Latest / DISGRACELAND / Raekwon (Wu-Tang Clan Chapter 2): Dealing Crack, Caught in the Crossfire, and the NYPD Goes TNT

Transcript

Raekwon (Wu-Tang Clan Chapter 2): Dealing Crack, Caught in the Crossfire, and the NYPD Goes TNT · DISGRACELAND

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Disgraceland as a production of Double Elvis. The stories about
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: Wu Tang Clan's Rayquon are insane. As a child in
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: New York City, he saw dead bodies hanging from street poles,
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: their throats slid open. His own father was reportedly stabbed
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: to death. As a teenager, he was addicted to the styles, sounds,
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: and crimes of hip hop street culture. He stole gold,
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: chains and nightclubs. He sold weed and cocaine, and later
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: became a successful crack dealer. He was shot four times
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: and nearly killed when he found himself caught in the crossfire.
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: And this is all before Rayquon made great music, cooking
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: up undeniably great rhymes with the legendary Wu Tang Clan.
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: Unlike that clip by for You at the top of
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: the show. That wasn't great music. That was a preset
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: loop from my melotron called Atomic Frog MK.
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: Two.
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: I played you that clip because I can't afford the
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: rights to Never Going to Give You Up by Rick Astley,
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: So why would I play you that specific slice of
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: Rick Roland Cheese? Could I afford it? Because that was
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: the number one song in America on March fourteenth, nineteen
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: eighty eight, and that was the day that the NYPD
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: launched a street level anti drug task Force. The targeted
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: low level dealers, dealers like Ray Kwon, who found life
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: as he knew it was suddenly about to change. On
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: this episode, dead Bodies, stealing gold chains, dealing crack, a
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: near deadly shooting, and Wu Tang clans Ray Kwon, I'm
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: Jake Brennan and this is disgrace Land Bodies. They were
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: packed inside the club dancing to the music. Everything the
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: DJ was spinning was pretty fucking incredible. Big Daddy, Kane,
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: Salt and Pepper, Heavy d and the Boys. The records
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: on the turntables made you want to dance all night.
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: But to maintain stamina, to keep moving, a body needed
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: a little something extra. Drugs were fuel the tiger in
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: your tank, blunts cocaine or for the efficient user, there
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: were woolets joints. That's blunts with cocaine. Corey Woods, the
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: teenage kid the world would later know is Rayquon. He
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: was good with drugs. The young Rayquon aka Young Corey Here.
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: He didn't say no when it joined his lips or
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: a lion ran past his nose. But that wasn't the
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: reason that he was here. The club was the thing,
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: The music, the style, the fashion. That's what Corey was
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: addicted to, not the drugs, bugle boys, Tommy Hill, figure
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: Ocean Pacific and Converse gold chains, flat top fades, the
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: lower suits and Yankees caps. And that was just the guys.
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: The women, Jesus, the women, fine fin e sex on fuego.
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: Corey couldn't get enough. Barely eighteen years old and already
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: it felt like he discovered the meeting of life itself.
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: To get dressed up, to roll with your crew out
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: to Union Square, the nightclub on West Fourteenth on a
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: Saturday night, to be fresh. In the late nineteen eighties,
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: at night, Union Square was packed. It pulsed with electricity.
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: For Corey Woods, it was the most exhilarating place you
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: could be. And part of that exhilaration was the palpable
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: sense of imminent danger. Danger was its own intoxican. If
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: you were one of those flag gold chains around your neck,
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: you'd better be ready to fight for it. Someone else
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: was always gunning for your shit, like that jerk off
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: over there, nose, bloody chain long gone, hard, lesson incoming,
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: and the danger didn't end when the club let out,
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: it got worse. In Brownsville, Brooklyn, where Corey grew up,
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: there were more bodies, and these bodies, however, were different.
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: These bodies didn't book you down like they did at
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: Union Square. These bodies didn't move at all. They hung
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: from lampposts, tongues dangling, fat and swollen from their lips,
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: and they were sprawled out on sidewink, their throats cut
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: oozing blood. These bodies were cautionary tales. Corey's own father
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: was one of those bodies, or so Corey was told,
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: just like he was told that his dad had odeed
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: or that he was rotting away in some jail cell.
