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

Summary

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

Host: Jake Brennan
Release Date: October 3, 2023

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Episode Overview

This episode dives deep into the life of Lamont Hawkins, better known as U-God of the Wu-Tang Clan, chronicling his tumultuous upbringing in Staten Island, gritty encounters with street violence, brushes with the law, attempts to escape a criminal lifestyle, and the perpetual pull of his past—even as he rose to hip hop fame. With DISGRACELAND’s signature dramatic storytelling, the episode captures the intersection of music, crime, and the cost of survival, revealing the darkness and resilience that shaped U-God before and during his time with Wu-Tang.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Brutal Staten Island Upbringing (03:04–07:38)

• Childhood Hardships:
  From a young age, Lamont Hawkins was subject to severe beatings by older kids, a rite of passage “that made you stronger.”
  • “He took the beating like he was 18 years old, not 8. He knew it was coming. He couldn't outrun it, couldn't outsmart it. And there was always a price to pay.” (03:38, Jake Brennan)
• Learning Street Hierarchies and Survival:
  The influence of his uncle’s crew introduced Lamont to the realities of street violence—robberies, brutal beatdowns, and quick, decisive action.
• Hip-Hop as Soundtrack and Salvation:
  Amidst the chaos, hip hop offered both escape and identity. Early crews and the new culture structured life in Park Hill.

2. The Crack Game and Its Consequences (07:38–13:18)

• Introduction to Drug Dealing:
  The episode exposes the rationale and mechanics behind Lamont’s entry into crack dealing—economic desperation, peer normalization, and the lure of fast money.
  • “Selling crack was a no brainer. Crack sales made money hand over fist. Hundreds of thousands of dollars all in an afternoon. New day’s work.” (09:13, Jake Brennan)
• Police Raids and Narrow Escapes:
  A tension-filled account of Hawkins narrowly escaping a police raid after a night hustling in a crack house. Paranoia, gut instinct, and sheer luck intersect.

3. Seeking an Out: Legit Work vs. Street Loyalty (17:08–21:08)

• Sweeping Floors at the Statue of Liberty:
  Attempting to go straight, U-God takes a legit job alongside future Wu-Tang member Method Man—only to abandon it for the comparative ‘easy money’ of street hustling.
  • “The legit job he took…at the Statue of Liberty…that was work. Actual work. Too much work. And the small amount of money he got at the end of a long shift…didn’t seem worth it.” (17:41, Jake Brennan)
• The Cycle of Crime & Violence:
  Arrested for driving a stolen car, subject to ‘street justice’ on those who wronged him, U-God’s efforts to go legit are continually undermined by violence, the need for respect, and the shifting criminal hierarchy.

4. The 5 Percent Nation, Identity, and Transformation (17:08; 21:08–26:02)

• Name and Meaning:
  Influenced by the 5 Percenters, Lamont becomes “U-God” (Universal God), infusing him with a sense of power and possibility despite his circumstances.
• Endless Push-and-Pull:
  U-God oscillates between attempts at self-improvement (inspired by RZA and the 5 Percenters) and inevitable returns to the crack game—the cost of walking away is high; betrayal and violent retribution are always close.

5. Vengeance and Vicious Cycles (29:39–36:30)

• Attempted Murder and Street Retribution:
  A dramatic, almost cinematic sequence in which U-God, seeking payback for bad drugs, plans a retaliatory murder, only to be set up by the dealer and arrested.
  • “The plan was simple. Find the guy who sold him the shitty crack, give the guy the bag…get his money back, and then pop the guy with the burner hidden in his pocket. Bing, bang, boom, pow.” (29:39, Jake Brennan)
• Prison and Addiction:
  Serving time, U-God confronts the nature of addiction—not to substances, but “to the lifestyle, the status and the money.” Narcotics Anonymous reframes the narrative of being “hooked.”

