Lyrics:

Chapter 3In the LabIn the span of two and a half years, Dirty went from homeless to
hood superhero, and I was there to see it all happen. He took me
to see RZA at his place in the Stapleton Projects in Staten Island,
and to Firehouse Studios in Manhattan, where he was working on Wu-Tang Clans full-length debut, Enter the Wu-Tang
(36 Chambers). A lot of hip-hop producers refer to the studio as the lab, and watching RZA work I came to see why that was. The nigga was like a mad scientist, like Dr. Frankenstein bringing a new song to life by stitching together pieces of musical history. On Wu-Tang Clan Aint Nuthin ta Fuck Wit, RZA sampled drums from the Lafayette Afro Rock Band and Joe Tex, and a couple seconds of a vocal from the theme from the old television cartoon Underdog. You wouldnt even recognize that the sample came from the Underdog theme, because RZA slowed it down, cut it apart, and reassembled it into the sound you hear on the album.

RZA was bringing together the sounds and the styles that had
influenced him growing up. Not only the records he listened to, but the cartoons he watched on TV and the movies he watched with his cousins. RZA didnt stop with digging through crates of old funk and soul records to find drumbeats and hornshe sampled dialogue and sound effects from the old kung-fu movies he and Dirty and GZA used to watch at the Forty-second Street theaters in Manhattan. The album is driven by sounds of karate chops and of swords being unsheathed and slicing through the air and clanging against each other. The first track, Bring da Ruckus, opens with two swordsmen talking:

Do you think your Wu-Tang sword can defeat me?

En garde. Ill let you try my Wu-Tang style.

Those samples gave the album a feel that said Wu-Tang Clan was ready for battle. You other rappers think you can test their skills, then bring it on.

Watching RZA in the studio I learned how to produce a record. Up
to that point I was known for my DJing and singing, but working with RZA and Dirty in the studio, I became a hip-hop producer. I was making beats with the samplers and drum machines, mixing tracks at the boards. I found myself putting in so much time on Dirtys album that I neglected my own DJing and singing, but that apprenticeship in the studio was what helped shape me into a rap artist. First of all, I learned work ethicI watched RZA work on the Wu-Tang Clans album Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) at the same time he was working on songs for solo albums by Dirty, GZA, and Method Man.

Then I learned production techniques. I would watch RZA on the mixing board and realize that he would never put just two or three samples on a song. He would have so many tracks full of instruments that it was amazing. Most producers would be thinking theyre only gonna have the drumsthe kicks, the snare, the high hatand two or three melodies. Not RZA. He would have like twenty-five melodies on one track. On a lot of songs they did he would reuse the same beat but change the melodies. Hes incredible for doing that. Im telling you, I was so amazed by that. Instead of thinking of just getting one track done at a time, he would have five or six tracks working at once, off of one beat. He would take the same drums and change the samples and make six songs out of it.


RZAs production sounded like nothing people had ever heardit was gritty and sparse but at the same time it was layered like a symphony. On Shame on a Nigga he sampled jazz piano from Thelonious Monk and overlaid it with funk horns from Syl Johnson. People criticize hip-hop for sampling because they think producers just steal an old record and rap over itthey dont understand tha the piano may come from an old jazz record, the horns from a funk record, and it takes skill to combine those sounds into a new symphony. Plus, RZA played a lot of the piano himself. One of his signature sounds was a spooky piano clink he achieved by playing the notes on an actual piano-zither, then sampling them and looping them to repeat throughout the song. Running his piano through the sampler made it sometimes play back out of tune because the samplers technology had not yet been perfected. But RZA took that shortcoming in the equipment and made the out-of- tune piano part of his sound. He brought string instruments into hip-hop and he offset them with hard drumbeats that werent made for the dance floor or the radio because RZA wanted his music to sound aggressive to inspire his rappers to sound aggressive.

