Raekwon of Wu-Tang Clan—dubbed the "nine assassins"—traces their 1993 debut from RZA’s survivalist "mob" philosophy, blending Staten Island hustle culture with lyrical depth inspired by kung fu films and hip-hop’s golden era (N.W.A., Public Enemy). The group sacrificed short-term fame for authenticity, like Protect Your Neck, which set a standard for raw storytelling, while rejecting industry exploitation. At 55, Raekwon defies modern hip-hop’s repetitive trends with The Emperor’s New Clothes, critiquing conformity, and plans to pitch his documentary The Purple Tape Files—a decade in the making—early 2025, proving hip-hop’s legacy thrives when artists prioritize vision over trends. [Automatically generated summary]
To make it work, the most illest shit, some shit that I never would have thought would ever exist, it was able to exist because we tried it, but it wasn't It wasn't normal.
I tell people all the time, it was like when RZA, you know, he came with this whole philosophy of wanting to do it, it was like hitting a lotto for him.
Like, he didn't know what to expect.
It was more a reputation thing for us.
It was like, yo, I want to do this.
And, you know, he came to block and he talked to some real dudes that really had other shit planned in their life.
You know, but hip-hop was always like that backpack that we wore every day.
But everybody had different plans, so he really literally came in and started to pick motherfuckers that he felt had potential.
So it's like the mob.
It's like, you know, Lucky Luciano, prime example.
You know, he knew that motherfuckers had potential, right?
He knew dudes had potential in any way.
He's from a different part.
But yo, what we could do right here is we could make money.
So put your fucking feelings down or whatever the case may be.
And let's talk about some money.
And that right there, kinda like, yo, you start shaking hands across the table.
Yo, I know you didn't really fuck with me like that, yo.
I never had anything against you like that, though.
But it was just something that he felt like at the end of the day.
And it's amazing that he was able to coordinate that.
Because that's often the case, right?
With other killers, like when a dude's a bad motherfucker, they always assume that everybody else doesn't like them.
They always assume that everybody else is the enemy or competition.
So to have nine of you guys together like that as one group, you know, we always, I told you when I sent you a message, I said that we play Protect Your Neck.
You're talking about like the biggest rap band in the fucking world and they're performing in a penitentiary to one of the members who's one of the biggest fucking hip hop stars in the world who's in jail and then you guys go into the crowd.
Yo, Joe is the funniest shit because when we came in and when we seen him, he was eating a cheeseburger, laughing and shit.
You know, he reminds you, he never was, you know, dirty.
I don't even think, I never seen him eat meat like that or whatever the case may be, but we came in, he was eating a cheeseburger and shit laughing.
So we was dying laughing.
And they kept, you know, the people up in there, they kept telling us like, yo, y'all can't, y'all can't go into the, to the, to the, to the crowd with everybody.
You know, we not going to hold no responsibility if something happened.
unidentified
So, you know, be like, all right, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, hang on in.
It was earlier than that, because in 84, I was in high school, so it had to be 80. Because I was a freshman in high school in 81, so I heard Sugarhill Gang when I lived in Jamaica Plain, which was in 1980. So that was the first time I'd ever heard any kind of hip-hop.
12. What was the first hip-hop that really grabbed you?
Do you remember?
Do you remember like what was the shit that you were first into when you were a kid?
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That's rocketmoney.com slash JRE. Rocketmoney.com slash JRE. The first shit that grabbed me was, like how you said, Sugar Hill Gang, you know?
They was smoking weed and sniffing coke and doing whatever they was doing.
They used to live two floors above me.
And I used to sneak up there and shit, and you know, just be in their business, be in their world, and they would be playing music, they had the record player, you know, you see coke on the table and weed and everything, and my cousins, they was cool, they was like, yo, come in, man, we don't give a fuck, like, just don't tell your mother that you was around and shit, you know what I mean?
Nah, nah, I ain't gonna say nothing.
