RAW

by Lamont U-God Hawkins

  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 bitch ass is here? Fuck this guy. This cornball-ass motherfucker, what’s he doin’ here? I hate this asshole.”

  Before anyone can say shit, 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 shit. 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, shit 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 shit. 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, motherfuckers 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 shit 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 fuck 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.

  *

  We had a lot of characters on the road with us who would always keep things interesting. Popa Wu was a perfect example of one such character. He was the OG, the older god, who reaffirmed a lot of the 5 Percent lessons and was somewhat of a spiritual guide for a lot of the core members of the Clan.

  Popa Wu was always very clean-cut. He always stayed on some dapper, gentlemanly type shit, rocking a fez and always in some slacks and fly silk shirts or a suit and some hard-bottoms with a fresh hat. He was real slick with the Supreme Mathematics too. He knows 120 backward and forward, and runs them off to you so fast you’d think Twista was rapping.

  He’d seen a lot growing up in Brooklyn during his day, so he knew how to always keep his wits about him. Being so cool, calm, and collected got us out of trouble plenty of times.

  He talked Method Man’s arresting officers into letting Meth go on several occasions. Meth was always getting into some kind of trouble. One time while we were on the road, he was already cuffed and in the backseat of the police cruiser. Popa Wu approached the arresting officer and had a few quiet words with him. To this day no one knows what Popa Wu said to the cops. He talks like he’s the president or some shit. All we knew was that every time Method Man got arrested for smoking weed in public or possession of marijuana or disorderly conduct or whatever—at least nine or ten times—within minutes he was out of the back of the cop car, uncuffed and back on the tour bus. Popa Wu was a motherfucking smooth talker, and he always got Meth and the crew out of some fucked-up situations.

  That didn’t mean he always kept it together, though. Once while on the road in Virginia, one of our crew, Daddy O, had a dirt bike and was riding it up and down in the hotel parking lot. It looked like fun—I can’t front—but I wasn’t getting on that shit.

  Popa Wu, however, felt differently. “Yo, Daddy O! Lemme get a ride on that bike!”

  Mind you, Popa Wu was dap (well-dressed) always. He had on some loafers and slacks and a fresh silk shirt. Daddy O tried to warn him. “Man, you too fly to be riding on a dirt bike.”

  “Listen, man. I was down with Tomahawks [a well-known gang back in the day] in Brooklyn. I can handle this little toy you got,” he says.

  I had a girl waiting in the lobby, so I went to meet her and take her upstairs to my room. As I walk off to the lobby, I see Popa Wu drive off. I meet my shorty, go upstairs, and I’m back downstairs in less than a half hour.

  When I get back to the lot, I see Lil’ Free, aka General Wah, Daddy O, and everybody else out there laughing their fucking asses off. I ask Free, who was crying he was laughing so hard, what happened.

  “Yo, you missed it. Popa Wu totaled the bike and fucked himself up. We told him not to ride that fuckin’ bike.”

  Sure enough, in the back of the parking lot, the bike was lying on the ground, completely totaled. The slip-ons Wu had been sporting were scattered on the ground as well. I looked in the tour van and saw two feet as big as meat loaves sticking out of the backseat. I went back to find Popa Wu lying there. When I’d left him, he was all crispy and shiny with his immaculate silk shirt, looking like an icon for flyness. Now he was all fucked up, his clothes ripped and bloody, and his feet were all swollen up like the Elephant Man. Turns out he broke one foot and one ankle on the motorbike.

  Even so, he tried to tough it out by driving to the next town with us, he rode for eight hours with two fucked-up feet. By the time we rolled into town, he had to go to the hospital.

  You’d think Popa Wu would have learned his lesson after that, but nope! Once, we were in Hawaii at this really dope outdoor spot, with food and drinks and ATVs whipping around. Popa Wu must’ve gotten tired of seeing us have all the fun on the ATVs, because he decided to hop on one, too. Again, we warned him not to, and then warned him a couple of more times for good measure.

  “Take it easy on them shits, Popa. They move faster than you think.”

  His response was typical. “Man, I was in the Tomahawks in their heyday when we used to ride all over …”

  Before anyone can teach him the ins and outs of riding the ATV, he squeezes the throttle with mad force. The ATV peels out, and he almost catches whiplash the way it takes off. He tries to straighten out the handlebars. We’re all yelling instructions and telling him to slow down, but he doesn’t listen, or maybe he can’t do what we’re telling him to do because he doesn’t know how. He goes flying right into some bushes. The brush was so thick it caught the bike and him and just stopped it dead in its tracks. It stopped so suddenly, he flipped over the handlebars and goes flying.

  We’re all laughing, but we’re hoping he’s okay. When we go into the bushes to drag him out, we realize we’re on the edge of a cliff. We had no idea. Don’t you know if those bushes hadn’t caught the ATV and stopped it, Popa Wu would’ve flown straight off the damn cliff for sure.

