INTERVIEW: Inspectah Deck Reflects On Wu-Tang's Legacy & Talks 'Dragon's Breath' RZA, Diddy + More

Today on The Breakfast Club, Inspectah Deck Reflects On Wu-Tang's Legacy & Talks 'Dragon's Breath' RZA, Diddy. Listen For More!

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@BreakfastClubPower1051FM

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Every day up week ago.

Speaker 2 (00:03):
Click your ass up the Breakfast Club.

Speaker 1 (00:05):
You don't finished for y'all.

Speaker 3 (00:06):
Done morning everybody. It's d J Envy, just hilarious. Charlamagne
the God. We are the Breakfast Club. We got a
special guest in the.

Speaker 4 (00:13):
Building, Inspected Deck on the set from Tank Inspected that
welcome back. You know, it's the first time Inspected Deck
has been on the show. You know, it's the first
time I actually met Inspected Deck. I met remember of
what expected that wow? And when I when I first
seen it on the street, I thought you all was coming. Look,
I'm like, you no, expect the Deck. It's I'm like, damn,

(00:34):
this is the first time I ever met you.

Speaker 1 (00:35):
Brother. How you doing, brother, I'm good man, it's good
to be here. I'm glad y'all let me up in
the building.

Speaker 5 (00:40):
Of course, you got a new album called dragons Breath. Now,
we were coming up in the nineteen hundreds. The Dragons
Breath was not a good thing.

Speaker 1 (00:46):
No, I wouldn't did not want that. But you know,
you know it's just it's d you know, spit hot fire. Yeah,
it's nothing. This is this is like a rap album,
you know what I mean. It's not like trying to
be King Pinn or King of New York and nothing
like that. It's just more of inspected Deck. Been off
the scene for a while, I still think I got it,

(01:06):
still got a little something left in it. So I
had a bunch of songs. I said, I'm gonna put
these things together, make these projects and put them out
one bout one, two to the Deck fans stuff, you know,
because I know it's a lot of new stuff going
on in hip hop.

Speaker 2 (01:18):
Can we go? I want to go back, if you
don't mind respect that.

Speaker 6 (01:20):
This is the first time here.

Speaker 3 (01:22):
Of course, legendary group Wu Tang, the first album. You
were on that album, the second most artist on that album.
So let's start off.

Speaker 1 (01:29):
You've been from the Bronx.

Speaker 3 (01:30):
How a kid from the Bronx winds up in Staten
Island and then getting in this legendary group Bu Tang.

Speaker 1 (01:37):
Yeah, so your shout out to the BX. I don't
wrap the Bronx enough. Bronx is like, that's my soul.
That's where I was born at Crazy America. Come from
the Bronx and all the Florida Yeah, VX Florida for sure. Yeah,
add some Texas to that. Texas to that. But yeah, man,
coming up with the Bronx was like hardcore on eighty
third Grand Concourse right there, Jerome, av But it was like, wow,

(02:02):
I was hectic up there. So my mom was like
looking out for our safety, like we're gonna She wanted
to go somewhere a little more peaceful, coming from Lower
East Side Manhattan, you know, and Staten Allen is just
like this little cut over to the side. It's away
from the city. So she felt like that was a
place for us to grow up and it'd be safer.
But you know, Staten Island is its own jungle to

(02:24):
be as as the Bronx. Staaten Island is the Bronx,
but it's just concentrated. Everybody knows each other, you know.
So you know, that little small place is where I
kind of learned, you know, all my little street savviness
or whatever the case. And butang was kind of like
already in the making because I went to school with Ray,
I went to school with you God Meth. Pretty much

(02:45):
everybody ghosts, so it was kind of like we knew
each other from way way back.

Speaker 3 (02:50):
They didn't look at you as an outsider because you
wasn't born and raised there or was it just as
soon as you came everybody y'all just clicked.

Speaker 1 (02:55):
Now, everybody came from somewhere. Rizzaiz from Brooklyn. You know,
Odds Kappa, you got everybody's from Brooklyn. I'm like one
of the only few brons mephis Long Island. So you know,
everybody kind of came together. Ghost is the only one
born us that now, so he was born there boy
going to school. We all knew Rizza. Rizza was the DJ,

(03:18):
had his raps, had everything going on. And you know,
Meth was somebody that was putting out tapes in the hood,
just be at people house making tape stuff like that.
I was doing the same thing one boy DJ Quincy,
and so you know, word gets around. Then we started
mixing and mingling. I get with Meth and you got
first Ray con Is overhead across the street with my

(03:40):
brother Power recipes, and so it just came to be,
like you know what you're doing. Ray had the idea
of coming to Rizza, Power put the thing together. Power
was the finances, say hey, yo, these dudes just don't
I'm gonna get behind that.

Speaker 6 (03:55):
And you know, kind of like it was a thousand rappers.

Speaker 1 (03:59):
It was.

Speaker 6 (03:59):
It was there's many of us.

Speaker 3 (04:01):
How did y'all break it down to that the core?
Because like you said, there were so many rappers. How
was the core?

Speaker 1 (04:07):
That's great and stuff. So Rizza saw something. He definitely
saw something. He had the vision of this way before
any of this. And I remember him coming to me saying, Yo,
I'm gonna put this group together. You know, we're gonna
get these MC's. We're gonna reps that now. And I
didn't know it's gonna be me because I heard, you know,
this guy, this guy, this guy was so many people,
but he had the ear to know, Hey, put this

(04:31):
guy behind him or put him before him, and you
can get a certain sound. He'll he'll take you off
the record, you can have a dope verse you out
of here. He his voice sounds a little better. So
we're gonna put him there. And that was like, oh,
you know, you god, you know ooh what grad wn
us get screwed? It wasn't It wasn't sixteen, but it

(04:51):
was a nice bridge to lead you into Dirty First
teen's first man.

Speaker 2 (04:55):
Yea.

Speaker 1 (04:56):
But when we first did it, it wasn't like that. And
I had the knack to know how to line people
up and put things together. So I think that's really
how it came down to who was going to be who,
because there's still dudes like to this day that feel
like they Wu tang on Standyland, like and Stapleton Ghost
Face projects. They were the first ones the screen bhutang.

(05:18):
I'm gonna shout that out because Paul Kill we wasn't
really we wasn't into the karate and all of that
like that. So we came down to Stapleton, they already
had Wu tang. That meant fly to them. If your
shoes was wool, yo, those wool. This is wool. That's wool.
And I was like, okay, you know, we into Channel
five karate flicks and all that, so we knew the
principles and the brotherhood he was trying to preach. So

(05:40):
it's like, all right, I'm down with this. You know,
I'm running from the cops. I got two felonies at
the time, so I'm like, it makes sense to just
sit down and write some robs and see where you go.

Speaker 5 (05:50):
So when it came to being like that MC who
what they call you the Master of the Opening opening brush, right,
that was Rizzard's idea, have you lead off everything.

Speaker 6 (06:00):
I don't know if it was really his idea for me.

Speaker 1 (06:03):
I was just ready, okay, Like you know, everybody else
had like a like a star power or some type
of or I was the humble, laid back dude. But
I was always like I got a book on you,
or I got something. When I'm writing, I'm jotting things down.
So when it came down to those moments, I was
always ready, we to throw the beat on. A lot
of cats had to write and get their stuff together,

(06:24):
while I had like ten joints. I just was on
the bus stop or on the ferry ready. So that's
what it came down to, like, yo, we'll to throw
the beat on. I'm already on the beat before you
could even write your rhymes. So that's I think that's
what that became. And then he saw it. Then he
figured out, okay, let's let deck set it off. Because
I look at it like double dutch. Let'll see, like

(06:46):
back in the days with kids warming up. That's how
the beat is to me. You get you to then
you jump in and you do you do your steps right.
So I always treated it like that like warm up
jumping and then.

Speaker 2 (06:58):
Get out the first record. That's your recording.

Speaker 1 (07:02):
No, we did Cream first, Wow, and Ray had three verses.
I had three verses on Cream and it wasn't structured
with meth with the hook in the middle, and it
was called like life of a drug Dealer or something
like that. I forget, but it's on YouTube though. You
can look that up.

Speaker 6 (07:17):
Oh my god.

Speaker 1 (07:19):
Yeah, on the versions three verses of Piece with us
took my verse just I'll tell you how smart Rizard
is with that. He took the back end, put it here,
took the front end, put that in the back, and
it took out the whole middle.

Speaker 6 (07:33):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (07:33):
And it made the verse on Cream that y'all here now.
But it's like thirty forty more bars to that that
I may release one day, I may say, I mean,
it's out there, but I may like say it on
the track. I figure that's a dope thing to do. Now.

Speaker 3 (07:47):
You took my unreleased bars. They said that you were
on a record with Pak. Yeah, and then that record
never came out.

Speaker 6 (07:54):
So I heard that wasn't in the flood.

