Latest / DISGRACELAND / Ol’ Dirty Bastard (Wu-Tang Clan Chapter 8): An Attempted Murder Rap, Bloodthirsty Rottweilers, and Self-Immolation

Transcript

Ol’ Dirty Bastard (Wu-Tang Clan Chapter 8): An Attempted Murder Rap, Bloodthirsty Rottweilers, and Self-Immolation · DISGRACELAND

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Disgraceland as a production of Double Elvis. The stories about
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: Wu Tang clan's Old Dirty Bastard are insane. He once
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: saved a four year old girl who was trapped under
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: a Ford Mustang. He took a limo with an MTV
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: news crew to collect his welfare check. He was charged
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: with attempted murder of an NYPD officer, chased by bloodthirsty
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: Rottwilders shot by men in sche masks. His fame led
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: to an addiction to cocaine, and that addiction led to
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: ten arrests in the span of a few months. He
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: was granted a weekend furlough from a rehab facility, but
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: went a wall and wound up on the lamb. As
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: his cousin the Rizza once said, there was no line
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: between life and art for Old Dirty Bastard, and though
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: his increasingly troubled life came to eclipse his art, ODB
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: did make great music. He was Wu Tang's secret weapon,
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: a blend of drunken old school R and B and
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: raw gonzo rap which had very little precedent in which
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: changed hip hop forever. Unlike that clip I played for
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: you at the top of the show that wasn't great music.
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: That was a preset loop for my melotron called aft
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: or Stern MK two. I played you that clip because
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: I can't afford the rights to you. Remind me by Usher,
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: why would I play you that specific slice of headstand
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: dance Cheese? Could I afford it? Because that was the
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: number one song in America on July eighteenth, two one,
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: and that was the day that Old Dirty Bastard was
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: sent to a maximum security state prison, where he was
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: brutally attacked, set on fire, and nearly died. On this episode,
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: a Ford Mustang Welfare Checks, Rot Wilder, Ski Masks Maximum
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: Security and Wu Tang Clan's Old Dirty Bastard. I'm Jake
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: Brennan in this this Disgraceland. Russell Jones, the man the
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: world knew as Old Dirty Bastard, sat at a table
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: in a small room, with his mother sitting to his
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: right and his lawyer to his left. On the table,
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: a cluster of media microphones was trained in his direction.
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: On the opposite side of the room, reporters stood next
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: to their video cameras, many of which were already rolling tape.
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: Dirty aka Russell here tried to look relaxed. He reclined
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: in his chair, his long sleeved shirt mostly unbuttoned and
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: his hair pulled back in braids. But Dirty was far
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: from relaxed. He scanned the room with an anxious glare
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: as his lawyer read from a prepared statement, as you
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: are well aware, a King's County grand jury voted yesterday
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: to exonerate Russell Jones of all wrongdoing in relation to
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: an incident alleged to have taken place on January fifteenth,
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: nineteen ninety nine. Clearly, the incident did not take place
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: as reported by members of the New York City Police Department.
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: Reporters raise their hands. One wanted to know was he
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: going to file a lawsuit? Yeah, man, he was gonna
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: sue the shit out of them. And another reporter asked,
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: was he scared? Was he scared? Would you be scared
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: if you were driving in your Chevy Tahoe just making
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: your way through Brownsville on your way to your aunt's house,
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: and an unmarked police car with two cops from NYPD
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: Street Crimes Unit, that's the stopping frisk unit with a
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: rock hard boner to eradicate guns from New York streets.
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: By the way, forces you to pull over for no
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: reason at all. The cops jump out of their car
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: with their weapons drawn, yelling at you like a couple
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: of psychos, And so you roll your wind down and say, yo, man,
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: don't shoot. It's just me, old, dirty bastard. And you
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: got your cell phone in your hand, not knowing that
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: that cell phone it's gotta come back to haunt you later.
