WEBVTT - The Staten Island Problem - Part 4: Wu-Tang vs. Shaolin 0:00:15.920 --> 0:00:23.440 Pushkambe. One of my favorite books is Middle March by 0:00:23.480 --> 0:00:26.119 George Elliott. It's about the life and manners of a 0:00:26.160 --> 0:00:29.280 small English town in the nineteenth century. It's also a 0:00:29.320 --> 0:00:33.560 cautionary tale for the kind of person I am. There's 0:00:33.600 --> 0:00:37.159 a character in the book named Edward Kasabon, a dreary, 0:00:37.280 --> 0:00:41.080 middle aged man who's engaged in a decades long writing project. 0:00:41.600 --> 0:00:44.760 Kasabon collects facts he writes on little sheets of paper 0:00:45.080 --> 0:00:47.800 that he stores in the pigeonholes of his library shelves. 0:00:48.320 --> 0:00:50.880 He claims that someday he's going to use these facts 0:00:50.920 --> 0:00:53.159 to prove that all the myths of the world are 0:00:53.200 --> 0:00:57.800 really one myth. He's obsessed. He calls it the key 0:00:57.960 --> 0:01:03.200 to all mythologies, and he sees it everywhere. I'm not 0:01:03.360 --> 0:01:06.440 middle aged, and I am fairly uppeed, but I fear 0:01:06.479 --> 0:01:09.960 that last bit is me. I see the Statine Island 0:01:09.960 --> 0:01:13.640 secession movement everywhere in our world today. I've carried my 0:01:13.800 --> 0:01:16.440 facts about the Staten Island secession movement around with me 0:01:16.600 --> 0:01:19.040 for quite a while. Now they burn a hole in 0:01:19.080 --> 0:01:22.280 my pocket. I go to parties, and inevitably I wind 0:01:22.360 --> 0:01:24.160 up in the corner with the Staten Islander who has 0:01:24.160 --> 0:01:27.800 suddenly revealed themselves. They look interested and then mildly concerned 0:01:27.840 --> 0:01:29.640 as I pull from memory the facts that I have 0:01:29.680 --> 0:01:32.319 stored in the pigeonholes of a document I have titled 0:01:32.479 --> 0:01:36.440 Excellent Staaten Island Facts. Did you know the towers of 0:01:36.479 --> 0:01:39.119 the Verizonto and Narrows Bridge are so far apart that 0:01:39.160 --> 0:01:41.320 they had to take into account the curvature of the 0:01:41.360 --> 0:01:44.280 earth when they built them. Did you know that Staten 0:01:44.280 --> 0:01:46.680 Island claims to have been home to the true and 0:01:46.720 --> 0:01:52.120 forgotten inventor of the telephone? Am i kazabon God? I 0:01:52.160 --> 0:01:55.560 hope not. I caution myself against seeing my project everywhere. 0:01:55.760 --> 0:01:58.240 Don't be the hammer to whom everything looks like a nail. 0:01:58.760 --> 0:02:02.440 Don't try to write the key to all mythologies. And 0:02:02.480 --> 0:02:08.440 then I learned something like this. Wu Tang Clan, arguably 0:02:08.600 --> 0:02:11.720 the most important group in hip hop history, is from 0:02:11.800 --> 0:02:15.280 Staten Island. They made their first album, Enter the Wu 0:02:15.360 --> 0:02:18.360 Tang thirty six Chambers, entirely during the height of the 0:02:18.360 --> 0:02:21.840 secession movement, and it came out in nineteen ninety three, 0:02:22.560 --> 0:02:25.880 just one week after the island was gonna vote on secession. 