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: Thousands of deadbeat dads in New York were at the
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: center of stories just like those. But in reality, Corey's
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: father caught the sharp end of a long blade. He
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: lived that street life long enough, and that street life
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: is bound to catch up with you. Corey never knew
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: his dad, but he knew he didn't want to become
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: his dad, just another body on the street, and that
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: was easier said than done. Even on Staten Island, where
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: Corey's mom eventually moved their family, he had the crack
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: game led by a Jamaican crew from Brooklyn that had
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: recently muscled their way into the neighborhood. And you had
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: mom's latest boyfriend, some asshole who left her bruised and
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: bloodied after another one of their explosive arguments. But while
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: temptation and corruption lurked around every corner, there were some
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: positive things to focus on. Not a boring part time
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: job at the amp. I'm talking run DMC beat street
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: crush groove. I'm talking hip hop, listening to it, watching it,
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: making it, beatboxing and freestyling to pass the time, and
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: then on to writing his own rhymes. What it felt
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: like Corey had something unique to say, and when he
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: wasn't saying it, he was spraying cans of paint shaken
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: up to a bee Boy rhythm, graffiti tagging that broke
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: down canvas of the streets. Mostly, though, Corey was occupied
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: by his pursuit of style. He had flavor for days,
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: but flavor style and peckable taste. It ain't cheap A
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: dope pair of pants and a nice pair of shoes.
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: That shit's going to cost you more than the kind
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: of money and minimum wage job back in groceries that
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: the amp is going to provide. So if you wanted
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: a chain like the ones he saw dudes wearing in
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: the club, Corey was gonna have to take that chain.
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: And the easiest way to do that was to find
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: an easy mark. Some dummy out on the dance floor
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: thought he was hot shit because he was wearing hot shit.
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: But and this is the important part, the dummy out
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: of the dance floor could not be rolling with a
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: crew that had his back. You and your boys dance
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: over in his general direction. You get close, you make
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: like you don't even notice a dude, and then bam,
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: you rip the gold dangling from his neck. When he
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: goes on the defensive, when he puffs his chest out,
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: it's like, what the fuck, give me back my shit.
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: That's the other dudes in your crew, The biggest dudes
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: close in on him and convince him to get lost
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: or else. Sometimes it wasn't even that complicated. Sometimes it
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: was straight up cold blooded, like, yo, you take off
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: your fucking shoes? Take them off? What'd you say? How
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: are you supposed to get home with no shoes? That
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: sounds like a U problem. Now give me your fucking kicks.
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: Problems were everywhere, just like the bodies. Problems were around
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: every corner. Growing up in the projects, Corey was surrounded
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: by dealers and users, guys who kept the peace under
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: their shirts, Guys who did real time. Taking the next
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: evolutionary step in crime from robbing people to selling them
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: dope seemed not only like a smart move business wise
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: for Corey, but for a kid like him from the
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: Staten Island projects, it seemed like the only move small time.
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: At first, buy an eight ball of cocaine or an
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: ounce of weed and break it down into smaller portions
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: and sell the little baggies at a profit, and just
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: be careful where you sell it. On Staten Island, the
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: Jamaicans corner the market on crack and everything else. To
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: challenge a crew that powerful then that feared, would be
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: like walking up to the biggest dude in the club
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: all by yourself and demanding he'd give up that gold
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: chain right off of his neck. And that was most
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: definitely not wise. That was how you ended up just
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: another body the street. His ears were ringing a blinding,
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: high pitched hum and cut through his skull. He pulled
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: himself from the floor and clung to the railing on
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: the stairs. He started to climb each step harder than
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: the last. Jesus his legs. His legs hurt, His legs
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: felt like they were on fire. He could hardly breathe.
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: He stopped. Chill man, chill out, catch your breath. He
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: pulled up his left hand leg and looked down. Two holes.
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: Flesh ripped apart, blood everywhere. Bullets went in, bullets went out. Now,
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: he pulled up the pant leg. Deja vu. Two more
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: bullet holes in and out. He made it to the
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: second floor, dragged himself to the apartment door, banged hard
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: with his fist, and his little sister answered. She looked
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: at her brother, bleeding and limping, thought about the noises
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: she'd just heard, and put two and two together. His
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: mother didn't say anything, just gave him that look. He
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: knew that look. He hated that look. She maintained that
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: look and dialed nine one one. Corey Woods didn't live
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: here anymore. His lifestyle didn't suit his mom's strict rules.