  After that, we didn’t have to tell him to stay off the bikes anymore. It took a couple times and a near-death experience, but he finally learned his lesson. At least he didn’t end up in a wheelchair.

  *

  Going all around the world, we had to get over our share of culture shock. This was nine dudes from Staten Island crossing oceans and ending up on the other side of the planet.

  Like getting on a plane for the first time to go to Japan in 1994. We were a little reluctant, but it was for the fans. Japan was a different monster. You had to get on that plane for fifteen hours. But when we got off, I was so glad I had come. That was also when we were filming a documentary of the tour. I love Japan. The culture was more exotic than anything I had ever experien
ced. We were the only black people for miles. While I was there, I felt like me and my Wu brothers were the only black people on the planet. We were so outnumbered, it really felt like we were aliens from another planet. When we’d go to restaurants, Japanese children would stop and stare at us because they’d never seen a black person before. They were in awe of us. I’d never felt like that before. It was really interesting. The first time getting my back walked on while wearing a silk robe and tasting sake was in Japan.

  Also, at this time the yen was strong against the U.S. dollar. I had like a hundred T-shirts that I sold for fifty bucks a pop. I’d wanted to bring a lot more, but the main shipment got caught up in customs, so I couldn’t make the really big bank over there. I wound up paying about a grand for the shirts I did bring, sold them all, and went home with about four grand. That was a good payday—when you’re just starting out, to make a flip like that, it felt like I was back on the block hustlin’ again, only this time it was all legal.

  I’d have to say that of all the countries I’ve traveled to, Japan and Italy have the best food. The food in Japan is powerful, it’s off the fuckin’ chain. We had food prepared for us right in front of our eyes. It had a profound effect on me.

  More important, you felt good after eating there. I wasn’t even working out, and my muscles were just popping. Not like the shitty, sluggish feeling you get after eating a bunch of contaminated, processed American food. I was so glad I wasn’t lazy about taking the long-ass flight out to Japan. They got so wild for Wu-Tang in those early years, it was crazy.

  And we did some crazy things there as well. For example, Dirty loved to fuck groupies. The craziest ODB story I remember happened during our Japan tour. He came to my hotel room with this woman he was with at the time and asked me if I had any condoms. Now, I told him, “Yo, man, I don’t have any condoms.”

  So he’s looking around, but like I said, I didn’t have any protection. Then he sees the food tray, which was wrapped in plastic, and says, “Yo, I’m gonna use Saran Wrap.” He goes into my bathroom, locks the door, wraps his dick up in Saran Wrap, and fucks the girl right there in my hotel room bathroom. He comes back out with his little funny-ass grin on his face, and that was that.

  The other thing we found out while in Japan was that they have very strict drug laws. We were coming through Japanese customs, and Masta Killa had three ounces of weed on him. Even so, somehow he gets through with the shit, so now we have weed in Japan—but we have no rolling papers. So we improvised, and rolled joints out of pages of the Bible from our hotel room.

  When we told our local promoter about it, he said we were real lucky, ’cause getting caught with a joint could mean a five-year prison sentence. I couldn’t believe my ears, but he was dead serious.

  That’s why I went crazy on another trip to Japan, when one of our entourage somehow got a huge bag of weed into the country. I damn near lost my mind when he pulled out this huge bag, at least two pounds, right there in my hotel room. I took a little piece—I’m not that stupid—then screamed at him about the rest, “Yo, get that shit the fuck away from me right now! You know how much jail time you could get around here for that? Don’t you ever come around me with that again!” He apologized for bringing it. “Yo, Uey, I’m sorry, I didn’t know.”

  But I wasn’t about to take a chance—no amount of weed is worth a possible five years in the joint.

  *

  I enjoyed my time in Italy. It had cobblestone roads everywhere, and little alleys you could duck into and explore. We went by the Roman Colosseum, the ancient gladiator spot, which was smaller than I expected. I thought it would be big like fuckin’ Yankee Stadium, but that place was a Little League arena at best. The reality of it broke my heart. I remember thinking Hollywood had fed me some bullshit with the Gladiator movie and all that about its size.

  Late at night, you’d go down into this little speakeasy-looking place, this little back-room bar that looked like nothing. But then when you get inside the spot—bad fuckin’ bitches everywhere! And they are dressed to the nines—I mean dresses, shoes, the whole outfit. Everybody in Italy is well dressed.

  Sometimes it’s the little things that have a big impact on a place. When I stayed in Switzerland, I noticed how amazingly healthy the people over there, especially the women, looked. Their skin was clear and glowing, and their hair was glossy and magnificent. I found out while I was there that Switzerland has some of the very best tap water in the world. When I said I wanted to get some water, someone told me to drink the tap water. I replied, “I don’t drink tap water!” but they said here in Switzerland, you can. They claimed it was the healthiest water in the world, and from what I saw of the people, I could believe it.