0:02:27.200 --> 0:02:29.560 I'm going to klomp sat the new joke chaf Sa 0:02:29.760 --> 0:02:32.680 saying the love was no job at second hand. 0:02:32.800 --> 0:02:35.480 Mons bells don't know a man. So then we moved 0:02:35.480 --> 0:02:38.040 the salon land. I began to listen to this record 0:02:38.240 --> 0:02:40.920 every day. I worked on this project on the ferry 0:02:40.960 --> 0:02:44.000 to the archives, on the subway to work. Shall in 0:02:44.320 --> 0:02:47.080 what they called Staten Island is all over it. 0:02:47.200 --> 0:02:49.760 I'll come from the Sallins slump and the halo whom 0:02:49.800 --> 0:02:51.920 it's come a wopn meggas and guns. 0:02:52.320 --> 0:02:55.120 Their music is all about their lives, what they witnessed 0:02:55.120 --> 0:02:57.760 on the island at the time. Like listen to this 0:02:58.000 --> 0:03:01.280 from the song Wu Tang seventh Chamber. They bring up 0:03:01.280 --> 0:03:04.680 the projects in northern Staten Island where Wu Tang formed 0:03:05.040 --> 0:03:06.639 nicknamed Kill a Hill. 0:03:08.280 --> 0:03:11.040 Like clash the Russia Slash a switt and they go 0:03:11.160 --> 0:03:13.840 back like a Dutch mask of Chilla now jumped off 0:03:13.920 --> 0:03:16.640 and Chilla Pilla. I was the thrilla in the Ali 0:03:16.760 --> 0:03:17.640 Faisa Manila. 0:03:18.400 --> 0:03:20.440 It's all about their lives in New York City in 0:03:20.480 --> 0:03:23.240 the early nineteen nineties, who they were becoming, and what 0:03:23.320 --> 0:03:25.320 it all had to do with being from the rugged 0:03:25.360 --> 0:03:33.840 lands of Shaolin. I considered putting this on my list 0:03:33.880 --> 0:03:36.440 of excellent Staten Island facts and leaving it at that. 0:03:37.600 --> 0:03:41.080 But I had no choice. I put on my headphones, 0:03:41.680 --> 0:03:46.280 I picked up the phone, I opened my notebook. Casiman 0:03:46.920 --> 0:03:54.720 rides again. You're listening to revisionist history. I'm Ben Thatt 0:03:54.720 --> 0:03:57.600 of Haaffrey, and this is the Staten Island Problem, the 0:03:57.680 --> 0:04:00.160 series about the movement that threatened to bring down the 0:04:00.200 --> 0:04:05.200 greatest city in the country. In this episode, I bring 0:04:05.240 --> 0:04:07.200 you the story of the rise of one of the 0:04:07.240 --> 0:04:10.280 greatest rap groups in history. That happened all while the 0:04:10.320 --> 0:04:15.440 Secession movement unfolded in the background. We're going to zero 0:04:15.520 --> 0:04:18.920 in on an entirely different experience taking place on the 0:04:18.920 --> 0:04:22.200 island at the same time, one that reveals just how 0:04:22.400 --> 0:04:25.599 entrench the Staten Island problem really is, but one that 0:04:25.680 --> 0:04:28.440 also I think might show us a way to solve it. 0:04:32.200 --> 0:04:44.440 This is episode four, Wu Tang versus the Shoutlin. I 0:04:44.440 --> 0:04:46.360 should say off the bat that I was unable to 0:04:46.400 --> 0:04:49.520 reach the Wu Tang clan. For a brief moment, the 0:04:49.560 --> 0:04:51.920 manager of a lesser known member of the group considered 0:04:51.920 --> 0:04:55.440 giving me an interview. Then he stopped taking my calls. Domingo, 0:04:55.640 --> 0:04:58.320 if you hear this, I'm ready when you are. But 0:04:58.520 --> 0:05:01.000 luckily I was able to track someone else down. 0:05:01.720 --> 0:05:04.080 I was actually one of the first journalists to ever 0:05:04.160 --> 0:05:08.479 deal with Wu Tang because their record label, Loud called 0:05:08.520 --> 0:05:08.880 me up. 0:05:09.840 --> 0:05:12.560 Fernando was a hip hop journalist in the eighties and nineties. 