man, chill, G. That’s enough, man. Just chill before you kill this dude.” The other guys leave. I hail a cab down in front of the hotel and say, “Yo, Born. Bounce, man, or they’re gonna hurt you for real.”

  While he’s sitting in the cab, Reef comes back out of nowhere like a fuckin’ ninja. He grabs the luggage rack on the roof and swings his entire body through the open window to kick Born in the fuckin’ face. One last time for the road. I was like, “This fucking guy.” It’s incredible. He survived that shit and made it back. He did it all on pure adrenaline. What a fucking night. The funniest part is that General Wah, the guy who called us out in the first place, he split when we got there and didn’t even stick around for all the drama.

  Wherever Reef went, drama was sure to follow. He was a good man to have with you, because he always carried his weight, and you could count on him to watch your back. On the other hand, if he was in the mix, sooner or later something was gonna go down, and nine times outta ten he’d be at the center of it.

  One time he got mixed up in some trouble with RZA’s brother Divine, and they ended up in a genuine shootout on the highway. I don’t know exactly how it went down, but Reef and Divine were at a club in Atlanta and got into it with some dudes. Long story short, they ended up with Reef driving their Land Cruiser like a madman at a hundred miles an hour down the highway, with these dudes chasing and shooting at them.

  Divine was in the passenger seat, he couldn’t believe the shit he’s in now. Finally, he had had enough of these dudes. Reef had a pistol on him, and Divine took it, then Reef slowed down enough so the guys pulled up close, and that’s when Divine pulled some real Die Hard shit and returned fire. I mean he just let off on them, backed those dudes right off.

  Reef and he come back to the hotel in their bullet-riddled car, and I just went, “See? This is what happens when you hang with Reef.” The whole scene was absolutely crazy.

  And no one was immune, either. One time, RZA told me he was going to Vegas with Reef for a couple days. Now, I warned RZA, told him to wear his vest and be on point and careful, or he was gonna get popped.

  He was like, “Nah, I got this.” Now, RZA may look kinda nerdy, but don’t let that fool you—Bobby Digital ain’t no fuckin’ punk. Regardless, two days later, he shows back up with a busted lip.

  So I asked him, “What the fuck happened?”

  He says Reef and him were at a party. Sure enough, when Reef got into an argument with a guy who had a bunch of dudes with him who were part of Tupac’s entourage, RZA ended up getting hit from behind, then got popped in the mouth and got his chain snatched.

  When Tupac found out RZA had been the victim of the altercation, he ended up getting the chain back for him. He knew the guys who had rolled up on RZA, and in a matter of minutes Tupac got it back. He even arranged for RZA to see the dude who took the chain for a one-on-one if RZA felt like getting some get-back. Nowadays that might be a big deal, but back then that was how the generals of movements could move.

  When RZA came back, I just looked at him and asked, “Didn’t I tell you to watch yourself with that dude?”

  This sort of shit happened all the time with Reef. Just another day in his life. Eventually he got busted for slinging drugs, but he did his time, got back out, and is turning his life around today.

  *

  As usual, on the road or at home, the main concern was usually the cops rolling up on us. It’s amazing that we didn’t catch all kinds of cases. I remember once early during our tour days, we were somewhere in North Carolina. We got to our hotel late at night and rolled up some weed. We smoked everything we had—I mean the whole hotel was full of smoke—and fell asleep.

  Me and Masta Killa were sharing a room at the time, and woke up the next morning with someone knocking on our room door. I remember hearing walkie-talkies in the hallway. I was like, “What the fuck is going on?”

  Half asleep, we open the door to reveal an angry female sergeant. Someone had called the cops. The trees we’d been burning had stunk up the whole place, and the cops were there, and they were out to get us.

  The sergeant had the entire floor locked down. The police were shaking down everybody on the goddamn floor. They were opening each door trying to find where all the weed was at. We didn’t have no fucking weed; me and Masta Killa had already smoked all our shit. We tried to explain we were just artists passing through their fine town on our way to the next. They were out for blood, though. Police—fucking vampires.

  When she came to our room, we said, “Ma’am, we don’t have anything in here.” After searching our entire room, she couldn’t find any weed anywhere. We thought we were in the clear. She’s getting more frustrated as her search keeps turning up jack shit. She really wanted to bag us.

  Suddenly she stops by the desk she had passed several times while tossing our room. Right there in plain view are two seeds and a stem. That’s all that’s left from our smoke session the previous night. It’s enough for her to lose her fucking mind, though.

  “Aha. I knew something was up!” she said. “Y’all two going to jail. Don’t go nowhere.”

  We’re sitting there just staring at this lady. We said, “Lady, are you serious?”

  She said, “Yeah, I’m very serious. Y’all don’t go nowhere.” All for two seeds and a stem.