In 1992, the biggest hip-hop album in the U.S. was Dr. Dres The Chronic, which was built around Dres G-Funk sound, characterized by music that is slow, groovy, and melodic. Dre was sampling funk records while RZA was sampling jazz. I loved Dres album, but it had California written all over it. Dre was making music for the people where he came from, L.A. The Chronic was music that they could drive around playing in their low-riders or have a cookout tojust the scenes you see in Dres video for Nuthin but a G Thang. But Wu-Tang was from New York, and RZA wanted to bring the sound back to New York with something up-tempo but gritty, with hard beats underneath jazz piano.

RZAs production was perfect for Dirty, but when Dirty would first hear a beat he had an ear for what was missing. One night Id stayed at the studio longer than Dirty had, watching RZA work on a beat he wanted Dirty to rhyme over. Dirty called back a few hours later and said, Yo, let me hear it. And over the phone the nigga could hear something that wasnt supposed to be in there and be like, Yo, you hear that?
What are you talking about? I dont hear anything.

Pull those levels down, one at a time. There. Thats what Im talking about.

How the fuck you hear that through the phone?

He said, Pay attention, Buddha. Wake up. Open your ears. And thats how I got to be the perfectionist I am today with my music. Dirty said, I want you to put everything you got into every track you make. I want every track to be the best one you ever did. RZAs the best, but I want you to strive to be better than RZA.

RZA and the Wu-Tang Clan changed the way hip-hop is made. From the way producers put tracks together, to the way MCs rhyme, all the way down to the way you sign a contract with a record label. Wu-Tang was a group of nine MCs who could each stand powerfully on their own, but when they come together to form Wu-Tang, watch out. Like that old cartoon, Voltron, where the robot lions come together to form one super-robot? That was how Wu-Tang worked.

When Wu-Tang signed to Loud Records/RCA in 1992, they negotiated an unprecedented dealWu-Tang Clan, as a group, would record for Loud, but the nine members were free to sign deals as solo artists with any record label they chose. Before Wu-Tang, when you signed to a label they owned you. If you wanted to go do a guest verse on somebody elses song you had to run it past your label first, and recording an album for another label was out of the question. RZA and GZA had both been signed to solo deals before Wu-Tang, so theyd seen the problems that come with signing a contract without negotiating to get what you want. What Wu-Tang did was shift the power from the record label to the group. They were like a hip-hop labor union. They had strength in numbers.

But to make this kind of power move in the industry, what Wu-Tang had to do was build a buzz around their name. They paid their dues playing mad shows all over New York and selling records out of the trunks of their cars. That Protect Ya Neck single they self released
caught the attention of the major labels. GZAs verse on that song even took a shot at the labels, almost daring the labels to sign them, saying Wu-Tang was too good for them: The Wu is too slammin for these Cold Killin labels / Some aint had hits since I seen Aunt Mabel. But off that first single, when DJs started to play it, what I remember hearing most was them cutting Dirtys voiceFirst things first, man, you fuckin with the worstand playing his verse again and again.

Everybody in Wu-Tang loved Dirty. Everybody couldnt wait for Dirty to come through the door, because not only was Dirty talented, he was funny. He knew how to make niggas laugh when he came to the studio. He would get the work done, but he also knew how to keep you laughing. Everybody wanted to rap with Dirty, and Dirty wanted to rap with everybody. The fans loved him tooDirty entranced the women, but he also was grimy, so he hooked the niggas too. The girls loved his swagger and what he was saying, but Dirty could say some dumb shit in the middle of a verse and niggas would say, Yo, this nigga just went to the left on this song but he came back and its still a killer! Method Man even said it in an interview. They asked him what entertainers he looked up to and he said, Yo, the greatest entertainer to me is Dirty.

