Latest / DISGRACELAND / U-God (Wu-Tang Clan Chapter 7): Police Raids, Vengeance, and Mopping Floors at the Statue of Liberty

Transcript

U-God (Wu-Tang Clan Chapter 7): Police Raids, Vengeance, and Mopping Floors at the Statue of Liberty · DISGRACELAND

0:00
Speaker 1: Disgraceland as a production of Double Elvis. The stories about
0:21
Speaker 1: Wu Tang Clans, You God are insane. He was raised
0:25
Speaker 1: by the streets of Staten Island, where getting beaten up
0:28
Speaker 1: was a right of passage that made you stronger. He
0:31
Speaker 1: was busted for driving a stolen car and assaulting a
0:34
Speaker 1: police officer. He dealt crack and narrowly avoided a police
0:38
Speaker 1: raid on the apartment building he dealt from. He also
0:41
Speaker 1: dealt vengeance. He once broke a guy's jaw and came
0:45
Speaker 1: within seconds of killing a rival dope peddler. And when
0:49
Speaker 1: he finally put the violent life behind him, the ghosts
0:52
Speaker 1: of his past returned to remind him that the streets
0:55
Speaker 1: weren't done with him yet. At that point, of course,
0:59
Speaker 1: You God had moved moved on to make great music
1:01
Speaker 1: with Wu Tang Clan, some of the most defining music
1:05
Speaker 1: of the late nineteen nineties. Unlike that clip I played
1:08
Speaker 1: for you at the top of the show. That wasn't
1:11
Speaker 1: great music. That was a preset loop for my melotron
1:14
Speaker 1: called is This Thing on MK One? I played you
1:19
Speaker 1: that clip because I can't afford the rights to the
1:21
Speaker 1: sign by ace of Bass, And why would I play
1:25
Speaker 1: you that specific slice of ubiquitous europop cheese. Could I
1:30
Speaker 1: afford it? Because that was the number one song in
1:34
Speaker 1: America on March thirteenth, nineteen ninety four, And that was
1:38
Speaker 1: the day that you God's new life as a member
1:41
Speaker 1: of a wildly successful hip hop collective was shattered when
1:44
Speaker 1: a member of his own family was caught in the
1:47
Speaker 1: middle of a gunfighter on this episode rights of Passage,
1:52
Speaker 1: stolen cars, police raids, broken jaws, caught in the crossfire,
1:58
Speaker 1: and Wu Tang clans you got. I'm Jake Brennan and
2:04
Speaker 1: this this disgrace Land park Hill, Staten Island, nineteen seventy nine.
2:40
Speaker 1: He took the beating like he was eighteen years old,
2:43
Speaker 1: not eight. He knew it was coming. He couldn't outrun it,
2:47
Speaker 1: couldn't out smart it, and there was always a price
2:50
Speaker 1: to pay. And the older kids held him down and
2:53
Speaker 1: punched him in the chest until he felt like he
2:54
Speaker 1: couldn't breathe, and they wailed on his legs so long
2:57
Speaker 1: and so hard he could barely walk. The beatings were
3:00
Speaker 1: a punishment because Lamont Hawkins, the kid the world would
3:04
Speaker 1: later know as You Got, was a little punk who
3:07
Speaker 1: ran with other little punks who liked the perch on
3:10
Speaker 1: rooftops and chuck rocks at the older kids down on
3:12
Speaker 1: the street and so young you God aka Young Lamont
3:18
Speaker 1: Here learned real quick that if you dished it out,
3:21
Speaker 1: he had to be prepared to take it, so he did.
3:24
Speaker 1: He didn't cry, He didn't show them any weakness. He
3:27
Speaker 1: just took it. Every punch, every slap, every wedgie that
3:32
Speaker 1: left a shredded pair of hands in its wake. After
3:35
Speaker 1: a while, he didn't fear the beatings. They couldn't hurt
3:38
Speaker 1: him anymore. He was tough now. He could take a
3:41
Speaker 1: fist to the chest, to the leg or the face,
3:43
Speaker 1: and everyone knew it too, the young punks he ran with,
3:47
Speaker 1: the older kids who chased him. He had the respect
3:49
Speaker 1: of all of them. And when you had respect, you
3:53
Speaker 1: had a ref People don't fuck with someone with a
3:55
Speaker 1: rep His uncle taught him that, and the guys his
3:58
Speaker 1: uncle ran with taught him difference between getting beaten up
4:01
Speaker 1: and getting beatn down. One tuned you up a little
4:05
Speaker 1: bit and the other put you in the hospital. His
4:09
Speaker 1: uncle's friends served up beat downs, knives, guns, bricks, whatever
4:14
Speaker 1: it took. One of them robbed a guy on the
4:16
Speaker 1: street while Lamont, just nine years old, stood by and watched.
4:20
Speaker 1: And that guy who got robbed took a brick to
4:22
Speaker 1: his face. It happened fast, and that's how it worked.