0:05:13.160 --> 0:05:15.960 He covered Wu Tang from the beginning. Had he ever 0:05:16.040 --> 0:05:19.080 considered the crucial overlap of Wu Tang's formation in Staten 0:05:19.080 --> 0:05:21.159 Island secession? He had not. 0:05:22.160 --> 0:05:24.480 I had no idea any of that stuff was going 0:05:24.520 --> 0:05:25.320 on at the time. 0:05:25.960 --> 0:05:28.320 I don't even know if they did. Like it was 0:05:28.360 --> 0:05:30.920 the they must have. It was the biggest story on 0:05:31.000 --> 0:05:33.039 Staten Island. What was it going to be? 0:05:33.240 --> 0:05:35.839 Just like Staten Island was just going to be a city. 0:05:36.040 --> 0:05:39.720 Yeah. When the Wu Tang cland first formed their label 0:05:39.800 --> 0:05:42.680 called Skiz to write their bio, so he connected with 0:05:42.720 --> 0:05:45.720 the group's to facto leader, a guy named Bobby Diggs 0:05:46.040 --> 0:05:48.480 who went by the name Rizza. 0:05:48.200 --> 0:05:51.520 And I was immediately struck by this guy, like I 0:05:51.560 --> 0:05:55.440 could detect like some serious intelligence in this sky. 0:05:56.760 --> 0:05:59.840 Rizza was a former drug dealer with no professional prospects 0:06:00.080 --> 0:06:03.800 living out on Staten Island. That alone was strange in 0:06:03.840 --> 0:06:07.160 the pantheon of hip hop. Brooklyn and the Bronx Reign Supreme. 0:06:07.720 --> 0:06:09.280 Nobody is from Staten Island. 0:06:10.200 --> 0:06:12.640 All of the five Borrows in New York were pretty 0:06:13.720 --> 0:06:15.680 represented in hip hop in the nineties. 0:06:15.680 --> 0:06:17.400 You had the you know you had like the Boogie 0:06:17.400 --> 0:06:20.000 Down Bronx. It's one of them. 0:06:23.280 --> 0:06:28.800 So obviously Brooklyn. 0:06:26.600 --> 0:06:28.680 From the next team a man saying. 0:06:28.440 --> 0:06:32.240 That from the projects the money make in Manhattan. 0:06:32.520 --> 0:06:35.760 Now I'm the guy named Curtis blow Ain't Christmas is 0:06:35.800 --> 0:06:38.960 one thing I know? So every year just about this time, 0:06:39.040 --> 0:06:41.040 I celebrate kids with a rhyme. 0:06:41.960 --> 0:06:45.440 You know, queens you had Queensbridge projects produced so many 0:06:45.560 --> 0:06:47.600 amazing artists like nas Mob. 0:06:47.520 --> 0:06:52.680 Deep every day deal with the Russia and mixed up in. 0:06:53.800 --> 0:06:57.160 And like Staten Island. You know who was from Staten Island. 0:06:57.680 --> 0:06:59.520 There was not a lot of acts coming out of 0:06:59.560 --> 0:07:00.359 Staten Island. 0:07:00.520 --> 0:07:01.440 You know you had. 0:07:03.920 --> 0:07:04.800 Jesus I'm blanking. 0:07:06.160 --> 0:07:09.520 This is all to say. Skiz was surprised. Here was 0:07:09.520 --> 0:07:13.000 the relatively unknown MC from the island with an encyclopedic 0:07:13.040 --> 0:07:16.360 knowledge of kung fu movies and a crew of eight 0:07:16.440 --> 0:07:19.800 other EMCs who named themselves after a form of martial 0:07:19.880 --> 0:07:22.000 arts invented by a Taoist hermit. 0:07:22.680 --> 0:07:28.120 Skiz was like, what, Wow, this guy is something else. 0:07:32.480 --> 0:07:35.680 So Skiz journalist that he is began a decades long 0:07:35.720 --> 0:07:39.080 process of figuring out how exactly the Wu Tang clan 0:07:39.240 --> 0:07:42.960 came to be. Rizza decided what he wanted to do 0:07:43.000 --> 0:07:45.800 with his life on America's two hundredth birthday. He was 0:07:45.840 --> 0:07:48.200 in the park Hill projects of Staten Island, who was 0:07:48.280 --> 0:07:50.840 July nineteen seventy six, and there was a party in 0:07:50.840 --> 0:07:55.680 the courtyard. A DJ was spinning records and rapping over them. 0:07:56.320 --> 0:08:00.000 He dip dip dive and socialized. I think those are 0:08:00.000 --> 0:08:02.480 the exact words that Rizza remembered, and that kind of 0:08:02.520 --> 0:08:06.600 just just that energy and just the excitement of that 0:08:06.720 --> 0:08:11.320 whole thing of seeing this free party happening in this environment. 