Speaker 1 (07:57):
That was That was an interesting day, So tell us
about that. I went with Mesh and Red CALLI. They
were doing the song they were going to be in
the Montell Jordan video. This is how we do it.
I'm in that video. By the way, I got my
my Yankee hat backwards. I'm just in the back. I'm
happy to be there. I see Nate Dogg you know
all all all all the names we heard of being
with Snoop and I see Big Snoop. So I'm like, yo,

(08:19):
I'm having fun. We're on the golf course. They tore
the golf course, beat breaks people. What I remember seeing
in the fight recipes, Nate Dogg BG Knockout. They had
a war going on.

Speaker 6 (08:33):
Me New York.

Speaker 1 (08:34):
I don't know nothing about this, but I'm out there
and I see it and uh BG Knockouts comes with
a golf club swings it. Nate Dog slips, he got
on shoes on the on the grass, slips just the
time golf club goes clean over his head. They out
there squabbling and I said, they tore the golf called apart.
Meanwhile the video is going on. I'm having fun because

(08:55):
I'm like, I'm in the Montell video.

Speaker 6 (08:59):
You know what I'm saying. I'll tell you.

Speaker 1 (09:00):
I see me in the two seconds I got a
Yankee had backwards, right, But you know, I'm enjoying the moment.
You know, Methan Rader out there doing their thing, and
after the Mantel Jordan video, I'm just like, Okay, I
need to stay out here a little bit. It's kind
of fun out here. So we're going to dad house. Yeah,
we're going to Yeah, I'm gonna stay a couple more days.

Speaker 6 (09:28):
Right.

Speaker 1 (09:28):
So Dad is like, yo, come to my house. Math Rad,
I think Lady of Rage rb X. It's all of them,
you know, the whole dog Pound death Row situation. And
I'm like, I hear the beat. Das makes a beat
from Scratch and Meth and Rad is you know they happy.
Everybody's about to get on this. My name was never

(09:49):
mentioned in it, so I'm hearing. I hear Meth, I
hear Rad. A couple of people put their verses down corrupt, right, Okay,
the mic is open, and I'm just sitting there, like
I get to the mic, I set the mic in flames.
My name's Ain't. That's the Rebel Murder one staff Smashed

(10:10):
Mind says the Pebbles like I was in there. I
was Warmode New York with ca I'm in Cali Camo
down first of all, Tim, So that's the mode I
was in. I came in there like all these dudes
is everybody got a name. I got to come in
here and shake it up. I was here too, That's
one of my slogans. I'm here too, So you know
I'm here too. I'm gonna get on this mic. Now,

(10:32):
I wasn't. I guess I wasn't supposed to be on
the record, but it was like rage RBS. Everybody was there.
Then I heard that Poc came home signed to row Right.
This was supposed to be a dog Pound record over here.
So I didn't understand between Dads and Corrupt how my
lyrics came off. But it was a pock thing. He said, Yo,

(10:54):
he wanted a certain amount of people on the record,
and I remember Corrupt saying something like, yo.

Speaker 6 (11:00):
That killed it. That killed it. He was like, man,
I want to hear that.

Speaker 1 (11:02):
That rappidy rap blah blah blah. You know, and for
whatever reason, he took it off. But I'm laughing because
my ad lib.

Speaker 2 (11:08):
They kept your and that's the rebel. Like why they keep.

Speaker 1 (11:11):
That, I don't know to this day. It doesn't but
Das told me, Hey, that get you publishing. That's platinum. Yeah,
so that's a publisher went after that lady a Rage
record two.

Speaker 6 (11:23):
No, I wasn't on. They took Rage off too.

Speaker 1 (11:26):
They took off. It took everybody clean off. And those
are like some of them are those are those are
their peoples. And I'm like, y'all left my lyrics on it.
But you know, I think Daz did that on purpose.

Speaker 2 (11:39):
You know, it's interesting record.

Speaker 5 (11:40):
I'm a comic book guy, so I love like the
Marvel what ifs, Right, one of the biggest what ifs
is always you know, what would that first inspected that
album have sounded like like have you ever gotten over
the loss of the music that happened in the Wu
Tang flood, because everybody says you were impacted the most.

Speaker 6 (11:56):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (11:58):
Man. If y'all saw the Hulu series that episode when
Rizzi opened his door and you saw the floppy disc
floating on top of the water, that's real. Like we
came back from tour, went to his house. House was flooded,
and I think I remember clearly seeing and inspected deck
floppy disc floating by. You know, we couldn't even get
to the bottom of the stairs. But yeah, man, I'm

(12:20):
not gonna say I didn't get over it. It jacked
me up for a minute, you know what I'm saying,
Because I'm like, I had a lot, I had momentum
coming into my album dropping, you know, I had the big.

Speaker 6 (12:30):
Pond, I had a gangstar. You know it was. It
was a couple of records, a couple of features that
I did that set that up.

Speaker 1 (12:37):
And I remember Loud got dropped by BMG, I believe,
picked up by Sony Columbia Relativity. All that. I now
went from being expected deck with Ray Kwan, got Joe
Old mab Deep you know, all a Loud. I'm over
here with crucial Conflict, Gangs, the bull, the Icons, you know,
a whole different ship. Shout out the Path, project Pat

(13:00):
Man Project, Patt Dope.

Speaker 6 (13:02):
Dude. Man.

Speaker 1 (13:03):
He held me down out there in the Midwest, south
of all these places where my music wasn't accepted like that.
Now he told me something dope too. He's like, yo,
kick kick the wou tang stuff off other beats. So
I was like, in the mix of doing my show,
I would throw on this is why I'm hot, Like
throwing mimes and kick something to that instead of you

(13:23):
know what I mean, like switching it up. But it
worked and he was just a real dude down the earth.
Oh and my man Bulldog from the Icons. These are
dudes that you know, you never thought that combination would happened.
But you know, I said, they held me down, and
you know, just going through that whole shift and all that,
Like the album got pushed back then the flood, So
it was like the uncontrolled substance that you hear. Now,

(13:46):
I had to make that on the fly on tour.
You know, I don't got I got three riz of beats.
That's going against what the formula was, if you know,
the for me in the beginning, produce all the beats
on all the albums, and that was like the successful formula.
So I was ready, like, okay, it's my turn now.
Oh wait a minute, Olive got dropped. Oh wait a minute.

(14:09):
Oh the flood Now now it takes me another six
months to a year to make this album because I'm
all over the place.

Speaker 6 (14:16):
I'm going through life.

Speaker 1 (14:17):
So by the time I actually got that album together,
I felt like I had already been lapped by the crew.
And so I was like Damn, I didn't even dropped
my first. You got methhas on the second. You know,
raying ghosts go raying ghost drop. Now ghost is dropping.
You know. It was that type of thing methis on
the second. So I'm just like, Damn, I gotta I

(14:38):
gotta do something. And me, in my anger, I could
admit it now, man, no f everybody, I'm doing this myself,
you know. And then I put it out. You know,
didn't really have the know how to push the record,
just going off of what I've been around and watching Rizza.
I thought that I knew. So it's like and then
you learn the hallway, you know, you f around to

(14:59):
find out that, yo, you you need to you need
to understand the business game. How the other side of
this work. Rapping is nothing. I can rappers like eggs
and cheese, you know, but the business side was what
you gotta learn. You gotta learn about returns, mechanical wards,
is the difference between you know, uh, royalties and and
and just it's all hitting type of under the table

(15:21):
stuff that you got to learn. So once I learned
a lot of that, I got out of the contracts
and kind of, like I tell people, the rebel was born.
I call myself rebel, I and S. That's when I
felt like, Yo, ain't nobody helping me. I'm out here
by myself. It's like being in the jungle. You got
a canteen and the radio, but you got nobody's in

(15:42):
the chopper. There's no there's no ground support, there's no
who do I call when I get jammed up? I
get pinned down? So I had to I had to
face a lot of that by myself, you know what
I'm saying. And a lot of people had units and
crews and clicks, and I just did it with like
a two man crew. Did you ever feel a way
about that?

Speaker 3 (16:00):
Because if you talk to a lot of the members
of Wool, they always say but they say who's the nicest,
who's the most liberal?

Speaker 2 (16:05):
Who gets busy?

Speaker 3 (16:06):
They always say Deck and Gisel? Right, yeah, So did
that ever make you feel a way? Because you look
at all the members and they always praise you as
being the nicest, the most lyrical. But as far as
career is concerned, their careers took a jump from you.

Speaker 1 (16:19):
I was hot. I can't lie I was I was.
I was burnt, But I didn't know why you know
what I'm saying. I didn't know why that was happening.
And then when I learned, it's like old dirty, He's
so extroverted that you notice him.

Speaker 6 (16:34):
Even if he's quiet, you notice it. I'm the quiet one.

Speaker 1 (16:37):
So I didn't know that me playing the background or
the pictures, you know, being humble, not talking so much
in the interviews, that comes back to hurt you.

Speaker 6 (16:47):
So I learned that and I was like, okay.

Speaker 1 (16:49):
When I did figure it out, so you know, I'm
gonna start stepping towards the front. No, now you see
later on in life as the pictures, I'm like, I'm
front row because I'm like, I'm front line when you talk,
I'm front line bro all the time, Like, no matter
how many songs I'm on, it's the impact of the verses.
It is everything combined, the setting it off. I said,

(17:12):
I'm front line, man, So I got to start playing
the front. And then when I changed that, I started
getting a little more trajectory, you know what I'm saying.
But I still in the back of my mind was
playing catch up to my brothers.