6. Fatherhood, Fame, and Personal Tragedy (36:30–41:30)

• Wu-Tang’s Success—An Illusory Escape: Joy at breaking out with “36 Chambers” and climbing out of poverty is palpable.
  • “There was joy in the music they were making…in the fact that they had managed…to escape the cycle of poverty and violence…” (41:10, Jake Brennan)
• Personal Catastrophe:
  U-God’s 2-year-old son, Dante, becomes the victim of a shooting—caught in the crossfire and used as a human shield in a gunfight.
  • “His two-year-old son Dante had been shot back home on Staten Island. Two years old and caught in the crossfire…one of the gunmen actually picked Dante up and used him as a human shield.” (41:45, Jake Brennan)
• Aftermath and Emotional Fallout:
  U-God drowns in guilt—no longer capable of outrage or vengeance, only of deep grief and self-destruction.

7. Paranoia, Surveillance, and the Cycle’s End (41:30–43:39)

• Police Surveillance & Mental Collapse:
  With his reputation preceding him, U-God is relentlessly tailed by law enforcement—paranoia consuming him, leading to a breakdown and psychiatric hospitalization.
  • “He was made to think he was crazy. Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not after you. And U-God had every right to be paranoid. They were after him.” (42:50, Jake Brennan)
• The Streets: Never Gone:
  Despite success, U-God (like his bandmate ODB) is haunted by the past; the choice to step away from the streets is never final, and the episode ends with the message that the past never fully lets go.

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Memorable Quotes & Moments

• On Becoming Hardened:
  “After a while he didn't fear the beatings. They couldn't hurt him anymore. He was tough now. He could take a fist to the chest or the leg or the face. And everyone knew it, too.” (06:11, Jake Brennan)
• Street Wisdom:
  “People don't fuck with someone with a rep. His uncle taught him that. And the guys his uncle ran with taught him the difference between getting beaten up and getting beat down.” (06:30, Jake Brennan)
• On Addiction:
  “He was addicted to the lifestyle, the status and the money.” (35:51, Jake Brennan)
• The Cost of Survival:
  “Just because you decide to be done with something, that doesn't mean that that something is done with you.” (41:25, Jake Brennan)
• Final Reflection:
  “He was made to think he was crazy. Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not after you. And U-God had every right to be paranoid. They were after him.” (42:50, Jake Brennan)

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Important Timestamps

• 03:04 – Introduction to Lamont Hawkins’ street upbringing
• 07:38 – First crack house raid close-call
• 13:18 – Attempt to go legit—Statue of Liberty janitorial job
• 17:08 – Becoming U-God; insight from the 5 Percenters
• 21:08 – Police arrest, violence, and revenge
• 29:39 – Attempted retaliation, setup, arrest, and prison time
• 36:30 – Debut of Wu-Tang Clan; “36 Chambers” and the meaning of the number
• 41:45 – Son Dante’s shooting; aftermath
• 42:50 – Heightened police surveillance and psychological fallout
• 43:39 – Episode closing, segueing to Old Dirty Bastard’s narrative

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Tone & Style

Jake Brennan’s narration balances reverence with hard-nosed realism—raw, unfiltered, sometimes profane, and always deeply human. The delivery is cinematic and evocative, emphasizing the pain, desperation, pride, and fleeting hope of U-God’s story.

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Summary

This poignant, pulse-pounding episode of DISGRACELAND peels back the layers of U-God’s life, exposing the cycles of poverty, crime, and violence that defined his early years, the impossible choices that shaped his path, and the ways in which pain is never truly escapable—no matter how high you climb. For Wu-Tang and U-God, the streets of Staten Island were both crucible and curse, forging talent and tragedy in equal measure.