Inspectah Deck agreed with Meth: I remember the first time I met Ol Dirty. RZA brought him over to his crib, and as soon as Dirty got there, he was like, Turn that beat on! He was straight off the street with a forty in his hand, and he got on the mic and kicked some crazy shit. ODB was the same dude off the mic as he was on the mic. He never held anything back. Hed be in the mall, just performing, singing the theme to The Love Boat. Dirty mixed rapping with singing, but he did it in a way that was funny too. On Shimmy Shimmy Ya he sampled Richard Pryors comedy album That Niggers Crazy. Pryor had a joke about how the girls would turn him downhe mocks a girls voice saying, I aint gonna fuck you, you cant even sing, then he tells the audience, You have to sang or somethin to get some pussy. Thats how Dirty ended his songShimmy Shimmy Ya goes from Dirty crooning over RZAs piano tinkling, Ooooh, baby, I like it raw. Ooooh, baby, I like it raaaaaw, to I aint gonna fuck you, you cant even sing.

Loud gave Wu-Tang Clan a $200,000 advance for their first album, which sounds like a lot of money until you divide it nine ways and take into account that RZA got a bigger cut than anyone else because he produced the entire album. Dirty walked away from the table with less than $20,000 in his pocket. Still, he was happy. He was making money from music, and this was only stage one of the plan. He knew his solo deal was in the works, and he trusted that RZA knew the business. Dirty was watching the way RZA handled his business and telling me, We have to work hard the way RZA does. We got to get our own thing together, our own team, the way RZA did with Wu-Tang.

What you mean?

All the niggas from the block. Youre doing the producing. Merdoc raps. Raison raps, 12 OClock raps. Shorty Shitstain raps. Thats our crew. Put us all together and thats the Brooklyn Zoo.

Thats what we should call the crew? The Brooklyn Zoo?
Thats what Raisons been calling us. Yo, but well spell it with a U to make our Wu-Tang connection clearyou got the Wu, then you got the Zu. Well put yall on my album and springboard it from there. When the Ol Dirty Bastard album comes out itll let people know about the Brooklyn Zu before we start releasing Brooklyn Zu albums.

From the beginning, Dirty wanted to make our crew, the Brooklyn Zu, his own branch of the Wu-Tang Clan, just like Ghostface Killah had his Theodore Unit and Raekwon had his American Cream Team and Ice Water Inc. Its a rap dream to make it and bring your boys and your cousins and your cousins boys with you. When a rapper hits it big he tends to start his own group or even his own label so that he can sign his people to record deals. Eminem has Shady Records, 50 Cent has G-Unit Records, and when RZA founded Wu-Tang Records the first acts he signed were Killarmywhich was RZAs brother 9th Princes groupand Sunz of Man, which was his cousin Sixty Second Assassins group.

Dirty had the Brooklyn Zu, which was me and four of Dirtys cousins: Merdoc, 12 OClock, Raison the Zu Keeper, and Shorty Shitstain. Then under the Brooklyn Zu umbrella we recruited Da Manchuz and the Zu Ninjaz, who were dudes we met on the road playing shows. Dirty loved the Zu Ninjaz: K-Blunt, Irie the Five-Foot Hyper Sniper, Obe, Hook Ninja, and Popa Chief. We first met them when Dirty and I started touring off his album and we did a show in Delaware at Cheney University. Popa Chief opened for ushe had a solo deal at the time. We went in, we performed, then we stood outside drinking beers with Popa Chief, Irie, and K-Blunt. Dirty liked them and he liked the way they rapped, so he said, Yall come to the hotel with us.

We hung out with them for two days, but Dirty had to go back to New York, so he told me, Listen, Im gonna give you like three or four stacks in your pocket. I want you to hang out here a few days. All them niggas rap, and theyre nice on the mic. I want you to stay close to them. Theyll be another chapter of the Brooklyn Zu. Theyre the Zu Ninjaz now. At the time they was the Five-Foot Ninjaz. Adding the Zu would tell people they were now part of Brooklyn Zu.

