Latest / DISGRACELAND / Ghostface Killah (Wu-Tang Clan Chapter 4): Angel Dust, an Unlicensed .357 Magnum, and Attempted Robbery

Transcript

Ghostface Killah (Wu-Tang Clan Chapter 4): Angel Dust, an Unlicensed .357 Magnum, and Attempted Robbery · DISGRACELAND

0:00
Speaker 1: Disgraceland as a production of Double Elvis. The stories about
0:21
Speaker 1: Wu Tang Clan's Ghost Face Killa are insane. He shot
0:25
Speaker 1: up someone's house while smoking wet that's a joint dipped
0:29
Speaker 1: in angel dust and embalming fluid, and he was busted
0:33
Speaker 1: with an unlicensed three fifty seven magnum hollow point bullets
0:37
Speaker 1: and a bulletproof vest during a routine traffic stop. He
0:41
Speaker 1: allegedly tried to steal three thousand dollars from a parking
0:44
Speaker 1: lot attendant, and that particular offense got him sent to
0:47
Speaker 1: Riker's Island after he coughed a plea for attempted robbery.
0:51
Speaker 1: And all of his real life experiences on the street
0:55
Speaker 1: have informed his music great music, some of the most
0:58
Speaker 1: lyrically dense stories ever put to tape, both as a
1:01
Speaker 1: member of the Wu Tang Clan and as a solo artist.
1:05
Speaker 1: Unlike that clip I played for you at the top
1:07
Speaker 1: of the show, that wasn't great music. That was a
1:11
Speaker 1: preset loop for my melotron called Theatrical Neo Classical MK one.
1:17
Speaker 1: I played you that loop because I can't afford the
1:20
Speaker 1: rights to Candle in the Wind nineteen ninety seven by
1:23
Speaker 1: Elton John And why would I play you that specific
1:27
Speaker 1: slice of Marilyn Monroe slash Princess Die tribute Cheese? Could
1:31
Speaker 1: I afford it? Because that was the number one song
1:36
Speaker 1: in America on November twenty second, nineteen ninety seven, And
1:40
Speaker 1: that was the day that the manager of a hip
1:42
Speaker 1: hop group in Ohio was shot dead, a shooting that
1:46
Speaker 1: resulted in unexpected yet serious ramifications for ghost Face Killa
1:51
Speaker 1: in the entire Wu Tang Clan. On this episode, Smoking
1:56
Speaker 1: wet an unlicensed three point fifty seven Magnam attempted robbery
2:01
Speaker 1: a plea deal in Wu Tang Clan's ghost Face Killer.
2:05
Speaker 1: I'm Jake Brennan, and this is disgraceland. Tony was pissed.
2:41
Speaker 1: He just wanted to go home, but he couldn't. All
2:45
Speaker 1: four of his car's tires have been slashed while he
2:47
Speaker 1: and Frank were in the club hour maybe hour and
2:50
Speaker 1: a half, not that long. And now this this was bullshit.
2:55
Speaker 1: Tony was bullshit. Frank was stunned, standing there with his
2:59
Speaker 1: mouth wide ope and frozen. Tony motioned to the parking
3:03
Speaker 1: attendants nearby. These guys must have seen something. Frank agreed,
3:07
Speaker 1: but just because they saw something didn't mean they were
3:10
Speaker 1: going to say something. They didn't need to talk. Tony
3:13
Speaker 1: said he had a better idea. You know how much
3:16
Speaker 1: cash comes through here in a single evening. Let's go
3:19
Speaker 1: see what they got. Frank wanted to know if he
3:22
Speaker 1: should put his hood up. Tony said, probably, not a
3:25
Speaker 1: bad idea. And what about the burner, Frank asked. Tony said,
3:29
Speaker 1: have it ready, but keep it hidden and keep the
3:32
Speaker 1: safety off the attendants. Whereas chatty as expected, which is
3:37
Speaker 1: to say, not at all, Tony cuts to the chase.
3:41
Speaker 1: Where's the money? No response, he asked again nothing. Tony
3:46
Speaker 1: zeroed in on one attendant, Skinny week. Look at my car.
3:50
Speaker 1: Tony said to him, look at what they did to
3:52
Speaker 1: my car. They did that to my car while it
3:54
Speaker 1: was parked in your lot, on your watch. And the
3:57
Speaker 1: kid got real nervous. He was shaking, trying to speak
4:01
Speaker 1: but stuttering. Frank put his hand near his cannon to
4:04
Speaker 1: let the kid knows something was under there. Tony barked,
4:08
Speaker 1: the cash, motherfucker, give us the cash, and we'll forget
4:11
Speaker 1: about the whole thing. We'll walk away and leave you alone.
4:14
Speaker 1: Kid was as weak as Tony thought. He followed the instructions,
4:18
Speaker 1: opened the cash box at the attendant stand, Tony looked inside.