I ain't gonna say nothing.
And I would just be watching and you know, I would see weed on the album covers and you know what I mean, just motherfuckers running back and forth in the room and you know they in the shit, but they always was playing music and a lot of the music was R&B, you know, disco.
You know, and the next thing you know I heard this fucking record, Sugar Hill Gang, and I'm like, The groove was dope.
But like you said, though, everybody wanted the raw shit.
And you gotta remember, at that time, it was a tough time, man.
Too much shit was going on.
I mean, it was to the point where it's like, yo, in our neighborhood, we had, like, crazy people.
Like, if they catch you at night, they'll kill you.
Like, they'd be dressed up like a fucking drag or whatever, all this makeup on, and...
You know, I remember one time going to the incinerator room.
My mom's made me go.
She made me go to take out the garbage and shit.
I forgot to take it out.
And she came home later that day and I was laying down and she fucking smacked me in the head with a broom like, yo, didn't I tell you to take out the fucking garbage?
So now I'm going out to the incinerator room, you know, walking.
It's on the same floor.
And I remember when I cut the corner I seen a motherfucker sticking his head out.
And he had his hair all wild.
His shit was like green and red and all this.
And he had lipstick on all crazy.
And his eyes was all fucking bugged out looking.
And he looked at me.
And I got the garbage pail with me.
And it's like, yo, once I seen him, I just dropped the shit and ran.
Mom!
You know what I mean?
Back then, you know, you yell your mother name and shit.
You think that that was something cool back then.
You know, she's your hero at that time.
Came back, the nigga was gone.
But I think if he would have caught me in that incinerator door when it was closed, he was going to probably try to run in there and probably try to fucking kill me or something.
And that shit was going on back then because the drugs, the drugs was crazy back then.
I mean, you know, back then, Hip-hop was really an expression for the ghetto.
Being that we was living in fucked up situations and nobody had shit, nobody had no fucking jobs like that.
It was like, yo, we needed something to keep us cool, keep us in a vibe mode.
Back then, gangs was still relevant.
We never looked at ourselves as a gang.
We might have looked at ourselves as a tribe.
That, yo, when you from a neighborhood and you stick to your neighborhood, you know what I mean?
And that's why even back then it was like a lot of times, you know, you would beef with people that wasn't from your neighborhood just because you wasn't from here.
It's like, yo, what the fuck you doing over here?
You don't live over here.
You know, then it creates this animosity thing.
And I remember for us, you know, being...
Being in an area where it was like you go up the block, up the block, stayed up the block, down the block, stayed down the block.
So for me, I was in the middle.
So, you know, I leaned more towards up the block, you know, but then we would go down the block just to start trouble, and, you know, then they would come up the block and they would start trouble, and next thing you know before you know it, we all fucking with each other, you know what I mean?
So that was our way of getting to know each other, is to test each other's heart, and whatever may happen was happening back then, though.
But the music, believe it or not, the music was keeping a peace.
Now, the music was keeping the peace because they would do block parties, right?
They would do block parties and everybody knew all these different DJs was coming from different places and going to play some music and shit.
So we knew every time they did that, we knew something was going to happen at the end of the night.
It was just mandatory.
It was just because people from all over, different neighborhoods would come out, and everything would be nice.
And next thing you know, you see a motherfucker riding down the street all crazy, you know, trying to hit motherfuckers and swinging a golf club out the fucking...
Out the window and shit.
Somebody's mother might have got knocked out.
You know what I mean?
But the music is still playing.
So, yeah, that's the type of shit that, to me, that made it fun but made it spooky.
But it still was fun because it was something to remember.
Well, number one, it was RZA, his cousin JZA, and his other cousin, Old Dirty Bastard, that they were super close.
Now, Old Dirty Bastard and JZA, they were from Brooklyn.
RZA is from Staten Island.
We all Brooklyn babies too, the majority of us in the Klan.
We all resided in Staten Island, but the majority of us grew up in Brooklyn.