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End of Summary

Transcript

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[Jake Brennan]

change Disgraceland is a production of Double Elvis. The stories about Wuang Clan's Yu God are insane. He was raised by the streets of Staten island, where getting beaten up was a rite of passage that made you stronger. He was busted for driving a stolen car and assaulting a police officer. He dealt crack and narrowly avoided a police raid on the apartment building he dealt from. He also dealt vengeance. He once broke a guy's jaw and came within seconds of killing a rival dope peddler. And when he finally put the violent life behind him, the ghosts of his past returned to remind him that the streets weren't done with him yet. At that point, of course, UGOT had moved on to make great music with Wu Tang Clan, some of the most defining music of the late 1990s. Unlike that clip I played for you at the top of the show, that wasn't great music. That was a preset loop from my melotron called Is this thing on mk1. I played you that clip because I can't afford the rights to the Sign by Ace of Bass. And why would I play you that specific slice of ubiquitous Europop cheese? Could I afford it? Because that was the number one song in America on March 13, 1994. And that was the day that YouGod's new life as a member of a wildly successful hip hop collective was shattered when a member of his own family was caught in the middle of a gunfight on this rites of passage, stolen cars, police raids, Broken Jaws Caught in the Crossfire and Wu Tang Clan's Yu God. I'm Jake Brennan and this is Disgrace. Park Hill, Staten Island, 1979. He took the beating like he was 18 years old, not 8. He knew it was coming. He couldn't outrun it, couldn't outsmart it. And there was always a price to pay. The older kids held him down and punched him in the chest until he felt like he couldn't breathe. And they wailed on his legs so long and so hard he could barely walk. The beatings were a punishment because Lamont Hawkins, the kid the world would later know as YouGod, was a little punk who ran with other little punks who liked to perch on rooftops and chuck rocks at the older kids down on the street. And so young YouGod, aka young Lamont here, learned real so quick that if you dished it out, you had to be prepared to take it. So he did. He didn't cry and didn't show them any weakness. He just took it. Every punch, every slap, every wedgie that left a shredded pair of Hanes in its wake. After a while, he didn't fear the beatings. They couldn't hurt him anymore. He was tough now. He could take a fist to the chest or the leg or the face. And everyone knew it, too. The young punks he ran with, the older kids who chased him. He had the respect of all of them. And when you had respect, you had a rep. People don't fuck with someone with a rep. His uncle taught him that. And the guys his uncle ran with taught him the difference between getting beaten up and getting beat down. One tuned you up a little bit, and the other put you in the hospital. His uncle's friends served up beat downs. Knives, guns, bricks, whatever it took. One of them robbed a guy on the street while Lamont, just nine years old, stood by and watched. And that guy who got robbed took a brick to his face. It happened fast, and that's how it worked. You were fast and you were safe. You were slow and you were fucked. His uncle's guy was fast as shit.

