Part II
04: Criminology
RZA: That was me trying to produce like a DJ, produce a breakbeat. Ghost actually asked me to make one of those beats. You listen to old DJ tapes. That's how I made that song, and he wanted hihs shit to sound like a breakbeat. He had a rhyme that he knew was going to change the game - that was the verse that got him recognized. Cypess Hill's DJ Muggs called up and was like "Yo, he killed that shit. He ripped that shit" Form that point on, he's the co-star. He wins Best Supporting Actor. Rae got nominated, maybe won or didn't - but Ghost definetly wins.
GHOSTFACE KILLAH: I wrote that verse in San Francisco. We used to carry the beat machine around a lot. We was out there a good two weeks, so RZA was making beats all day. I heard that beat and I loved that track. The year was '95. Hip hop was still hip hop, and we was going in. I don't know if I was drunk when I wrote that, but I know when I went in the booth, I had a battery in my back, f***ing with the Ballantine Ale. I recorded a lot of my shit on Ballantine.
05: Incarcerated Scarfaces:
RAEKWON: The way RZA had it poppin' back thenn, we would come into his spot. It was like dudes would come in on their own time and create stuff. I remember I just came in, and the beat was just pumpin'. I wrote the hook - that was the first thing I did. I think one of my mans just got hit with some heavy time around that time. I had a lot of niggas up there, too. So it was like. Yo, this one gotta be for them niggas right here. This right here will be just fo them niggas in jail. It won't be for nobody else. I just wrote it out real quick. I did three verses on that, so Ghost didn't have to come in and really do anything to it.
RZA: I wasn't making that beat for Rae. I was finished with Rae. I like having 13 tracks. I don't like having 18. I was making it for GZA probably. He was next. But then Rae heard that beat, grabbed his pen and paper, and started writing. Two hours later, it was written.
06: Rainy Dayz
RAEKWON: When we wrote "Rainy Dayz", I think we was already out of the country. We was in Barbados, by the water. Some joints we had the beats to we went out of town with. And that one specifically, we wrote by the water. Had that good villa right off the ocean and shit. Three, four in the morning. wind is blowing, curtains is blowing, and we just really got a chance to put it down. I think I wrote mine out there. We just basically gave you some action on how niggas in the hood think. Like how a nigga lady think - they don't act like they there to try to bring you back from doing what you gotta do, but they try to get you caught up. We was like, This is gonna be perfect for the struggling girl who can't understand her man and he a thorough nigga. We wanted to put a girl from the movie in the skit, at the start of the song, when she said "I sing for him and he isisn't here". He ain't here, bitch , cause he makin' money! He trying to put some food on the table.
RZA: This is one of my favorites, if not my favorite track. It stayed on the grill for a long time. That's what we called it back then. I didn't take a song off until I was satisfied. I generally like to do 'em, mix 'em, put 'em away. This was too emotional and too real fo me, too close to my personal situation. This was the life we was living, just talking and rapping and hoping. Record royalties take too long to come. We had a platinum album, but we waiting on the check to come fast, like babies wanting they food.
BLUE RASPBERRY: I was on the microphone, singing thaht old song by Barbra Streisand and Donna Summe (No More Tears (Enough is Enough)), that sings "It's raining, it's pouring, my love life is boring me to tears." I was just singing that, and so then RZA started playing a track. So that's where "It's raining, he's changing" came from. That's the kind of mind state it put me in. .I got a little stumped in middle, so it's like, "No sunlight, more gunfights." When I said "No sunlight," RZA brought in the "More gunfights" which brought me intno a whole other realm of the song, where I could go ahead and complete it.
07: Guillotine (Swordz)
RAEKWON: To me, that was a "Symphony" track. Meth had a piece of that beat on his album that was used as a skit. Cause that's how RZA is. Sometimes he'd mix other shit in and give you a piece of something but not really act like it's gonna be a**igned to that. He'll see if somebody like it and use it for filler or whatever. I had told RZA awhile ago after he did that. "Yo, I want that beat." We was the first to be talking that Cristal shit. I know that for a fact. I never even heard of Cristal before that. Back then we would go do dinners and shit with Loud Record President Steve Rifkind and them up at the label. And our mission would be like, when we sit at the table, we want the best f***in' wine they go in the building .We might have asked for something else. We might have asked for some Mo or something and they didn't have it. So we was like "What the f*** is the next best thing, Steve?" And Steve's like "Give 'em the next best thing" They came out with Cristal. Me and Ghost liked thhe bottle, and the name on the bottle was Louie Roederer. I was like, I'm Lou Diamond, Louie Roederer. Me and Ghost is loving how fruity the bottle looked. It cost more than the muthaf***in' other , so we was like, Cristal, nigga! That's our new shit!
RZA: For that beat right there, a very open beat, not too heavy on production. This is me trying to imitate the sound Isaac Hayes did on "Do You Thing". That da-na-na...na-na, I found a way to imitate that shit. When you plug the Yahama VL7 (keyboard) up to a MPC (sampler), because of the note cutoff of the MPC, it cause the notes to stutter, cause it don't link up perfect. I heard it and I could reproduce it, but only with those two machines. I had the prototype from Yahama cause I didn't want nobody else to get it.