But anyway, it was those three that were close as shit.
So RZA... Back then, RZA, he had knowledge of self, which was, you know, being involved with the Nation of Islam and also JZA and Old Dirty.
They were a part of the nation at that time.
So they would go to a lot of rallies.
This is a place where everybody go when they build.
They talking about mathematics and all of this.
But it was JZA and Old Dirty who instilled the hip hop into RZA. So RZA was a DJ back then.
But he knew how to rhyme, too.
And he knew how to rhyme because of his cousins.
So they kind of had this gang called, not a gang, but they had this thing called the All In Together Now Crew, which was them three, and they would run around and they would battle different guys from different cities and move around.
So, you know, some of us kind of knew what they were about.
You know, a lot of us, you know, found out later who they were, but when Jizza and Old Dirty came to Staten Island, they came and they hang out with their cousin.
So, you know, we started to see them a little bit more and know that, you know, yo, I heard about your rhymes and, you know, and Dirty, he was just a crazy motherfucker back then.
He was crazy, but, yeah, they had their own little thing going on.
And then, you know, next thing you know, JZA caught a record deal.
He caught a record deal, which was rare back then.
Like, if you fucking caught a record deal, that mean that you had to have relationships, you had to know where to go, you had to have some type of connects.
So that's what gravitated RZA into wanting to do it, because he's seen that his cousin...
I was able to, you know, crack the code on making a record.
So when that happened, it was almost like it magnetized RZA to be like, yo, I got to make a record now too.
You know, and the next thing you know, they had their movement going on.
So us from the outside looking, it was like, oh shit, yo, we know them.
We know they super passionate about everything.
You know, being in the game and doing whatever they're going to do, but we wasn't thinking that far.
Well, the dangerous thing for young artists in every industry is when you have potential and you're young, you sign a fucking contract and you don't know what's going on.
Somebody's gonna be getting not just 50% but like some fucking insane like Bill Burr was explaining this about his first comedy CD that he got a 60-40 deal he's like oh great 60-40 but it's not really 60-40 because he has to pay for all the distribution all the all the printing of the CDs everything came out of his money let me ask you a question Put yourself in an artist situation, right?
But see, it's the sacrifice that I'm trying to explain to you that every artist takes.
They take that sacrifice because at the end of the day, you have to start from somewhere.
Right.
So even when labels are being them...
In my mind, I'm saying, yo, I get a chance to have a job, Joe.
Niggas ain't never had no fucking job in they life.
And now we get a chance to do something that you could maybe think that you could change the world with and love.
It's like you're going to go for it.
So for us back then, being kids, we didn't give a fuck.
We didn't care about signing.
Yo, I signed because what the fuck I got to lose?
I done been through everything.
I done been over here.
I done been kicked out of everywhere.
Fuck it.
I just want to be heard.
So a lot of time that be the protocol is just to be heard.
To be heard, to be able to say, yo, something happened.
I don't give a fuck.
A lot of artists got robbed.
A lot.
A lot of artists, and especially our OGs that did it before us.
Like, you know what I mean?
Sugar Hill Gangs, all these different guys.
They all have been manipulated to do what they had to do, but it almost gave them power too, because they became famous, they became big, they became legendary.
And see, now look, that philosophy that you said is what we took on.
We took that on.
We said, you know what?
At the end of the day, we'll take this little bit of money, but we're going to be willing to sell ourselves to get to this level because we know what we believe in.
See, it all starts from what you believe.
If you don't have the belief in yourself to make it happen, You fucked.
Yeah, because then you're going to be sitting in the same situation and you're going to realize at the end of the day, damn, I should have took that opportunity.
Some people are scared of opportunities when they come.
And it's like if a person offers you an opportunity, nine times out of ten it may not work for you the way you want it to work, but it may be an opportunity to help you.
You know, it's all about you trying to help yourself and get out there.