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: Can you freak out even more because the cops are
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: walking slowly towards your car and you think, nah, you
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: know they're gonna shoot you, and you can't help but
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: think about Biggie and Tupac bull shot in the street
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: just like this, both dead. So you panic, your nerves
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: get the best of you. You hit the gas man, You
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: just fucking floor it in those two cars they do
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: start shooting. Blam blam blamp. Holy shit, eight bullets pierce
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: the back of your car. Your heart is racing. And
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: then those two cobs lie in their report and say
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: you shot at them first, that the cell phone you
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: held in your hand was not a cell phone but
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: a gun. And now your charge with attempted murder of
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: a police officer. Yeah, he's scared, He answered the reporter's
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: stupid question as succinctly as he could. I'm scared like
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: a motherfucker. For thirty years counting, he'd been getting scared.
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: It happened gradually. Those thirty years had built up to this,
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: to this strange place. He now found himself simultaneously one
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: of hip hop's biggest names and one of law enforcement's
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: biggest targets. His wild eyes and his fucked up teeth,
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: The way he jumped on the mic like a Gonzo Bismarqui,
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: half singing like a shit faced RMB cooner and half
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: rapping like the guy had been cooped up in a
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: basement for day. To Sami was fearless and to others
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: he was unhinged. But old dirty bastard was not Russell Jones.
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: Dirty was a character, a persona. Being dirty was Russell's job.
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: Dirty was a conduit for all the bad shit that
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: built up inside him. The five percenters taught you to
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: build as in add on to your life, as in
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: the eighth supreme number, that the more positive your build is,
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: the more negativity you can push out of your life.
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: But now, in nineteen ninety nine, despite Wu Tangne's phenomenal
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: success for Russell Jones, he was building in the wrong direction.
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: There was so much bad shit to deal with that
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: sometimes it felt like he'd be dirty forever back in
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: the day in the seventies, growing up in the Brooklyn Zoo,
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: it wasn't like this. Life back then was more stable.
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: Unlike any other member of Wu Tang. Both of Russell's
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: parents lived at home when he was young, and they
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: both worked, and they both loved music Marvin Otis, Aretha, Jimmy,
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: all kinds of R and B and rock and roll.
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: It provided a soundtrack to the Jones household. Russell, or
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: Rusty as he was known then Sang was his sister
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: to entertain party guests, and he made his own music
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: with his cousins Bobby Diggs and Gary Grice aka the
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: Rizza and the Jizza, respectively. But when they were watching
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: Kung Fu movies at the Deuce in Times Square, are
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: hustling apples at a fruit stand in Brooklyn, just like
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: Grizza and Jizza. Russell got himself a five percent name too,
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: as on Unique like a son unique. That's s n
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: because there was no father to his wild side. But
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: in the mid nineteen eighties, life as Russell knew it
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: changed his parents split up, the once stable Jones family
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: home wobbled on its foundation. Russell tried to find stability
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: in a new family by marrying his high school sweetheart,
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: but with three young children of their own and money
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: nearly non existent, they were forced to move into a
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: homeless shelter. Then Russell and Bobby started to hustle more
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: than just apples in nineteen ninety one, out in Steubenville, Ohio.
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: They thought they could pave a path out of poverty
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: by pedaling dope from New York than They were wrong.
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: Russell's tenure as a dealer was shorter than Bobby's. He
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: was pinched early on into their Midwest venture and returned
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: back East. But not long after that boondoggle, life as
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: Russell knew it changed once again, this time for the better.
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: He changed his name from Aeson unique to Old Dirty Bastard,
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: taken from a kung fu movie called Old Dirty. In
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: the Bastard, Old represented his love of old school music.
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: Dirty was a reflection of his raw gutter poetry, and
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: Bastard well, there remained no direct lineage for his style.
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: For Dirty and the other members of Wu Tang, the
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: group was meant to be a positive build a lifeline
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: thrown into the sea of despair. They were all drowning
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: in a way to get safely to a prosperous shore.
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: And in many ways it was but Wu Tang took
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: Russell Jones from the bush leagues to the majors. And
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: if you want to play in the majors, you do
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: what the All Stars do, not forties of old English,
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: by the way, which was Russell's in toxic and rechoice
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: up to this point. All stars did cocaine. Cocaine separated
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: the men from the boys, Richard Pryor and Rick James.