0:08:11.520 --> 0:08:15.240 You know, all these kids running around and adults and 0:08:17.040 --> 0:08:20.440 people just enjoying the music and enjoying each other's company. 0:08:20.480 --> 0:08:22.880 This was how this was how hip hop started. 0:08:23.720 --> 0:08:26.080 Rizza was seven at the time, and. 0:08:27.680 --> 0:08:31.080 When you're a young kid exposed to this and this 0:08:31.120 --> 0:08:34.520 is like the excitement that's happening in your neighborhood, you 0:08:34.600 --> 0:08:36.839 want to be a part of it. And he wanted 0:08:36.880 --> 0:08:37.719 to be a part of it. 0:08:38.240 --> 0:08:40.800 He stayed up late into the night transfixed. 0:08:41.600 --> 0:08:45.400 So immediately he goes home and he starts writing rhymes, 0:08:45.479 --> 0:08:48.840 you know, and then as soon as he could, he 0:08:48.920 --> 0:08:49.879 starts DJing. 0:08:54.880 --> 0:08:57.040 Riza moved around a lot as a kid. He was 0:08:57.079 --> 0:09:00.160 born in Brooklyn, spent some of his childhood in North Carolina, 0:09:00.239 --> 0:09:02.439 but he landed in the park Hill Projects on the 0:09:02.479 --> 0:09:05.600 north shore of Staten Island. The buildings were built in 0:09:05.679 --> 0:09:09.040 nineteen sixty five, around the same time as the bridge 0:09:09.079 --> 0:09:11.479 and the express that split the island down the middle 0:09:11.599 --> 0:09:14.079 into north and south shore. North was where the black 0:09:14.079 --> 0:09:17.320 people lived, South was where the white people lived. Several 0:09:17.319 --> 0:09:20.640 Staten Islanders told me the Expressway was their equivalent of 0:09:20.719 --> 0:09:22.760 the Mason Dixon Line. 0:09:22.880 --> 0:09:25.000 People like, where are you from? And I'm like so. 0:09:25.079 --> 0:09:27.000 I used to say, if I tell you, I have 0:09:27.079 --> 0:09:28.719 to kill you, and you're like why, And then I'm 0:09:28.760 --> 0:09:30.199 like Staten Island. 0:09:31.160 --> 0:09:34.000 One day, when I was listing excellent Staten Island facts 0:09:34.040 --> 0:09:37.319 to a friend, she told me you should meet Daphne McWilliams. 0:09:37.920 --> 0:09:40.040 She's a filmmaker from Staten Island. 0:09:40.239 --> 0:09:43.679 There were only three houses on my parents' block, and 0:09:43.719 --> 0:09:46.599 then as from the lake was park Hill Projects. 0:09:47.000 --> 0:09:49.719 Her parents were from Trinidad and Jamaica and didn't really 0:09:49.719 --> 0:09:53.120 know the intricate racial codes of Staten Island. Her family 0:09:53.160 --> 0:09:55.119 moved to the white area across from the Park Hill 0:09:55.160 --> 0:09:56.959 projects back in the nineteen seventies. 