  We traveled all over Europe. My first time in Amsterdam was also a crazy moment. Of course, weed is legal there. And we were so used to getting locked up and shit that we had to adjust ourselves to the idea that it was perfectly legal to smoke in public. We’d be walking through the streets smoking, and the police couldn’t do nothin’ to us. It was a feeling of invincibility.

  So me and Deck go for a walk, hit up the smoke shops. We ended up rolling up in a McDonald’s. We were just sitting there, smoking a spliff, giggling and laughing the whole time. We ate there, too, and when we went to throw our garbage away, the wastebasket read “dank you” instead of “thank you.” We were so high, we kept saying it all night, “Dank you, man, dank you. Dank you for this moment.”

  We also went to the red-light district. The hookers didn’t want to get with us, because they said black men were too big! We tried to kid around with them, but they were serious, they wanted nothing to do with us, so we didn’t get any. Still, we wandered around in awe at these women hanging around in the windows of brothels like ornaments on display at Macy’s. Again, all perfectly legal.

  My mind was blown at all this, so I checked out the history of Amsterdam and found out they legalized drugs and prostitution to stop crime. I mean, heroin is legal there, all that shit is legal. And the prostitutes are tested weekly for STDs. I found out that sex-related and drug-related crimes rarely happen there (burglaries and pickpocketing are another matter, however). I was like, wow, that’s kinda awesome.

  London was also nice—it often reminded me of New York City. Of course, in London, you had to be careful crossing the street, because you’re used to looking one way in America, but in England, you gotta look both ways, because sometimes they have traffic coming from both directions in the same lane, so you had to watch out. That was the first time I’d ever seen a car with the steering wheel on the right side as well.

  During that tour, we were dealing with English pounds; you had to transfer your money to pounds. I gave the woman at the desk one thousand dollars, and she gave me back four hundred pounds. I was like, “Motherfucker, where’s the rest of my money?”

  She said, “This is the currency exchange.”

  I said, “Oh, a’ight.”

  On top of that, we couldn’t find anything good to eat in London. The food was different. It was bland, and when we did eat, it tasted different. One time we went to a restaurant that had the weirdest fucking menu I’d ever seen. I’m talking true Indiana Jones–style shit, like monkey brains and I don’t even know what else. It was a real Andrew Zimmern moment. I wasn’t even sure what I was looking at, but there was no way I was touching any of it.

  We had good food in France, Paris especially. But what I didn’t like about France was that a lot of the people there don’t wear deodorant, so they kinda stank.

  The fans over there, though, they were insane. As wild as my team was, sometimes the crowd would get wilder. The fans in Europe take their music festivals really seriously. They still do—to this day they are more insane, man. They’re just a little rougher, a little wilder. Stage diving. Toilet paper rolls flying in the air. Crazy shit.

  We did a festival with twenty thousand or thirty thousand people. We performed in a tent, and people were spilling out all over the place. E
veryone is hyped and moshing, chanting, “Tiger Style. Tiger Style.” As soon as the crowd heard the intro to “Wu-Tang Clan Ain’t Nuthing ta Fuck Wit,” they shifted into a higher gear of crazy. All you could see was thousands of heads jumping up and down, it was fucking insane. People in the crowd started climbing onstage and stage diving into the crowd. Most of them were successful and got to crowd surf for a few before the crowd would let them down.

  I’ll never forget, me and Deck were standing next to each other on the stage during our European tour, watching the crowd buckwilding. Suddenly this one dude staggers onto the stage, takes a running start, and swan dives into the air over the crowd. He was suspended in the air for what seemed like a few seconds. As he was coming down, though, the crowd shifted, and suddenly there was no one there to catch him. Me and Deck burst out laughing when the dude landed on his head and neck, I mean, we were in tears.

  Now don’t get it twisted—that might seem kind of cold, but you gotta remember we weren’t used to any of this—the rolls of toilet paper getting thrown around, the mosh pit, mud pits, stage diving—all that was new to us. So when this happened, we busted out laughing simply because we’d never seen that shit go down before. Fortunately, he popped back up off the floor and tried to act like nothing happened. The dude had to be hurt, though. Either physically or egotistically.

  Me and Deck were on the mic shouting him out and laughing as soon as he popped back up. “We saw that, dude. God willing nothing’s broke. Hope you a’ight.” He looked around the crowd for an escape. Seeing the exit sign above the doors, he ran for it, holding his neck the whole time.

  Another wild fan experience I had was in Aspen, Colorado. Our tour bus got caught in a blizzard and got stuck in the middle of nowhere. We had to spend the night in the bus, and thank God we had generators on the bus, otherwise it would have been one cold-ass night there.

  We had to take vans into the mountains while they got our bus out. In Aspen, we stayed at this really nice lodge, where everything in the room was wood: the bed frame, the walls, the chairs, all of it. There was a bearskin rug on the floor. It was real nice but unexpected, ’cause I wasn’t used to the skiing culture and all that.