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And the other dude wobbled like a wet noodle and hit the ground with a thud. They hit him again. The brick sliced open the guy's face. The blood gushed. One of his eyes rolled back and they took what they wanted from him. Money, jewelry, whatever they could find. He just lay there on the ground, twitching, moaning. Looked like he was having a seizure. Blood and foam oozed from the corners of his mouth. Lamont watched it all. At first it was shocking. But after witnessing a few of these beatdowns, it became normal in his eyes. This was the way the world worked. Was it perfect? Far from it. But what was perfect? Back at home, nothing was perfect. Lamont's father was a ghost, and his mom did what she could to make ends meet. But they had nothing. And little punks like Lamont wanted something more than the bare minimum. The streets may not have been safe, but they did offer other possibilities. You just had to make your bones first. So you took beatings, you gave beatings. You got stronger, you formed crews. Crews were power. Crews made you stronger. First the Baby Bash Crew, then the Dick Em Down Crew in middle school, and later it was the Wreck Posse in high school. This world, these crews, they had a soundtrack. Hip hop. It was everywhere from boomboxes to block parties. The Treacherous Three, Grand Wizard Theodore and the Fantastic Five. And the Cold Crush Brothers. Hip hop was also the soundtrack of the streets, which on Staten island in the 1980s were filled with crack dealers and crack users. You could either be one or the other into a kid like Lamont, now a teenager. A teenager with a single mom struggling to pay the bills. A teenager living so far below the poverty line it would make the average middle class American look like a Rockefeller. A teenager who'd gotten tough and earned a rep. Selling crack was a no brainer. Crack sales made money hand over fist. Hundreds of thousands of dollars all in an afternoon. Nude's work. So what if you were the conduit that put crack in someone else's hand? Overcoming questions of morality is real easy to do when you're struggling simply to have nothing. The drug dealers had more than nothing. And they walked around with rolls of cash. They drove shiny new cars and they wore fresh new clothes. And they showed Lamont that he could have the same. So Lamont settled into selling crack as easily as he'd settled into taking beatings. Thanks. The first time is the hardest. Standing in the gate, that's to say, on the other side of a door, the inside plunged into darkness. You've got bindles and vials at your fingertips. And there's a knock from outside. It's loud, anxious, someone's mumbling. A crackhead in need of a fix. Bad. The money comes through the slot and the door. The bills are crinkled and damp. They smell like shit. The fingers pushing them through the slot don't smell much better. You take the green and then send the bindle out through the slot where those same fucking dirty fingers snatch that bindle like it's the most important thing on the face of the earth. And after that first time gets easier. There's another knock, another mumble, another pair of fingers shoving another roll of bills through the slot. And then more. So many more. Staten Island's appetite for crack was constant tonight. The traffic at the door was endless and the knocking was incessant. Knock, knock, cash through the slot. Knock, knock, cash through the slot. Lamont could hardly keep up, so he sampled some of the product to take the edge off. He sliced open a filly, dumped the tobacco out, and replaced it with a mixture of weed and crack. But the woolly joint wasn't helping. In fact, it was making things worse. The sound of knocking and of cash sliding through the narrow slope banged around in his head. The rush just didn't stop rushing. His head spun. Something was off. Something was wrong. Even for a busy night, this seemed a little too busy. Maybe it was just the dope talking, but suddenly Lamont felt the need to leave. He couldn't shake the suspicion that he was pushing his luck, that something bad was about to happen. So he closed up shop for the night. Lamont walked out of the building and onto the street, and he pushed by clients, past, present, and future. And then he saw him standing right there, directly ahead. Cop. Nypd, Drug squad, maybe tnt. He couldn't be sure. Lamont was sure, though, that he was fucked, that he was a sitting duck, that he was stoned, that he was stupid, that his pockets were lined with cash and dope. But the cop just yelled at him, move out of the way. And more cops materialized directly behind this one and began to push forward together. What was happening? Move out of the way now. Lamont moved quickly to his side when the cop led a group of NYPD officers straight up into the building that Lamont had just been selling from. Juan held a battering ram in his hands, and he swung it forward and smashed through the door, and the sound was enormous. The wood splintered into pieces, but one more swing and the door busted wide open. Lamont watched as the cops stormed inside and began to grab whoever they could get their hands. But they didn't get their hands on Lamont because the streets hadn't just made him stronger, they made him wiser. The streets, though, they weren't perfect. They never would be. And just because he got away this time didn't mean there wouldn't be a next time. And there was always a next time. And there would always be a price to pay.

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[Jake Brennan]