4:22
Speaker 1: Benjamin Franklin's stone gaze stared up at him from a
4:25
Speaker 1: stack of bills, A couple thousand in there. At least.
4:29
Speaker 1: Then this made Tony happy, This made things even. Ghost
4:36
Speaker 1: Face Killer the Man born Dennis Coles was one of
4:38
Speaker 1: Wu Tang Clan's sharpest lyricists. Ghost aka Dennis Here was
4:44
Speaker 1: a storyteller, a rock on tour. Born in nineteen seventy
4:48
Speaker 1: on Staten Island and now in nineteen ninety seven, twenty
4:51
Speaker 1: seven years old. Ghost knew a good YEARN when he
4:54
Speaker 1: heard one. In his opinion, that's what he was hearing now,
4:57
Speaker 1: a good YEARN. One hell of a story, nothing more,
5:01
Speaker 1: nothing less. The DA disagreed. The DA said it was
5:06
Speaker 1: a true story, and that in this true story, the
5:08
Speaker 1: character of Tony was actually a stand in for Ghost Face,
5:12
Speaker 1: that Ghost was the one who found his car tires
5:15
Speaker 1: slashed outside the Palladium nightclub in Manhattan, that in a
5:19
Speaker 1: fit of rage, Ghost got into it with the parking
5:21
Speaker 1: lot attendants. One of those attendants won on the record
5:24
Speaker 1: with a statement that Ghost nearly made off with three
5:26
Speaker 1: K from their cash box. Now Ghost was looking at
5:30
Speaker 1: five to fifteen for robbery, unless, that is, he copped
5:34
Speaker 1: a plea to a lesser charge attempted robbery that would
5:38
Speaker 1: get him a couple months in the pen and five
5:40
Speaker 1: years probation. Either way, the DA had him by the balls,
5:45
Speaker 1: just like the NYPD had him by the balls. A
5:47
Speaker 1: few weeks prior, in Harlem, Ghost was driving his friend
5:52
Speaker 1: was driving his own car directly ahead. A police cruiser
5:55
Speaker 1: sandwiched its way between the two cars and pulled ghost
5:58
Speaker 1: friend over for some bogus traffic fire elation. So Ghosts
6:01
Speaker 1: pulled over to He watched the cops approach his friend's car,
6:05
Speaker 1: and Ghost's mind NYPD lived for this, not protecting, not serving, harassing.
6:12
Speaker 1: Ghost was out of his car now making his approach
6:15
Speaker 1: the cops that the scene said it was at this
6:17
Speaker 1: time that Ghost Face began acting disorderly. Between that and
6:21
Speaker 1: the fact that he could clearly make out the bulletproof
6:24
Speaker 1: vest under his coat, the cops had probable cause and
6:28
Speaker 1: they searched Ghosts's car found his unlicensed three fifty seven
6:31
Speaker 1: magnum in hallow point bullets in a hidden compartment behind
6:34
Speaker 1: the glove box. And that was a careless mistake. Maybe
6:39
Speaker 1: it was Hubris. Maybe he thought that because he was
6:42
Speaker 1: somebody now a member of one of the biggest hip
6:44
Speaker 1: hop groups in the world, that he was somehow above
6:47
Speaker 1: the law, and if so, then he was wrong. Third
6:51
Speaker 1: degree criminal possession of a weapon was a felony. It
6:54
Speaker 1: didn't matter who you were, did over the body armor.
6:59
Speaker 1: Worst of all, getting pinched in Harlem was what alerted
7:02
Speaker 1: authorities to the fact that Ghostface had skipped a court
7:05
Speaker 1: date on this whole palladium parking lot bullshit. The charge
7:09
Speaker 1: he was fighting now, And to think nineteen ninety seven
7:13
Speaker 1: had held so much promise. The year started on a high,
7:18
Speaker 1: with Ghosts riding the success of his first solo album,
7:22
Speaker 1: iron Man, released in October of the year prior on
7:25
Speaker 1: Epic Records. It debuted at number two on the Billboard
7:28
Speaker 1: two hundred and quickly went gold. Then on June third,
7:33
Speaker 1: Wu Tang Clan dropped their long awaited second album, the
7:36
Speaker 1: one they were recording out in Los Angeles when the
7:38
Speaker 1: notorious Big was shot dead in the street. Wu Tang
7:43
Speaker 1: Forever was Bold double LP, twenty seven tracks. It was
7:47
Speaker 1: a massive success. The line of people at Virgin Records
7:51
Speaker 1: in New York City on release day stretched for blocks
7:55
Speaker 1: over six hundred thousand copies sold in the first week alone.
7:59
Speaker 1: It debuted at number one in the US and in
8:02
Speaker 1: the UK. This was year five of the Rizza's five
8:06
Speaker 1: year plan. By the way, just as Rizza promised, Wu
8:09
Speaker 1: Tang went all the way to the top. Days after
8:14
Speaker 1: the album's release, however, Wu Tang was banned from one
8:17
Speaker 1: of the biggest hip hop radio stations in the country.