0:09:57.520 --> 0:10:02.400 But when my mother found that house, she got a threatening, 0:10:03.319 --> 0:10:05.599 I guess call or something where they were like, oh 0:10:06.640 --> 0:10:08.760 you something like you better hope that you don't see 0:10:08.760 --> 0:10:11.520 your kids floating in and in the pond. 0:10:12.599 --> 0:10:15.079 By one estimate, there were fewer than a thousand people 0:10:15.160 --> 0:10:18.360 have called her South of the Expressway. Daphne stuck out. 0:10:18.880 --> 0:10:20.279 She told me a story from when she was a 0:10:20.359 --> 0:10:22.839 kid about having a crush on an Italian American boy 0:10:22.920 --> 0:10:25.239 named Billy. One day she called his. 0:10:25.239 --> 0:10:28.600 House and his mother picked up, and she was like, 0:10:28.679 --> 0:10:31.920 don't ever call this house again. So I went to 0:10:31.959 --> 0:10:33.800 school the next day. I was upset and I went 0:10:33.839 --> 0:10:36.479 and speak to this priest. I don't know what I 0:10:36.559 --> 0:10:38.319 did wrong. I don't know what I did wrong, And 0:10:38.920 --> 0:10:44.079 telling the guy goes, well, you see, he says something 0:10:44.120 --> 0:10:48.120 to like almost like this that's a little happened for 0:10:48.439 --> 0:10:50.199 white kids, and it's like a little. 0:10:49.959 --> 0:10:52.319 Heaven for black kids segregated. 0:10:52.839 --> 0:10:55.479 I was like, oh my god, Like I had no 0:10:55.559 --> 0:10:58.839 idea when I look back and think about it, we 0:10:58.839 --> 0:11:04.000 always stood out because we were always the. 0:11:02.640 --> 0:11:03.559 The black family. 0:11:05.599 --> 0:11:09.439 My parents didn't raise us in a segregated mindset. We 0:11:09.880 --> 0:11:15.719 just never It was the community that made us feel different, 0:11:16.719 --> 0:11:18.000 especially as you get older. 0:11:19.479 --> 0:11:22.479 But the truth is all of New York City was segregated. 0:11:22.520 --> 0:11:25.400 Then it seemed like there was a defining race riot 0:11:25.520 --> 0:11:29.160 every year. Very do the right thing. The reality that 0:11:29.280 --> 0:11:33.679 Mayor Dinkins's vision of a beautiful mosaic obscured is that 0:11:33.880 --> 0:11:36.719 if one bit of colored glass from the mosaic crossed another, 0:11:37.199 --> 0:11:40.199 someone might end up shot or run over, and then 0:11:40.199 --> 0:11:44.319 the riots would begin again. But Southern Staten Island was 0:11:44.359 --> 0:11:47.679 a particularly dramatic case. It may as well have been 0:11:47.760 --> 0:11:50.800 the Deep South. When one Wu Tang member went to 0:11:50.880 --> 0:11:54.079 Daphne's area, he remembered getting chased out by white kids 0:11:54.079 --> 0:11:58.040 with motorcycles. They spray painted KKK on the rocks to 0:11:58.079 --> 0:12:02.280 warn the black kids away. This was the Staten Island 0:12:02.359 --> 0:12:04.760 Riza grew up on, but he had a way of 0:12:04.880 --> 0:12:12.400 escaping that reality. Hip hop. By the time Rizza was 0:12:12.400 --> 0:12:15.119 in his early twenties, hip hop had gone stratospheric from 0:12:15.120 --> 0:12:17.120 the courtyards and wreck rooms of the New York City 0:12:17.120 --> 0:12:20.520 projects to the top of the Billboard charts. The labels 0:12:20.520 --> 0:12:23.479 were grabbing at any artists they could. Rizza got a deal. 0:12:23.839 --> 0:12:25.960 He brought his new label a bunch of songs, and 0:12:26.000 --> 0:12:28.600 they said, we think girls will like you. So we 0:12:28.599 --> 0:12:31.679 wound up releasing an EP called Ooh We Love You Rakkim, 0:12:32.040 --> 0:12:34.439 a record that presented him as a sweet ladies man 0:12:34.800 --> 0:12:46.840 named Prince Rakim Many Ladies. It was an attempt to 0:12:46.839 --> 0:12:51.079 do something extremely commercial, totally inoffensive and upbeat, and also 0:12:51.160 --> 0:12:54.920 fundamentally false and corny, and maybe for that reason it bombed. 