Speaker 5 (17:23):
I felt how much of that first album did we hear?
Did anything that anything that you remember.

Speaker 1 (17:29):
I did show improve word on the street. I put
out a couple of records. Yeah so, and then me
I raped different. I'm like the Marvin Gaye of the crew,
you know, I'm like the Langston Hughes Them type of dudes,
where it's more of a poetry. I study Gil Scott
Hemming a lot. I read Gillscott Herring books. I listened
to his music. I try to understand how he puts.

(17:53):
He has some of the most powerful words, but he
doesn't say a whole lot of big words and wordplay
like that. He you know, I can't pay my taxes,
but white he's on the moon.

Speaker 6 (18:03):
You know.

Speaker 1 (18:03):
It's the impact of that, you.

Speaker 6 (18:05):
Know what I'm saying.

Speaker 1 (18:05):
So I was figuring how I had to learn how
to write again. So I'm like, I'm not gonna be
We already got the street dudes, you know, even though
I'm from the streets to it. Six felonies, you know,
six miths to meetings, two felonies. I'm from the streets too.
I don't advocate or glorify that, you know what I'm saying.
I've been to jail more than anybody in my crew
besides Cap. So you know, I was like, I don't

(18:26):
want to be that Ray and goldst got that locked
you know, meth. I'm more in the meth category, in
the jigger category with styles and lyrics and just keeping
it hip hop. So you know, I said, I'm gonna
be that dude. I'll be the storyteller and I make
the creams, the cold Worlds something like that. But I
also play Devil's advocate and I talk about the street life.

Speaker 6 (18:46):
You know what I'm saying.

Speaker 1 (18:47):
And if you really look, there's inspected deck the artists,
there's inspected deck from Wu Tang, and then there's inspected
deck from Zarfa new crew I got. So I have
three different careers in one and that's really hard to do.
I didn't know that until it dawned on me, Like Yo,

(19:07):
zar Face is suffering because you're out here on Wu
Tang too, and then Wu Tang Tour, you know, is
taking up the time so expected that can't put an
album out. So it was like fighting personalities in yourself.
Then I learned how to mess them and now I
just make music for everybody and everything.

Speaker 3 (19:26):
But you and Rizza are genius to where y'all put
it together. Because even if you think about it, right,
You don't do things that are supposed to be catchy,
but they're just a catchy Like I'm just thinking ibamatomically, socrleas,
philosophies and hypotheses like that's not supposed to be catchy,
but that's the line as soon as it comes on.

Speaker 1 (19:44):
You know, that's the lyrical miracle they call. Right, that's
a lyrical miracle right now. You know, people don't even
use that many words nowadays. People ain't even trying to
read a paragraph. It's too long, bron you know what
I'm saying. So I learned that over time. Now, like
going to breath, I don't, I don't. I'm not that
technical anymore. And it's not like to dumb myself down.

(20:08):
I just know that I could just talk regular because
people are just like every day conversation, every day people. Now,
it's not a whole lot of big lyrical talk. There's
some people out there that get busy lyrically, like you know,
one of my favorites is Conway right, always dope. And
then there's just people that they don't really want to

(20:29):
hear all of that. They just want to hear how
to beat sound, how to hook sound? As a catchy
can I dance to it? And I don't knock none
of that.

Speaker 6 (20:36):
I just know me. I'm more of a last poet,
you know.

Speaker 1 (20:41):
What I'm saying. I still I consider myself one of
the last poets of today. And you know, getting over that,
that's when I finally realize that, like, bro, you're not
going to catch up to a method man, You're not
going to catch up to a ghost. You're not gonna
do none of that. But you are just as appreciated,
You're just as good, you're just as worthy. And so

(21:03):
with that mindset, I just carried myself different. Now now
it's not a competition. It was friendly competition for a
long time, but now it's not a competition.

Speaker 6 (21:10):
It's like, yo, better, I saw that movie you did
the other day. Dope.

Speaker 1 (21:15):
You know, it's like now it's it's super congratulatory. You know,
Ghost got a video game coming out, did a song
on this video game? Can't wait for that? You know
what I mean? Like, yeah, everything is now it's more
it's a supportive role for everybody. Now it's more as me, Like, well,
why it ain't me?

Speaker 2 (21:31):
You know, when did that?

Speaker 7 (21:33):
When did that change for you?

Speaker 8 (21:34):
I saw you said you had to apologize to Riz
on my point for feeling like, you know, I blamed.

Speaker 1 (21:39):
It on him, like for whatever reason, like yo, my
I didn't make it as far as this, or you
didn't produce this many tracks on my album or whatever
the case, like we did in the beginning we said
my seeds marry his seeds and saying money all in
the family. You know, I'm I'm living off of these
ideas and things. But I'm like, yo, it's not happening,
So what's going on? You know? Then there's times with

(22:02):
this like Wu Tang shifts, you know, Woutang's breaking up
and you know, the money, just like all of these
things going on, and I'm like, yo, I'm still I'm
still trying to put my feet in this wet cement
to make my stamp.

Speaker 6 (22:15):
So you know, how do I do that?

Speaker 1 (22:18):
And the first thing I did was like, you know,
like owning up to it, like you know what, this
brother helped me get out the streets. This brother saw
things in me that I didn't see it myself. He
gave me an opportunity to put you know, food on
the table. I thank him, you know what I mean,
I appreciate him, and if it didn't go right for me,

(22:39):
so be it right. You know, you take accountability for
what you could have did. There's plenty of things I
could have did better or just did in general, but
I was blinded by my own anger of it. Like this,
if that rebel rebel rebel like rebel is a character
I created, bro that got in my way, that got
in my way from actually seeing things clear. I'm more

(22:59):
of a back that, like you know, analyze, check things out,
then make a decision on it. But you know, when
you when you're dealing with emotions and dealing with anger,
you tend to just rat a off without thinking too much.
And so that was that. Man, I held that anger
in for a while. When I apologize to Riside, I
let it go. You know, he accepted that apology, and
I think it's been like an a doupe harmony since then.

(23:22):
You know, he's taught me so much since then that
you know, that's that's that's one of my brothers I
love in the game, and like I learned from him
each and every time I talk to him. So you know,
that was mandatory and just in general. Woutang in general, man,
Like you know, I Wu Tang. I blamed Wu Tang
for taking a lot of my life, if that makes sense.

Speaker 2 (23:41):
I gave you a lot of life.

Speaker 1 (23:42):
It gave me a lot of life, but it made
me miss graduations, It made me miss baby shadows, family members,
just different things like I might have been. I was
in Russia when my when my son was born. Wow,
you know, he waved. I couldn't even get back if
I wanted to. There was nothing flying out. But it's like,
you know, to this day, his mom he wasn't a
head bro. But that's a big thing, you know what

(24:04):
I'm saying. That's a big thing with your firstborn son.
You're supposed to be there, but there's no way for
me to get there. So I had to eat that.
I had to hold on to that.

Speaker 3 (24:10):
But I was the money with that, because it's it's
so many of y'all.

Speaker 6 (24:14):
Right.

Speaker 2 (24:14):
So even if back.

Speaker 3 (24:15):
Then you got fifty sixty thousand as a group, besides
management and touring and fees, this, that and theether, y'all
only making a couple of thousand dollars, So I know
that must have been yeahful difficult. Then you got I'm
the bigger there, and that's that.

Speaker 1 (24:32):
So I was dealing with all.

Speaker 6 (24:33):
That you had.

Speaker 1 (24:34):
You had that like you know, Chef Raykan, Chef is
a very outspoken person.

Speaker 6 (24:39):
That's my brother. I love her.

Speaker 1 (24:40):
But Chef might be like, yo, why he getting that?
You know, I'm sos to get that. He might be right,
but then Rizzius looking at it, like yo, you know
it's all of us. It's all of us. We were
split and eating together. Well, he always had to righte
his mind. But you know, sometimes you got brothers say
I put in five times the work, I want.

Speaker 3 (24:59):
Five I gotta do fifteen songs.

Speaker 1 (25:02):
You see what I'm saying. So you know that's where
a lot of the confusion came in with Bu Tang.
It was never like a jealousy or I don't want
you to eat things. It was just like, yo, if
I baked you know, if I made the if I
baked this pizza and I made the crust by hand,
bro and I made the sauce, Like, how do you
feel you get five slices over that? How do you
feel you get half? Which you know a lot of

(25:24):
that was was righteous at the time, but you know,
we were trying to be brothers with each other to
say it don't matter, bro, we gonna split it if
it's if it's if it's a hundred fifty fifty. I
might have did ninety work to the work, but I'm
still giving you fifty because that's how we rave. And
you know a lot of that went down with Butang.
We kind of just split things and try to take
care of each other regardless. It went left though somewhere,

(25:48):
you know what I'm saying. It went left by the
time my album came. So I'm out here. I'm taking
care of myself, you know what I'm saying, like in
the jungle, doing what I got to do. But I
never complained. I never cried, and never came on none
of these shows and bashed nobody. I just I just
if you want to say, suffered in silence, you know,
I just kept pushing.