Dirty headed back to New York, and me and Blunt took a ride in the Suburban. I told him about Dirtys plan to bring him into the Brooklyn Zu family. Yo, man, I said. I have some shit to tell you. I see how everybody pay attention and the way you do things. I need you to get all of them together and let them know you the general and its a life commitment, we gonna keep pushing no matter what. I told Blunt, I got Da Manchuz. I want you to head up the Zu Ninjaz. They gotta follow you, Blunt, cause I cant tell everybody what to do. I need a general to handle that branch of the tree.

Even before Wu-Tang Clans first album came out, me and Dirty were playing solo shows for Ol Dirty Bastard and the Brooklyn Zu and making moves to establish our own team. That was all part of the plan. At the same time Wu-Tang Clan was recording its debut album, Dirty was in the studio with RZA working on solo tracks like Cuttin Headz. Method Man was working on solo tracks. GZA was working on tracks for his solo album. Everybody was watching RZA to learn how the production was done. RZA was the one overseeing the whole operation, but he was working on albums for Wu-Tang Clan, Method Man, GZA, Raekwon, himself, and Dirty, so some days hed give Dirty a beat to rhyme over, and Dirty and I would record the vocals and mix the track and then play it back for RZA when he came back.

I started to understand Dirtys sound and the style he was looking for. Id watched the way RZA used different compression settings for each of the Wu-Tang members voices, and Id developed a good ear for what worked for Dirty. Dirty would come in and lay some vocals, then Id work on the mixing board to give his voice the character it needed and the track the effects it needed. The turning point for me, when I really started to feel like I knew what I was doing, was when RZA dropped off a new beat he wasnt completely happy with and said, Somethings missing in this one, Dirty, you know what I mean? He played it for us and he and Dirty sat back trying to figure out what it still needed. Dirty turned to me and asked, What you think, Buddha? I gave them my opinion and they both nodded their heads and Dirty said, Yo, son. Thats my man. Hes gonna be in the studio with me from now on. He knows what hes talking about. He knows what hes doin. Were not recording without Buddha.

Dirty took me with him to the shows, too. I knew how to keep the party moving as a DJ, and I knew how to rock a show. Wu-Tang was playing concerts around New York. Id help Dirty load up his Plymouth Sundance with cases of Olde English 800 and wed hit the road. There were no hard drugs back then. Dirty loved to drink Olde English and hed mess with weed when it was aroundit was usually aroundbut he never liked to smoke too much because it made him paranoid. Wu-Tang Clan was selling tickets on the strength of the Protect Ya Neck single and word of mouth that they knew how to play a live show. Wu-Tang shows were known to be crazy. They were known to devolve into fights and riots because the Wu played the kind of music that made you want to stomp your feet and beat somebodys ass. I mean, shit, Wu-Tang had a song called Bring da Ruckus. And the Brooklyn Zu, we was already labeled untamed niggas. Whats the zoo? The zoo is a bunch of wild-ass animal niggas. You cant take your eye off them or theyre gonna escape and run to center cage. The Clan would be ready to do the shows and when shit would jump off they were fightin niggas with their fists, but the Zu would be the ones who would show up and people would say, Oh, here come the flying chairs. Here come the pool sticks. Here come the broken windows. So when people left the show they were like, That was the greatest show I ever saw. We got to see them perform and see people get they ass busted.

Dirty loved to perform, and he loved to see shit get wild. Youve seen rock bands smashing guitarsDirtywas the hip-hop version of that. Even when he wasnt listed to perform he did it. When he was in the crowd at a show, he would jump onstage and snatch the mic. Hed snatch the mic from anyone. He didnt care. He did it to the Roots. He did it to the Lost Boyz. He did it to the legendary Doug E. Fresh. Dirty said it best himself: I dont like to see wack-ass niggas doin a show. If they not doin it right, Im gonna show em how its done. I apologize for being like that, but thats me. Its something Im trying to control. His mama didnt like it at all. Rusty, shed scold him, thats not nice.