8:21
Speaker 1: Hot ninety seven's annual Summer Jam concert should have been
8:24
Speaker 1: a victory lot, but when the station threatened to pull
8:27
Speaker 1: Wu Tang's music from the airways if they didn't perform
8:29
Speaker 1: a headlining set, an appearance which was promotional in nature
8:33
Speaker 1: and thus did not pay, it felt a little like extortion.
8:38
Speaker 1: A Wu Tang went ahead and played the show, and
8:40
Speaker 1: they closed out the night with incredible energy and cool
8:43
Speaker 1: to spare. They also had a very clear message for
8:46
Speaker 1: the tens of thousands of people in attendance, a message
8:50
Speaker 1: which was delivered off the cuff by ghost Face with
8:53
Speaker 1: no warning, and that message was I want every motherfucker
8:58
Speaker 1: in here to say Hot ninety seven, with their music
9:04
Speaker 1: no longer allowed on one of the biggest hip hop
9:06
Speaker 1: radio stations in the country. Wu Tang then hit the road.
9:10
Speaker 1: Their joint tour with Rage against the Machine was the
9:12
Speaker 1: hottest ticket of the summer of nineteen ninety seven. It
9:16
Speaker 1: was also an opportunity to greatly expand Wu Tang's audience
9:20
Speaker 1: black white, male female, high school kids, college kids, rock fans,
9:24
Speaker 1: rap fans. It didn't matter. Everyone was down with Wu Tang,
9:28
Speaker 1: but Wu Tang wasn't down with touring, real touring anyways.
9:32
Speaker 1: Touring like a rock band. That was hard, and there
9:36
Speaker 1: were schedules to keep, call times, to make endless protocols
9:39
Speaker 1: and rules. Ghosts and Wu Tang didn't do rules. So
9:44
Speaker 1: at the height of this huge cultural moment, one of
9:47
Speaker 1: the biggest records of the year, one of the biggest
9:49
Speaker 1: tours of the year, according headline controversy, like only the
9:52
Speaker 1: greatest artists can do, Wu Tang bailed and went home. Ghost,
9:58
Speaker 1: for one, struggled because he told Hot ninety seven to
10:01
Speaker 1: fuck off, but not because his group abandoned Rage. Wu
10:05
Speaker 1: Tang was formed against the odds, and they flourished against
10:07
Speaker 1: the odds. Professional odds would always be there. Ghost's problem
10:13
Speaker 1: was person His diabetes was getting worse. It made him dizzy,
10:19
Speaker 1: blurred his vision, gave him migraine so bad it felt
10:23
Speaker 1: like his head was going to split into two. Felt
10:25
Speaker 1: like everything inside the dense, overgrown language in the art
10:30
Speaker 1: of storytelling, the things that were his bread and butter
10:33
Speaker 1: as an mc that they would all pour out of
10:35
Speaker 1: that cracked dome and spill all over the floor. His
10:40
Speaker 1: drinking and smoking it wasn't helping. PCP in particular was
10:44
Speaker 1: a favorite, but it made the dizziness and the paranoia
10:47
Speaker 1: even worse. He was still looking behind his back, even
10:51
Speaker 1: from the vantage point of some of the biggest stages
10:54
Speaker 1: in the world. He was the guy from the Stapleton Projects.
10:58
Speaker 1: He did live that life and he did represent that culture.
11:01
Speaker 1: He was authentic. Being authentic was about being real, which
11:06
Speaker 1: is not the same as saying it was the truth.
11:09
Speaker 1: Ghost Face Killa was a character, part truth, part fiction.
11:15
Speaker 1: The truth gave credence to the made up stuff. Then
11:17
Speaker 1: fiction went a long way when the truth got stale.
11:22
Speaker 1: Back when Wu Tang first started, ghost Face wore a
11:25
Speaker 1: stalking mask at their public appearances. But why dependent on
11:29
Speaker 1: who you asked. There was a warrant out for his
11:32
Speaker 1: arrest or there was a bounty on his head from
11:34
Speaker 1: a rival crew. These were stories, stories like the one
11:38
Speaker 1: about Tony and Frank trying to rob some dudes in
11:41
Speaker 1: a nightclub parking lot. Were they true? Maybe? Maybe not?
11:46
Speaker 1: Maybe go fuck yourself. The DA didn't care for ghost
11:50
Speaker 1: Face's cavalier attitude. In a sense, his authenticity was his
11:54
Speaker 1: worst enemy. The parking lot's story was one that he
11:57
Speaker 1: couldn't write himself out of. Took the plea deal five
12:01
Speaker 1: years probation. After he did four months at Riker's Island.
12:05
Speaker 1: Ghosts figured it was fodder for another good story, a
12:09
Speaker 1: story about coming out right and how in the end
12:13
Speaker 1: you got to go through hell to come out right.
12:16
Speaker 1: Everyone does. The first bullet hit his neck, the next
12:43
Speaker 1: one caught him in the shoulder. It all happened so fast.