Speaker 9 (26:06):
Being a part of Wu Tang right, one of the
biggest groups in music back in the day. What you
think of versus would have looked like back in the days?
Like yeah, but like going against like a public enemy
w A or like groups? Yeah, Like what would you
think the verses would look like back in the day.

Speaker 1 (26:24):
I don't know. I think us we would have felt
like we'd have smoked anybody. But you know, and w
a way would have been Crazy dog Bone through boot
Camp Click. You know, you got to figure who got
enough rappers? Who who had at least nine men in
the dope?

Speaker 2 (26:45):
I love all of them groups Who Tang would have
smoked all.

Speaker 1 (26:47):
Of it everybody.

Speaker 2 (26:49):
You can't say no Limit because no Limit was like
a label. Yeah, Wu Tang was a group.

Speaker 3 (26:53):
But you had a Cube, Dre Easy that.

Speaker 1 (26:56):
One that have been a good one. Yeah, all of
them groups was good. But I feel like it it
would have been dope for hip hop back then.

Speaker 2 (27:02):
You know, like what what year? What year would you
even do that?

Speaker 1 (27:05):
Like?

Speaker 6 (27:05):
Where do you like?

Speaker 2 (27:06):
You can't? Oh please.

Speaker 6 (27:11):
Ninety five?

Speaker 2 (27:11):
Who?

Speaker 6 (27:12):
We got five? Like, you know, I.

Speaker 1 (27:14):
Feel like that regardless like we did, would have gave
anybody the business. But you know there's some people that
say they would have gave it to us. And however
you feel how you feel?

Speaker 6 (27:22):
Family?

Speaker 10 (27:24):
Yeah, groups like that, you're combining, you know what I'm saying, Like,
but there's no real nimble that's imagine family, That's what
I'm saying.

Speaker 2 (27:36):
Where was that solo album supposed to fall? The original
solo album?

Speaker 1 (27:39):
It was supposed to fall right after Ray.

Speaker 6 (27:44):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (27:45):
So but Ray Ray decided your Ghosts come on, like
because ghost was gonna come like after me or whatever
the case. It was just going to go in in
a row. But Ray told Ghosts, you'll come in. And
I remember they went to Miami and wrote the whole
Cuban links like they was really on a scar face
and manny type of thing. You know, when when when

(28:05):
when South Florida was kind of just came back with
all this craziness. Man, when I heard MGM and all
of that stuff, It's like I gotta come with some fire, like,
you know, I'm just mess with everything that was out
just with liquid swords.

Speaker 6 (28:20):
I said, yeah, yeah, my album gotta gotta mass away.

Speaker 1 (28:23):
So I came with the Spider Man thing, like we're
gonna come with all this you know, inner city type,
you know, watching the city from the rooftops on some
Spider Man like patrolling and yeah, it was like it
was a great idea. He had some good beats protecting
neck wound up being uh one of my beats. So

(28:43):
one of the beasts that I had called natcha average
flow on that album being that it got lost, it
got rebamped, brought it back and it was it's protecting
that and it's Dirty Brooklyn Zoo.

Speaker 2 (28:53):
Hold on the flood happened before thirty six Chambers.

Speaker 1 (28:55):
I thought the fed the flood happened at but that
beat was that's stuck around for ages. I had that
first for even protecting that right, and I did the song.
So it's like there's a song called Nacha average Flow
that we never got used. So when the flood happened,
we was able to save that beat and brought it back.

(29:15):
Protecting that has been like it's like four different songs
on Dirty's album, my album saying album just brought the drum.

Speaker 2 (29:24):
You had a different drum pet.

Speaker 1 (29:25):
Okay, okay, yeah he brought it back, you know, after
the flood. But yeah, like that flood, like I just
had I had a dream that before I retire, I'm
gonna put that album out. Me and Rizz are gonna
go back to the table. He's gonna produce the whole thing,
and we might just call it the flood, right and
just just give them what we never gave him. I've

(29:49):
been having that vision lately to do that.

Speaker 5 (29:51):
I do wonder about the Rhyme book though, because you
had to have a rhyme book back then. Yeah, even
though you lost the music, you didn't still have old.

Speaker 6 (29:58):
Songs still to love. I get a bunch of them books.

Speaker 1 (30:01):
Yeah, Hey, I got a bunch of books in my
crib right now. I don't know which ones go to which,
but yeah, all those rhymes are in there, like not
your average flow. I had a song called Christen.

Speaker 6 (30:10):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (30:11):
You know, just all types of music, man, that I
never really got to release. So I had to go
back to the drawing board, figure how do I not
put this back out? And some of them, some of
them things. Sometimes moments in time you lose, man, you
try to go back and get it, it ain't there
no more. You just got to push forward. So I said,
you know what, let's do a future version. Can't go

(30:32):
back and get that, but me and you we can.
We can lay down a good ten eleven tracks and
just bombing time and leaf for real.

Speaker 3 (30:40):
I just want to say apologize, like were talking about before,
but I'm missing things. My daughter has a pageant, so
I'm out of here.

Speaker 10 (30:46):
But thank you, oh, thank you, thank you manratulations, congratulations, No,
I appreciate you.

Speaker 5 (30:55):
You know, every uh, every bought up to trying verse right,
and people still talk about that verse like it's a scripture.
Do you ever feel pressure to live up to that
one verse? Or you've made peace with the fact that
was you were just in a different zone when.

Speaker 2 (31:12):
You did that.

Speaker 1 (31:13):
Nah, I'd be like, I say, check my catalog, bro,
I got a bunch of triumphs. You know what I'm saying.
I don't make the average song for the average person,
so you know you might overlook it.

Speaker 6 (31:25):
I'm not in the strip club. You ain't playing my music,
you know what I'm saying.

Speaker 2 (31:28):
So yeah, gilly verse on that.

Speaker 1 (31:32):
You know, I got a I got a song where
we like, you can't party your life away, drink your
life away, because you see you grow up the same way.
You know, America's dying slowly. There's so many records where
I'm in that same zone and I'm talking the same thing.
But you know, it's people like what they like. You know,
you like what you like. I can't control that. But

(31:54):
if you look at my catalog, man, I got a
bunch of triumphs. I got a bunch of creams. Cold
World on just as album. It's like Cream Part two,
you know. So these are things that I do regularly,
Like if you listen to my clouds above the above
the clouds, you know my new single now a Day
in the Life, off the Dragon's Breath, and I'm like,

(32:14):
you know, fiends twitched to the beat kicks. Indeed, I
sleep with machines, ripped, they thuging on the screen. Ain't
seen no deep you know what. These dudes ain't been
through life. They ain't experienced nothing. You Your raps come
from what you've been through, you know, or even if
you haven't been through it, it's somebody closer, something that
you've seen or you could relate to, you know, you

(32:35):
could rap about it. It could still be your story. But
people don't do that. Man, right now, rappers microwave, I'm
still from the grandma in the kitchen over the stove
for twelve hours. Don't touch it, not get out the kitchen.
You can't taste it till it's done. I'm still at
that school.

Speaker 7 (32:51):
That's how this project starts, though.

Speaker 8 (32:53):
It's kind of like, stay out the kitchen if you
can't handle And if I wasn't really step in here, y'all, wuldn't.

Speaker 7 (32:57):
Even really know what?

Speaker 1 (32:58):
Yeah? Or do you really know what you're about to
get you about to get some healthy food. But you
know you're looking for the grease, You're looking for all
the you know, the MSG.

Speaker 6 (33:08):
I got that.

Speaker 1 (33:09):
Yeah, you know, so I'm like, yo, I'm we're right
here home cooking. Every song is not a party record.
There's songs that take you through.

Speaker 5 (33:17):
You know.

Speaker 1 (33:17):
I got a song called Hector, which says, you know,
hustle every day. Can't trust or a live it's just
an acronym, you know. Just give a shout out to
my Mexican people who get their hustle on.

Speaker 6 (33:27):
They work. You know what I'm saying.

Speaker 1 (33:29):
He's the skits like, you know, hustle every day. You can't.
I got kids singing it because you're talking to the kids.

Speaker 2 (33:35):
Just gonna love that. She's married to a Mexican.

Speaker 9 (33:37):
Yeah yeah, but he black to you, Yes, he black
in Mexican and he do be working a lot.

Speaker 2 (33:44):
What.

Speaker 1 (33:47):
Yeah, you know, shout out to all my hectors out there, man.
And it's not derogatory, there's no disrespect. It's paying respect
to you know, my Mexican people that be up in
the morning hustling, getting busy bringing the other people's and
you know, it'd be like twelve Mexicans on one pickup
truck making moves, you know. So that's that's a shout
out to them. And I'm telling my people, hustle, bro like,

(34:09):
get up. I don't care if you got to sell
you sell biscuits online, man, like do something, you know
what I'm saying, Hector.

Speaker 9 (34:18):
The whole album right is twenty songs on these are
all like compiled over time or yeah, some of them new,
some of them old.