4:26
Speaker 1: You were fast and you were safe. You were slow
4:30
Speaker 1: and you were fucked. His uncle's guy was fast as
4:33
Speaker 1: shit pow, and the other dude wabbled like a wet
4:35
Speaker 1: noodle and hit the ground with a thud. And they
4:37
Speaker 1: hit him again, and the bricks sliced open the guy's
4:40
Speaker 1: face and the blood gushed. One of his eyes rolled back,
4:43
Speaker 1: and they took what they wanted from money, jewelry, whatever
4:46
Speaker 1: they could find. He just lay there on the ground, twitching, moaning,
4:50
Speaker 1: looked like he was having a seizure. Blood and foam
4:53
Speaker 1: oozed from the corners of his mouth. Lamb watched it all.
4:58
Speaker 1: At first it was shot, but after witnessing a few
5:01
Speaker 1: of these beatdowns, it became normal. In his eyes. This
5:05
Speaker 1: is the way the world worked. Was it perfect? Far
5:08
Speaker 1: from it? But what was perfect? Back at home, nothing
5:13
Speaker 1: was perfect. Lamont's father was a ghost, and his mom
5:16
Speaker 1: did which he could to make ends meet, but they
5:19
Speaker 1: had nothing, and little punks like Lamont wanted something more
5:23
Speaker 1: than the bare minimum. The streets may out have been safe,
5:26
Speaker 1: but they did offer other possibilities. You just had to
5:29
Speaker 1: make your bones first, so you took beatings. You gave beatings,
5:34
Speaker 1: and you got stronger. You formed crews. Crews were power.
5:38
Speaker 1: Cruise made you stronger. First the Baby Bashed Crew, then
5:42
Speaker 1: the Dick and Down Crew in middle school, and later
5:45
Speaker 1: it was the reck Posse in high school. This world,
5:48
Speaker 1: these crews, they had a soundtrack, hip hop. It was
5:51
Speaker 1: everywhere from boombboxes to block parties, The Treacherous three, Grand Wizard, Theatore,
5:57
Speaker 1: and the Fantastic Five, the Coole Crush Brothers. Hip Hop
6:01
Speaker 1: was also the soundtrack of the streets which on Staten
6:04
Speaker 1: Island in the nineteen eighties were filled with crack dealers
6:07
Speaker 1: and crack users. You could either be one or the other.
6:11
Speaker 1: Into a kid like Lamont now a teenager, a teenager
6:14
Speaker 1: with a single mom struggling to hit the bills, a
6:17
Speaker 1: teenager living so far below the poverty line that would
6:19
Speaker 1: make the average middle class American looked like a Rockefeller.
6:22
Speaker 1: A teenager who had gotten tough and earned a rep.
6:25
Speaker 1: Selling crack was a no brainer. Crack sales made money
6:29
Speaker 1: hand over fist. Hundreds of thousands of dollars, all in
6:32
Speaker 1: an afternoon's work. So what if you were the conduit
6:35
Speaker 1: to put crack in someone else's hand? Overcoming questions of
6:38
Speaker 1: morality is really said to do when you're struggling simply
6:41
Speaker 1: to have nothing. The drug dealers had more than nothing,
6:45
Speaker 1: and they walked around with rolls of cash, and they
6:48
Speaker 1: drove shiny new cars, and they wore fresh new clothes,
6:51
Speaker 1: and they showed Mamont that he could have the same.
6:54
Speaker 1: So Lamont settled into selling crack as easily as he'd
6:57
Speaker 1: settled into taking beatings. The first time is the hardest.
7:03
Speaker 1: Standing in the gate, it has to say. On the
7:05
Speaker 1: other side of a door, the inside plunged into darkness.
7:09
Speaker 1: You've got bindles and vials at your fingertips, and there's
7:12
Speaker 1: a knock from outside. It's loud, anxious, someone's mumbling a
7:18
Speaker 1: crackhead in need of fix bad. The money comes through
7:21
Speaker 1: the slot and the door. The bills are crinkled, and
7:24
Speaker 1: damn they smell like shit. The fingers pushing them through
7:28
Speaker 1: the slot don't smell much better. You take the green
7:31
Speaker 1: and then send the vindal out through the slot, where
7:33
Speaker 1: those same fucking dirty fingers snatched that bindle like it's
7:36
Speaker 1: the most important thing on the face of the earth.
7:39
Speaker 1: And after that first time gets easier. There's another knock,
7:43
Speaker 1: another mumble, another pair of fingers shoving another roll of
7:46
Speaker 1: bills through the slot, and then more so many more.
7:51
Speaker 1: Staten Island's appetite for crack was constant tonight. The traffic
7:56
Speaker 1: at the door was endless, and the knocking was incessant. Knock, knock,
8:01
Speaker 1: cash through the slot, knock, knock, cash through the slot.
8:05
Speaker 1: Lamont could hardly keep up, so he sampled some of
8:08
Speaker 1: the product to take the edge off. He sliced open
8:11
Speaker 1: a filly, dumped the tobacco out, and replaced it with
8:14
Speaker 1: a mixture of weed and crack. But the wooly joint
8:17
Speaker 1: wasn't helping. In fact, it was making things worse. The
8:21
Speaker 1: sound of knocking and of cash sliding through the narrow
8:24
Speaker 1: slot banged around in his head. The rush just didn't
8:27
Speaker 1: stop rushing. His head spun. Something was off, something was wrong.