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: They did cocaine, and that sacred powder which inspired the
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: creative minds of many a genius. Cocaine was meant to
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: make Russell free to unlock the deepest pockets of his
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: creative wealth. Instead, it was a lightning rod for all
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: the bad shit. Russell doing blow was like Russell looking
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: in the mirror and saying old, dirty bastard three times.
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: Sometimes it made him paranoid, other times it made him
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: hyper aware people really were after him. The hardest thing
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: was telling the difference between the two. November sixteenth, nineteen
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: ninety four, Brooklyn Late Dirty looked over his shoulder as
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: he walked down the street alone. The car behind him
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: had been following him for a few blocks. He didn't
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: know who was bound the wheel, and he didn't want
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: to know. He just wanted to get away. To break free,
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: he darted into the backyard of a house nearby and hid.
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: He kept very still, and the car idled for a moment,
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: and then the engine rumbled and it drove off. Thank god,
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: that was over. Then he heard another low rumble, this
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: one coming from just feet away. Three rotwilders stepped out
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: of the shadows, teeth bared, saliva dripping, dirty, was shaking.
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: He spotted a doggy door at the base of the
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: house's back door, and, in his altered and panic stayed
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: of mind, he surmised that if he could only make
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: it inside the house through that doggy door, then he
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: could get himself to safety. He folded. He ran faster
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: than he'd ever run in his life, and the dogs
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: gave chase, and their jaws nifted his heels as he
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: dropped all fours and shuffled his way past the flap
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: and inside and the home. Zonner woken by the dog's
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: frantic barking shrieked his dirty barrel past her. She picked
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: up her phone and dialed nine one one while Dirty
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: bounded up her stairs to the second floor. Rottweiler's in
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: hot pursuit. Upstairs, He made it inside a room and
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: slammed the door shut behind him, and the dogs were
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: scratching at the door with their claws and ramming it
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: with their heads. And Dirty ran to the window and
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: threw open the sash. The cold of air rushed in.
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: He climbed to the window like he just climbed through
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: the doggy door and jumped. He landed on the lawn below,
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: and he could still hear the dogs, And then he
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: heard the sirens, the ones the homeowner had just called
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: blue lights. Getting closer was always something. If it wasn't
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: strange people in cars, it was dogs. And if it
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: wasn't dogs, it was cops. Everyone was after him. Everything
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: made him scared. Five years later, in nineteen ninety nine,
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: at the press conference where his lawyer announced that the
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: NYPD were dropping their attempted murder charge, Dirty sense of
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: fear and paranoia reached a fever. Pitch outang don't be
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: fucking with nobody, so don't fuck with us, He nervously
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: told the rum of reporters, and that goes for the FBI,
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: the CIA, and all y'all motherfuckers, stay off our backs.
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: February nineteen ninety eight, Brookline. The girl couldn't move. She
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: was pinned beneath the Ford Mustang, the engine running hot
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: against her skin. She smelled gasoline and thought she could
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: hear the sound of flames crackling. She was terrified. She
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: cried out for help. She could hear her mother somewhere nearby, screaming,
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: my baby, Where's my baby? And the girl was only
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: four years old. In just seconds prior, she was crossing
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: Fulton Street when the Mustang came out of nowhere fast.
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: She had no time to react, and the car hit
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: her straight on. She rolled up onto the Mustang's hood
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: and bounced off as if she were weightless. And it
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: all happened so quickly that she wasn't even sure how
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: she ended up like this, lying flat on the pavement,
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: and the hulk of burning steel that had just smashed
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: into her now crushing her like a buck. She didn't
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: know what to do, and she tried to wriggle free,
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: but it was useless. She cried some more, her heart
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: pounding in her throat, and the flames getting louder now
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: and the heat searing, And then she heard another voice,
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: come on, come on, we can lift this car. The
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: voice got closer, and soon she could see about a
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: dozen sets of hands gripping the car, pulling it into
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: the air, and the Mustang rose. She saw a bunch
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: of faces, one face in particular, the face of the
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: man who rallied a group of bystanders on the street
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: to save a four year old stranger seconds away from death.
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: And she knew who he was. Everyone in the neighborhood
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: knew him. He went by many names, both Cyrus, Dirt McGirt,
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: Big Baby, Jesus Aeson Unique, His mom called him rusty.
