So what happened was that the car company Scion threw a little event for Genius, Raekwon, and myself. Now, this was my very first time on the ski slopes. And the lady that was throwing the event tricked me out. She went out and bought me a complete skiing set, from the suit and boots to skis to a snowboard, I was all set up.
We get to the slopes, and I don’t know about the ski lift, ’cause again, I’ve never been on one in my life. And this was what’s called a T-bar lift, which is just a tiny little bar that you sit on, attached a slender pole running up to the overhead cable—and that’s it. You’re not sitting ina nice comfy double seat.
So I’m talking on the phone and not paying attention, all I know is that the lift chair is coming. But what I didn’t realize is that we had to go up the entire side of the mountain on this thing. And once I was on it, I swear it looked like we were fifty thousand feet above the ground, supported by a cable that only looked about an inch thick. Even worse, it kept stopping and going as they let other people on, so we were swaying back and forth like crazy.
By the time I realized what the fuck I’d gotten myself involved in, we were halfway up the mountain. We’d go up for a bit, then stop for five minutes, leaving us stuck in midair swinging back and forth in the breeze. My feet were dangling in the air, and I was screaming at the top of my lungs at this woman the whole way. I seriously contemplated jumping off, but I could see there wasn’t a lot of snow beneath me to break my fall. So I thought, Fuck it, I’ll take my chances.
We finally make it to the top, with me cussin’ her out the whole way. All I see are white people everywhere. There was a snowboard run up there, and there were dudes doing tricks on the pipe and all that. Cute lil’ snow bunnies riding by on snowboards, that made me sit up and take notice, like Yo, where the fuck am I at?
Now, they did know how to take care of their peoples there; there was a full bar, and a bunch of tents along one side of the slope. I head over there, order me a drink. What I didn’t remember was that I was eight thousand feet above sea level. Of course, the alcohol had a supercharged effect on my brain, and I had no idea it was coming. I had half a drink and smoked a spliff, and by the end of those I was so fucked up I couldn’t believe it. I thought someone had spiked my drink, but the folks around me just told me I wasn’t adjusted to the altitude yet. I asked how you do that, and they said I just had to keeping breathing in the air.
So I’m breathing in and out, and a Wu-Tang fan slides by on a snowboard, sees me, and asks, “Yo, you wanna come on the pipe?”
I stare back at him, and was like, “Are you fuckin’ crazy? Look at my face.” I’m totally shitfaced with a ski suit on, I know nothing about snowboarding, and this dude wants me to go in the pipe? That is a recipe for my demise. No, thank you.
I did, however, get on a snowmobile, and tore around on that. That’s how I got down as well. That was a lot of fun—I was a little pissed off, like, why couldn’t we have taken this up the mountain? I never did ski there—I’m not gonna try something like that without practicing it first.
We love all our fans, wherever they’re from—they’re the greatest in the whole world. And Wu-Tang’s always had a special place in our hearts for disabled fans. One guy rolled up on me once outside of a concert and told me he got paralyzed at a Wu-Tang show. Don’t know if it was true or not, but it still touched my heart. I felt bad, but he said it like he was proud. I felt we owed him something, though. So we had him escorted inside the venue. When it was time to rock we let him come onstage with us. Since then, anybody in a wheelchair is always welcome any time. A few times we would look out at the crowd and see someone in a wheelchair. We’d stop the show and go down into the crowd and actually get the person in the wheelchair. If there was no ramp to get onstage, we would just carry them up there and set them down on the stage. We’d let them chill with us the whole time we rocked. After the show, we’d take them back down into the crowd the same way.
Wheelchairs are always welcome. So much so, in fact, that people in wheelchairs can get into our shows for free. If they’re outside when we’re coming in, we give them passes with no hesitation. Those are our truest fans, because not even a physical disability will deter them from attending one of our shows. Those type of fans are the ones we do all this for, and we try our hardest to never disappoint.
Every Wu-Tang member has busted their ass onstage at one point or another. Except for maybe Rae, because he doesn’t move around that much onstage.