Speaker 1 (34:25):
Are some of them knew, some old, some some newer
than you know. I was like, I went back in
and did a couple of new ones, but yeah, it's
just mostly like I went through a period in time
like over the last let's say twenty fifteen, right from
twenty fifteen about twenty twenty one to the cold whatever.
It's going through a whole lot like like like like

(34:47):
you know, bad relationships, breakups, different things things in life,
financial struggles. And I went to a point where I
was like, yo, I had to my back was on
the wall. You don't really have so many people to
talk to. I had to. I had to go to
the therapist. I had to go to the therapist. I
had a court ordered therapist. And then I had a
therapist that I went to myself, and I honestly didn't

(35:10):
know how bad I needed that. I didn't know how
bad I needed to talk to a therapist, to somebody
with an unbiased opinion that could tell you about you
based on what you gave them. You know what I'm saying,
And it's not personal. And so dealing with that, man,
and I had a very close friend that stuck through
it with me, that helped me down make sure I

(35:31):
was good the best way they could, you know, and
you know, thank you V. Thank you V. She definitely
held me down on that and it just helped me
see things clear. Like, yo, bro, you're your own worst
sending me. You're in your own way. You could achieve
anything you want to achieve.

Speaker 6 (35:49):
Just do it.

Speaker 1 (35:50):
Stop doubting yourself, have the confidence, you know what I mean,
and have a plan.

Speaker 2 (35:55):
Was it childhood trauma or was it industry related trauma?

Speaker 6 (35:58):
Or was it I think it was a little but
of everything.

Speaker 1 (36:00):
Man. You know, my pop's dying when I was six.
You know, my mom's passed in two thousand and nine.
I was on stage at a show in Baltimore, you know,
and like you know, according to my therapist. I never
processed it like my pot my mom died. I just
kept moving. I kept okay. I still got to go
out there and make the donuts. I still got to.

Speaker 6 (36:18):
Take care of all these people. I gotta do this.

Speaker 1 (36:20):
But I never really took time to be like my
mom's past, you know what I'm saying.

Speaker 2 (36:25):
And staying busy as a response to trauma.

Speaker 1 (36:28):
Yeah, and it is because as soon as you stop, yeah,
now you're by yourself. You know, when you're alone, it's
like now you become overwhelmed.

Speaker 5 (36:37):
Man.

Speaker 1 (36:37):
I remember not eating, couldn't be able to sleep. But
the one thing I do remember was Nas walking up
to me after that happened on stage in Baltimore. He
told you he had lost his mom, I think like
a year or two before, but he was just like, yo,
I understand how that feels, man, Like nobody nobody can
replace your mom. You know, Na's got that even killed voice.

(36:58):
Nobody can place your mom, man, Like you know, like
I feel your pain, and you know, like just him
saying those little words like that, that moment kind of
snapped me back to earth where I was at like okay,
but trying to perform, like I know the footage is
out there somewhere. I had to stop performing, like, yo,
I can't do it. My mom just passed. I told
the crowd. I remember hearing the like collective gas, collective

(37:21):
sigh in the building, and I walked up the stage
and I just sat over there somewhere because I was like,
you know, my mom, My mom was like the hood.

Speaker 6 (37:32):
Everybody in the hood know my mom.

Speaker 1 (37:33):
Is sent there. You know, you can come to my
if you if you my people, you can come to
my house. I ain't got to be there, you know
what I'm saying. Like she's worked in the hospital, she's
a nurse. She's telling me, hey, man, your friends such
and such got shot. You know, she knew everything, but
she also knew you know, keep your head on swivel,
don't beat Kenny Roger, just don't count your money. While
he was sitting at the table. She had all these
hood jewels like to do because that's how we grew up,

(37:55):
coming from the Bronx and stating all and so she
knew the streets and so her putting me onto that
and then you know, when I first got a little
bit of money, you know, what are you gonna do
with that? You're gonna get like a time in account,
you're gonna get a separate count. My mom's was like
a partner, like telling me how to how to make
it happen, Like what are you gonna do? What are
you gonna do with this money? Because easily as fast

(38:16):
as you get it, as fast as it goes absolutely
and so you know, when that happened, I you know,
like I lost that person to talk to, like you know,
just your your best friend. Yeah, and yeah, it's like
I'm still processing it now to be.

Speaker 8 (38:31):
I was gonna ask you because that battle between like
I know you love music and I know you love
what you doing rap, but it seems like a lot
of your trauma also came from the life that you
said it took from you, like and missing things and
just your mom passing you on stage. There has to
be some like middle point where even when you're putting
out this project, it's hard for you to still love
music because you also blame music as well.

Speaker 1 (38:55):
Yeah, it's teetering on both sides, but it used to
be bad.

Speaker 6 (39:00):
It used to be bad.

Speaker 1 (39:01):
Like now I believe I have that part under control
because I'm back. I'm on like a redemption tour with
my family, two kids and everybody that I wasn't around
for just chasing Wu Tang. You know, I'm out in
Russia where my son's born, those type of things. So
now I have that chance to like to redeem myself
with my children, and that's what I've been doing, Like
just music is my life. But I learned how to

(39:25):
put that secondary, you know what I mean, or put
it on the scale and let it, let it teeter, right.
So yeah, I'm doing better with it now. But that's
a good question because I was. I was jacked up for.

Speaker 5 (39:35):
A while with that, Like how do you balance it
in a in a small in a way pieces cost you.

Speaker 1 (39:41):
Yeah, yeah, I feel like as much as Wu Tang
gave me, it took a lot too, you know what
I mean. And it's not a bad thing. It's just
there's a trade off for everything, you know, there's a
give and take. So you know, I had to. I
had to live with the good and the bad man.
So now I'm happy that I'm coming out on the
better side. I'm the phoenix coming out the ash right now.

(40:04):
I feel like with the dragons brassing, you know, and
now we're just gonna remind everybody like, bro, I've been
doing this.

Speaker 6 (40:12):
This is nothing new.

Speaker 1 (40:13):
So if you're feeling what's going on right now, there's
more of that to come.

Speaker 6 (40:17):
You know.

Speaker 5 (40:17):
Sometimes protecting your peace means walking away from money, or
opportunities or even relationships.

Speaker 2 (40:23):
What has protecting your piece costs you?

Speaker 1 (40:28):
Protecting my piece cost me that, like the friends, the relationships.
You know. I live in Texas now, I'm away from
a lot. I'm not in the clubs, I'm not in
the strip spots. I like, I don't gamble. So yeah,
it'll cost you the people you think are friends or whatever.
You know, people that that look to you for something

(40:49):
other than with, you know, something useful or manipulative. You know,
Like when I backed up, I started telling people no,
I started getting a lot of feedback, started getting a
lot of flat from people like, yo, he's switching up,
he changing he is? Nah, Bro, I just I don't
see no benefit in this no more, you know what
I'm saying, Like, I'm not I come back.

Speaker 6 (41:10):
To the hood.

Speaker 1 (41:10):
I see people I know I grew up with. I'm
not gonna stand on the block with you for four
hours in front of the building like.

Speaker 6 (41:16):
We used to do.

Speaker 1 (41:18):
Because back then, I had nothing to do. So now
it's too much. It's too costly for me to sit
up here and get jammed up in something that you doing.

Speaker 6 (41:25):
So but you ain't the same, bro, I I'm basically not.

Speaker 1 (41:31):
I'm not. Yeah, I know, I'm not gonna sacrifice myself,
you know, for for others. If I'm gonna sacrifice myself,
it's gonna be for me definitely, not for you know, No,
five to ten.

Speaker 6 (41:41):
It's in the twenty in the pen, not now now if.

Speaker 1 (41:44):
I turn fifty six on the sixth, fifty.

Speaker 6 (41:47):
Six, Yeah, I'm like, I ain't trying to see jam
I'm not. You know what I'm saying.

Speaker 1 (41:53):
You're trying to be in no monkey suits. It changed
up to nobody, bro. So it's like now you just
you gotta get out there and you got to show love,
give respect and you can hope that it comes in
return because I ain't guarantee, but you still got to
go out there and walk your and walk your path.

Speaker 5 (42:08):
I love the fact that you're honest about how you
felt about other group members' success, right because you know,
a lot of times people could be a part of
a group. You know, in certain individuals in that group
may have more success than others, and you know, a
lot of people don't know how to deal with that.
They end up projecting, you know, their actual jealousy and.

Speaker 6 (42:27):
Then be on the real feelings.

Speaker 2 (42:29):
I ain't you know what's not happening for you.

Speaker 1 (42:32):
And that's that's that's exactly what it is. Like those brothers,
my brothers have nothing to do with what happened or
didn't happen with me. Most of my brothers supported me
on my journey, you know what I'm saying. So, yeah, man,
I'm just I'm honest with me now. And it took
a while to get here. You know, like you're lie
to yourself, you're gonna lie to everybody else, know what

(42:54):
I'm saying. So it took a while for me to
get here, to be so honest with myself that it
don't matter what you think. You know what I'm saying,
tell you what it is. Yeah, I went through depression.
I went through I had to see the therapist, lost
my family was living in an empty house for a while,
like you know what I'm saying. I went through all
them things. I went through that fire, the trials, Like,
but it's dope when you can come out of that,
and you can come out of that a better person.