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: But to this little girl, he was a hero. The
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: story of how old Dirty bastard saved a girl trapped
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: under a car as the stuff of legend, but it
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: is also one hundred percent true. After all, as Dirty
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: himself wants to sinkly put it, wu tang is for
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: the children, and that random act of kindness wasn't so
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: random to Dirty's neighborhood. To most, he was already a
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: local hero. He was a hero because he didn't let
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: the success of Wu Tang go to his head. He
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: stayed humble and down to earth. He gave money to
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: strangers on the street. He paid for people's groceries at
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: the bodega if they were short on change. He bought
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: his mom a house and gave his dad money for
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: a down payment. Yet despite all that, not everyone saw
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: him as a positive force. In nineteen ninety four, ODB
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: became the most famous abuser of the welfare system at
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: a time when US President Bill Clinton was pushing for
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: massive welfare reform. After Dirty received a forty five thousand
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: dollars advance from Electra Records for his first solo album,
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: Return to the thirty six Chambers, the Dirty version, Dirty
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: had an MTV crew follow him as he took a
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: limo to pick up and cash his three hundred and
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: seventy five dollars welfare check. The loophole, of course, was
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: that he had yet to file his taxes and was
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: still collecting welfare based on pre fame income. You know
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: how hard it is for people to live with nothing,
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: Dirty ass during the MTV news segment, You owe me
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: forty acres and a mule anyway, for real, I'm in
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: this rap game to get money. I got babies. It's
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: time to take care of my baby. I didn't think
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: it would work, but it worked and we got food stamps.
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: Slick Willie Bubba. Bill Clinton called for welfare overhaul, but
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: Dirty was slicker. He used his welfare card as the
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: cover art of his solo debut, which sold eighty one
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: thousand copies in its first week and peaked at number
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: seven on the Billboard two hundred. My Man's Living It
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: was a told Rolling Stone Magazine when asked about the
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: realness of his cousin, There's no line between art and
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: life for him. But soon the art took a back
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: seat to the life. At first, the arrests were a
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: minor but plentiful petty larceny bar fights. Then in nineteen
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: ninety eight, the same year he saved the four year
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: old girl, he was charged with second degree harassment of
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: his wife, endangering the welfare of their children, and failing
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: to pay child support. He threatened to kill members of
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: security at the House of Blues in la after he
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: caused a disturbance and was asked to leave, and the
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: next year, in nineteen ninety he was pulled over and
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: his range rover arrested for three vials of crack, and
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: two months later deja vu, another traffic stop, another stash
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: of crack seized by police, and two months after that
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: he was stopped again after he ran a red light
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: in a red convertible Mercedes. Cop searched the car, finding
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: twenty Glassian envelopes with more than five hundred milligrams of
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: cocaine powder possession with intent to sell. These are merely
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: a few examples of his many transgressions. All in all,
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: Dirty was arrested ten times in the span of a
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: few months. In November of nineteen ninety nine, he was
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: sentenced for crimes he committed in California, which included the
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: House of Blues incident, as well as for wearing a
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: bulletproof vest, which under California law, was illegal for quote
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: unquote violent felons. He got three years probation, a five
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: hundred dollars fine, and twelve months in rehabb Dirty's illegal
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: extracurricular activities cut into his time with Wu Tang, and
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: when the group's third album, The w dropped in two thousand,
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: dB was featured on just one song. He did manage
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: to appear at a Wu Tang show in New York
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: City that same year, thanks to a weekend furlough granted
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: by his California rehab facility. The show is a big deal.
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: It was the first time in three years that all
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: members of Wu Tang had appeared on stage together. Who
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: Rizza made sure the crowd knew what they were seeing history,
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: but even historical moments such as those were fleeting. As
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: soon as the show ended, the group splintered apart yet again. Dirty, however,
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: didn't go where he was supposed to. He didn't honor
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: the terms of his furlough and head back to California
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: and back to rehab. Instead. O dB went a wall.
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: He walked right out of the Hammerstein Ballroom, right past security,
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: pasted NYPD, passed the minders from out West who were
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: supposed to be monitoring him. Dirty was gone from Manhattan.