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: She told him that even though he was eighteen, he
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: could live with her as long as he liked. He
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: just had to be home by nine thirty every night,
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: and that was a deal breaker, especially for a guy in.
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: His line of work.
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: Cream cash dollar dollar bills. Y'alled he made a lot
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: of that money well beyond nine thirty every night. At
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: this time in the late eighties, Corey and his crew
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: were selling seven hundred dollars of crack at night out
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: of an apartment club on Staten Island. Seven hundred dollars
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: on a decent night. On Friday nights, when the clientele
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: had paychecks burning holes in their pockets, they made even
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: more because that's who was buying, not strung out junkies,
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: people with steady jobs and steady incomes who just so
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: happened to smoke some crack on the side. Corey called
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: the clubhouse a quote crack country club unquote. Just like
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: he had great taste in clothes and style, Corey had
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: great taste in drunks. And the shit wasn't synthetic like
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: some of the cheaper rock you find from other dealers
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: in the city. This was Peruvian white, bought by the
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: quarter kilo and cooked up in the kitchen. You could
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: even call Corey a chef word get around. The clubhouse
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: filled up on evenings, not unlike the Union Square nightclub bodies,
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: handing over cash and then hanging around like it was
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: a VFW hall, but instead of playing bingo, they were
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: smoking crack and getting high. But when it got that
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: packed inside, Corey wore a gas mask, all the smoke
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: out of his lungs, because if you're the guy holding
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: all the money and all the product, can't risk getting
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: high in a room full of crackheads. Even these crackheads
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: a fiends of fiends, a fiend, give them an inch
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: and they take a mile. Every time Corey was on alert,
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: he was careful. He read the room, read the hallway,
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: read the whole building, not just the users. There was
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: another dealer living in this place, a dealer connected to
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: the Jamaican crew, the crew you didn't mess with. Technically,
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: Corey wasn't selling on this guy's turf. It was the
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: other way around. This dealer wanted in on Corey's action.
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: The dealer had a kid run interference in the vestibule
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: in the hallway and plucked buyers before they reached the
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: clubhouse where Corey was dealing. The Now, Corey carried a piece.
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: Most dudes running drugs they did. They carried guns and
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: was part of the gig. But most dudes weren't like Corey.
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: Most dudes couldn't wait for an excuse to pull a
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: clock from their and start shooting. Corey wasn't that stupid,
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: especially when it came to other dealers sweating his crew,
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: and definitely when those dealers were connected to bigger and
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: batter operations. What was he going to do about this
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: other dude selling in this building? Go all sunny, Cory
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: leone on the competition. He knew how that movie ended.
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: Corey was smarter than that. Unlike one of his guys
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: who did put some bullets into that kid's car, the
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: kid who was running interference for the dealer connected to
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: the Jamaicans. One of Corey's guys shot up the car
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: while the kid was in it, and not just the kid,
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: but also the kid's girl and their baby. Said it
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: was a warning, stop stepping on their business. You want
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: to bed if that warning had passed along, it didn't think.
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: Corey was furious. This was the worst part about working
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: with other people, having to take the heat for someone
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: else's bullshit. Now Corey had to live every minute of
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: every day fearing retaliation, fearing that the Jamaicans would not
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: hesitate to put a bullet in his head. And that
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: kind of fear doesn't go away. If becomes part of you.
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: You live with it, just like you live with a
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: nose that breeze air or a dick that swings between
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: your legs. You try to be relaxed in any given situation,
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: but you can't. Being relaxed never comes naturally again, even
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: just chilling with some friends on the corner. Shooting the
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: shit mining your own business is an exercise and being prepared.
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: Corey and his friends stopped talking to watch that the
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: guy step out of his car. Corey knew what was
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: about to happen, he could feel it. Dude was seconds
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: away from flashing his piece. Then this guy was no stranger.
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: He had beef with one of Corey's friends, a friend
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: who is standing next to Corey on the street corner.
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: And this wasn't Corey's beef didn't matter. Beef didn't discriminate,
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: Beef didn't adjust its intensity or trajectory in order to
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: minimize collateral damage. Catching bullets is all about proximity. Corey
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: had to get lost and he leaped to his feet.