  She left us in our socks and drawers and went down the hall to get some of her goons. Soon as the door slammed, Me and Masta Killa looked at each other and without a word we threw on our clothes and grabbed our shit. I stuck my head out the door into the hallway. Some cops were up the hallway but they had their backs to us. We ran out of the room and into the fire exit. Tripping on the clothes we’re carrying, we ran all the way downstairs, out into the parking lot behind the hotel, and jumped in the Wu van. We locked all the doors, hid under all the luggage, and stayed there, barely breathing.

  The whole place was just crawling with these dudes. All around us, we could hear walkie-talkies and cops talking to each other while they searched for us. For two or three hours we had to stay hidden. All this bullshit persecution over two seeds and a stem with not a single hair of marijuana on it. Luckily, they eventually gave up on the search and we broke out to the next town.

  Another time, Me and Ol’ Dirty didn’t have passports. The Clan was going to Canada, and we didn’t want to get left behind. So we hid in the luggage compartment underneath the bus and snuck across the border. They didn’t even look inside. This was before 9/11. It was a lot more loosey-goosey with security at that time.

  Considering how many of us there were, and how wild and straight out the hood our dispositions were, we could’ve very easily gotten locked up in every town we hit. But we were used to stashing shit on cops and knowing how to get out of situations.

  For instance, punk-ass cops would shake down our tour bus all the time. They’d pull us over and make us stand on the side of the road while they tossed our belongings. But we were ex-drug dealers, so we know how to stash on those simple out-of-town cops.

  I don’t think any of us ever got bagged on tour. Isn’t that kind of crazy? Other musicians are out here catching charges, but with the exception of ODB and Ghost, none of us really got
too wrapped up with the law once we got famous. Ghost ended up doing six months on a gun possession charge, but he did his time and has been clean ever since.

  To be honest, I think it’s because crime is at record lows nowadays around the USA that cops are going around snatching up dudes. They have to still go hard, even though criminal activity is down. Ain’t no big kingpin, high-profile collars in the street anymore, so they target singers and rappers. Rappers weren’t really targeted back then, not until Tupac and Biggie and that whole thing. When we were making our promo tour rounds, gang violence was through the roof. Now that things have drastically quieted down on the streets, we rappers are the “big fish” cops are following and keeping tabs on.

  In 2012, under the Freedom of Information Act, the dossier the feds had compiled on the Wu-Tang Clan for years was released, detailing how we were “heavily involved in the sale of drugs, illegal guns, weapons possession, murder, carjacking, and other types of violent crimes.” I read it myself and was surprised at some of the things they tried to pin on us. I mean, I was a drug dealer once upon a time. I have carried illegal guns, which by default is weapons possession. But carjacking? Murder? I have no idea how they tried to tie us up in all that. Oh, and the “other types of violent crimes”—well, you’ve read the stories about Reef and those guys, so one might say that some members of the Wu knew people who would commit those types of crimes, yes we did.

  Anyway, for years they kept tabs on us, hoping to gather enough “evidence” to charge us under the RICO act. That also wasn’t happening; once we started making the legal money, it was easier than ever to leave anything illegal behind. Needless to say, nothing ever came of all these investigations. And I’ve kept my nose clean for the past twenty-five years, too. I value my freedom, because I know what it’s like to lose it.

  *

  Overly suspicious cops and troublemaking roughnecks were only the tip of the iceberg of trouble on tour. Fucking with promoters was a whole other element. That one promoter trying to catch us with the fake hundred-dollar bill was light.

  One particular shady-ass promoter comes to mind. This was when we were first starting out. We had already learned that you get up-front money before making a move. Then you get the back-end money upon your arrival at the venue. We made the mistake of performing once without securing the back-end money. The promoter started crying broke to get over on us. Not a smart move. You don’t tell a bunch of hungry former drug dealers and gun busters that you don’t have their paper. Especially when you’re standing in front of us with a ten-thousand-dollar Rolex and mad gold chains on. Are you stupid?

  Midway through one of his pleas, one of our crew just grabbed him and literally flipped him on his head. We all reached in his pockets and took his jewelry. Then our people just dropped him on the ground, and we was out the spot. He learned a lesson that night. WU-TANG CLAN AIN’T NOTHIN’ TA FUCK WIT’!!

  Unfortunately, we had to teach that lesson to promoters several times. There was an incident in Chicago that got pretty crazy. The infamous Chicago situation. We were on the Wu-Tang Forever tour at this point. After every show we would have after-parties. Sometimes different Wu dudes had different after-party situations set up.

  This one promoter tried to be slick and put our name on his flyer. He figured with so many Wu after-parties going on, we wouldn’t notice one more. Unluckily for him, though, we did hear about it.