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: He went to the Bronx, and from the Bronx he
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: went to Jersey, from a safe house in Willamborough to
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: a home in Florence reebling on the pencil Mania borders,
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: surrounded by trees, where bird song was carried on the wind.
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: It was peaceful. The Dirty couldn't chill not even here,
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: not even out in the woods. He thought about the
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: people who were surely looking for him, cops, doctors. He
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: thought about other times when he thought he was safe,
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: like that time just a year ago, when he was
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: violently woken up from a deep sleep by men in
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: ski masks who had broken into the house he was
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: staying in. They shoved a gun in his face and
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: took his jewelry, and then they shot him point blank.
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: He could still see their eyes peering out from the
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: holes in the mass. But it wasn't just their eyes.
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: He had the eyes of the whole world on him,
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: bearing down like a two ton Ford Mustang, crushing him,
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: searing into his flesh, into his very soul. If it
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: wasn't strangers in cars or thieves with ski masks, or
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: dogs or cops, it was trees, the fucking trees. So
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: he went back on the road, not with Wu Tang,
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: but with some friends who were picking up a car
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: across the Delaware in Philly. The city made him more
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: nervous than he expected. His senses were heightened, especially his
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: sense of danger. As soon as they got there, he
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: regretted it. He wanted to be back in the middle
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: of nowhere back in the New Jersey boonies. His friend said, nah, man,
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: you wanted to come with, you gotta wait for us
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: to do our thing. But Dirty was insistent. Something was off.
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: Philly wasn't right. They had to go back now, so
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: they did. They were almost to the Walt Whitman Bridge
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: when Dirty told him to stop the car. He had
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: to piss and couldn't wait, and they pulled over at
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: a McDonald's and Dirty went inside. Hit the head, came out,
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: stomach rumbling. Filet of fish sounded real good right about now.
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: He looked up at the menu and he lingered for
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: too long. Oh shit, is that old, dirty bastard? Fuck?
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: Some kitten lied made him. But this wasn't the neighborhood
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: in Brooklyn where Dirty was a hero. This was Philadelphia, Pennsylvania,
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: where he was a fugitive. So time to go, Get
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: in the car, get across the bridge, hide out with
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: the birds in the trees. But Dirty wasn't fast enough. Philadelphia,
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: PD was faster. They rolled up two cars, blocking the
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: car Dirty was in before it could even leave the
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: parking lot, and he couldn't move. He needed someone to
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: come along and save him, like he had saved that
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: little girl, but no one was coming. It was Dirty
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: against the world. Then the world was winning. We'll be
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: right back after this. We're were were. There wasn't much
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: that the Rizza wouldn't do for his cousin, Old Dirty Bastard.
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: From the jump. They had a special bond. They cut
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: school to catch kung flu flicks at the deuce. They
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: stood look out for each other while applying a five finger.
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: Discounted stories on Staten Island, and they beat boxed and
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: rhyme on mixed tapes along with their other cousin, the
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: Jizza from Brooklyn to Steubenville to Shoolin, from the humiliating
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: depths of poverty to the upper echelons of popular culture.
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: Dirty scared some people, but Rizza knew the dude was
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: just eccentric. Rizza loved Dirty like a brother. Rizza had
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: Dirty's back. So when Dirty called Rizza from a prison
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: and said, Yo, man, you gotta come up here. They're
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: gonna kill me. Man, you gotta come up here now
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: and break me out of this place, Rizza seriously contemplated
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: it for a moment. For real, Rizza played out a
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: jail break in his mind. The inns the outs, the
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: what ifs. Of course, it was a crazy idea, a
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: stupid idea. Rizza put that kind of criminal behavior behind
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: him long ago, but he could hear pure fear and
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: desperation in Dirty's voice. From the fear was as raw
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: as Dirty's abid in his mind when he held a mic,
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: Rizza wanted to help somehow, so he brought attention to
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: Dirty's plate with a note on Wu Tang's website. The
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: note read, old Dirty Bastard fears his life is in
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: jeopardy and that a conspiracy is an effect to kill him.