Like a lot of kids growing up in the New York projects in the 1980s, Lamont Hawkins liked what he heard. When the older 5% dudes talked, they used words like peace, and they were all about building up, not tearing down. They built ciphers, bonds and brotherhood. And they gave Lamont hope and promise. And they gave him his new name, too. They called him you, God. That's the letter U. God, as in you are God or God is inside you, a reference to the 5% nation's teachings that the original man is the Asiatic Black man, the maker, the owner, the cream of the planet Earth, the father of civilization and God of the universe. To quote one of the answers to the nation's 120 lessons, that is. But the letter U is also short for universal. In other words, infinite or comprehensive, meaning that Lamont Hawkins, AKA Universal God, could accomplish anything he set out to do. He could hustle if he wanted to hustle, and he could rhyme if he wanted to. To rhyme right now, though, you, God needed to find a way out, not out of the crack game. He did that once already. All it took was narrowly avoiding a police raid on the spot he was selling from to scare him off. But the legit job he took in its place at the Statue of Liberty with his guy, Clifford Smith, AKA Method man, that was. Well, that was work. Actual work. Too much work. And the small amount of money he got at the end of a long shift, mopping floors and hauling trash, it didn't seem worth it. So two years later, now 17 years old, you got ditched that legit shit and went back to hustling on the streets. And now he was wondering if the better money he was making slinging dope was worth all this Standing against a rented Ford Taurus, his hands on the hood. 5o getting real friendly with the requisite pat down. His first mistake was getting pulled over. His second mistake was driving without a license. And his third mistake was driving a car that didn't belong to him. Turns out the Taurus had been reported stolen and was currently a vehicle of interest in a hit and run. Which is why you God was out of the car getting searched by the police. Thankfully he had no product on him at the moment. But he did have a set of brass knuckles and five grand in cash. And the cop found both and put them on top of the car. Ugod was fucked. He stared at the five GS. He couldn't afford to lose that money. The cop would make that shit disappear like David Copperfield. He also couldn't afford to get arrested. He wasn't doing time. Not now. Not ever. Ugod found strength than his 5 percenter name. He was infinite. He could accomplish anything he set out to do. And right now he was going to do this. He grabbed the wad of cash from the hood of the Taurus and he ran. He tore ass across the basketball court, beelined it towards the projects. The cop was stunned, but got his sprint on right away. Look at this pencil dick with a mustache and a two pack a day habit suddenly finding his inner Carl Lewis. The gold rope chains around Yugod's neck were heavy and they wanted to sink him like a stone. Not today though. Today the pair of Gucci's on his feet were going to carry him like the wind coming off of the Hudson. His chest burned and the air was ice to his lungs. But he wasn't going to let them catch him. There were two cops behind him now and two more were coming in hot right in front of him. Shit. The two in front had him cold. That was it. Lights out. So he juked to the left and then he spun hard to the right. And those keystone herbs bought it and fell to the ground trying to keep up. And he laughed as he kept running. He felt the surge of adrenaline shoot through him like a spike to a vein and found a higher gear. He was really moving now. He was the wind. He was the air. He was everything. And he was getting deeper into the projects where he could finally lose these jokers in a crowd. And his feet then tripped up and in a flash were out in front of him. His face hit the pavement hard and he looked back and some dude hanging out in the neighborhood had stuck his foot out and tripped. You got on purpose. Who was this guy rooting for anyway? Not the underdog. Not the guy who was now smothered