The Wu-Tang Clan made eight hundred dollars to play a show thats eight hundred split nine ways. They pulled up to the venue in a beat-up van. After the shows me and Dirty used to steal the van from the rest of the group. Dirty would want to go home but theyd still want to keep going with the after-party. So Dirty would take the Wu-Tang van. Me, him, and the Brooklyn Zu would get on the highway and head back to Brooklyn. RZA and all them would be calling us: Yo, bring the van back! and Dirty would just keep driving, yelling into the phone, Yo, I told yall niggas I wanted to go home. Yall thought I was joking. Fuck you. This is my van too. I paid for this shit too.

RZA says Dirty pulled a gun at one of those early Wu-Tang shows, at the Culture Club in Brooklyn. The fans had started to riot before the show even startedbreaking windows and tearing apart the venueso Dirty pulled a gun and started shooting at the ceiling. Now thats crowd control. This was all part of Wu-Tangs appeal. They were gritty. They were rough around the edges when there was too much cleaned-up pop rap on the radio. Hip-hop had gone through the pop rap explosion with MC Hammer and Vanilla Ice dancing in them shiny-ass pants, then Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg blew up on the West Coast. Not to take nothin away from Dre and Snoop, but Dres production was clean and laid-back in every way RZAs was muddy and aggressive. You can hear it in the production on Enter the Wu-Tang. RZA wanted to keep the sound dark and muffled and dirty. He wanted to capture the feel of the hood in that sound, establish an atmosphere that felt like the places Wu-Tang came from. RZA and Ghostface were living in the Stapleton projects out in Staten Island. Method Man, Deck, and Raekwon were in Park Hill, otherwise known as Killa Hill. And you know about Dirtys blockwe had family out there on Putnam and Franklin, but it was still a tough place to come from.

RZA was involved in a shooting in Steubenville, Ohio, not long before that album came outhe was facing eight years for attempted murder. Steubenvilles a suburb of Pittsburgh. RZA and Dirty had family there, so they both spent some time there as kids. By 1992, RZA and Ghostface Killah had moved out there full time. RZA was dealing drugs, and in the course of the trouble that brought them from the Steubenville natives, Ghost got shot, their Steubenville friend Wise got murdered, and RZA got charged with attempted murder after a shootout with a rival crew. RZAs girlfriend was pregnant with his first child, and he was sitting in jail. He was in there thirty days awaiting his trial, and when he beat the case he rededicated himself to the Five Percent lessons and to his plan to make Wu-Tang Clan one of the biggest hip-hop groups of all time.

There were so many court cases going on with Wu-Tang while they were making that first album that they spent about as much time in court as they spent in the studio. Masta Killa and U-God were in jail during most of the time spent recording that first album. Thats why you barely hear them on there. Masta Killa has one verse on Da Mystery of Chessboxin and U-God has the first verse on that one and four lines on Protect Ya Neck. Around the time of their first album, Masta Killa was best known as the dude who didnt like the illustrations that got published with a Wu-Tang interview in Rap Pages, so when he saw the reporter sitting in his car in a parking lot, he walked over and punched him in the face. In 92, Dirty was involved in a bar fight in New York and ended up getting charged with assault. He paid a $5,000 fine and was sentenced to five years probation.
Almost all of the Wus nine members had arrest records. I found my own trouble too. I went with Dirty and our man Pop for a Wu-Tang show out in Staten Island. Dirty had bought a little four-door with his advance for Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) and we were on our way to the show. Dirty said, Yo, I wanna do something different for this show. I got to make sure my outfit looks better than anybody elses.

Well, what you want to do?

Dirty pulled the car over and ran into a little corner bodega. Me and Pop was like, What is this nigga doing? Dirty came out with a forty of Olde E and a pair of stockings and hopped back in the car tearing open the packaging.

You gonna put on some pantyhose, nigga? Aint no girls out here.