8:32
Speaker 1: Even for a busy night, this seemed a little too busy.
8:35
Speaker 1: Maybe it was just the dope talking, but suddenly Lamont
8:38
Speaker 1: felt the need to leave. He couldn't shake the suspicion
8:40
Speaker 1: that he was pushing his luck that something bad was
8:43
Speaker 1: about to happen, so he closed up shop for the night.
8:48
Speaker 1: Lamont walked out of the building and onto the street,
8:51
Speaker 1: and he pushed by clients past President in the future,
8:54
Speaker 1: and then he saw him standing right there, directly ahead
8:59
Speaker 1: cop NYPD drug squad, maybe T and T, he couldn't
9:03
Speaker 1: be sure. Lamont was sure though, that he was fucked,
9:07
Speaker 1: that he was a sitting duck, that he was stone,
9:09
Speaker 1: that he was stupid, that his pockets were lined with
9:12
Speaker 1: cash and dope. But the cop just yelled at him
9:15
Speaker 1: move out of the way. The more cops materialized directly
9:18
Speaker 1: behind this one and began to push forward together. What
9:21
Speaker 1: was happening. Move out of the way now. Lamont moved
9:24
Speaker 1: quickly to his side, and the cop led a group
9:27
Speaker 1: of NYPD officers straight up into the building that Laman
9:30
Speaker 1: had just been selling for him. Juan held a battering
9:32
Speaker 1: ram in his hands and he swung it forward and
9:35
Speaker 1: smashed through the door, and the sound was enormous. It
9:38
Speaker 1: wood splintered into pieces, but one more swing and the
9:41
Speaker 1: door busted wide open. Lamont watched as the cops stormed
9:45
Speaker 1: inside and began to grab whoever they could get their
9:47
Speaker 1: hands on, but they didn't get their hands on Lamont
9:50
Speaker 1: because the streets hadn't just made him stronger, they made
9:54
Speaker 1: him wiser the streets, though they weren't perfect, and they
9:59
Speaker 1: never would be. And just because he got away this
10:01
Speaker 1: time didn't mean there wouldn't be a next time. And
10:04
Speaker 1: there was always a next time, and there would always
10:07
Speaker 1: be a price to pay. Like a lot of kids
10:32
Speaker 1: growing up in the New York projects in the nineteen eighties,
10:35
Speaker 1: Lamont Hawkins liked what he heard when the older five
10:38
Speaker 1: percent dudes talked. They used words like peace, and they're
10:43
Speaker 1: all about building up, not tearing down. And they built ciphers,
10:47
Speaker 1: bonds and brotherhood, and they gave Lamont hope and promise,
10:52
Speaker 1: and they gave him his new name too. They called
10:55
Speaker 1: him you God. That's the letter you dash God, as
10:59
Speaker 1: in you are God or God is inside you, a
11:04
Speaker 1: reference to the five Percent Nations teachings that the original
11:08
Speaker 1: Man is the Asiatic black Man, the Maker, the owner,
11:11
Speaker 1: the cream of the planet Earth, the father of civilization,
11:14
Speaker 1: and God of the universe, to quote one of the
11:17
Speaker 1: answers to the Nations one and twenty lessons, that is
11:20
Speaker 1: but the letter you is also short for universal in
11:24
Speaker 1: other words, infinite or comprehensive, meaning that Lamon Hawkins aka
11:30
Speaker 1: Universal God, could accomplish anything he set out to do.
11:34
Speaker 1: He could hustle if he wanted to hustle, and he
11:36
Speaker 1: could rhyme if he wanted to rhyme. But right now, though,
11:41
Speaker 1: you God needed to find a way out, not out
11:45
Speaker 1: of the crack game. He did that once already. All
11:47
Speaker 1: it took was narrowly avoiding a police rate on the
11:50
Speaker 1: spot he was selling from a scare him off. But
11:52
Speaker 1: the legit job he took in its place at the
11:55
Speaker 1: Statue of Liberty with his guy Clifford Smith aka method Man,
11:59
Speaker 1: that was well, that was work, actual work, too much work.
12:05
Speaker 1: The small amount of money he got at the end
12:07
Speaker 1: of a long shift mopping floors and hauling trash didn't
12:10
Speaker 1: seem worth it. So two years later, now seventeen years old,
12:15
Speaker 1: you got ditched that legit ship and went back to
12:18
Speaker 1: hustling on the streets. And now he was wondering if
12:23
Speaker 1: the better money he was making slinging dope was worth
12:26
Speaker 1: all this, standing against a rented Ford Taurus, his hands
12:32
Speaker 1: on the hood five oher getting real friendly with the
12:35
Speaker 1: requisite pat down. His first mistake was getting pulled over.