12:48
Speaker 1: Blood spurted from his wounds, his neck went numb. Was shocked.
12:52
Speaker 1: He screamed and threw his arms up pure reflex. He
12:56
Speaker 1: grabbed the dude's piece and tried to wrestle it from
12:58
Speaker 1: his grip again, and knuckles cracked as he turned the
13:02
Speaker 1: barrel around and named it back at the guy who
13:04
Speaker 1: had just clipped him. He managed to wrap his finger
13:07
Speaker 1: around the trigger and then he fired. He shot a
13:10
Speaker 1: guy with his own gun. When the smoke cleared, he
13:15
Speaker 1: got the hell out of Ohio. Steubenville was a shit show,
13:20
Speaker 1: birthplace of Dean Martin and Jimmy the Greek, a grid
13:24
Speaker 1: of steel mills and coal mines, and now, in nineteen
13:27
Speaker 1: ninety one, the place where ghosts face. Killer, then still
13:30
Speaker 1: known as Dennis Cole's, then only twenty one years old,
13:34
Speaker 1: got shot. He went back to New York before things
13:37
Speaker 1: got really bad, and Dennis's guy, Bobby aka the Rizza,
13:42
Speaker 1: he could vouch for the really bad shit. The cycle
13:45
Speaker 1: of non success was a tough one to break. It
13:49
Speaker 1: was a cycle that had been spinning since the day
13:51
Speaker 1: guys like Dennis were born, a cycle of little opportunity
13:55
Speaker 1: and even less support, homes broken far beyond repair. There
14:00
Speaker 1: was a reason the projects in Staten Island were set
14:03
Speaker 1: up the way they were. They kept everyone inside like
14:06
Speaker 1: caged animals, and the only way out was to claw
14:10
Speaker 1: your way to something better. Sometimes that meant squeezing a trigger.
14:14
Speaker 1: And when the Riza formed Wu Tang Clan, those lies
14:17
Speaker 1: in that culture and that fight or flight mentality all
14:21
Speaker 1: became a part of the mythology the new thing they
14:25
Speaker 1: were creating. They rearranged the world as they knew it.
14:29
Speaker 1: Staten Island wasn't just Staten Island anymore. It was shall
14:32
Speaker 1: in a place that was partly true and partly made
14:36
Speaker 1: up the stuff that was one hundred percent true. All
14:40
Speaker 1: that happened long before Riza assembled Wu Tang, and long
14:43
Speaker 1: before Dennis became ghost Face Killer, the hip hop alter
14:46
Speaker 1: ego named after the villain from one of the clans
14:48
Speaker 1: cherished Kung Fu movies. It happened in the Stapleton Houses
14:52
Speaker 1: project on Staten Island in the seventies. Fifteen family members
14:56
Speaker 1: squeezed into a three bedroom apartment, four bodies to a mattress,
15:00
Speaker 1: cereal for breakfast in the morning after you picked the
15:03
Speaker 1: roaches out of the box, the sounds of the del
15:06
Speaker 1: Phonics and the Temptations on the radio to tuck you
15:08
Speaker 1: in at night. Dennis's father was gone, his mom was it.
15:13
Speaker 1: But mom was overwhelmed and she hit the bottle to coat.
15:17
Speaker 1: Dennis helped out however he could. As young as ten
15:20
Speaker 1: years old, he was lifting his two younger brothers, both
15:22
Speaker 1: stricken with MS, onto the toilet, all the while hoping
15:26
Speaker 1: the toilet paper rolls still had a few squares on it,
15:28
Speaker 1: and if it didn't, hoping that there was enough newspaper
15:31
Speaker 1: kicking around to make a half decent substitute. Let's face it,
15:35
Speaker 1: the newspaper didn't cut it, though, tore your ass up,
15:39
Speaker 1: and the easiest way to escape at all was to
15:41
Speaker 1: smoke your way out. Stapleton's hive of choice was weed
15:45
Speaker 1: dipped in angel dust and embalming fluid. Smoking quote unquote wet,
15:50
Speaker 1: or getting dusted, as it were called, produced a high
15:53
Speaker 1: that stretched out not just over time, but into time.
15:57
Speaker 1: The high was time, no past and no future when
16:02
Speaker 1: you were dusted, only a long drawn out now and
16:06
Speaker 1: now that takes forever to happen, so long that it
16:11
Speaker 1: doesn't even feel real. Your eyes bug out. You walk slow,
16:17
Speaker 1: but you stumble like you're drunk. Someone else has to
16:20
Speaker 1: steady you, but when they do so, their hand touches
16:24
Speaker 1: your arm, and suddenly your mind's racing a million miles
16:26
Speaker 1: an hour. You see and hear things that aren't there,
16:30
Speaker 1: people dead alive, and your piece of shit father, fuck off,
16:35
Speaker 1: some hot young thing from around the way, some baby,
16:39
Speaker 1: a cop and playing close. Damn. They're all looking at you.