It's like watching Scarface and a nigga told him, he said, yo, give you five grand.
And if you fuck this up, Chico...
Scarface looked at him and said, man, the fuck is you talking about?
We built for this shit, man.
You know, when he lost his man in the mix, but...
He was able to prove to himself that I could do it.
That's how I look at rap.
It's like, yo, I don't give a fuck.
Yeah, we'll take this little bit of money, but we're going to prove to y'all later on that we know what the fuck we doing.
Talent is just, God just gives you something or doesn't.
You know, some people just got it, you know, some people it's also like artistic families like Nas, you know, he grew up in this like intellectual artistic family and that's why his rhymes are so good.
So when I think about those Compton boys, those N.W.A. cats and all of that, that was expressing themselves, it was like, that's what we all were feeling.
Facing and living amongst.
And, you know, like I said, I never heard that song before.
So I could tell that was made around the time when N.W.A. was doing a thing.
And, you know, you're hearing about all these riots and shit going on and things happening.
You know, us living all the way on the other side of the world.
But like you said, we was getting information and, you know, you gotta remember, you know, at the end of the day, You know, a lot of people that coming out of the hood and just being like, I know you, you come from the hood.
And see, those are the type of guys that paved the way for us to be so, you know, outspoken on the mic.
You know, when I sit here, when I think about the Klan, you know, the Wu-Wang, how we, you know, formed Voltron, each one of us had a superpower that related back to those guys.
You know, all these guys that we talking about today, they was the light bulb in the house.
You screw that shit on.
This is what I see right now.
I see Slick Wreck.
I see Rakim.
I see Cube.
I see fucking, you know, all these guys that paid the way for us.
So the Klan at that time, we were so, you know, inclined on knowing about all these guys that No, a majority of them, we kept a piece of them in us that helped us become who we are.
Like, I tell motherfuckers all the time, I say, yo, let me tell you something.
When we came out, Naughty by Nature was the shit.
They was fucking shit up on the East Coast side of things, you know.
And at that time, you had them, you had EPMD, you had Queen Latifah, Roxanne Shante, all of these, you know, artists back then were blowing up.
You know, these guys was giving us so much food for thought that we knew that if we didn't come on that level, we wasn't built to be in the game at that time.
You know, especially for young kids because when you hear guys like you and, you know, Ghostface and, you know, Method Man and like, you're dealing with real dudes who are talking about real shit and everybody else just look kind of lame.
A lot of drugs was being sold in my community at that time, right?
So when Rizak came with the whole Wu-Tang philosophy, it was almost like, yeah, we love karate flicks.
We were watching...
You know about the karate flicks, 3 o'clock, 3 o'clock.
We come over to school, them shits is on, Channel 5, all of that shit.
But if you notice and you look at those karate movies, it was about a place that...
You know, was filled with a lot of crime and aggressive people that were doing things that bothered other people and you either had to protect your people Or you had to make a name for yourself.
Now, when you think about Wu-Tang, I'm going to just give you a quick lesson on what Wu-Tang was.
You know what's another cool thing about today is that it used to be thought at one point in time, I think it was like the early 2000s, that rap had That hip hop had a shelf life.
And that there wouldn't be classics.
You know what I mean?
Like the Rolling Stones were still touring.
You know, they were 58 years old back then.
Like, this is crazy.
The Rolling Stones are back on the road.
But that was like a new thing.
It was like old rock and roll guys out touring was a new thing.
But with hip hop artists, if you weren't in now, if you weren't new now, people weren't in to go and see you.
Well, when I see guys like LL and Kane and them perform and Slick Rick and Ice Cube, it gives me more leverage and more strength to want to do it because I see some of my legends still doing it today.
But yeah, man, like you said, just to see a lot of guys like the Rolling Stones and Mick Jagger and them still performing, it's like, why not?
And I tell people all the time, being from the States, being where we from, I think they appreciate it more because they never really got a chance to grasp it as much as we did.