12:40
Speaker 1: His second mistake was driving without a license, and his
12:44
Speaker 1: third mistake was driving a car that didn't belong to him.
12:48
Speaker 1: Turns out the Taurus had been reported stolen and was
12:52
Speaker 1: currently a vehicle of interest in a hit and run,
12:55
Speaker 1: which is why you God was out of the car
12:57
Speaker 1: getting searched by the police. Thankfully, he had no product
13:00
Speaker 1: on him at the moment, but he did have a
13:02
Speaker 1: set of brass knuckles in five grand in cash, and
13:06
Speaker 1: the cop foiled both and put them on top of
13:08
Speaker 1: the car. You God was fucked. He stared at the
13:12
Speaker 1: five g's. He couldn't afford to lose that money, and
13:15
Speaker 1: the cop would make that shit disappear. Like David Copperfield,
13:19
Speaker 1: he also couldn't afford to get arrested. He wasn't doing time,
13:23
Speaker 1: not now, not ever. You God found strength of his
13:27
Speaker 1: five percenter name. He was infinite. He could accomplish anything
13:31
Speaker 1: he set out to do, and right now he was
13:34
Speaker 1: going to do this. He grabbed the water cash from
13:37
Speaker 1: the hood of the Taurus and he ran. He tore
13:40
Speaker 1: ass across the basketball court b lined it towards the projects.
13:44
Speaker 1: The cop was stunned, but got a sprint on right away.
13:47
Speaker 1: Look at this pencil dick with a mustache and a
13:49
Speaker 1: two pack of day Habit, suddenly finding his inner Carl Lewis,
13:53
Speaker 1: and the gold rope chains around you God's neck were
13:55
Speaker 1: heavy and they wanted to sink him like a stone.
13:58
Speaker 1: Not today, though, Today the pair of guccies on his
14:01
Speaker 1: feet were going to carry him like the wind coming
14:03
Speaker 1: off of the Hudson. His chest burned and the air
14:06
Speaker 1: was iced to his lungs, but he wasn't gonna let
14:09
Speaker 1: them catch him. And there were two cops behind him
14:12
Speaker 1: now and two more were coming in hot right in
14:14
Speaker 1: front of him. Shit, the two in front had him cold.
14:18
Speaker 1: That was it lights out, So he juked to the
14:21
Speaker 1: left and then he spun hard to the right, and
14:24
Speaker 1: those keystone herbs bought it and fell to the ground
14:26
Speaker 1: trying to keep up, and he laughed. As he kept running.
14:29
Speaker 1: He felt the surge of adrenaline shoot through him like
14:31
Speaker 1: a spike to a vein, and found a higher gear.
14:34
Speaker 1: He was really moving now. He was the wind, he
14:37
Speaker 1: was the air, he was everything, and he was getting
14:40
Speaker 1: deeper into the projects where he could finally lose these
14:43
Speaker 1: jokers in the crowd, and his feet then tripped up,
14:46
Speaker 1: and then a flash were out in front of him.
14:48
Speaker 1: His face hit the pavement hard, and he looked back
14:51
Speaker 1: and some dude hanging out in the neighborhood had stuck
14:53
Speaker 1: his foot out and tripped You God on purpose. Who
14:56
Speaker 1: was this guy rooting for, anyway? Not the underdog, the
15:00
Speaker 1: guy who was now smothered by a litter of cops
15:02
Speaker 1: pigpiling on top of him, including the ones he'd left
15:05
Speaker 1: in the dust that fake out move. Those guys were
15:08
Speaker 1: especially pissed. They went full tyson. They beat You God
15:11
Speaker 1: with their fists, They kicked him with their feet. One
15:14
Speaker 1: went right for the mouth, sent his polished Oxford straight
15:17
Speaker 1: at You God's teeth. He knew the cops could knock
15:20
Speaker 1: every last tooth out of his head and get away
15:21
Speaker 1: with it until he put an arm up in defense,
15:24
Speaker 1: and the cops kept bashing away. By the time they
15:27
Speaker 1: brought him down to the station, You God was bruised
15:29
Speaker 1: and bloodied, relieved of his five thousand dollars too, charged
15:34
Speaker 1: with grand larceny an assault on a police officer. He
15:37
Speaker 1: beat the assault charge, though, but the other one stuck.
15:40
Speaker 1: He did a weekend in the Manhattan detention complex aka
15:43
Speaker 1: the Tombs, and got assigned one hundred and fifty hours
15:47
Speaker 1: of community service. But before giving back to the community,
15:52
Speaker 1: you God had some unfinished business to settle. That's stupid Taurus,
15:56
Speaker 1: more specifically, the stupid piece of shit who rented him
15:59
Speaker 1: the horse, not enterprise, not hurts. A dude from around
16:04
Speaker 1: the way, A dude who worked the streets just like you.