GZA: I don't know why I onlyl got on one track. Maybe cause it was just a Rae and Ghost album - it was featuring Ghost, and I think he was probably pleased with me just getting on one. Just to fill in a slot.
08: Can It Be All So Simple (Remix)
RAEKWON: The remix came from when we used to do shows when Enter the Wu-Tang dropped. Me and Ghost used to come out to that part of the beat in the middle of the show. RZA did a little bit of magic to it and touched it and twirled it, and Ghost basically was talking about how he got shot back in the days when he was out of town. He started going into his story rhyme shit. Back then a lot of niggas we knew was in and out of different states and cities, andn you know shit could happen. So when he wrote, that I guess he was going back to the time when he got popped: "Emergency trauma Black teen headed for surgery." It was like he was just describing the moment.
09: Shark Niggas (Biters)
RAEKWON: It was one of them skits where we was looking at our competition. And when Ghost is saying whatever he was saying, we kinda knew who he was talking about, but it wasn't llike we trying to start a beef. It's just sometimes, when you get in the boothh and you start saying what you wanna say, it just happened. Back then we was feeling good. The liquor's mamking a nigga feel stronger. We know we coming up with a good album. And we letting it be known, listen : Blah blah blah blah blah. And that's all we did.
RZA: This was the end of the first side. That's how we thought of it right then. We was letting niggas know, we know what we was doing, knew what we had in our hand. Don't sound like none of my crew. Eventually, niggas did bite. If they would of have it in that year, they would have gotten f***ed up. We was enforcing, we was f***ing niggas the f*** up. You grow up out of your meanness. Hip hop had only one rule: no biting. We knew that everybody was already jumping on it already. You had a few niggas trying to clone our shit, already had a few fake Meth's popping up. f*** that, we gonna see you. At one point, a nigga would kill you if you sounded like them.
GHOSTFACE KILLAH: I didn't want niggas to sound like me. Basically, we was just wilding, starting a lot of trouble. We was airing out at that time. I'm not here to f*** around and start throwing out names. But at that time, nigas knew what was going on and who niggas was talking about. You know how Wu came through. At that time, it was on for anybody. We came into the game, like f*** everybody. Niggas can't touch this, whatever, whatever. That was our mind-frame back then. We ran all that shit - jails, streets, Brooklyn House, Rikers Island and Up North - Wu-Tang was what was up. So we was just them two niggas bugging out off of that shit. God bless the dead, I love BIG. He's a f***ing icon. Even when I seen him out in Cali, I wanted to tell son, Yo, let's go ahead and make this record together because I matured through the years, and at the same time, I recognized good music. We shook hands on some peace shit, but that was all, cause they was on their way leaving out. A day or two later, niggas aired him out. I felt bad like damn, the niggas aired out one of my New York niggas.
10: Ice Water
RAEKWON: Everybody knew Cap from the hood. We knew Cap could rhyme, and I think he was getting hot at that time, too. Me and Ghost had already dropped our part, so we needed hhim to come up there and do his thing. He slid right in between, and he do what he do. Cappa knocked GZA out, and knocked everybody else who had rhymed over that track out. He knocked niggas out on the strength of the rhyme was phat; but also, when he said certain names that was from the hood, everybody went crazy. So he kinda won with a landslide. But GZA came sharp. So GZA felt robbed a little bit. He had to go back home, "Whatever, yo." We even laugh about that shit to this day. Like, a nigga robbed GZA. But Cap won. Funny shit.
RZA: On side A, you had U-God come on the sting with them. In my mind, in the movie, he's killed already. Now there's a new nigga coming in, with a whole new flow and shit. Cappadonna, he's hardly been to the basement. He was in jail but he still sounded good, still had it in him. I let him know. "You can pop in how Green Hornet did". And Big Un - he's in jail for life, a thorough a** nigga, a real street nigga. We let him do the talking between the second and third verses. He confirmed Ghost and Rae's a**ociation from the streets. He was from Stapleton with Ghost... So he's immortalized now. Music and film, it kkeeps you there forever.
INSPECTAH DECK: That's my shit. When I do shows, I come out and freestyle to that. Niggas be going crazy. That beat is RZA on his weed high. I think RZA smoked weed that day. Heh don't normally smoke. When we smoke, he don't f*** with us. He might take a pull or two, then comes with that crazy shit.
U-GOD: Cappa did eight years in prison. Cappa came home. I'm the one that came and got Cappa out of his bed when Rae and them niggas were recording. He didn't even wanna come, cause he was bitter. When you in jail and you come home and cats you grew up with his doing it withhout you, of course you gonna feel bitter. I got him out his f***in' bed, slapped off all that bitterness and brung him down to the studio. Rae's carpet fell out. Cappa taught me how to rhyme! I used to be his beatbox.