(43:15):
You can come out of that with a better mind state.
And always say like I'm a work in progress. I'm
not sitting here acting like I got it, Dawn Pack,
you know what I'm saying. Like I just I had
a revelation though, and it was like, Yo, you are
your own worst enemy, but you can change that.

Speaker 8 (43:30):
So when you first started this, it was like, all right,
the world needs to know about my gift. Then everything
happens with the flood, the rebel is born. But like,
who are you now?

Speaker 7 (43:39):
In music?

Speaker 8 (43:40):
Like what is the you know, there's always like these
different phases.

Speaker 6 (43:44):
I don't know. I just think I'm a dope artist. Man.

Speaker 1 (43:47):
I think I'm a dope artist. I think I could
do anything I want to do. I got records out
there where you know you're not. You wouldn't even think
that was me.

Speaker 8 (43:56):
You know.

Speaker 1 (43:56):
I just did a record with Nicole Bus. If you're
familiar with the whole Bus. She has this big, strong voice.
She's working with our DJ A long mathematics to the
song with her called Reasons. And it took me out
of my normal box to create something else, and I
think it's a dope record. So I'm just like, Yo,
I feel like I'm just a a dope artist. I'm

(44:19):
definitely a creative, you know, intelligent black man on this planet.
And I'm just I feel like whatever I apply my
brain to, I could accomplish it, and accomplish it well
well enough to be like, Yo, he's good at that,
you know, and just being being a father, being, being
a good partner. You know. I'm humble, you know, but

(44:44):
in the music game, I'm still that threat. I feel
like that like any beat, any rapper. I'm not out
here trying to cause beefs or any of that with anybody,
but I feel I can go to toe anybody, toe
to toe if my name is mentioned. You know, I'm
kind of wanting somebody to mention in my name, you know,
steal some sneak, sneak back in on some relevance right now,

(45:04):
to be.

Speaker 2 (45:06):
How often do you get mistaken for JB.

Speaker 6 (45:07):
Smooth all the time.

Speaker 1 (45:10):
As a matter of fact, I need JB. Smooth to
pull up somewhere. We need to do something somewhere. I've
heard that so many times. I even was on the
plane acting like, yeah, I'm JM.

Speaker 6 (45:19):
Smooth.

Speaker 1 (45:19):
Just yeah, I would love to do something where he's
me and I'm him. You know what I'm saying, I'm
trying to do comedy or he's trying to rap or
you know, that would be something dope. But yeah, shout
out to that brother I get. I get him all
the time, and even now I get Sinko, which is funny.

Speaker 7 (45:37):
M hm.

Speaker 9 (45:37):
I would say trade the truth you in Texas yea, but.

Speaker 2 (45:42):
I see from goddamn Kirby enthusiastic.

Speaker 5 (45:44):
Definitely sure that I get that all the time.

Speaker 6 (45:48):
Bro.

Speaker 1 (45:48):
So to the point where I'm like, yeah, okay.

Speaker 5 (45:52):
You know, you know Wu Tang taught us that individuality
can coexist with brotherhood, right. You think in today's music
as artists know how to build collectives anymore?

Speaker 2 (46:02):
Or is everything just too individualistic?

Speaker 1 (46:05):
I don't think they want collectors. I don't think the
industry want the collective at that too. You know, having
like like Mutang coming today with ten brothers who feel
like you know they right, just they got knowledge yourself,
you coming in here trying to be your own industry.
I don't even think that would work today. They probably
wouldn't sign all nine of us. They're to try to

(46:27):
break meth and dirty and everybody up from off top
in the beginning.

Speaker 8 (46:31):
And then deal Rezi did in the beginning kind of
set y'all up for solo stuff too. That probably wouldn't
be as possible.

Speaker 1 (46:36):
That probably wouldn't be possible neither, because in this state,
you probably want to keep that all in one pot, right,
if you're going to be in control, like, the last
you want to do is let everybody go their own way.
Steve Rifkins was was dope for that. Shout out Steve Rifkins,
because nobody else was going to do that at the time.
I remember going up to offices with Rizza getting shot down.

(46:58):
My boy, what's that dude's name? Pendulum Records used to
have uh, Diggable Planets.

Speaker 6 (47:06):
Right, Rodriguez Rodriguez.

Speaker 1 (47:11):
I remember him specifically because he was at Pendlam Records.
He went up there and he told us that we
should sound more like Digable Planets were playing them the
same records, pro taking that cream all that. How you
guys should be like this. You know, I'm cool like that,
smooth like that. In no disrespect to them, because I
like that record.

Speaker 2 (47:29):
No y'all didn't do that. If y'all tried.

Speaker 6 (47:32):
We're not from that.

Speaker 1 (47:33):
That's not that's not our lyrical, genetic makeup, you know,
like we do we can't, we can't do nothing like that.
But at the same time, like you're telling us to
be that at a time where KRS was like assaulting
PM Dawns and all not, you know, the hip hop,
the hardcore EPMD crossover, you know, it was around those times.

Speaker 6 (47:56):
So we like, we can't do that, bro.

Speaker 1 (47:58):
But I remember him specifically like almost kicking us out
the office because naw, this ain't what we want's there's
too many people. How are you gonna split the money?
It was like, why you ain't about how we're gonna
split the money? It was just crazy. But I remember
him specifically because he was like, now that's not it. Yeah,
that's never gonna work. That's never gonna work. You know

(48:18):
you guys, it's nice talking to you, you know what
I'm saying, Like next and just seeing him later on
in life, like you know, you never had nothing after
Diggable Planets.

Speaker 6 (48:29):
Wow, But you were telling us to.

Speaker 1 (48:32):
Yeah, like you're trying to switch us, I was saying,
and we're like, nah, but we don't do that.

Speaker 6 (48:36):
But that was like the what.

Speaker 1 (48:39):
We faced in the beginning, trying to even shop Bulltang
with nine em c's. You got these songs and no
hooks on a lot of them. At that time, you know,
everything was so structured. You know, it's radio friendly, and
you know you had to make you had to make
records for the Hot nine at five, the Hot five
or nine, the Hot twelve or twelve, like it was.

(49:00):
It was a different scene at that time.

Speaker 6 (49:02):
You know.

Speaker 1 (49:03):
Now I don't even I don't even hear none of that.
No more like countdowns and you know it's it's just
dance challenges off of records, off tiktoks mostly now. But
I don't know, y'all can tell me better, Like how
do y'all like the music?

Speaker 6 (49:18):
Like y'all got to play?

Speaker 5 (49:19):
It's I mean, I'm not rated, but there's a lot
of dope ship out there, you know what I'm saying.
There's a lot of dope ass lyricists, like especially young lyrics.
Guys like Marco Plus you got you know, he's from Atlanta.
You got guys like Ruby Vincent from Charlotte, you got
like podcast from you know, Brooklyn. Like it's it's some
really dope season. Yeah, but you gotta find you gotta

(49:41):
find him.

Speaker 6 (49:42):
Yeah, absolutely, I believe that. I believe that one of
my favors.

Speaker 1 (49:44):
I like call Day, I just make dope.

Speaker 8 (49:48):
He's dope musically and as a person. I was just
watching an interview that about mental health and getting into that, Like,
I think he's like a well rounded like brand of
an artist and that isn't as common to it's not common.

Speaker 6 (49:59):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (50:00):
I saw him at a Dave Chapelle concert and just
kicked it with a real quick a lot. Yeah he's
moving with Dave, yeah together. Yeah, he's a smart kid man,
smart dude. I was like, he'd be a dope dude
to do a song with, like falty young generation.

Speaker 2 (50:15):
But do you think humility has helped your longevity?

Speaker 5 (50:19):
Has it been something that kept you from like I
guess getting the credit.

Speaker 2 (50:22):
You deserve.

Speaker 6 (50:25):
The question.

Speaker 1 (50:26):
I mean it could, it could, it could see the tide.
I think it. I think it more helped me survive
more than it like cut that cut any opportunities for me,
because it definitely did both. But survival is key out here,
and you know longevity. Survival is key to longevity and
vice versa. I don't think that I saturated the game

(50:52):
so much and put out a whole bunch of like
garbage to the point where nobody wants to listen to me. Now,
I think I put out enough to between my solo career,
wou tank career, and now so our face. I think
I made new fans. I think I resurrected my name
a little bit. And you know, and for me, it

(51:14):
was never the fame chase, man like. For me, this
was all about putting food on the table for my kids,
getting out the hood, doing better in life, and setting
them up so that they didn't have to go through
you know, the pissy elevator and all that. You know,
hoods on the staircase and the elevator ain't working. So
you know, giving my giving my kids that better life
was kind of my goal and my aim. And to

(51:37):
give my mom that, you know, she passed away, so
I wasn't able to do that. But you know, those
are the reasons I really got into this game. And
you know, struggling growing up, not having a whole lot.
It's like, yo, I want my mom to be like,
just wake up and go plant in the garden. Just
go back a water your flowers. And stuff like that.
You know what I'm saying, Like my mom's working for
three four jobs for us growing up, that type of mother,

(52:00):
Like you know, you're gonna eat before me. We got
a sandwich, she's gonna bust it down and we're gonna eat.
But she don't eat nothing. You know. I'm like, nah, man,
he go take my half back. I'm gonna go get it,
you know. And that's always been my mentality.