RZA busted his ass a few times, but I remember this one time in particular, he was more hyped than usual, so he was sauntering around the stage like a wolf. The stage was a bit wet from us splashing water at the crowd and vice versa. Sure enough, when it’s RZA’s turn to set off a record, he runs to the front of the stage with mad energy.
There’s no place to hide
Once I step inside the room
Doctor Doom
Prepare for the—
Boom! He slipped so hard his feet went right into the air and he came down, landing on his ass. Needless to say, we had a laugh or two about that. We always laughed at each other because we knew sooner or later it’d be someone else’s turn to fall or crash a bike or whatever.
I took a bad spill myself at the Continental Airlines Arena in New Jersey, on the night Ol’ Dirty Bastard died. The fall itself actually wasn’t so bad, now that I think about it, although the crowd, about ten thousand strong, all went “Ooooh” when they saw it. What was bad about it was that I fell between two speakers and got stuck. Like, I could not move. The rest of the Clan was doing their set, so no one would help me get out of the goddamn speakers. I’m practically lying there with the mic in my hand. So I yelled into the mic, “Somebody help me! I’m stuck between these speakers!”
Security came and helped me get out, and I rocked the mike, and the show went on. The others joked about it for hours, of course. The very next day, we heard Dirty had died. I think that’s why that Continental Arena show will always resonate with me. It was the last Wu-Tang show that Dirty was alive for, even though he didn’t attend.
*
Now I’d known years earlier that ODB was gonna die before his time. I got one of my crazy brain jumps about him, a flash of what was gonna happen. Before Dirty passed away, I told Masta Killa that he was gonna die young. I knew his character, and when he went to jail and he was a drug addict, I understood where he was coming from, that he wanted to be the man again. And he came home and wanted to pick up right where he left off. Like I said earlier, you go to jail for three years, you need three years back on the streets to get your head straight, get your bearings. But when you want to rush back into being a star, that takes a little time. You’re rusty—you don’t know how rusty you are, but you are rusty.
He needed to take his time to ease back into things, but Dirty didn’t have that kind of patience. Before he went to jail, he was on drugs, coke and all that crazy shit. And then he was in the crazy house, and who knows what they shot him up with when he was in there. At the time, I said if he’s not careful, Dirty’s gonna fuck around and die of an overdose. And unfortunately, that’s exactly what happened—he came home and tried to get into that lifestyle again right away, without realizing that he had to ease back into it.
When Dirty passed away, that was a more emotional switch, ’cause that was our brother, and he and I were kind of close. We all came out of the streets together and became a successful rap group, and there’s this bond that joins us together. It’s fucked up when you see somebody that you love every day, and then they’re just gone. I cried so fucking hard when I heard he died.
It was hard at the beginning, when we were getting our feet wet on the road, but fun, because we were embarking on something new. But overall, touring is a lot of work, and you need a crazy amount of tenacity to withstand the wear and tear of life on the road.
And now, after decades on the road, it’s still rough because you still have to put that work in every time. Traveling, on the plane, off
the plane, go to hotel, unpack, go to the show, do the show, come back, pack up, get on the plane, off to the next venue, and it starts all over again. That’s why I got especially mad at my Wu brothers this last go-round with the work surrounding A Better Tomorrow. They didn’t want to do the work this time around, and the album promo suffered as a result.
*
’Course, we still found time to get our party on.
One night, after the American Music Awards, Ghost and I went out hunting for some parties to hit up in Las Vegas. We had the limo, so we were going over there and then over here and then back around the Strip hitting up different parties. All the parties we were hitting at first were wack at best.
“Yo, Ghost, let’s hit Puff’s party. I bet it’s popping off!”
We made a few more rounds before heading over to Puff’s. We finally get to his shindig, and the party was popping. The first telltale sign that it was gonna be a hell of a night was that Mary J. Blige was there. She was on her way out, but she still showed us love. Mary always showed us love since Method Man and she had that Grammy winner together. She was never too busy for a hug and quick chat. Once we saw her, we knew it was popping inside.