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: He ran fast. He heard gunshots are up behind him
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: like firecrackers. He fled into the lobby of a nearby
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: apartment building, which just so happened to be his mother's
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: apartment building. And though it was no longer his home,
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: he thought he was safe here. He was wrong. His
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: friend was the first one to follow him. Inside. Dude's
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: gun was jammed. He struggled to unjam it. Corey panicked,
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: and the other guy came in fast through the front door,
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: glock in his hand, twenty two shot clip. He started shooting,
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: shot after shot after shot. Corey hit the floor. The
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: sound of bullets pinged around the lobby. They whizzed over
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: his head as he crawled towards the stairs, stairs that
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: were so close. But when he grew caught in the
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: middle of a gunfight, and time slows to a crawl,
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: the same crawl you are physically making across a dirty
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: lobby floor. The stairs are also so far away. The
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: lobby filled with smoke, and that ringing, that blinding, high
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: pitch hum, and it began to rattle in Corey's skull.
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: Then there were other things rattling around in there too, memories,
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: bodies hanging from poles, his father bleeding out from a knife,
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: woon somewhere Jamaican drug dealers looking to even the score.
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: And then it was all over. The shooting stopped, the
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: guy with the glock was gone, and the smoke began
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: to clear. And that's when Corey felt it. Pain, first
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: in one leg and then in the other, like someone
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: was holding a torch to his skin, searing sick to
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: your stomach pain. Corey had been shot twice in his
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: right thigh. Both of those bullets missed bones and major arteries,
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: and of the two bullets that hit his left leg,
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: one shattered a big chunk of bone just beneath his kneecap.
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: Surgeons had to cut through a lot of cartilage to
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: repair the damage, and they told him he'd never walked
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: the same again. But still, despite the fact that Corey
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: had been shot twice in each leg, despite the permanent
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: damage his injuries would leave behind, despite a year long
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: recovery period that found him laid up in the one
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: place he never thought he'd returned, to his mom's apartment.
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: Corey was lucky, but he was also reflective. He had
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: a lot of time to think about his legs, about
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: his girlfriend, who saw the shooting as a wake up
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: call and left him about how all of it, the drugs,
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: the hustling, the drama, all of it depressed the hell
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: out of them. All this reflection made him crave something else,
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: some meaning, some purpose. He found meeting from the guys
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: who had it worse than him, Guys in the neighborhood
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: who had done hard time were trying to sort out
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: the rest of their lives. Those older guys let the
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: teachings of the five percent Nation do the sorting. One
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: of the ways in which the five percent Nation helped
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: you find your way was to give you a new identity.
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: All five percenters changed their names. Corey chose Young God
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: Allah Young God for short. He looked to the supreme
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: numbers for clarity, for knowledge and wisdom. Act upon what
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: you know. Knew that he couldn't find himself from this
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: situation again, caught in the crossfire. So what was he
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: going to do about it? How is he going to
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: act now? And that's where purpose came in. He began
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: to write more rhymes. Spiral notebook perched on his lap.
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: He had inspiration from his mom's old records. Cool in
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: the Game Diana Ross, the Jackson five in the Rhymes
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: of Contemporary Masters, like Slick Rick and rock Him. He
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: wrote non stop in the words poured out of them.
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: But even though he was creatively and spiritually invigorated, Corey
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: was a realist. Whether he was calling himself Corey or
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: a young God, he knew that once he was fully healed,
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: it wasn't like he could just walk down the street
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: and score a record deal. In all likelihood, he'd have
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: to go back to dealing, at least for now. It
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: was all he had. But he'd do it with this
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: newfound wisdom, wisdom that didn't let him forget that his
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: time on the street was going.
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: To run out.
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: We'll be right back after this.
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: We're We're where.
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: The van kept its distance, white paint, tinted windows, rust
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: creeping its way from the bottom up, expired registration sticker
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: on the plate. The van was unexceptional, just another beater
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: parked in the block, and the chaos of the park
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: Hill neighborhood paid it in no mind. Inside the van,
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: a real to reel spun. Garbled voices crackled from a
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: set of headphones perched on a man's head, binoculars hung
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: from his neck, Smoke trailed from the cigarette dangling from
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: his mouth, he listened, he watched, and he waited, waiting
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: for a signal, And when that signal came, all hell
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: broke loose. In the spring of nineteen eighty eight, the
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: New York Police Department began to crack down on the sale, distribution,
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: and the use of illegal drugs throughout the city. They
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: did this by creating a task force called the Tactical
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: Narcotics Team TNT for short. Undercover officers hit the streets
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: to carry out buy and bust operations that went like this.