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: These concerns have been presented to the DA and prison
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: officials have been alerted to the threat to his life.
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: None of these state officials have given any regard to
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: this matter. If something happens while ODB is in the
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: custody of these officials, his family, his thirteen children in
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: Wu Tang will seek full retribution in a civil resolution.
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: It was the summer of two thousand and one. Dirty
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: was in Dana Mora aka Clinton Correctional Facility aka Little Siberia,
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: so named for the prison's cold and remote location, some
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: three hundred miles north of the city. Little Siberia was
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: old Dirty Bastard's new maximum security home for the next
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: two to four years. Two to four was better than eight,
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: which is the number of years he originally faced for
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: his laundry list of offenses, including the twenty glassian envelopes
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: of coke he was busted with after he was nabbed
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: in Philadelphia. While on the lamb from rehab, Dirty copped
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: the plea deal and got a red do sentence. Like
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: a number though would make a difference, two four eight
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: hidden matter. He knew he'd be lucky to last one
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: year in this place. Little Siberia was no safer than
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: life on the outside. It was more of the same,
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: more paranoia, more terror, but now just concentrate him. Dirty
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: was that rare breed of in me, not just the target.
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: He was a hip hop megastar who thought he was
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: actually a thug, an art imitates life kind of dude,
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: and that was fucking rich, just as rich as he was.
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: Look at this welfare I want to be fuck mugging
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: for the cameras while collecting a state check and a
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: stretch job. He didn't know the first thing about thug life,
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: real thug life. Little Siberia would show him Little Siberia
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: was hell. Little Siberia was worse than hell. This was
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: worse than getting shot at by the NYPD, worse than
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: getting clipped by crazy fuckers and ski masks or chase
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: by bloodthirst Rottwilder's Dana Moore wanted what Dirty had money
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: clout fame. Every harden inmate wanted to be the one
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: who out crazied Wu Tang's craziest member, the one who
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: put him in his smirking punk ass in his place.
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: And the attacks were routine, and they were violent and quick.
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: The guards turned a blind eye, paid off for simply
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: beyond caring. One it made smashed Dirty's face bloody with
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: a telephone receiver. Some other dudes pounced on him when
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: he wasn't looking, fucked him up real good, and then
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: snapped his leg in half. And when he wasn't getting
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: beat down, he was getting threatened to get beat down.
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: And they told him about to close his eyes at
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: night because if he fell asleep, they were gonna set
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: his bunk on fire and burn him alive. Dirty was
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: terrified things were aspiraling out of control. He was at
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: the mercy of prison gangs, the most violent human beings.
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: He'd ever encountered in his life. Mercy wasn't even in
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: their lexicon. He needed to do something. If he was
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: going to survive, He needed to get himself as far
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: away from everyone else as he possibly could. He wouldn't
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: let them have the satisfaction he needed to take control.
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: So Old Dirty Bastard lit himself on fire. The stunt
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: got him immediately pulled from the general population, which was
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: exactly what he wanted. But this stunt classified him as
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: mentally unstable. Prison staff put him on Haldahl, an antipsychotic
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: medication used to treat schizophrenia, and he gained weight. He
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: had a hard time walking, and his movements were labored
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: and clunky, and his jaw clenched shot on its own.
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: He was catatonic, a shell of his former self wrapped
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: in an expanding husk. And when he was finally released
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: from prison after nearly two years on the inside, Old
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: Dirty Bastard had changed, and so too had the world.
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: May one, two thousand and three was the day Dirty
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: became a free man again. He'd spent eighteen months at
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: Little Siberia, followed by another three months at the Manhattan
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: Psychiatric Center, and now it was time to start over,
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: start fresh. It was time, as the five percent elders
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: would say, to work on his build. Let the positive
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: push out the negative. But he faced this challenge in
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: a city that no longer looked the same. The twin
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: Towers of the World Trade Center have been reduced to
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: rubble run. DMC's jam Master Jab been shot dead in
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: his studio in Queen's. The New York Police Department's Street
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: Crimes Unit, the one that accused Dirty of attempted murder
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety nine, had been dismantled, and Dirty's group
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: Wu Tang Clan had moved on without. In December of
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: two thousand and one, when Dirty was doing time at
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: Dana Mora, Wu Tang released their fourth studio album, Iron Flag.