by a litter of cops, pig piling on top of him, including the ones he'd left in the dust. That fake out move. Those guys were especially pissed. They went full Tyson. They beat you God with their father fists. They kicked him with their feet. One went right for the mouth. Sent his polished oxford straight at Yugod's teeth. He knew the cops could knock every last tooth out of his head and get away with it. Then he put an arm up in defense and the cops kept bashing away. By the time they brought him down to the station, Yugod was bruised and bloodied. Relieved of his $5,000 too. Charged with grand larceny and assault on a police officer. He beat the assault charge, though, but the other one stuck. He did a weekend in the Manhattan Detention Complex, aka the Tombs, and got assigned 150 hours of community service. But before giving back to the community, Ugod had some unfinished business to settle. That stupid Taurus. More specifically, the stupid piece of shit who rented him the Taurus. Not Enterprise, not hurts. A dude from around the way. A dude who worked the streets just like you. God did You God made finding that dude his first piece of business when he got out. Yo, you got slipped his fingers through a pair of brass knuckles. You rented me a stolen car. Dude barely got two words out in response before you got connected. Those brass knuckles to the guy's face. Some float like a butterfly and sting like a bee. You God just bash the motherfucker and fast. If you blinked, you missed it. Yougot heard the guy's jaw split in half. His fist broke it in two. Dude would never disrespect him again. The violence flew in the face of all that peace talk amongst 5 percenters. But it was necessary. The game was changing. It wasn't just about making money anymore. Things would never stay that simple. It wasn't always going to be money in bindles back and forth through slots and a door. Now it was about respect. And about protecting yourself. Park Hill had become Killa Hill. Bodies dropped. Lives were snuffed out. Guns trump brass knuckles. And when it came to guns, the bigger the better. Some pansy ass piece like a.22 wasn't going to do shit for you when you had a TEC 9 or a Mac 10 trained on your skull. The chrome so shiny you can look at your own reflection looking back at you seconds before you. Your brains got splattered all over the sidewalk and hierarchies were always in flux. You climb up the proverbial ladder one day and the next day you miss a rung and fall down to the ground. Chances were pretty good that things would wind up pretty bad. You got knew this. He knew even his fate was up in the air on any given day. And he was pretty far up that ladder at this point. But he wanted out. He wanted out more than he'd ever wanted out before. Before. More than the time he walked away from his drug dealing door minutes before the NYPD opened it up with a battering ram. He was a new father and he wanted to be there for his son, unlike his own father before him. He talked about all this with his friend Bobby Diggs, aka the RZA. On nights when YouGod went to RZA's place, listened to music, made music and dreamed up big plans. But walking away from dealing crack wasn't as easy as it used to be. He was the guy now, one of the big dealers in Killah Hill. You hand your big dealer spot over to one of these smaller fries and then you turn your back and bam. Who's to say they're not going to put a bullet in the back of your head? Plus, RZA's concept of a hip hop collective called Wu Tang Clan was in the very early 90s, still just a constant concept. It wasn't a viable alternative. So you got stayed the course. He stayed alert. He earned every ounce of respect given to him. And even if that meant more violence, there would always be more violence. But especially after you got realized he'd been sold a bad batch. Not doing anything to the guy who tried to screw him with bad drugs wasn't an option. He was obligated to make that guy pay. Just like the guy who rented him the stolen car. You God was infinite, comprehensive, capable of anything, even the thing he was about to do. We'll be right back after this. Word, word. Word.