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: One cop buys drugs, Another cop watches the deal go
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: down from a safe distance, and then calls him backup
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: to make the arrest. Their efforts were aimed at a
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: very specific target, low level dealers. You bust see small
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: frye neighborhood types. You grill them, and then you pass
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: along whatever intel you got to the Feds, who were
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: busy chasing down the real targets, kingpins, cartels, even hip
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: hop groups. The FBI's shortlist of so called major criminal
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: organizations would soon include, alongside names like the Gambino crime family,
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: none other than Wu Tang Clan. But before that happened
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: back in nineteen eighty eight, on its first day pounding
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: the pavement. Then he task force arrested over twenty dealers
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: in Queens. When operations expanded into Manhattan, eighty two vials
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: of crack were seized in ninety minutes. But by the
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: time TNT hit the streets on Staten Island, where Corey
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: Woods excuse me, Young god Allah had resumed dealing, the
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: ground level drug trade had gotten wise. Dealers were paying
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: people in the neighborhood upwards of one hundred bucks a
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: day to act as lookouts. They perched on fire escapes,
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: they hung out of windows, They sat in folding chairs
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: on the sidewalk. Then they disrupted. The CoP's own disruption came. Still,
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: TNT wasn't going to be stopped by a bunch of
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: lookout kids. The NYPD was pumping a ton of cash
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: into this operation, and even if the dealers continued to
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: find ways to be subversive, moving drugs had become overly complicated.
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: Slinging dope on a stoop or out of an apartment
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: clubhouse would never be simple again. Corey felt the squeeze
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: since he returned to dealing drugs after recovering from his
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: gunshot wounds. He'd been harassed by cops who caught him
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: with a suspiciously large amount of cash during an early
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: morning raid on the projects. The cops weren't wearing cop clothes.
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: They blended him. They looked just like another weekend crack
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: warrior for a fix. Corey had no idea how long
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: they've been watching him, but what kind of intel they had.
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: They were probably others too, hidden away in vans, reel
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: to reels, rolling microphones hot If they had something on him,
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: they didn't say. They hadn't witnessed him making a sale,
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: but they knew where that money came from. And now
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: they had not just his face, but his name, a
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: name that would soon become part of a larger file.
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: Corey had other pressing concerns beyond the NYPD. He was
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: shot again, this time while driving his uncle's Buick through
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: a neighborhood he wasn't supposed to be in. Two dozen
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: bullets pierced the car in rapid succession. Miraculously, Corey sped
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: away unscathed, and the rivalry between the park Hill and
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: Stapleton projects on Stuftn Island was increasing. Park Hill and
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: Stapleton were oil and water. Park Hill dudes did coke
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: and weed. Stapleton dudes, on the other hand, smoked wet
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: or weed dipped in a mixture of angel dust and
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: embalming fluid crews riding two distinctly different highs had a
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: real hard time riding together. So there were disputes. We're
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: better than you wore street brawls, knives, sliced open skin,
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: baseball bats, but open heads. Some days you felt like
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: you were drowning in it all. But no matter how
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: hard you tread water, no matter how many rhymes you rode,
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: or how dedicated you could be to the craft, to
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: the thing you truly loved most of all, to hip hop,
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: that it was all useless, that the undertoe of the
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: streets would eventually pull you to the bottom. Then, Lucky
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: for Corey, though he knew a guy, a guy with
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: a blueprint for a way out. Corey Woods had known
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: Bobby Digs since they were little kids. Bobby was always
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: a good dude, the kind of dude who would give
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: you the shard off his back, even though he shared
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: that shirt with his brother, even though he had next
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: to nothing. And that was then, and this was now
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: September nineteen ninety two. Corey was no longer Corey, nor
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: was he young god Allah anymore. That name made him
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: sound like a kid. He was now going by Raikwan,
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: a name is fresh and flavorful. As a style of clothes,
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: he wore a name inspired by some of the names
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: of his older five percenters who served as his mentors.