16:43
Speaker 1: They talk to you, and you talk back to them,
16:46
Speaker 1: It's all totally normal. Everything is Every choice makes perfect sense.
16:52
Speaker 1: And whip out your dick and piss inside of a
16:54
Speaker 1: subway car, strip your clothes of, flip it razorbly between
16:58
Speaker 1: your fingers like it's a casino chip, try to lift
17:01
Speaker 1: the car into the air, or point a pistol at
17:03
Speaker 1: an old lady's house and shoot. Nineteen ninety two, Staten Island,
17:12
Speaker 1: park Hill ghost Face Killo was dusted a house in
17:16
Speaker 1: front of him. Wasn't in his neighborhood in Stapleton. He
17:19
Speaker 1: was standing in rival territory, a gun in his hand.
17:24
Speaker 1: His mind raced with memories, older memories like the years
17:28
Speaker 1: he took care of his brothers, years spent crammed inside
17:31
Speaker 1: of an apartment with extended family, more recent memories like
17:35
Speaker 1: getting clipped in Steubenville, nearly a casualty of whatever the
17:39
Speaker 1: hell was going on there. As clear as that particular
17:42
Speaker 1: memory was, however, and as much as he didn't want
17:44
Speaker 1: to replay that incident, Ghosts's mind was not in a
17:48
Speaker 1: good place. It was warped by PCP. To that warped mind,
17:53
Speaker 1: what he was about to do made complete sense to him.
17:56
Speaker 1: He was going to shoot up the house that belonged
17:59
Speaker 1: to a mother who it was the same age as
18:01
Speaker 1: his own mom. It wasn't the mother he was after,
18:04
Speaker 1: it was their son. Dude was hiding out inside after
18:07
Speaker 1: getting into it with Ghost's friend over a drug deal
18:10
Speaker 1: gone bad that had put that friend in jail. This
18:14
Speaker 1: was revenge, This was payback. His motions were slow, but deliberate.
18:21
Speaker 1: He raised the piece, took game and fired bullets ricocheted
18:25
Speaker 1: off brick and pierced glass to ghost face. The whole
18:28
Speaker 1: thing felt like an hour. In reality, it was quick work.
18:32
Speaker 1: Just a few seconds and he was tearing ass down
18:34
Speaker 1: the street in a car. He should have known the
18:36
Speaker 1: dust head vigilantes don't go unpunished. An eye for an
18:40
Speaker 1: eye and all that. And the other guy, the guy
18:43
Speaker 1: Ghost had tried and failed to shoot, didn't wait long
18:46
Speaker 1: to exact his revenge. He drove over to Stapleton that
18:49
Speaker 1: same day, the ghosts his mom's house and pumped it
18:53
Speaker 1: full of bullets. Putting your own mother in danger has
18:56
Speaker 1: a way of putting everything in perspective. Once the angels
19:00
Speaker 1: wore off. That is, Luckily, no one was hurt at
19:05
Speaker 1: either house, but the thought of his mother under fire
19:08
Speaker 1: ate at him. From the inside, and there was more.
19:11
Speaker 1: The guy the ghost went after the guy who emptied
19:14
Speaker 1: a clip into his mom's house. That guy was super
19:17
Speaker 1: tight with Corey Woods aka Raykuon the Chef, and Rayquon
19:22
Speaker 1: was alongside ghost Face, a founding member of the newly
19:25
Speaker 1: assembled Wu Tang clan. Whatever this dispute was, it ended
19:31
Speaker 1: now time to put away childish things, time to grow up.
19:36
Speaker 1: Rizza wasn't just forming a band, he was brokering peace.
19:40
Speaker 1: Wu Tang was intended to legitimize all nine guys trade
19:44
Speaker 1: in the street hustle for a music industry hustle. But
19:47
Speaker 1: it wasn't that simple. They didn't make millions overnight. Rayquon,
19:52
Speaker 1: a method man, continued to deal for a little while
19:54
Speaker 1: at the beginning, and Ghosts continued to be an ambassador
19:57
Speaker 1: for the culture that continued to fuel many of his
20:00
Speaker 1: I'm obsessed rhymes. He understood that culture. How it feels
20:04
Speaker 1: to be left for dead, underestimated, offending for yourself. The
20:09
Speaker 1: very word culture has major significance. Culture is the fourth
20:13
Speaker 1: supreme number, as in supreme mathematics, the building blocks of
20:17
Speaker 1: the five percent nation aka the Nation of Gods and Earths.
20:22
Speaker 1: One you do the knowledge, Two, you act upon what
20:26
Speaker 1: you know, three you understand it, and then four you
20:31
Speaker 1: live in the culture, the way of life, but not
20:34
Speaker 1: the way of life that you're familiar with. This is
20:37
Speaker 1: a better way of life, a better culture, one that
20:40
Speaker 1: you can only grasp once you are seeing clearly. That
20:44
Speaker 1: kind of culture is freedom. Freedom is what everyone wants.