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1991, New York City, Uptown. The plan was simple. Find the guy who sold him the shitty crack, give the guy the bag of shitty crack, get his money back, and then pop the guy with the burner hidden in his pocket. Bing, bang, boom, pow. You God finds the guy real fast. He's right where you God left him, still slinging that pharmaceutical bullshit on the street. This is gonna be easier than he thought. YouGod pulls the Pathfinder right up on the curb and hops out, yo, that shit you sold me was gone garbage. You need to give me my money back now. Nah, the guy says, not true. He's backing up as you God pushes on him, and then he starts to make some stupid excuse. You God doesn't want to hear it. The money now. Okay? The guy says, okay, man, just chill. Chill out, man. And the guy can see you gots coming unhinged. His eyes are bulging out of his head and he's gonna piece. And he is clearly not around. Dude also knows you gots badass. Kill a hill, okay? The guy says again, always with the okay. This fucking guy here, he says, chill out, okay? Chill out, okay. Let me go upstairs, okay, and grab the money for you, okay? So Yugod gets back in the Pathfinder and waits. And as he waits, he thinks about how stupid this all is. Rolling up here in broad daylight, strapped, ready to murder a dude. He waits some more. And the guy's up there somewhere. And in one of the apartment units you got. Doesn't know which one you got. Starts to feel like he's being fooled. And again, it's that same fucking feeling. That feeling of knowing that something else is going on and that asshole didn't dirty not once, but twice. And then you God hear sirens and they're coming in fast. And within seconds, the Pathfinder is surrounded by blue lights. It's at that moment that you got, realizes that motherfucker went up there back up to his motherfucking place. Not to get money, but to call the cops. The NYPD wanted Ugod to snitch on other dealers in New York. Part of the Tactical Narcotics Team business, or tnt. The cops master plan. Where they ensnared the little guys in order to get the bigger guys. But you God was no snitch. You God was a vault. They gave him one to three years and he did time. First at a place called Manhattan House and then Rikers island and then a minimum security prison called Camp Gabriel's. He took classes and attended movies, meetings, anger management, Narcotics Anonymous. NA was strange at first because he wasn't a regular user and thus didn't think he belonged there. But he was an addict. And NA helped him see that he was addicted to the lifestyle, the status and the money. When he was paroled, eight months into his sentence, he left feeling like a new man. Like he had a new lease on life. But when he got back to Staten island, he couldn't be that new man. He was an ex con on parole. And he had but one place to go. Back to the streets. The hierarchy in Killa Hill had shifted once again. Some crew from Queens was trying to take over. And this dude they called uncle told Yugod that he and his three guys couldn't sell in their usual spot anymore. That was some bullshit. Ugod went into autopilot. He forgot about the things he'd learned on the inside. N.A. and anger management. He forgot about the 5%. He put it all aside. He told his guys that they were going to take out this queen's crew. Masks, gloves, bulletproof vests to the nines. Tec Nines that is, and Mac 10s too. They found uncle chilling on the front steps of a Park Hill building. Their building, their hood. Uncle never saw them coming. It was four guys against one. Four guys with semi automatic weapons. Weapons pointed at Uncle's head. You God wrapped his finger around the trigger. He steadied his arm. And they were gonna make a mess, paint, kill a hill with the blood of Queens. That would send a message. And the message was this. You, God was out. You, God was back. You, God was capable of anything. But if he was capable of this, of bringing forth death and destruction and all out war, it meant he was also capable of the opposite. And this thought gave him pause. He hesitated. Doubt entered his mind. And then that feeling, that familiar feeling, once again that something was terribly wrong. That he was pushing his Luck. It was the same feeling he'd gotten before when he closed up shop, when he stopped dealing for the night and walked away. Meeting immediately before the cops raided the apartment. And that feeling, when that okay ran upstairs and called the cops, he thought of the five presenters. Narcotics Anonymous, his addictions, the cycle, all of it. For what? He looked around at his boys and they're all waiting for him to shoot first. Waiting on his orders. Nah, man, he said, I'm not doing it. Not pulling the trigger. He left, went home, took off the mask and the gloves and the bulletproof vest and put down the semi automatic. The violence ended here. But the dealing. The dealing went on. He couldn't give it up. He needed the money. So he kept chopping up and cooking bricks of cocaine to put money in his pockets, which meant his skin kept absorbing cocaine into his bloodstream, which meant he kept failing the piss tests that were part of his parole. And he was in and out of lockup. Every time he got out, he went right back into dealing again. The streets were always there. The streets were going nowhere. And so was you got this was the advice he received from the rza. The streets ain't going to nowhere. That's what RZA said. But rza. RZA was ready to take this Wu Tang thing somewhere. He told you God to stop messing around with crack, stop failing the piss test before they locked him up and threw away the key and follow him to Shaolin and beyond. The streets would still be there if it didn't work out. But with any luck it would work out and the streets would never give you God trouble again. There's only one word to describe what the nine original members of which the Wu Tang Clan felt when they released their 1993 debut album, Joy. There was joy in the music they were making. There was joy in the immediate success they were experiencing. Joy in how they were embraced and heralded by the hip hop world. Mostly there was joy in the fact that they had managed against very great odds to escape the cycle of poverty and violence and the cycle of none success. They were no longer running, no longer looking behind their backs and no longer wondering what they'd have to do to put food on the table that night. They had purpose now, true purpose. And they put that purpose right in the album title. 