16:06
Speaker 1: God did you. God made finding that dude his first
16:09
Speaker 1: piece of business. When he got out, Yo, you got
16:12
Speaker 1: slipped his fingers through a pair of brass knuckles. You
16:15
Speaker 1: read to me a stolen car. Dude barely got two
16:18
Speaker 1: words out in response before you got connected those brass
16:20
Speaker 1: knuckles to the guy's face. Some float like a butterfly
16:24
Speaker 1: and sting like a bee. You got just bash the
16:27
Speaker 1: motherfucker and fast. If you blinked, you missed it. You
16:32
Speaker 1: got hurt. The guy's jaw split in half, his fist
16:35
Speaker 1: broke it in two. Dude would never disrespect him again.
16:40
Speaker 1: The violence flew in the face of all that peace
16:42
Speaker 1: talk amongst five percenters, but it was necessary. The game
16:46
Speaker 1: was changing. It wasn't just about making money anymore. Things
16:49
Speaker 1: would never stay that simple. It wasn't always going to
16:52
Speaker 1: be money and bindos back and forth through slots in
16:55
Speaker 1: a door. Now it was about respect and about protecting yourself.
17:00
Speaker 1: Park Hill had become kill a hill. Bodies dropped, lives
17:04
Speaker 1: were snuffed out. Guns trump grass knuckles, and when it
17:08
Speaker 1: came to guns, the bigger the better. Some Pansy asked
17:11
Speaker 1: piece like at twenty two, wasn't going to do shit
17:13
Speaker 1: for you? When you had a Tech nine or a
17:15
Speaker 1: Mac ten trained out of your skulp. The chrome is
17:17
Speaker 1: so shiny you could look at your own reflection looking
17:20
Speaker 1: back at you seconds before your brains get splattered all
17:22
Speaker 1: over the sidewalk, and hierarchies were always in flux. You
17:27
Speaker 1: climb up the proverbial ladder one day, and the next
17:29
Speaker 1: day you miss a wrong and fall down to the ground.
17:31
Speaker 1: Your chances were pretty good that things would wind up
17:34
Speaker 1: pretty bad. You got knew this. He knew even his
17:39
Speaker 1: fate was up in the air on any given day,
17:41
Speaker 1: and he was pretty far up that ladder at this point.
17:44
Speaker 1: But he wanted out. He wanted out more than he
17:47
Speaker 1: never wanted out before, more than the time he walked
17:50
Speaker 1: away from his drug dealing door minutes before the NYPV
17:53
Speaker 1: opened it up with a battering ram. He was a
17:56
Speaker 1: new father and he wanted to be there for his son,
17:58
Speaker 1: I like his own father before him. He talked about
18:03
Speaker 1: all this with his friend Bobby Diggs aka the Rizza
18:07
Speaker 1: on nights when You God went to Rizza's place, listened
18:10
Speaker 1: to music, made music, and dreamed up big plans. But
18:14
Speaker 1: walking away from dealing crack wasn't as easy as he
18:17
Speaker 1: used to be. He was the guy now one of
18:20
Speaker 1: the big dealers in kill a Hill. You hand your
18:22
Speaker 1: big dealer spot over to one of these smaller fries
18:25
Speaker 1: and then you turn your back and bam, who used
18:27
Speaker 1: to say, they're not going to put a bullet in
18:29
Speaker 1: the back of your head. Plus, Rizza's concept of a
18:33
Speaker 1: hip hop collective called Wu Tang Clan was in the
18:37
Speaker 1: very early nineties, still just a concept. It wasn't a
18:40
Speaker 1: viable alternative. So You God stayed the course. He stayed alert,
18:46
Speaker 1: He earned every ounce of respect given to him, and
18:49
Speaker 1: even if that meant more violence, and there would always
18:51
Speaker 1: be more violence, but especially after You God realized he'd
18:55
Speaker 1: then sold a bad batch. Not doing anything that the
18:59
Speaker 1: guy you tried to screw him with bad drugs wasn't
19:03
Speaker 1: an option. He was obligated to make that guy pay,
19:07
Speaker 1: just like the guy who rented him the stolen car.
19:09
Speaker 1: You God was infinite, comprehensive, capable of anything, even the
19:16
Speaker 1: thing he was about to do. We'll be right back
19:22
Speaker 1: after this. We're We're We're nineteen ninety one, New York City, uptown.
19:32
Speaker 1: The plan was simple. Find the guy who sold him
19:34
Speaker 1: the shitty crack, give the guy the bag of shitty crack,
19:38
Speaker 1: get his money back, and then pop the guy with
19:41
Speaker 1: the burner hidden it in his pocket, bing bang, boom pow.
19:47
Speaker 1: You God finds the guy real fast. He's right where
19:50
Speaker 1: you God left him, still slinging that pharmaceutical bullshit on
19:53
Speaker 1: the street. This is going to be easier than he thought. You.
19:56
Speaker 1: God pulls the pathlinder right up on the curve and
19:58
Speaker 1: hops out, Yo, that shit you sold me was garbage.
20:01
Speaker 1: You need to give him my money back now. Nah,
20:04
Speaker 1: The guy says, not true. He's backing up as you.
20:07
Speaker 1: God pushes on him, and then he starts to make
20:09
Speaker 1: some stupid excuse you. God doesn't want to hear it.