20:51
Speaker 1: Freedom from harassment, freedom from repression, freedom from bad cycles
20:56
Speaker 1: and worse circumstances, but most of all, freedom from the past.
21:08
Speaker 1: We'll be right back after this. We're, we're, we're. One
21:15
Speaker 1: of the inmates down the hall was freaking out. You
21:18
Speaker 1: didn't actually have to see him to know. He was
21:20
Speaker 1: on the floor, arms smacking against the concrete, a demonic
21:24
Speaker 1: wheeze coming from his chest. Seizure or asthma attack, hard
21:28
Speaker 1: to tell which. The CEOs didn't pay any mind one
21:32
Speaker 1: way or the other. The CEOs worked double shifts and
21:35
Speaker 1: gave zero fox. They walked on by every time, and
21:39
Speaker 1: they did what they wanted, And what they wanted was simple.
21:42
Speaker 1: Make life for inmates at Riker's Island a living hell.
21:46
Speaker 1: A CEO wouldn't think twice about tossing tear gas in
21:49
Speaker 1: your face or tossing your ass in solitary or just
21:52
Speaker 1: denying you your basic rights as a human. No water,
21:56
Speaker 1: no showers, no phone calls, no food, and for ghost Face,
22:01
Speaker 1: no insulin. It was early nineteen ninety eight, January or February.
22:07
Speaker 1: Ghosts had lost track of time. He was days or
22:10
Speaker 1: weeks into his four month sentence for the alleged attempted
22:13
Speaker 1: robbery outside the Palladium. His diabetes was worse now than
22:17
Speaker 1: it had ever been, and the CEOs could care less.
22:21
Speaker 1: They denied him anything that would make his life easier.
22:23
Speaker 1: They denied him as insolent without insulin to manage his
22:27
Speaker 1: blood sugar levels, every hour was harder than the one before.
22:31
Speaker 1: He became disoriented. His cell seemed to spin violently and
22:35
Speaker 1: spun all around him. He was nauseous. A headache raged
22:39
Speaker 1: between his eyes, bore down on him like a dark cloud,
22:43
Speaker 1: and he dropped to his knees. He fell over and
22:46
Speaker 1: steadied himself with his hands, and they tingled, and then
22:49
Speaker 1: he was down, lying still on the cold, slimy concrete
22:53
Speaker 1: of his cell floor. He closed his eyes. The bare
22:57
Speaker 1: floor of the Riker's prison cell was gone. In its
23:01
Speaker 1: place was the bare dirt floor of a village hut
23:04
Speaker 1: West Africa, the country of Benin, to be precise, where
23:09
Speaker 1: voodoo is the state religion. He was here once months
23:13
Speaker 1: ago in real life, looking for an alternative to Western medicine,
23:18
Speaker 1: a cure for his diabetes that didn't involve sticking himself
23:21
Speaker 1: with a needle every day. And now he was here again.
23:25
Speaker 1: Inside his own mind, he saw candle, wax and palm oil,
23:30
Speaker 1: the blood of a goat, and the feathers of a chicken.
23:33
Speaker 1: A group of women assembled in a street, white robes,
23:36
Speaker 1: voices in perfect harmony. The women beat out a rhythm
23:40
Speaker 1: on their chests, and the rhythm grew faster. Someone screamed.
23:44
Speaker 1: A figure draped in black and possibly tall as tall
23:47
Speaker 1: as three men standing on top of each other's shoulders,
23:50
Speaker 1: burst through the dust that hung in the air. Bad
23:53
Speaker 1: spirits make haste. He suddenly tasted gin in his mouth.
23:57
Speaker 1: Don't swallow it, it's fire. Water. Bit at once, twice,
24:01
Speaker 1: three times is the ritual. Now, pray for help, Pray
24:05
Speaker 1: for healing. His body shook beads rattled into distance. Men
24:10
Speaker 1: in multicolored mass lurked behind him. More blood, more feathers,
24:14
Speaker 1: dehydrated skulls of monkeys and stray cats, and the voices
24:18
Speaker 1: of women became louder, faster. Out of sink, another spray
24:22
Speaker 1: of firewater, another scream, and then ghost Face woke with
24:27
Speaker 1: the urgent need to piss. His temples were throbbing, and
24:31
Speaker 1: there was a drum in his head. The rhythm was
24:33
Speaker 1: strong and loud, not unlike the rhythms the riz sampled
24:36
Speaker 1: on his ASR ten, not unlike the rhythms of ritual
24:40
Speaker 1: and Benin. Voodoo wasn't a cure all Ghosts found no
24:44
Speaker 1: magic wand in West Africa for his ailments, but he
24:47
Speaker 1: did find a simpler way of life there in Benin.
24:51
Speaker 1: No one cared about the label on your shirt or
24:53
Speaker 1: the brand of your shoes. It was the same here
24:55
Speaker 1: at Riker's. In prison, life was reduced to its most
25:00
Speaker 1: a mental state. Some guys fought to survive, others told stories.