36 Chambers. Let's do the supreme math. Take the 3 and the 6 from 36. 3 plus 6 is 9. 9 members of the Wu Tang 9 planets in the solar system or 3 multiplied by 6 is 18. And if you take the 1 and the 8 and 18, and add them together once again, you get 9. The 9th supreme number represents born to bring something into existence, something new, something powerful, something like Wu Tang Clan's first album. The world responded to that power. Wu Tang blared from car stereos and boomboxes from coast to coast. But just because you decide to be done with something, that doesn't mean that that something is done with you. And before long, the reality of Wu Tang's not so distant past came calling back. March 13, 1994. Wu Tang were in California when yougod got the call. His two year old son Dante had been shot back home on Staten Island. Two years old and caught in the crossfire while playing with his babysitter outside. And one of the gunmen actually picked Dante up and used him as a human shield. And bullets hit him in his kidney, his pancreas and his hand. Yuga caught the next plane back east. He wasn't prepared for what he saw at the hospital. His boy laying there on the operating table, his chest cut wide open. Tubes and machines and so much blood. Dante died two times on that table. And two times Dante came back to life. But his life would never be the same again. He lost the kidney and the nerves in his spine were damaged. And the physical and mental therapy that lay ahead was extensive. Yuga couldn't cope with any of it. So he drank. And so he got high. And so he ingested whatever he could to numb the feeling. Feelings of pain, feelings of guilt that he wasn't there when it happened and that he wasn't able to protect his son. Was this all some sort of sick cosmic joke? He worked so hard to extract himself from all this. He had found success so that he could provide for his family legitimately and properly. Only for his own child. Child. His two year old child. To become collateral damage in the life that he thought he'd left behind. And he wasn't out for justice or blood. He put that shit behind him. Nothing good was gonna come from him rolling up on the dude who shot that day and putting a bullet in his head. Now, the old you God. Yeah, the old you God would have done something. He would have put that in a coma at least. The you God was too busy drowning in his own misery, though. All he wanted to do was to make sure his son was safe. And he wanted to get real fucked up. The guy who shot Dante didn't know that. The guy knew ugod's old rep. He knew what UGOD was capable of. So that Guy feared for his life. He was convinced that UGOD was after him. And soon these suspicions were floating from neighborhood to neighborhood. Check him in. You got is going to tear that guy up. Better watch yourself, my man. You got does not fuck around. Word of you God's supposed wrath made it to the police. And the cops were, as we've covered here already, quite familiar with you God. If there was ever a time you God was going to do something stupid, this seemed to be it. So they took this threat seriously. They put a unit on him. He was followed. Every step he made, every breath he'd take. They were always there, no matter where he was going or what he was doing. Unmarked cars, plainclothes dicks, knockoff Ray Bans. Cracked lips sipping shitty coffee from Styrofoam cups. Eyes peeking out from behind yesterday's copy of the Post. The sound of idling engines. CB radio static crackling. Newspapers being snapped shut in a hurry. His own footsteps echoed when he walked down the street. At first it was just one or two of these cops. But after a while the number seemed to double and then triple. At least in you God's head it did. He was seeing these guys everywhere. Behind the curtain, in his living room, in the bathroom mirror. He even saw them in his dreams. It was enough to drive a guy crazy. And it did. There's Yugod pacing around in the middle of the street in just his robe and his underwear. Timberland's on his bare feet. A frightening manifestation of crazy. He got locked up, not jail. Two weeks in a psychiatric hospital. You God was not crazy. He was made to think he was crazy. Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not after you. And all that you got had every right to be paranoid. They were after him. They were always going to be after him. Who they were varied. Sometimes it was the police and other times it was the streets. He knew this odb. Old Dirty Bastard. He also knew this odb, Wu Tang's resident old school RB aficionado and lyrical wildcard, was pushed beyond paranoia. He was scared. He told everyone he was scared. But no one wanted to listen. So Dirty had to get their attention. ODB had to make him listen, even if that meant setting himself on fire. I'm Jake Brennan. In this episode of Disgraceland Is To Be Continued. Foreign. Disgraceland was created by yours truly and is produced in partnership with Double Elvis. Credits for this episode can be found on the show notes [e-mail] if you're listening as a Disgraceland All Access Member thank you for supporting the show. We really appreciate it. And if not, you can become a member right now by going to Disgracelandpod.com members can listen to every episode of Disgraceland Ad Free. Plus you'll get one brand new exclusive episode every month, weekly unscripted bonus episodes, special audio collections, and early access to merchandise and events. Visit disgracelandpod.com membership for details. Rate and review the show and follow us on Instagram, TikTok, Twitter and Facebook Disgracelandpod and on [e-mail] Disgracelandpod Rocka Rolla

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