20:12
Speaker 1: The money now, asshole. Okay, the guy says, okay, man,
20:16
Speaker 1: just chill chill out man, and the guy can see you.
20:18
Speaker 1: God's coming unhinged, his eyes are bulging out of his head,
20:21
Speaker 1: and he's got a peace and he is clearly not
20:23
Speaker 1: fucking around. Dude also knows you God's badass rep and
20:27
Speaker 1: killer hill. Okay, the guy says again, always with the Okay,
20:30
Speaker 1: this fucking guy here, he says, chill out, Okay, chill out, Okay,
20:33
Speaker 1: let me go upstairs. Okay, grab the money for you. Okay,
20:36
Speaker 1: so you. God gets back in the pathfinder and waits,
20:39
Speaker 1: and as he waits, he thinks about how stupid this
20:41
Speaker 1: all is, rolling up here in broad daylight, strapped ready
20:44
Speaker 1: to murder a dude. He waits some more, and the
20:46
Speaker 1: guy's up there somewhere and in one of the apartment
20:48
Speaker 1: means you. God doesn't know which one you. God starts
20:50
Speaker 1: to feel like he's being fooled again. It's that same
20:53
Speaker 1: fucking feeling, that feeling of knowing that something else is
20:55
Speaker 1: going on, and that asshole didn't dirty not once, but twice.
20:58
Speaker 1: And then you got hears sigh irons and they're coming
21:01
Speaker 1: in fast, and within seconds the pathfinder is surrounded by
21:04
Speaker 1: blue lights. It's at that moment that you God realizes
21:07
Speaker 1: that motherfucker went up there back up to his motherfucking place,
21:10
Speaker 1: not to get money, but the call the cops. The
21:14
Speaker 1: NYPD wanted you God to snitch on other dealers in
21:17
Speaker 1: New York, part of the Tactical Narcotics Team Business or TNT,
21:22
Speaker 1: the cops master plan where they ensnared the little guys
21:25
Speaker 1: in order to get the bigger guys. But you God
21:28
Speaker 1: was no snitch. You God was a vault. They gave
21:31
Speaker 1: him one to three years, and he did time, first
21:34
Speaker 1: at a place called Manhattan House, and then Rikers Island
21:38
Speaker 1: and then a minimum security prison called Camp Gabriels. He
21:42
Speaker 1: took classes and attended meetings. Anger Management Narcotics Anonymous NA
21:48
Speaker 1: was strange at first because he wasn't a regular user
21:51
Speaker 1: and thus didn't think he belonged there. But he was
21:53
Speaker 1: an addict, and NA helped him see that he was
21:56
Speaker 1: addicted to the lifestyle, the status, and the money. When
22:01
Speaker 1: he was paroled eight months into his sentence, he left
22:03
Speaker 1: feeling like a new man, like he had a new
22:06
Speaker 1: lease on life. But when he got back to Staten Island,
22:09
Speaker 1: he couldn't be that new man. He was an ex
22:12
Speaker 1: Cohn on parole and he had but one place to
22:14
Speaker 1: go back to the streets. The hierarchy in Killer Hill
22:20
Speaker 1: had shifted once again. Some crew from Queen's was trying
22:24
Speaker 1: to take over. And this dude they called Uncle told
22:26
Speaker 1: you God that he and his three guys couldn't sell
22:29
Speaker 1: on their usual spot anymore. That was some bullshit. You
22:33
Speaker 1: God went into autopilot. He forgot about the things he'd
22:36
Speaker 1: learned on the inside, NA and anger management. He forgot
22:40
Speaker 1: about the five percent. He put it all aside. He
22:43
Speaker 1: told his guys that they were going to take out
22:45
Speaker 1: this Queen's crew. Mass gloves, bulletproof vests to the nines
22:51
Speaker 1: tech Nines, that is, and mac Ten's too. They found
22:55
Speaker 1: Uncle chilling on the front steps of a park Hill building,
22:58
Speaker 1: their building, their hood. Uncle never saw him coming. It
23:02
Speaker 1: was four guys against one, four guys with semi automatic
23:05
Speaker 1: weapons pointed at Uncle's head. You God wrapped his finger
23:09
Speaker 1: around the trigger, He steadied his arm, and they were
23:12
Speaker 1: going to make a mess, paint kill a Hill with
23:14
Speaker 1: the blood of Queen's. That would send a message. And
23:17
Speaker 1: the message was this You God was out. You, God
23:22
Speaker 1: was back. You. God was capable of anything, but if
23:27
Speaker 1: he was capable of this, of bringing forth death and destruction,
23:31
Speaker 1: in all out war. It meant he was also capable
23:34
Speaker 1: of the opposite, and this thought gave him pause. He hesitated,
23:40
Speaker 1: doubt entered his mind, and then that feeling, that familiar
23:44
Speaker 1: feeling once again, that something was terribly wrong, that he
23:49
Speaker 1: was pushing his luck. It was the same feeling he'd
23:52
Speaker 1: gotten before when he closed up shop, when he stopped
23:55
Speaker 1: dealing for the night and walked away immediately before the
23:58
Speaker 1: cops raided the apartment, and that feeling when that okay
24:01
Speaker 1: motherfucker ran upstairs and called the cops. He thought of
24:04
Speaker 1: the five percenters, narcotics, anonymous, his addictions, this cycle, all
24:09
Speaker 1: of it for what. He looked around at his boys,
24:14
Speaker 1: and they're all waiting for him to shoot first, waiting
24:17
Speaker 1: on his orders. Nah man, he said, I'm not doing it,
24:23
Speaker 1: not pulling the trigger. He left, went home, took off
24:28
Speaker 1: the mask and the gloves in the bulletproof vest, and
24:32
Speaker 1: put down the semi automatic. The violence ended here, but
24:37
Speaker 1: the dealing, the dealing went on. He couldn't give it up.