But for me, I think I love performing a lot more when I go out there because they come out and they never, ever make you feel like they don't appreciate you.
You know what I mean?
And even to this day, it's like the Klan still goes out there and makes a ton of cash.
We see a lot of people.
And we see young generations of kids now, too.
It's like, yo, you look in the crowd.
You're like, fuck.
How old is that fucking kid that we just put him on stage and he knew the fucking words.
Like, yo, he might have been like 17, 16 years old.
But yeah, man, you know, that's why I always feel like, yo, I tell people all the time, you have to respect the people that did it before you, man, because they gave you something to dream about.
You know, and a friend from the neighborhood, he actually came up with that acronym.
But I tell people all the time, my cousin, I had a cousin from Brooklyn that he used to come to Staten Island and he used to sell drugs for us and he came up with that word, cream, because he was like, yo...
Y'all, as long as I can make my cream, I'm good.
I'm like, what the fuck is cream?
Like, you know what I mean?
He's like, yo, cream, yo, you ever see Tom and Jerry, the movie, and, you know, he make those big fucking sandwiches and all of that, and he splash all that cream on it, and, you know, I'm like, oh, the Tom and Jerry, the sandwiches, right?
Yeah, when he made the big sandwiches, and stuff them in your mouth and all.
Nah, real shit, real shit.
So the cream that was splashing all over the place, he was looking at that as that's his money.
Like, I just want my cream.
I just want my cream.
You know what I mean?
So we like, yeah, you're going to get your cream.
You sit up in the fucking spot all day, you're going to make your cream.
And him and Meth, man, they was like real close, like brothers.
So when we was in the studio, right into it, he was there and he just sat back and he just came up with Cash Rules, everything around me.
And him and Meth, they put it together and next thing you know, that was a hook.
You know, at that time, for me, I was still writing a lot of stories.
You know, so I wrote, believe it or not, I wrote two verses for Cream.
I didn't write.
My rhyme never started off as I grew up on the crime side.
I was writing about drug dealers in the neighborhood, like, yo, I know this kid by the name of Giganti.
Giganti a Teflon Don with a Diamante.
You know, the Diamante's back in the days was like the, you know, the five series Benz's for us back then.
And a good friend of mine was like, oh, that rhyme is cool.
I think it's all right.
Like, why you don't like the rhyme?
Everybody else like it.
He was like, it's cool.
I like it.
So he made me go back and change it.
And when I changed it, I started to think before I wrote it.
I'm like, damn.
He said, yo, if you need to rhyme about shit, that's something that we could relate to, that we're dealing with around what the fuck we wake up to every day.
And that's when I came with, I grew up on the crime side, you know, the New York Times side.
But yeah, Meph and my man Ray, they sat down and they came up with cash, fuel, everything around me.
And it was a perfect symbol of what we were trying to express, that we were always trying to get money, but we was dealing with certain things in our community that we were trying to get past first to try to make some money.
And it was a sacrifice.
It was like, yo, you do this shit, you might be able to get out of it alive, or you might not.
So that record wind up blowing up so big, it wind up being one of our biggest records.
And it didn't have nothing to do with...
I guess, to me, it didn't feel hip-hop.
It just felt like real realization, like real shit is we need to start listening, like how you just played the Gettos Boys shit, you know what I mean?
We're trying to give off a message, a message.
And that's what I think that people love about Wu-Tang is that we give out messages.
We give out...
We like an emotional rollercoaster group.
We can give you the Wu-Tang Clan ain't nothing to fuck with.
And then we can give you the tears where it's like, oh shit.
Yeah, the meth came and you know, I mean everybody kind of like that's what's so amazing about All these killers all these different voices all these amazing lyrics all on one song.
You know, and that was one of the situations where we had to dance a certain way to be like, okay, yeah, we'll take a little bit of money, but we know we're going to be able to sell.
Like you said, yeah, give us those 50. We'll sell them.