“I told you this was the party to be at, Ghost!”
It was all celebs when we walked in. Crazy champagne bottles and glasses everywhere. Puff throws the best parties. He’s the king of that. With Puff, everyone feels comfortable. If me or some of my Wu brothers threw a party back in the day, people might not come because they thought it might be too rough for them, or they might get shot or stabbed. But with Puff, all types of people feel safe and comfy enough to just relax and drink some champagne. People going to a Puff party know they have to come correct. You gotta get right before you fall through one of those shindigs, ya dig? Put your hard-bottoms on, maybe a suit, get your chinchilla out the cleaners and put your diamonds on, because it’s going to be a classy affair, at least in comparison to some of the functions I’ve been to. His parties were historic in their time. The late 1990s was just a really, really good time for hip-hop. Hip-hop was just becoming a billion-dollar industry, so money was getting thrown around. Dudes don’t party like that anymore. There’s rarely an occasion to get suited up or don a tux or even wear all white.
That night, I saw someone I’d had a crush on since I was a lil’ snotnose in Park Hill watching Good Times. Every black kid in America had a crush on Janet Jackson back in the day. She was looking as fly as all outdoors. I noticed there were a lot of dudes kind of hovering around watching her out of the corner of their eyes, but they all seemed too shook to approach her because she was Janet (Miss Jackson if you’re nasty) Jackson. You know me, I ain’t scared of rejection. If you can master how not to be hurt or bothered by rejection, you’ll conquer the world.
So I stepped to her with a swiftness, kissed her hand, told her I loved her. Right away I made her laugh. I knelt down next to her on a long couch—it was full up with Janet, Eve, Missy Elliott, Jermaine Dupri—and talked with her for a few minutes. She was wonderful, sweet and a little shy. I got a picture with her and a little kiss on my cheek.
I fucked up, though. I got up to make a few rounds around the club. I told her I’d be back. When I looked over my shoulder I shit you not, she looked kind of sad, like lonely. It’s got to be tough being that pretty, man. I never made it back to chill with her because not long after that Eve came up to me asking me about the Ruff Ryders line in “Cherchez La Ghost.” By the time I explained it wasn’t a diss, Janet was gone. Damn.
I’ve shaken the hands of some of the most amazing people on earth. I’ve shaken Barry White’s and Isaac Hayes’s hand, God bless the dead. Little Richard. Cher. Garth Brooks. Britney Spears. Celine Dion. Bobby Brown. Whitney Houston, God bless the dead. Bono. B. B. King, God bless the dead. Lenny Kravitz. Macy Gray. Pamela Anderson. Tommy Lee. Deborah Harry. And dozens more.
I even shook Donald Trump’s hand. This was about fifteen years ago, at a mansion party in upstate New York. Me and my man Homicide came through, got pictures with Michael Strahan and Trump. I think Homi got that picture, though, ’cause I can’t find it.
*
We really knew the Wu-Tang Clan was lit when we went on the tour with Rage Against the Machine in 1997. That was a great feeling. It was probably the biggest tour of the summer, and unlike some of our previous experiences on the road, this shit was completely professional. Everything was highly secured. Everything was new and nice and neat and clean and proper. This was not some hood shit, like when we’d just pile in the van and drive a thousand miles to Wisconsin. This was straight top-notch living. Everything and everyone catered to us.
The tour bus was official. We’d roll into town on that bitch and hit the venue for sound check. Then we’d have this Winnebago-type RV take us to the hotel. When it was showtime, the Winnebago would scoop us up and take us back to the venue. Then after the show and parties and after-parties, we’d pile back on the bus and skate out of town to the next one.
We were surrounded by super-professional people all the time, making sure we had everything we needed. Our hotels were immaculate. They’d literally roll out the red carpet sometimes when we arrived at certain destinations.