Speaker 5 (52:15):
I think as a Wu Tang fan me me speaking,
I feel like Deck never got his proper shot.

Speaker 2 (52:23):
Being that he never got his proper shot.

Speaker 5 (52:25):
It's kind of hard to even rink it's placed because
you know he's dope. You know he kills You've heard
him killed so many you know, Wu Tang albums. But
we also know that there is this masterpiece that got
lost in this flood.

Speaker 2 (52:38):
So where do you even.

Speaker 1 (52:41):
I'm like a I'm like an NBA player that made
the Hall of Fame, but they ain't get the ring.
I didn't get my own chick. That's all that I'm saying.
But it doesn't it doesn't take away from the from
the from my stats, you know, or the work I put.

Speaker 2 (52:55):
In, because that that you're part of the Wu Tang core.

Speaker 5 (52:58):
I know people say math and Ghost to my favorite
rapping of course Ray and Just, but you can't have
that core without.

Speaker 1 (53:05):
And not saying my name. And I'm good with that.

Speaker 8 (53:08):
The talent is there, and a lot of the stuff
that was happening around the time where you would have
came back with the album wasn't under Like you can't
control that, Like there was a lot going on that
you were trying to come up within at the moment.

Speaker 1 (53:18):
And add on to that, you're not really knowing like
the game, Like that's kind of like just feeling your
way around in the dark, you know, until you grab
something that's like okay. But that that itself was one
of the lessons I need to learn, Like, yo, you
learn your own strength, you learn your own value out

(53:38):
of that.

Speaker 8 (53:39):
That was around the time too, when you were supposed
to drop your album, when all the radio stuff was
happening with y'all right where they weren't playing certain songs.

Speaker 6 (53:44):
On the radio, playing the radio ninety seven.

Speaker 1 (53:47):
Yeah, you know. Then we found out later there was
forces behind that that was making that happen. Yeah, saw
the Shadow band it was for what there was so
wide you heard what she said.

Speaker 7 (54:00):
That it was because of Diddy? Is that was that
really a thing?

Speaker 6 (54:03):
That's what I heard.

Speaker 1 (54:05):
I heard the did stir.

Speaker 2 (54:07):
Diddler the Diddler. The boy was so red hot that
he just didn't want nobody else.

Speaker 1 (54:12):
He didn't want bu Tang being. I guess we was
in New York fight, you know, fight for New York
who's supremacy over that? And they was bad boy was dope.
You know, It's like we was looking at them too,
you know, Biggie with the hypnotized billion dollar video and
you know everything he was doing, like yo, them them
dudes is dope. They competition if we're gonna make it

(54:34):
like that, But you know, we didn't really look at
it to say they's gonna be such a problem. We
need to shut them down, right, Like we got to
start paying people to not play they records, Like that's crazy.

Speaker 6 (54:45):
Then to learn that later on, like that's the reason why, like.

Speaker 1 (54:50):
You had you had a bunch of hits that hits,
it hits after hits total to I mean, mag Magic, Biggie,
everybody right, one twelve, yeah, everything, little old us from
Staten Allen.

Speaker 6 (55:04):
That's how we was feeling. But then you know, we
got them.

Speaker 9 (55:07):
Y'all impactfool though, like y'all had man, I can see
why y'all were competition, or he would think y'all were
competition like.

Speaker 6 (55:17):
Dogs on us.

Speaker 9 (55:18):
People referred to Wu Tang as a lifestyle at one point,
like it's the whole thing, really big, what's.

Speaker 5 (55:25):
The whole I gotta I want to ask Ghost about that.
But I want to ask him, well, why did you
still do records with him? Remember Ghost was on special
Delivery remakes, like you know he was. He did a
couple of joints, A couple of joints.

Speaker 1 (55:37):
I don't know. Yeah, you might have to ask Ghost.
I like that joint he did with Delivery, but I didn't.
I didn't understand why they was like trying to shut
the shut the clan down. Well, yeah, later on I
could see why. It's just like, yeah, math forgot we
got different people who are you.

Speaker 6 (55:55):
Know, in that class.

Speaker 1 (55:56):
And even when Ray and Ghosts and Biggie and Nas,
remember they had their little thing going around and that
was that was dope too for me, Like because I'm
sitting there watching all these you know, all these are
all my people's and they're subliminally doing this. Nobody's saying names,
you know with you know Ray Goes. They never said

(56:18):
Biggie name on the Apple.

Speaker 2 (56:19):
He was so obvious on the Shock, But.

Speaker 6 (56:21):
Biggie responded that he never said Ray name.

Speaker 2 (56:24):
You know, uh, that wasn't the leprech What line was it.

Speaker 1 (56:29):
You was talking about? Yo, these dudes getting money now,
like you know did He was saying it too, like
you know, everybody get where did they get money from?
The record was a victory or something like that. Yeah,
they were all speaking to each other on low key
indirectly without saying names. And you know, Nas was in
the middle, like, you know, Na's no Biggie an't nowhere
to go.

Speaker 6 (56:48):
So he was just like, you know, what do I do?

Speaker 2 (56:50):
Bro?

Speaker 1 (56:51):
I love all of y'all, like I'm gonna fall back,
And the Biggie got mad at Nas, and Nas on
the other record took about it. You know, I had
to put it in the right and to keep me
and Biggie, he had to put in writing to keep
me and Brooklyn from fighting.

Speaker 6 (57:02):
When he's talking about the BIGEF.

Speaker 1 (57:04):
I was just listening to that Wild Survived. So it
was like there's a bunch of records with subliminal shots
going at each other and then it is somebody really caught.

Speaker 6 (57:11):
Okay, but for me, I'm like this is dope.

Speaker 1 (57:15):
Then Biggie called Meth to do the what right. So
if there's beef going on, SOI beef And like you said,
dudes is doing records together.

Speaker 8 (57:24):
I don't know, Like you know, on the Bootleg CAMF
podcast where ghost Face staid it that was in twenty
twenty five, he said that Rizzid just told him that
a year like a year ago, so he was saying
that he didn't know distinctively that that had happened until
twenty twenty four. But if you're telling me what you're
saying right now, it's like y'all knew. Maybe I didn't
know it was that to that extent, but there was
like creative competition outre.

Speaker 1 (57:43):
Yeah we knew that part. We didn't know until Rizzard
told us that we was being blocked. Yeah, like you
know there was payola involved too, Like we're paying these
people not to play our records.

Speaker 8 (57:54):
So do you think because I've always heard stories about
like around like ninety nine or something like that, like
the there was like a like the fanfare around you
guys kind of started to like kind of lay low
a bit.

Speaker 5 (58:03):
Was that?

Speaker 8 (58:03):
Is that a real thing or is that like a
folk tell like off? Yeah, but do you think that
that what do you where you think? Do you think
that that was orchestrated by people because y'all were really big?
Or do you think I've always heard that you guys
oversaturated the market, which I don't know if I feel
like that's a real thing now because now everybody idolizes
you guys as like legends and not real people.

Speaker 5 (58:22):
So how there was never a time where Wu Tang
fell off?

Speaker 2 (58:26):
Now, let's not get crapy.

Speaker 1 (58:28):
I heard everything, man, Wu Tang fell off. They washed
nice white people music. Now you know you've heard everything,
But I'm like white people music, white people like, you know,
only white people come to our shows and stuff like that.
But I'm like, yo, there was a time where everything
we did was hood. It was one hundred deep in
every club with Wu Tang shirts on, right. That got

(58:50):
it to the level of us being able to play
the white venue. So then we get to that level
of playing the white venues, then we start selling out
the white venues.

Speaker 6 (59:00):
Now the black venues are like they Hollywood. Now, what
can you do?

Speaker 1 (59:05):
You know, what I'm saying, like if we go from
if we go from Joe's Pub in the hood to
taking it to a twenty five thousand amphitheater, that's growth
and progression. That's growth and development. Like you can't knock that.
It don't matter if green people was coming to see it.
I don't care if aliens come rock with us. That's

(59:27):
who we're doing it. We're doing it for the aliens now.
But they'll say that we fell off because of that transition.
It's crazy, Like we was going on tour with Rage
against the Machine, you know, when the Hot ninety seven
thing happened. So you know, how could you where's the
fall off?

Speaker 2 (59:47):
It can't be a fall off. It was Wu Tang forever.

Speaker 5 (59:50):
That was the mindset always, And Laurence said ninety nine,
Supreme Clientele came out in ninety nine, So Supreme Clientel
is probably I like Alron Man, but it's probably goes
to the best body of work, right, So when you
think about.

Speaker 2 (01:00:02):
That, that's still Wu Tang.

Speaker 5 (01:00:04):
Yeah, like y'all people were still featured on those albums
like that, Like that was all wood to me.

Speaker 1 (01:00:09):
But I think I think what she's talking about is
like the the affiliates and everything else, like it maybe
a Killer Army or Sons of Man or you know,
one of these groups that come under the Wu Tang flag.
I felt like that too. I felt like it's too saturated.
We got a bunch of dudes coming under the name,
and you're making it hard for me. Bro, I was.