Now, we know you're telling me you don't got the money, but you got the relationships.
Okay, cool.
As long as you got the relationship.
As long as you got the money.
We're going to go out there and we're going to work to make it happen, but this is what's got to happen.
I give all the credit to Steve Rifkin.
Steve was the guy that owned Loud Records back then.
He was a part of RCA back then.
And he believed in us.
He's like, yo, I'll give y'all that deal.
I'll give y'all that deal.
And next thing you know, when everybody started taking off, now you got Method Man over here.
You got Jizz over here.
You got Holy Bastard over here.
So we did something that was so new to the world that...
You know, so by us doing that, it kind of like really paid the way for other groups and other artists and everybody to kind of You know, follow this blueprint.
So now you have, you know, these other guys coming out and creating their own labels and bringing in artists that they wanted to do.
So to me, this kind of made hip-hop a little bit more interesting because it showed that artists were starting to get more smarter, which is important.
You know, we didn't want to be just Like you said, yo, just coming in and you sell your soul and you just stay there.
Because it seems like all you guys are very prolific.
Everybody can write.
But if you don't have a great beat, and how many great beats can you make, right?
If you got an album, then another album's coming out next year, like, whoa, you gotta have 16, 20 great beats, and then you gotta pick from those beats what goes with what song, and try different ways out, and you gotta make sure everybody shows up at the studio?
I mean, I tell people all the time, number one for us, being around so many different lyricists, lyricist guys, Beats are important.
You know, I remember one time a fan asked me, he said, yo, what's the most important thing to you, the rhyme or the beat?
He fucked me up the whole day with that.
I was fucked up.
And I answered him, I gave him an answer like probably like three or four minutes later and I was like, you know what?
Nobody never asked me that.
I said, the beat.
I said, you know why the beat?
Because the beat Makes you think about what you want to say and what you want to get across.
Anybody could make rhymes.
I can have you sit with me for fucking a month and you could be an ill fucking rapper.
You!
I can take you there.
But to be able to have that combination factor of making...
work or that sound that you want you need to have the right production so a lot of times Wu-Tang wrote to whatever they felt it's like how you can listen to Protect Your Neck and you get that energy from us you know you get a certain energy because of that production then you get this energy when you get You get a cream, you get that.
So for me, I always tell people that beat is everything.
And us just sitting down and waiting for RZA to come up with something.
One thing about RZA, he was so clever.
He had a team of guys that was around him that was assisting him.
To helping him come with different sounds and, you know, he played with different things.
And of course, you know, just having his ear for music and listening to other people's stuff, he was able to isolate himself away from everything and start brainstorming for us.
So it's like a...
He was like a...
He was like the Steelers back in the fucking 80s, you know what I mean?
When they won four Super Bowls in a row.
He was like that when Terry Bradshaw was playing, Lin Swan.
I hear what you're saying, but without the lyrics, the beat is not the same.
I see from your perspective as a lyricist and as an MC that you would think that the beat is more important because it's important to you to get started.
Well, you know, me is 50-50 all the time because if I have nothing to give me that energy to write, then how can I give it to you if I don't have nothing?
And, you know, to team the kind of guy like that up with Dre or, you know, with, you know, 50 or any of these people that he collaborated with, it's like, that's special.
And I remember Q-Tip was like, yo, set up a meeting for you and Leonardo to meet in Brooklyn at this small pizza shop, one of Leonardo's favorite spots, and he want to talk to you.
I said, yeah, that's what's up.
So me and Leonardo, we started talking, and he was like, yo, Q-Tip was telling me that you was thinking about trying to, you know, get guys together to create a movie.
I was like, yeah, this is what I was thinking.
So, to make a long story short, I set up a meeting with RZA, myself, Leonardo's peoples in L.A. And I told RZA, I said, listen, before we do this Hulu thing, which...
At the end of the day, it was a RZA's production thing or whatever he was doing.
I said, I think we need to make a realistic, real-life movie of us.