Wu-Tang was a worldwide phenomenon at the time, but still kind of a mystery to a lot of people. To satisfy their curiosity, a lot of music industry vets were coming out to our shows. We saw Aerosmith, Paul McCartney, Metallica, Pink, Black Eyed Peas, Soundgarden, Lenny Kravitz, all the rockers. The sad part was that for a lot of these, I don’t have any picture of them, because this was before cell phones and all that, so if you didn’t have a camera there, you didn’t get the shot.
Also, a lot of times, at least in the beginning, I wasn’t checking out who was performing with us—after our set, I would usually head back to the hotel. But I changed all that on this tour. That’s how I got turned onto not only Rage, but Soundgarden, because I’d heard their music on a video game called Road Rash, and when I saw them on the schedule, I stuck around and checked out their set. Man, these dudes were total rock motherfuckers. That was the first time I really saw the electricity of really good rock music. I’m not saying that the other bands weren’t rockin’, but this motherfucker Chris Cornell onstage, his hair looked like electricity was going through it, his shirt was blowing, and he was out there on the stage tearing up these little young kids in the audience. And I was like, Whoa, shit.
That in turn had an influence on me trying to turn my music into that alternative style of hip-hop. That experience changed the way I looked at music. I was seeing how Rage and Soundgarden were doing it, and how there was a whole different audience out there compared to what we were used to. Now, mind you, the Clan started out primarily in and for the black community, but as we grew more popular, our reach expanded to multiple races all around the world. That’s another reason why we’re so successful, because our music appeals to everybody in the world. As a musician, that’s what you’re trying to do, and that’s one of the things I think is wrong with hip-hop today—it doesn’t transition into other territories very well, not like it used to.
That tour was an eye-opener for me for several reasons. A big one was because it put us onto music festivals and shit like that. I love doing festivals. Those are the best shows. First of all, you’re not rocking for a couple hundred people, or even a few thousand. No, sir. You’re rockin’ for fifty thousand hard-core Wu-Tang fans. It was some prestigious shit. There’s no feeling like that. Since the Rage tour, we’ve rocked with Mos Def, Pink, the Roots, the Black Eyed Peas, you name it … shit, we’d run into everybody. We’d spend the night talking to some actors and directors, and then get back on that comfy bus on our way to the next luxury hotel. And of course, women were everywhere.
That Rage tour was so ill. I think the best show might have been the one in Hawaii. First of all, those islands are fucking paradise. You get there, the sun is on your back, everything is green and yellow and radiant, and the colors are popping out. It’s p
henomenal. The water, the Jet Skis, all that fly shit going on, it felt like we were kings there. The whole time I had the Hawaii Five-0 theme song running through my head. I’m just a TV kid at heart.
At one point on the tour, Zack de la Rocha, the lead singer of Rage Against the Machine, sprained his ankle during a performance. We thought the tour was going to be fucked up. We thought it was going to be finished, but nah. Zack gets airlifted out by helicopter, goes to the hospital. The next day he comes back with a cast on his fucking leg and starts rocking again like a true champion rock star, still jumping in the air and around the stage.
Two weeks later, Mook comes and says, “Yo, the promoters, they’re lowballing us. We could be getting way more money.” Mind you, we done made crazy bread already. I’m thinking like, Yo! We gotta finish this tour!
Ghost and Rae, though, said, “Nah, man. We need to do this. We need to do that. We shouldn’t be doing this.” They talked us out of finishing the fucking tour, and we ended up cancelling the rest of the dates and fucking up our relationship with Rage Against the Machine. That broke my heart.
Pretty soon, with Wu appearances getting spotty, that fucked up our Mountain Dew endorsement. It fucked up a lot of shit—no, that’s too harsh. It didn’t fuck up everything, but things would’ve been better if we had just finished what we started. We had no reason not to. We were at our apex and rising, and I wanted to take it to the next level.
That’s one of the main reasons why I was mad when our participation in the Rage Against the Machine tour started crumbling. We should’ve seen it all the way through, but things just got out of hand. When Ghost and Rae started complaining about the money, saying they were getting jerked around, things got fucked fast.
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