24:41
Speaker 1: He needed the money, so he kept chopping up and
24:44
Speaker 1: cooking bricks of cocaine to put money in his pockets,
24:48
Speaker 1: which meant his skain kept absorbing cocaine into his bloodstream,
24:52
Speaker 1: which meant he kept failing the piss tests that were
24:54
Speaker 1: part of his parole, and he was in and out
24:57
Speaker 1: of lock up. Every time he got out, he went
25:00
Speaker 1: right back into dealing again. And the streets were always there.
25:05
Speaker 1: The streets were going nowhere, and so was you God.
25:09
Speaker 1: This was the advice he received from the Riza. The
25:13
Speaker 1: streets ain't going nowhere, that's what Rizza said. But Rizza
25:18
Speaker 1: Rizza was ready to take this woud tank thing somewhere.
25:21
Speaker 1: He told, you got to stop messing around with crack.
25:24
Speaker 1: Stop failing the pissed test before they locked him up
25:27
Speaker 1: and threw away the key and follow him the shall
25:30
Speaker 1: in and beyond. The streets would still be there if
25:32
Speaker 1: it didn't work out, but with any luck, it would
25:36
Speaker 1: work out. In the streets would never give you God
25:39
Speaker 1: trouble again. There's only one word to describe what the
26:05
Speaker 1: nine original members of Wu Tang Clan felt when they
26:08
Speaker 1: released their nineteen ninety three debut album Joy. There was
26:13
Speaker 1: joy in the music they were making. There was joy
26:16
Speaker 1: in the immediate success they were experiencing. Joy and how
26:20
Speaker 1: they were embraced and heralded by the hip hop world.
26:23
Speaker 1: Mostly there was joy in the fact that they had managed,
26:26
Speaker 1: against very great odds, to escape the cycle of poverty
26:30
Speaker 1: and violence, in the cycle of non success. They were
26:34
Speaker 1: no longer running, no longer looking behind their backs. They're
26:37
Speaker 1: no longer wondering what they'd have to do to put
26:39
Speaker 1: food on the table that night. They had purpose, now,
26:43
Speaker 1: true purpose, and they put that purpose right in the
26:46
Speaker 1: album title thirty six Chambers, let's do the supreme math.
26:52
Speaker 1: Take the three in the six from thirty six. Three
26:55
Speaker 1: plus six is nine, nine members of Wu Tang, nine
26:59
Speaker 1: planet in the Solar system, or three multiplied by six
27:04
Speaker 1: is eighteen. And if you take the one and the
27:06
Speaker 1: eight and eighteen and add them together once again, you
27:10
Speaker 1: get nine. The ninth supreme number represents born to bring
27:15
Speaker 1: something into existence, something new, something powerful, something like Wu
27:21
Speaker 1: Tang Clan's first album. The world responded to that power.
27:26
Speaker 1: Wu Tang blared from car stereos and boomboxes from coast
27:30
Speaker 1: to coast. But just because you decide to be done
27:33
Speaker 1: with something, that doesn't mean that that's something is done
27:36
Speaker 1: with you. And before long, the reality of Wu Tang's
27:40
Speaker 1: not so distant past came calling back. March thirteenth, nineteen
27:46
Speaker 1: ninety four. Wu Tang were in California when You God
27:50
Speaker 1: got the call his two year old son, Dante have
27:53
Speaker 1: been shot back home on Staten Island two years old
27:57
Speaker 1: and caught in the crossfire while playing with his babysitter outside,
28:01
Speaker 1: and one of the gunmen actually picked Dante up and
28:04
Speaker 1: used him as a human shield, and bullets hit him
28:07
Speaker 1: in his kidney, his pancreas in his hand. You God
28:10
Speaker 1: caught the next plane back east. He wasn't prepared for
28:13
Speaker 1: what he saw at the hospital, his boy laying there
28:16
Speaker 1: on the operating table, his chest cut wide open, tubes
28:20
Speaker 1: and machines and so much blood. Dante died two times
28:25
Speaker 1: on that table, and two times Dante came back to life,
28:29
Speaker 1: but his life would never be the same again. He
28:32
Speaker 1: lost the kidney, and the nerves and his spine were damaged,
28:36
Speaker 1: and the physical and mental therapy that lay ahead was extensive.