I said, it shouldn't be nothing that we should play with because people need to know our real story.
So RZA entertained the conversation, but...
I don't know.
For some reason, I guess he felt like he was committed to doing whatever he wanted to do with Hulu.
I wish we could have been able to sit down with him, because the way I had him looking at it, It was almost like I told him, I said, this would be like a slash of Goodfellas and Menace to Society.
He was like, yo, Ray, yo, yo, blah, blah, blah, yo, you know what I mean?
But I think it could be done.
That's what I said.
I said, yo, look, come on now.
I said, people do it all the time.
I said, yo, look at Prime Example, look at N.W.A. I thought N.W.A. movie was dope.
You know what I mean?
Straight out of Compton.
I thought they did a good job, but that was Dre and Cube and, you know, I'm sure you're always going to have somebody around that be like, yo, no, that ain't it.
But it was so realistic that when I seen ours, it was like, all right, I get it.
You know, Rizzi even said to y'all, you know, this is more for the younger generation to kind of gravitate to.
Think of a movie that starts up with the gates opening and you guys going in, put all your belongings in the basket, the whole shit, getting frisked, checking everybody down, the guy reading you the rules, the warden telling you, do not go into the crowd, do not do that.
And it's just so incredible even more on how we connected because...
Like I said, everybody come from almost the same poverty bullshit, but everybody had different philosophies on how they felt their lives was going into.
You know, I tell people all the time, you know, my neighborhood was about making money.
You know, Ghost Neighborhood was about taking money, you know what I mean?
Taking shit from you, you know?
GZA being one of the MCs that could have been down with the Juice Crew.
You know who the fuck the Juice Crew is.
He turned it down.
It's like they was the hottest shit back then.
Master Ace, Biz, Kane, Cool G-Rap.
All these dope MCs, they asked him, yo, we want you to come and get down with us.
He's like, nah, you know what, nah.
All these things I remember yesterday.
You know what, you turned down the Juice Crew?
He was like, I love the Juice Crew, but I just was in this chamber right here.
You know, us with Old Dirty, like, yo, you know, Old Dirty always wanted to be like Biz, Biz Markie.
He had that personality, that charisma, that energy.
So like you said, these are the things that I wanted to see.
Each individual, like...
You know, and like I said, you know, shout out Hulu, man, for doing a great job.
But I do agree, like you, we need another movie where it really defines who we are.
I mean, you know, I always believed in my group, man.
I mean, these guys is, like you said, very talented, very talented.
Sometimes we don't know our power when we come together, but we might be the only group that stuck together so long, you know, because we all feed off each other every time.
So to be able to reflect back when we was in our prom...
It was like we still didn't even give our best.
It was almost like, okay, yeah, we're going to do it because we have to.
Not do it because we're all in a happy vibe, a happy moment.
A lot of times we make great things happen out of nothing, you know, under pressure.
Might have been turbulence in the room, might have been an argument that happened that day, but we still managed to come out with something great out of that whole time of that moment.
That's why it's never been done before, which is amazing.
If you think about the history of hip-hop, how many artists have come up and not one group has come together and made like a, oh, they're just like Wu-Tang.
And you have to give an artist that ability to do that.
They have to be able to change it up anytime they want.
Whatever, because whatever got them to the dance is going to keep them dancing.
And they might dance to the beat of a different song, but it's going to be the same person, that same creative force that created whatever you liked in the beginning.
Well, you probably like this new direction they're going to go into because it's going to be just as good.
You were saying you like Billy Joel.
We both like Cool G Rap.
It's very different.
You wouldn't want to see the two of them at a concert together.
But that's what you have to give room for an artist.
And these executives and these people that are profiting off of art without being creative, their input's always terrible.
It's always terrible because they don't have a vision.
They don't really, unless you're like a Rick Rubin, like one of those cats that's just like super eccentric, weirdo, genius dude who just knows what he likes and go, hold on, hold on.