He stretched the stockings over his face and tied up the legs on top of his head. Wu-Tang loved wearing those stocking masks. Inspectah Deck said, There was a mystique about the group . . . I mean, we were wearing stocking caps on the cover! We didnt care if people saw our faces. It wasnt a fashion show. Nobody knew us, but they knew of us. They knew the name. And that was powerful. I dont know why Dirty didnt wait till he got to the show to put the stocking cap on. We were on the main street by the projects and the cops drove by as soon as he stretched it over his head. They thought we was gonna rob the store. They turned on the siren and drove back around to us, hopped out with their guns pulled and screaming, Get out of the car! Get down on the ground!

I looked at Dirty. I aint getting on no fucking ground, man.

I aint getting down on no fucking ground either.

We held our hands out the window and Dirty yelled to the cops, You know who we is, man?

First they grabbed Pop out of the backseat. They threw him on the hood of the car and started searching him. Then they put guns in Dirtys face, threw him over the car. Then me. They didnt find nothing on any of us, but when they searched the car they found a gun.

Im gonna tell the truthit was Dirtys gun. It wasnt to hurt nobody. It was to keep us protected, because even though Dirty was getting paid a little more than a hundred dollars to play this show, niggas in the hood see him come off stage and they know he has money in his pocket. But before Dirty could speak my man Pop took the weight. Whose gun is this?

Mine.

He got three years of house arrest with an ankle bracelet and three years probation. Pop had actually never been in trouble, didnt have no record. So he took the weight for the gun. If Dirty would have took the gun he could have wound up doing twenty years. He had a felony on his record from that bar fight. It reminds me of the story I heard the Notorious B.I.G. tell in interviews: it was his gun but his boy took the weight because Biggie had more of an opportunity to make something of himself. It was the same situation with Pop and Dirty. Yo, Dirty, when I get out and youre famous, dont forget about me.

They locked us up.

I was already on probation, and here I was caught in a car with a gun, so automatically I was staying without bail.

Dirty had a cousin who worked in the jail, so the police was asking Dirty where he wanted to go: general population or PCprotective custody. See, people in there knew who he was. He heard niggas calling his name.

Thats that nigga Dirty Bastard.

Wu-Tang, nigga.

Yeah, nigga, you in here now. All that rap shit, we gonna get some of this money from you now.

Dirty was screaming back: Try me, motherfuckers. I really wish you motherfuckers would try me.

Then were hearing even more taunts and threats and he sees its going to be too many niggas against just one of him. Yo, I want to talk to my cousin. I want to go to PC.

Nah, fuck that, Dirty, I said. I aint going to no protective custody. Im going to the population.

I want PC.

Fuck PC. I dont play that shit. Come with me, Dirty. I know everybody from the hood in there anyway. I know mad people.

I think Dirty knew that if he went to population with me he wouldnt come back out. Theyd either kill him or hed have to hurt somebody so bad to stay safe that hed never see the light of day again. Everything would have been ruined. Wu-Tang, his own career, all that down the drain. Nah, man, I need to be safe, he said. I need to get out of here alive so I can get back to doing this music and getting this money and find a lawyer to get you up out of here quicker.

All right, bet.

So we split up. He went to PC and they took me to population. The next morning RZAs brother Divine came and bailed Dirty out.

Pop got bailed out. I got arraigned. I was in jail for eight months. I didnt get no time off for good behavior because I was in there whoopin ass. I missed my first shot at a record deal going to jail. I could have got signed. But the whole time I was in there Dirty was making sure that my commissary was fat. He would go check on Pop. He would go see Patricia to make sure she had money and everything while I was in.

During that eight months Dirty was still working on his solo album and working with Wu-Tang. This was just before the Enter the Wu-Tang album dropped. They were about to blow up. Loud reissued Protect Ya Neck as their first singlethis time with Method Man as the B-sideand on November 9, 1993, Loud released Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers).

I came out of jail and the niggas was about to be famous.