25:05
Speaker 1: Ghosts knew he had a hold on just a few
25:08
Speaker 1: months longer. He was strong, he'd been through worse, and
25:12
Speaker 1: he could sweat it out. Busy and nauseous, the headaches
25:16
Speaker 1: giving him fever, dreams and tunnel vision, as long as
25:19
Speaker 1: there was a light at the end of that tunnel.
25:21
Speaker 1: He just wasn't prepared for what was on the other side.
25:48
Speaker 1: November twenty, nineteen ninety seven, Steubenville, Ohio, Greer Montgomery aka
25:55
Speaker 1: Wise God Allah, manager of the local hip hop group
25:58
Speaker 1: Kill Army, walk briskly along Logan Street on his way
26:02
Speaker 1: to a recording studio. A party was raging at number
26:05
Speaker 1: six thirty five. Nine members of the Steubenville Cryps stood outside.
26:10
Speaker 1: The crips weren't down with Wise God. They all suspected
26:13
Speaker 1: he was a blood. Whether or not he actually was
26:16
Speaker 1: wasn't important. They thought he was, so that was that
26:20
Speaker 1: he was a sworn rival. One crip in particular blame
26:24
Speaker 1: Wise God for robbing his mom. Still, the nine dudes
26:27
Speaker 1: didn't make a move. They just stood there. As Wise
26:30
Speaker 1: God made his way. They all gave him a look.
26:33
Speaker 1: It was a look that said keep walking, So he did.
26:37
Speaker 1: But as he walked, he lifted his shirt to display
26:39
Speaker 1: the three fifty seven concealed there. All nine crips immediately
26:43
Speaker 1: drew their weapons. Wise God went from a stroll to
26:46
Speaker 1: a sprint. The still of the night was shattered by
26:50
Speaker 1: an octet of steel and smoke, the sound of nine
26:52
Speaker 1: guns firing off multiple rounds, and for a few seconds,
26:56
Speaker 1: Wise God dodged the ridiculous hail of bullets. All the
27:00
Speaker 1: crips unloaded over sixty rounds. Most of them missed their target,
27:04
Speaker 1: but it only takes one shot. Wise God was hit
27:07
Speaker 1: once in the head. His body fell to the ground
27:11
Speaker 1: dead on impact. Months later, Ghosts Face Killa completed his
27:17
Speaker 1: sentence at Riker's Island and walked out the front door.
27:19
Speaker 1: Free man, as free as a man on probation can be.
27:24
Speaker 1: He came out right. He had managed to keep his
27:27
Speaker 1: nose clean on the inside. The only fight he had
27:29
Speaker 1: at Rikers was with his own body, and now he
27:32
Speaker 1: planned to take control of that fight on the outside.
27:35
Speaker 1: No drinking and no smoking maybe to start, though, less
27:40
Speaker 1: drinking and less smoking. For now, less was something. Less
27:44
Speaker 1: made him feel better. Less headaches, less dizzy spells, less
27:49
Speaker 1: of the petty shit that consumed everyone on a daily basis.
27:53
Speaker 1: He thought about the people he met in West Africa.
27:56
Speaker 1: They had less, but they seemed happier with less. Less.
28:00
Speaker 1: Him focused the arrest in Harlem, the thing at the Palladium,
28:04
Speaker 1: his time in prison. None of that was going to
28:07
Speaker 1: cling to him like an albatross. But yet he held
28:09
Speaker 1: onto these experiences and they made him tough like an
28:12
Speaker 1: Elephant Tusk. They were fuel and this new stuff, the
28:16
Speaker 1: second solo album he was cooking out, the follow up
28:19
Speaker 1: to Ironman, that was going to be killer, the kind
28:22
Speaker 1: of record that ups everyone's game. Ghost Face Wu Tang
28:27
Speaker 1: All boats lifted by the rising tide that flowed from
28:30
Speaker 1: the mouth of Hell. Ghost face sophomore album, Supreme Clientele,
28:35
Speaker 1: was another instant classic and a small group of solo
28:38
Speaker 1: Wu Tang efforts like Ray Kuon's only built for Cuban
28:42
Speaker 1: links and old dirty Bastards returned to the thirty six
28:45
Speaker 1: chambers when it was finally released two years after Ghosts
28:48
Speaker 1: left Rikers. It was the year two thousand. Wu Tang
28:52
Speaker 1: was busy cooking up their third record, and more than
28:55
Speaker 1: just music, Wu Tang was building a brand. They were
28:59
Speaker 1: more than a hip hop group, They were a business.