But when you get these suits and the suits get involved and they know that, oh, we made, you know, Raekwon sold a million and seven hundred thousand CDs doing it like this.
So this is what we want from this one too.
We want it to be the exact same way.
We want to do it like that.
Do it like that again.
Like, oh, no, no, what's this new thing you're doing?
What's this new thing where you're talking about discipline?
No, no, no.
But that's one of the most important things about hip-hop, too, is songs inspire people to change their lives.
Like I said, this shit became knowledge to us, man.
You know, that's what I miss about hip-hop is the knowledge factor, you know, raising our kids to be smarter and, you know, not hiding anything from them.
Like you said, once you put that warning stick on there, don't look at it, they're gonna look at it anyway, so why not let them see for what it is and then say, yo, look, you can make these choices, but you go that way, you know what you're getting.
I think all it takes is someone today to do what you guys were doing and blow up.
And then everybody would want to do it that way.
If someone today became this genius lyricist who was pointing out things in society and became a huge artist, But you think that music is still, you think the radio will play it?
I don't think the radio means jack shit anymore.
I think what means something now is people sharing it.
Well, you know shit, I just, I just been working on this documentary, right, for the Purple Team.
Let me just be honest with you, take you back.
I've been working on, you know, Only Built For Cuban Links is my What's Going On album, my Thriller album that I made 30 years ago.
This year, 2025, would be 30 years.
So what we done was we went back and decided to do a documentary about it, a real life film.
So it's called The Purple Tape Files, because remind you, Only Built For Cuban Links was the name of the album.
But being that I came with it as a cassette, Everybody started to call this album The Purple Tate.
So now, you know, we came back and we decided to do, you know, me and my team from my camp.
You know, the clan, of course, the clan.
But this is something that was my intellectual property that I said, yo, you know what?
Me and my guy sat down.
My team sat down and said, yo, you need to do a documentary about this album because you can make 50 albums.
People are still going to talk about Only Built For Cuban Link.
So I said, damn, you know what?
You're right.
So what I did was I said, you know what?
Let me invest in it and kind of tell the story of what helped us inspire that album, what helped us be a part of the culture, and how it still allows me to still exist today.
Like, if you see a lot of these guys today in the game, they still win Cuban Link chains.
You know what I mean?
So who would have ever thought that I'm calling my album Only Built For Cuban Link niggas?
Now everybody in their mother is wearing Cuban link chains today, 30 years later.
So you know that been something that I've been working on and believe it or not we've been working on it for 10 years.
So I got over 50 influential people that was in my life that was affected by that album.
To be a part of this documentary.
So now, this is all in the making.
We didn't actually go out there and start pitching it yet.
We're finally getting ready to do it right now as we speak.
As we speak.
Once the New Year kick in and all that, we will be ready to go out there and position ourselves to go do a deal with a network with this project.
So my thing is to talk about it in a way to where the way we made the album, all the experiences, all the things that we went through, and eventually that would wind up becoming a movie later on because the storyboard of how I talk about it It's gonna blow people's minds because it's like, damn, this is what you was going through?
This is how your mindset was?
Because I just want people to know that that album was made because I love hip-hop, man, and, you know, we were in a position to make something golden that, at that time, I was already thinking cinematic.
I was already in my Martin Scorsese mindset because when I came into Klan, I was like, yo, I don't do all the karate shit.
I don't know how to rhyme like that.
I don't even know about drugs and hustlers and trying to get from here to there and turn my life around for the positive, you know?
So we talk about this in a documentary and we go through some of the songs and like I said, you know, I got some of my guys that, you know, we had, you know, we had conflictions with some artists out there like Biggie back then.
Everybody thought we had a beef and It becomes interesting, but the bottom line is that's what I've been working on alongside with working on some other music.
So I just said, yo, let me get this done the right way first, and then I'm going to drop some new music.
So I got definitely a new album getting ready to come out.