  He came to the show, unaware that we already knew about the sucker shit he was pulling. Some of our crew took him to one of the hotel rooms to sort matters out. He admitted to using Clan members’ names to boost his party. An example was made of him that night. Dudes beat the shit out of him. He got a black eye, broken nose, we just did him dirty. He ended up with broken ribs that punctured his lungs. He sued us, too. Actually, that was one of our first lawsuits, but definitely not the last. Again, WU-TANG CLAN AIN’T NOTHIN’ TA FUCK WIT’!!

  Sometimes, we had disagreements with radio stations over promotion or sponsored appearances. One time, we got banned from Hot 97, the legendary NYC radio station. We loved those motherfuckers, man, we thought they were family. And we thought these motherfuckers loved us.

  We’d dropped Wu-Tang Forever and were on the road hard. They also had dropped Biggie’s shit (Life After Death). Both sellin’ through the fuckin’ roof. We debuted at number 1 on the Billboard chart and sold 612,000 copies in the first week of release. Crazy shit.

  Hot 97 said they wanted us for the Summer Jam. We said we couldn’t do it that year because we were touring Europe. They said, “If you don’t come back and do Summer Jam, we’re not playing your fucking record no more.”

  We were like, “Yo!” There’s nine of us, so we voted. Some of us said, “Let’s go back and do it.” Some said, “Nah, man. Let’s keep moving. Let’s keep doing what we do. We’ll fix that shit later.” The dudes voting to return won.

  We wound up going back to New York and doing Summer Jam. Little did we know it was a fucking setup. They had us headlining only a few months after Biggie Smalls died. Ain’t no way in the world you can headline a show like that after the passing of a dude who was so iconic in the hip-hop game and so beloved by the entire city of New York. They shouldn’t have expected us to be the headliners—it should have been a tribute show to the Notorious B.I.G. It shouldn’t have gone down like that.

  Twenty-five thousand motherfuckers in the arena. Lil’ Cease and Junior M.A.F.I.A. was going on before us. We sit back watching their shit. Them dudes got all the New York shit on. They got all their shit together. We all fucked up because we’re off balance. Mind you, we didn’t get a sound check, because we just jumped off the plane and headed straight to the venue. I used to have nightmares about this shit every so often. They’re gone now, but every now and again it would come back on me.

  So, it’s our turn. They put us on an elevator lift. They lift DJ Mathematics up. On the way up, you’ve got the turntables. Back then there was no Serato. None of that shit. It was turntables and mixer—good old-fashioned hip-hop. The lift was shaking. The needle kept skipping while he was being lifted. I mean it was making big, fucked-up noises.

  I’m standing behind Math. Math is turning around and looking at me. I’m looking at him. He finally gets to the top. I shit you not, he starts trying to rock, the turntables are spinning, and he’s trying to get us back on course. He starts trying to get the vibe going again. Half the fucking stadium starts getting mad. It was obvious Biggie had his fans, and we had ours.

  The shit was so fucked up, Ghost gets on the speaker and says, “Fuck Hot 97. They sabotaged us. Ain’t no way in the world we could come behind Biggie Smalls after he fuckin’ just died, motherfucker. Fuck that.”

  Then, all of a sudden, all of Biggie’s fans start leaving. He had about twelve thousand fans. We had about twelve thousand fans. Ours stayed. Biggie’s left. We rocked on. We did what we had to do. After that, Hot 97 calls up and said, “Y’all is blackballed.” They never played a Wu-Tang record again. I’m still pissed off over the whole thing. We’ve gone back in later years—performed there in ’06 and ’13—but the vibe was never the same.

  That was a fucked-up situation. The whole situation was a sucker punch. But at the end of it, I guess it was all fair in love and war. We didn’t care, we were just trying to rock, but I guess some people took it more seriously than that.

  *

  On rare occasions, it wasn’t just the hooligans at the shows or the cops outside the shows. Sometimes we’d get into it with other rappers. Jack the Rapper was this huge rap festival during the early nineties. Every year, rappers from all over would flock to Atlanta to “network” with both established and aspiring artists and label executives.

  One of the times we were down there, maybe our first time, Luke from 2 Live Crew would not give up the mic. He wouldn’t let us on. 2 Live Crew was mad deep down there, and supposedly had been getting rowdy during the whole convention. Maybe Luke was trying to protect his market because we were down s
outh. Whatever his reasoning, we were up next and he was keeping us from going onstage. We tried to be patient for a few moments, but you know how that goes when you’re hungry for recognition. So after a few moments, the Clan had to rush the stage to ensure we did what we came to do. In the fracas that ensued, Luke’s DJ got knocked out.

  We didn’t care, though. We had to get up there ’cause that’s what we were there for. Unfortunately, after rushing the stage and finally getting it rocking, we only had time to do two songs. Just as well. Rushing the stage did as much for us as performing would have in terms of recognition.

  We had a few other little skirmishes here and there with other rap groups, but the funniest rap rivalry to me was one that a lot of people might not even be privy to.

  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.