Speaker 8 (01:00:30):
Wondering how you felt in all of that, right, because
you're still trying to like get back what you felt
like had happened.

Speaker 1 (01:00:35):
Yeah, but before I could drop my album, we got
you know, Wu Tang Central America Group, you know what
I'm saying. So it's like and then the fans don't
take to that. So now my album goes through heat
coming out, you know. So I was just like, yeah,
dealing with all of that, Bro, I was just like
to me, and I purposely sat down for a second.
I purposely sat down. I didn't put the music out.

(01:00:58):
I felt like I had some bad contracts early on.
Let me figure this out. I'm gonna do this independent.
I'm not signing them on contracts. And then I started
putting out you know, zar Face through Brick Records and
stuff like that. You know, was able to eat. Zar
Face kept me alive when Bu Tang wasn't working, you know,
and then inspected that would come out and pop out

(01:01:18):
and do shows and do different things that when zar
Fase ain't active. So I had the blessing to be
able to manage those three avenues. But yeah, man, I
just trying to drop in the MIXICU even. I remember
before I dropped un Control Substance cap Donna dropped the
Pillars cap Donna was locked up. So the trajectory for
me was to just come right out. I just came

(01:01:40):
home and and dropped before me. Then there was a
little controversy with that, like how did this? And you
know in the in the Hulu series, you see me
give the vine back the keys to the wo Man's
in the jersey. I'm out of here. That's a real story.
I'm like, what am I sticking around for? You know
what I'm saying, I'm not. I'm not I'm not a

(01:02:00):
role player. That's how I felt like, you know what
I'm saying, Like I felt like I could get twenty
five starting, but y'all want me to get ten off
the bench. Okay, I'll do that for a while, but
after after a while, then you're watching the starters. They
not putting up twenty five no more. So I'm like, yo,
I feel like you should switch it up, switch the lineup.
But you know, when you when it's a family owned business,

(01:02:22):
if you ain't got the last name, you don't.

Speaker 6 (01:02:24):
Even don't even make a menu suggestion change.

Speaker 1 (01:02:27):
You know, like if you ain't got the same last
name as the family owned business, don't suggest nothing because
you can be replaced like that. You know, Oh you
don't like our menu. You know, we had this menu
here for you know, one hundred years in the family peace.
So that's how that's how things are when you don't
own you know.

Speaker 6 (01:02:48):
I we me personally.

Speaker 1 (01:02:51):
I never owned any of the Wu Tang music. I
didn't really know the publishing game until I started putting
the albums outside of Wu Tang. So, like you know,
in the long run of things, like yeah, ownership is big.
If you're not owning what you're doing, you're just out
here working for somebody and it could be your brother,
you know. At the same time, Yo, bro, I'm out

(01:03:13):
of this contract. Love you to death, but I got
to go. I want to build my own house. I
don't want to live in the house, but.

Speaker 8 (01:03:20):
From the stories I've always heard, though it seemed like
Rizzo was always and like the rest of y'all were
always collaborative and open when people had pushback about things,
regardless of ownership or not.

Speaker 1 (01:03:29):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:03:29):
Yeah, so we have.

Speaker 1 (01:03:31):
We've had our classes and we've had our demonstrations. But
for the most part, you know, there were stories about
Riz of robbing us and stuff like that, and I
was saying, like, I don't have I don't recall any
personal story of them robbing me. Now, there was times
where money went here when they should have been there,
and things like that, and all that, you know, to

(01:03:52):
me got rectified. Butang doesn't owe me any money and
you know, publishing or anything like that. So I'm out
of I'm at a clean slate. I got out.

Speaker 6 (01:04:03):
I got out of the contract long time ago.

Speaker 7 (01:04:07):
You've been out since like twenty ten, right.

Speaker 1 (01:04:08):
Yeah, I've been a free agent. I do this because
I want to, And you know that's something mef tol
me do it because you want to now, because you
have to, you know, so you have to. You have
to make that your priority, Like I have fun with it.
If you're not having fun with it, and you just
do it as stressful as why do it?

Speaker 5 (01:04:27):
You know, what do you want your legacy to be
one of the greatest lyricists, a great man, or just
something else?

Speaker 1 (01:04:33):
In time?

Speaker 6 (01:04:36):
I'm still writing my chapters.

Speaker 1 (01:04:37):
Man, I'm writing a book right now, doing a documentary,
and I'm in search of a title, you know, I'm
in search of a title that best describes this journey,
you know. And I had like a ibamatomically and things
like that. I don't want to be cliche. It just
it could be like the life and Times of Jason Hunter,
like as simple as that, because that's what it really is.

(01:04:59):
It's just describe. And you know, me before Woultang, I'm
Cynthia's son, you know. I'm born in the seventies. I'm
a child of the pro Black movement. You know. I
feel like my soul is still intact. I'm not walking
around here like a zombie.

Speaker 6 (01:05:16):
You know.

Speaker 1 (01:05:18):
I say, if you ain't feeling this, check your post.
That's another one of my slowes. You ain't feeling this
right here, check your posts. Man, you might be a zombie.
You might be walking dead.

Speaker 6 (01:05:27):
You know.

Speaker 1 (01:05:28):
We walk around people don't feel things no more right.

Speaker 2 (01:05:31):
You know.

Speaker 1 (01:05:31):
Another thing that I hate is this grown man thing right,
and it's just like I could do like this. How
you looking at another grown man's computer put the grown
man in front of you to the pause is crazy?
My guy with me shot out my bro health fire.

(01:05:52):
He's like pause, can't even catching pauses that you didn't
even know existed. You know, he be catching stuff or
the front end of the day. It's like it's hilarious.
But you know, nah, it's just the grown man. You're
watching another grown man's You know, he painted his fingernails.
Why you want around another grown man fingernails?

Speaker 6 (01:06:13):
Like?

Speaker 1 (01:06:13):
Who said I was worried? I'm just making I just
noticed you got the black sparkly joint on it. But
you know that that's for them. Man, I ain't.

Speaker 6 (01:06:25):
I never painted my nails. I don't think I ever will.

Speaker 1 (01:06:28):
You know, it's just not to me. It's not masculine.
You know, I'm still from the masculine school of man.
I don't care call me. People call me toxic all that. Yeah,
I'm a rebel, that's what it is. You know what
I'm saying, like I'm gonna put my foot down. You know,
women nowadays to call you sassy if you say.

Speaker 9 (01:06:44):
Something you know what I mean, Like, yeah, like they
were just talking about we had a topic today. We
was talking about washing gas.

Speaker 2 (01:06:52):
Like, man, I heard y'all.

Speaker 1 (01:06:54):
I meant to bring the twenty four pack of Pauses
in for y'all. I heard some crazy watch it, No
I do.

Speaker 6 (01:07:02):
I didn't listen to none of that.

Speaker 8 (01:07:05):
About worry about another girl man wants.

Speaker 6 (01:07:12):
But now, you know, it's just.

Speaker 1 (01:07:14):
That that's crazy, ain't it. That's crazy. That's a new generation, bro.
I just you know then, like you said, you got
to have a couple of rags too. You know, you
don't put your don't put your body rag on your face?

Speaker 2 (01:07:26):
Right.

Speaker 1 (01:07:27):
I get, I get where y'all coming from. But yeah,
a lot of a lot of people do a lot
of weird stuff now, man, you can't even gauge it.

Speaker 2 (01:07:33):
You know, well suspected deck Man, Dragon's Breakfast.

Speaker 1 (01:07:37):
Out right now, Dragon's Breath. We got the single Day
in the Life out produced by p Dre. That videos out, man,
it's doing real goods, doing real nice got the internet buzzing.
Dropping another single Friday called Shaling Rebel Part two. I
think that's gonna that's gonna wake hip hop up. If
I'm predicting this right because it's got a wu tang
sounds produced for up and coming Kenya Highness. That's another

(01:08:02):
thing when you hear my music, I don't always got
to reach for the famous names, the producers or artists.
I like to give people a shot. You know, I
might have met you in the train station. Next you know,
I got a song which you know, it's just more.
That's my way of giving back or lending my voice
to somebody else's struggle, you know. And uh, yeah, the

(01:08:24):
album eight seven August seventh, my son Elijah's birthday, you know,
he'll be nineteen. And uh, then we got I was born. Yeah,
and then right after that we got a czarre face
with Frankie Pullitzer featuring Frankie Puller. I know what Frankie
Pullerser is. You know, we can't say the name face Puller,
but oh no, wow.

Speaker 6 (01:08:52):
I don't know. I don't know what's.

Speaker 1 (01:08:53):
Pause panky Pullers. We don't call him frank Frankie pull
that's like soul snatcher, soul snatcher, that's a pause no no,
no no.

Speaker 7 (01:09:11):
But I'm saying like, if you fake, if you nowhere, Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:09:15):
I don't know the pause laws, the laws of.

Speaker 2 (01:09:23):
Inspected deck is the breakfast club.

Speaker 1 (01:09:26):
Every day a week ago.

Speaker 2 (01:09:27):
Click your glass up, the breakfast club you

Speaker 1 (01:09:30):
Don't finished for y'all done,