28:40
Speaker 1: You God couldn't cope with any of it. So he drank,
28:44
Speaker 1: and so he got high, and so he ingested whatever
28:47
Speaker 1: he could to numb the feeling, feelings of pain, feelings
28:51
Speaker 1: of guilt that he wasn't there when it happened, and
28:54
Speaker 1: that he wasn't able to protect his son. Was this
28:57
Speaker 1: all some sort of sick, cosmic joke. He worked so
29:00
Speaker 1: hard to extract himself from all this. He had found
29:03
Speaker 1: success so that he could provide for his family legitimately
29:07
Speaker 1: and properly. Only for his own child, his two year
29:11
Speaker 1: old child, to become collateral damage in the life that
29:14
Speaker 1: he thought he'd left behind. And he wasn't out for
29:17
Speaker 1: justice or blood. He put that shit behind him. Nothing
29:21
Speaker 1: good was going to come from him rolling up on
29:23
Speaker 1: the dude to shot Dante, him putting a bullet in
29:25
Speaker 1: his head. Now the old You God, Yeah, the old
29:29
Speaker 1: You God would have done something. He would have put
29:32
Speaker 1: that motherfucker in a coma. At least You God was
29:34
Speaker 1: too busy drowning in his own misery. Though all he
29:38
Speaker 1: wanted to do was to make sure his son was safe,
29:41
Speaker 1: and he wanted to get real fucked up. The guy
29:44
Speaker 1: who shot Dante didn't know that. The guy knew You
29:48
Speaker 1: God's old rep He knew what You God was capable of.
29:52
Speaker 1: So that guy feared for his life. He was convinced
29:55
Speaker 1: that You God was after him, and soon these suspicions
29:59
Speaker 1: were floating from neighborhood to neighborhood. Check him out. You
30:02
Speaker 1: God is going to tear that guy up, and better
30:04
Speaker 1: watch yourself, my man. You God does not fuck around
30:08
Speaker 1: word of you. God's supposed wrath made it to the police,
30:11
Speaker 1: and the cops were, as we've covered here already, quite
30:14
Speaker 1: familiar with you. God. If there was ever a time
30:16
Speaker 1: you God was going to do something stupid, this seemed
30:19
Speaker 1: to be it. So they took this threat seriously, and
30:22
Speaker 1: they put a unit on him. He was followed every
30:25
Speaker 1: step he made, every breath he'd take. They were always there,
30:29
Speaker 1: no matter where he was going or what he was doing.
30:32
Speaker 1: Unmarked cars, playing clothes, dicks, knock off ray vans, cracked lips,
30:37
Speaker 1: sip and shitty coffee from styrofoam cups, eyes peeking out
30:41
Speaker 1: from behind yesterday's copy of the Post, and the sound
30:44
Speaker 1: of idling engines, CB radio static, crackling newspapers being snapped
30:49
Speaker 1: shot in a hurry. His own footsteps echoed when he
30:52
Speaker 1: walked down the street. At first, it was just one
30:55
Speaker 1: or two of these cops, but after a while the
30:57
Speaker 1: numbers seemed to double and then triple, at least in
31:00
Speaker 1: you God's head, it did. He was seeing these guys everywhere,
31:04
Speaker 1: behind the curtain, in his living room, in the bathroom mirror.
31:08
Speaker 1: He even saw them in his dreams. It was enough
31:10
Speaker 1: to drive a guy crazy, and it did. There's you, God,
31:15
Speaker 1: pacing around in the middle of the street in just
31:17
Speaker 1: his robe and his underwear. Timberland's on his bare feet,
31:21
Speaker 1: a frightening manifestation of crazy. He got locked up, not jail,
31:27
Speaker 1: two weeks in the psychiatric hospital. You God was not crazy.
31:33
Speaker 1: He was made to think he was crazy. Just because
31:37
Speaker 1: you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not after you and all
31:40
Speaker 1: that You God had every right to be paranoid. They
31:45
Speaker 1: were after him. They were always going to be after him.
31:48
Speaker 1: Who they were varied. Sometimes it was the police and
31:52
Speaker 1: other times it was the streets. He knew this ODB, old,
31:57
Speaker 1: dirty bastard. He also knew this Utang's resident old school
32:01
Speaker 1: r and B aficionado and lyrical wildcard. Was pushed beyond paranoia.
32:06
Speaker 1: He was scared. He told everyone he was scared, but
32:09
Speaker 1: no one wanted to listen. So Dirty had to get
32:13
Speaker 1: their attention. ODB had to make them listen, even if
32:17
Speaker 1: that meant setting himself on fire. I'm Jake Brennan. In
32:24
Speaker 1: this episode, of Disgraceland is to be continued. Disgraceland was
32:42
Speaker 1: created by Yours Truly and is produced in partnership with
32:44
Speaker 1: Double Elvis. Credits for this episode can be found on
32:47
Speaker 1: the show notes page at disgracelandpod dot com. If you're
32:51
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