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: It was the first Wu Tang record that didn't feature
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: Old Dirty Bastard at all. Also absent for the most
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: part was Cappadonna, who by this point was seen by
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: some the group as traitorists following his association with Michael Caruso,
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: the so called al capone of Ray's turned personal manager,
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: who had been secretly acting as an informant for the
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: federal government. Iron Flag, though received positively by many critics
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: and certified gold a little over a month after its release.
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: Did not do as well on the charts as previous
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: Wu Tang albums. It debuted at only number thirty two
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: on the Billboard, two hundred twenty seven spots lower than
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: the w had placed one year prior. Dirty wasn't worried
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: about the charts or about Wu Tang. Dirty was just
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: worried about himself, his build. Dirty needed to protect his neck.
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: He needed to make it. He'd already made it through
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: an extremely traumatizing nearly two year prison term, just barely,
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: but he did so in theory that man he could
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: make it through anything. Money helped. Money talked. Riza offered
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: up five hundred k a place to crash at the
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: studio to start making music again, but jay Z's label
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: talked louder. Rockefeller Records offered one million bucks for Dirty
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: to sign on the dotted line. In order to sign
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: with Rockefella, however, Dirty had to be let go of
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: his contractual obligations with Rizza and Wu Tang Productions. Rizzi
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: didn't want to let Dirty go. Rizzi didn't want to
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: let any of them go, but one by one, Ray
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: Meth Ghost deck You God Mask to Killa. They all
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: came to Rizza and asked to be set free, all
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: except Jizza, who did handshakes and not ink on paper.
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: But I digress. They didn't want out of the group.
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: Wu Tang was forever. Wu Tang would always be there,
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: and they would all come back to it, back to
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: shout in in one way or another, no matter how
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: big their egos got or how crazy their solo careers became.
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: What they wanted was to get out of their contracts,
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: the fifty to fifty contracts they'd signed with Rizza way
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: back in nineteen ninety three as part of Wu Tang's
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: groundbreaking deal with Loud Records. Rizza's brother and business partner, Divine,
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: really didn't want to let anyone walk. To Divine, this
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: wasn't a personal matter. Put your love in your back pocket,
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: he allegedly told ghost Face, this is business, and in
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: business terms, letting all these guys leave would go down
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: as the worst move in hip hop history. He didn't
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: just let forty million dollars waltz out the door, But
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: in the Rizza's eyes, it was personal. As he later explained,
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: he didn't think it was fair to keep his brothers
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: in bondage. If they wanted to be free, their freedom
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: meant more to him than the bottom line. Now, it
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: wasn't that simple and that beautiful. Rizza, of course, is
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: a brilliant businessman, as he is a brilliant producer at
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: MC and wrangler of personalities. Many Wu Tang members have
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: said that they had to fight Risa and Devine to
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: get free, and there's a sense that Rizza's Kumbayan narrative
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: was constructed after the fact. Regardless, though everyone got what
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: they wanted. They were free and Dirty even got his
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: rock a Feller deal. For fans, it seemed like it
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: was the beginning of the end, the dissolution of hip
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: hop's greatest dynasty. But non fans of the group, and
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: I'm talking specifically about the NYPD, the ATF, the FBI,
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: the collective of law enforcement agencies that have been trying
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: to mount reco prosecution against Wu Tang for years, they
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: all knew this wasn't the end. The law wasn't that nice.
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: They'd seen mafia families split to a part exactly like this.
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: It never stemmed the tide of crime. It merely made
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: more waves violent clashes for power that painted New York
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: streets with blood. Corruption begat more corruption. So the FBI
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: didn't let up their file on the WU tang got
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: larger and their list of CEO has got longer. They
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: kept watching, kept waiting, knowing that at any moment, something
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: would happen to blow their case wide open. I'm Jake
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: Brennan in this episode of Disgraceland is to be continued.
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: Disgraceland was created by Yours Truly and is produced in
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: partnership with Double Elvis. Credits for this episode can be
• 32:58
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• 33:02
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• 33:05
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• 33:19
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