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: And Bobby was no longer Bobby. He was, now, of course,
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: the Rizza aka the Resurrecta aka the guy who beat
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: an intempted murder charge. Was born anew with purpose and
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: meaning and was ready to use his wisdom that's Supreme
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: number two to pull himself and eight other dudes out
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: of a life of poverty and crime. Yes, I'm aware
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: that eventually a tenth member, Capadonna, was added to the mix,
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: but we'll get to him later. So he assembled the
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: team at his house that two thirty four morning Star
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: Road on Staten Island, where he made his pitch. Give
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: him five years and he'd take all nine of them
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: to number one. But as Rayquon stood in the Rizza's
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: living room surrounded by these eight other guys, he wasn't
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: feeling all kumbay ah, my lord. He was surprised to
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: see Dennis Coles aka ghost Face Killa. Also in the room,
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: ghost Face was a Stapleton Dude. Two other park Killed
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: denizens that were present, not just Rayquon, but Lamont Hawkins
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: aka You God, Jason Hunter aka Inspected Deck, and Clifford
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: Smith aka methan Man. Ghost Face was the competition a
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: sworn enemy. In fact, someone from Rayqwon's crew had recently
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: shot out the windows of ghost face mother's house in
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: retaliation for something that ghost Face had done. They should
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: have been at each other's throats and there should have
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: been gunshots in blood, but the Rizza wanted peace. No
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: more beefs. Beefs led to bodies, so did egos. The
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: only way to get that cream was by putting that
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: other shit aside, and cream Cash was king.
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: It ruled everything.
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: In December of nineteen ninety two, just months after that
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: first official meeting, Wu Tang Clan self released their debut
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: twelve inch single Protect Your Neck Took No Prisoners. The
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: track was a verbal onslaught, unlike anything that was happening
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: in hip hop at the time. One after the other
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: members of the clan traded versus in dizzying fashion, their
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: razor sharp tongues flaunting the Wu Tang style. That style
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: was cocky, defiant. It was often delivered in code code aside,
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: though the gist was easy to get, and the gist
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: was this all other rappers had better beware, and the
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: Rizzas production sounded dusty and faded, contrary to the slick
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: sounds coming from Doctor Dre and his cronies on the
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: West Coast. Protect your neck. Few samples of funk and
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: R and B with evocative springs from Gamble and huff
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: erro of Philly Soul, not to mention the sounds of
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: Kung Fu fight. Take it from one of the Rizzes
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: beloved movies executioners from Shooing the kind of the left
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: field touchstone that would become his calling card. The whole
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: thing was a labor of love, and back then samplers
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: only took quarter inch plugs, so if you were sampling
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: an old movie from a videotape, it was a whole thing.
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: One chord out from the VCR and into a mixer,
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: another chord out of the mixer's headphone jacket into the sampler.
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: The chain of chords produced a very distorted signal which
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: may have phased other producers, but Rizza, using his limitations
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: as strengths, made the degraded sound work to his advantage.
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: Then there was the manual nature of it. All missed
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: the part you wanted a sample and even by a
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: second stop, rewind the tape, do it again, and the
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: other Wu Tang members didn't witness this process. Rizza just
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: had each of them lay down their bars on the
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: microphone and then he cut them up in the order
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: he wanted, lay it on the samples and assembled the
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: track overnight, and when the rest of the group heard
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: it for the first time the next day, they were mesmerized.
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: Record labels, on the other hand, weren't so easily sold.
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: A nine man hip hop group was a clusterfuck? How
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: do you market that? Who was the star? And then
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: there was how the Rizza wanted to structure the deal.
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: He wanted Wu Tang as a whole to sign with
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: a record label, but the deal would be written in
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: a way that all nine guys can make solo records
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: with any other label they chose, And that was completely
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: asked backwards from the way record labels traditionally structured deals.
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: So what was Wu Tang gonna do? They hustled just
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: like Raykuon hustled Crack on the streets of Staten Island.
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: They showed up unannounced at eighty nine point nine WKCRFM
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: while the legendary Stretch and Barbido Show was on the air,
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: a copy of the Protect Your Neck twelve inch in
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: hand and demanded it be played now. They hit back
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: at record stores that wouldn't carry the record by pilfering
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: customers from those stores and selling copies out of the
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: trunk of their car. All this gorilla marketing and sales technique,
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: it built up considerable buzz and strong sales. Steve Rifkin
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: of Loud Records, an indie label distributed by RCA, was
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: impressed by how many copies the group was moving on
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: their own, and when he heard Protect Your Neck, he
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: heard something unique, something that no one else was doing.