29:02
Speaker 1: Their clothing line Wuwear was grossing millions of dollars a
29:06
Speaker 1: year and outfitting their eclectic demographic with that now iconic
29:10
Speaker 1: yellow W symbol. By this point, however, in the year
29:15
Speaker 1: two thousand, it wasn't just hip hop heads and parole
29:18
Speaker 1: officers who were keeping tabs on Ghost Face and Wu
29:21
Speaker 1: Tang clan. Not everyone looked at Wu Tang and saw
29:24
Speaker 1: a legitimate business that was making good on the promise
29:27
Speaker 1: of the American Dream, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.
29:32
Speaker 1: The ATF saw in Wu Tang affront for corruption, dirty
29:37
Speaker 1: money laundered through album sales and concert tickets and clothing lines.
29:41
Speaker 1: The ATF poured through Wu Tang's past transgressions with a
29:45
Speaker 1: fine tooth comb. Most of these guys had records. I'm
29:49
Speaker 1: not talking albums, I'm talking criminal rap sheets. Some of them,
29:52
Speaker 1: like Ghosts, had even done time. And then there was
29:56
Speaker 1: this thing with guns. Guns were everywhere that unlicensed three
30:01
Speaker 1: fifty seven magnum behind Ghosts's glove box. DATF turned back
30:05
Speaker 1: the clock to nineteen ninety one Steubenville. Dennis Coles aka
30:11
Speaker 1: ghost Face Killer gets shot. Bobby Diggs aka The Rizza,
30:15
Speaker 1: goes on trial. They both leave, but part of them stays.
30:20
Speaker 1: The ATF drew a line from ghost to The Rizza
30:22
Speaker 1: to Wise God Allah, the manager of the hip hop
30:25
Speaker 1: group Kill Army, who was gunned down by members of
30:27
Speaker 1: the Crips in nineteen ninety seven. The ATF knew that
30:30
Speaker 1: Rizzo was a known associate of Wise God Hence it
30:34
Speaker 1: wasn't a stretch to think that Rizzo was also known
30:36
Speaker 1: to the Steubenville Bloods, of which Wise god was a
30:40
Speaker 1: rumored member, and it wasn't just Steubenville. One month after
30:44
Speaker 1: Wise god Allah was shot dead, on December thirtieth, nineteen
30:47
Speaker 1: ninety seven, a man named Robert Johnson was jumped by
30:51
Speaker 1: two masked men in the Saint George district of Staten Island.
30:54
Speaker 1: They shot him several times and left his mortal wounds
30:57
Speaker 1: bleeding out on the pavement. Robert Johnson was a known
31:00
Speaker 1: associate of a man named Darryl Hill aka Cappa Donna,
31:05
Speaker 1: a Staten Island native who once upon a time taught
31:08
Speaker 1: various Wu Tang clan members how to rhyme. This was
31:12
Speaker 1: way back in the day when Wu Tang formed cap
31:15
Speaker 1: happened to be serving his own stint at Rikers Island. Recently, however,
31:19
Speaker 1: he was welcomed into the clan's fold as an honorary member.
31:24
Speaker 1: The ATF were interested in how Ghost Face and the
31:27
Speaker 1: Riza and Cappadonna and the entire Wu Tang clan tied
31:30
Speaker 1: into the cases of Wise god Allah and Robert Johnson,
31:35
Speaker 1: not simply because they knew the departed. It wasn't a
31:38
Speaker 1: crime to know somebody. This was deeper than that. The
31:43
Speaker 1: ATF were interested first in the proximity of these two shootings.
31:48
Speaker 1: They happened a mere month apart, perhaps a coincidence that
31:51
Speaker 1: two men died violent deaths in two different cities, two
31:54
Speaker 1: men who just so happened to have ties to members
31:56
Speaker 1: of one organization, the organization in question being a hip
32:00
Speaker 1: hop group. The ATF were also interested in the police
32:04
Speaker 1: work conducted by detectives in Steubenville and Staten Island, specifically
32:08
Speaker 1: information collected about the weapons used in both crimes. It
32:13
Speaker 1: was determined that guns used in both shootings could be
32:16
Speaker 1: traced back to a single batch of guns that have
32:19
Speaker 1: been bought in Steubenville, a batch bought by known associates
32:23
Speaker 1: of Wu Tang Clan. It didn't take the ATF long
32:27
Speaker 1: to string their story together, and that story went like this,
32:31
Speaker 1: Wu Tang Clan, one of the biggest hip hop groups
32:33
Speaker 1: on the planet, were in reality hiring friends to purchase
32:37
Speaker 1: weapons in Ohio, which were then transported to New York,
32:41
Speaker 1: where the group used them for their own protection. To
32:45
Speaker 1: the ATF, Wu Tang Clan weren't just a collective of
32:48
Speaker 1: mcs and producers and artists. They were gun runners. I'm
32:53
Speaker 1: Jake Brennan in this episode of Disgraceland is to be continued.
33:12
Speaker 1: Disgraceland was created by Yours Truly and is produced in
33:15
Speaker 1: partnership with Double Elvis. Credits for this episode can be
33:18
Speaker 1: found on the show notes page at disgracelampod dot com.
33:22
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34:06
Speaker 1: bad man.