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: Where others saw a complicated web of personalities, Rifkin saw
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: a massive opportunity. Riffkin was also a kindred soul. His
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: father released a single by the Fatback Band in nineteen
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: seventy nine, one of the contenders for the first ever
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: rap record. Rifkin himself held hip hop artists on the
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: Delicious vinyl label. Get MTV airplay. The deal that Wu
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: Tang eventually struck with Loud Records wasn't the biggest deal
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: money wise. The advance was just sixty grand, but it
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: gave the members the autonomy they wanted when it came
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: to solo releases, and also allowed the group to retain
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: their name merchandising and publishing. It was a landmark deal
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: in the history of hip hop, and Wu Tang's nineteen
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: ninety three debut album was a landmark hip hop release.
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: Just two months after entering the Wu Tang, thirty six
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: Chambers was released. It went gold. Lorizza's vision was working,
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: Ray Kwon and the members of Wu Tang Clan could
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: finally look in the rear view and see the struggles
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: of their past were seating, or so they thought. April
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: twenty ninth, nineteen ninety four, San Francisco, Raykwon, ghost Face Killa,
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: and method Man sat in the back of the minivan.
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: The West Coast promotional tour for thirty six Chambers had
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: been a blur so far, but right now they weren't
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: thinking about promotional tours, or about how they had come
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: out of nowhere to dominate the consciousness of hip hop culture,
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: or how their debut album and album They Made Their
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: Way had gone gold. It was still selling like crazy.
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: Right now, they were thinking about the cruiser that had
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: been following their van for miles San Francisco police and
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: what the hell did the cops want. They hadn't done
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: anything wrong. This wasn't Staten Island, this wasn't the past,
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: This was now. This was California. A Wu tang was
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: worldwide legit. The police cruiser hung back like a bad memory,
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: an old wound. Corey felt the fear bubble up, that
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: same fear that had been a part of him ever
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: since one of the guys shot up the car that
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: belonged to someone connected to the Jamaican drug crew. The
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: cruiser was mimicking their every move. The van made it right,
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: the cruiser made it right. The van slowed down and
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: the cruiser kept pace. And this went on for a
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: good five minutes before suddenly, and seemingly without reason, the
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: blue lights came on and then a siren. The van's
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: driver pulled over. Cops were approaching on foot now, shotguns
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: drawn and raised. Exit the van on the driver's side
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: and keep your hands where we can see them. Ray
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: Kuan and Method Man did as they were told. Ghost
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: Face Killer, however, went out the passenger side and the
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: cops got nervous and cocked the shotguns on the ground.
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: All of you now, two more on mark police cars
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: pulled up, more cops, more shotguns, locked and loaded. Ray
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: Ghost of Meth hit the pavement face first. They all
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: felt boots squash onto their backs, their lips tasted gravel,
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: and they were handcuffed. The van was searched, and then
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: they were taken down town, each in a separate police
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: car and questioned. Forty five minutes later, they were released.
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: San Francisco PD didn't issue an apology. They did issue
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: a statement explaining that the Wu Tang clan members fit
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: the description of some other black men who happened to
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: be riding around in a van and robbing stores. Although
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: we respect the fact that the police felt they had
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: a job to do, method Man said, after the trio
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: was set free, the manner in which we were treated
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: was totally uncalled for. Method Man and his fellow clan
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: members didn't know it then, but on that very same day,
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: all the way back in New York, a similar incident
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: was taking place. Only this incident involved the NYPD and
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: a Staten Island resident, a man who was close to
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: some members of the Wu Tang clan, except this man
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: wouldn't catch a break like Ray, Ghost and Math, and
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: by the end of the night, this man would be
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: another body on the ground, beaten, bloody, lifeless, dead. I'm
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: Jake Brennan and this episode of Disgraceland is to be continued.
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: Disgraceland was created by Yours Truly and is produced in
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: partnership with Double Elvis. Credits for this episode can be
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: found on the show notes page at disgracelampod dot com.
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: If you're listening as a Disgraceland All Access member, thank
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: you for supporting the show. We really appreciate it, and
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: if not, you can become a member right now by
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: going to disgracelampod dot com slash Membership. Members can listen
• 34:45
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• 34:48
  Speaker 1: one brand new exclusive episode every month, weekly unscripted bonus episodes,
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• 34:58
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• 35:02
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• 35:09
  Speaker 1: slash at disgracelampod, rock a roller.
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: He's a bad don man.