0:12:56.599 --> 0:12:58.959 Rizza got dropped from his label and he was back 0:12:59.079 --> 0:13:03.959 to zero. That's when he started dealing drugs and almost 0:13:03.959 --> 0:13:07.920 went to prison for attempted murder. He argued self defense 0:13:08.040 --> 0:13:10.359 and beat the charges in the end, and he had 0:13:10.400 --> 0:13:14.200 ten thousand dollars left. It was enough to buy some 0:13:14.280 --> 0:13:17.040 drugs and sell them. But he had a kid on 0:13:17.079 --> 0:13:19.959 the way. He had to make a choice, and this 0:13:20.040 --> 0:13:23.360 choice became so legendary that he's still talking about it. 0:13:24.640 --> 0:13:26.999 Here he is on a recent episode of a podcast 0:13:27.040 --> 0:13:31.119 called Flagrant. 0:13:29.520 --> 0:13:33.199 I had t k and the gag was The plan 0:13:33.479 --> 0:13:36.160 was to get a brick, so so we figured, oh, 0:13:36.199 --> 0:13:39.200 if we flipped this twenty we could at least get eighty. 0:13:40.160 --> 0:13:43.040 The thing was, Joe I had a baby in the 0:13:43.120 --> 0:13:46.479 oven or maybe just born right, So life was like 0:13:46.800 --> 0:13:47.960 what are you going to do? Yeah? 0:13:49.640 --> 0:13:50.479 But then. 0:13:51.760 --> 0:13:54.480 I was like, nah, I have a second chance. 0:13:55.719 --> 0:13:58.959 That's when he started calling himself Rizza r z A. 0:13:59.920 --> 0:14:02.959 He would later say it was short for rakeem zig 0:14:03.040 --> 0:14:07.040 zag zig allah. While everyone else zigged, it was time 0:14:07.120 --> 0:14:10.480 for him to zag. And so, moving on a Staten 0:14:10.520 --> 0:14:12.679 Island that was in the middle of its own very 0:14:12.679 --> 0:14:15.920 big zag, he began to make a bold plan for 0:14:16.000 --> 0:14:20.960 an independence movement of his own, something called Wu Tang Clan. 0:14:37.200 --> 0:14:40.320 After he beat his charges, Bobby Diggs aka there is 0:14:40.359 --> 0:14:44.440 A began to walk around Staten Island and he started 0:14:44.479 --> 0:14:48.320 to take these long, drawn out walks day after day. 0:14:49.280 --> 0:14:52.400 So I'm walking and I'm thinking, yo, and I'll walk 0:14:52.400 --> 0:14:53.920 in off step, I'll walk up the stand and people 0:14:54.080 --> 0:14:57.080 people thought there was the people who thought I was 0:14:57.080 --> 0:15:00.879 losing my mind because I'm walking and I'm talking to myself. 0:15:00.920 --> 0:15:07.960 And he would walk the island and think Staten Island 0:15:08.040 --> 0:15:10.999 was more than twice the size of men, and Rizza 0:15:11.080 --> 0:15:14.080 could just walk and walk. He would start at the 0:15:14.080 --> 0:15:16.960 projects on the north shore, then maybe journey along the 0:15:17.000 --> 0:15:24.720 coastline through the suburban streets. Rizza was ready to make 0:15:24.800 --> 0:15:27.520 music again, but the first time out with his Prince 0:15:27.560 --> 0:15:31.440 Rakim project had gone badly. But the idea he was 0:15:31.440 --> 0:15:34.520 coming up with now was going to be different. And 0:15:34.560 --> 0:15:36.600 I want to argue here that it has everything to 0:15:36.640 --> 0:15:40.440 do with Staten Island. Let me share with you some 0:15:40.440 --> 0:15:44.920 writing from Rizza's book, The Tao of Wu. I spent 0:15:44.960 --> 0:15:48.800 my formative years on an island, Staten Island, which is 0:15:48.840 --> 0:15:53.240 a blessing I've taken with me through life in Staten Island. 0:15:53.320 --> 0:15:55.840 Wu Tang were set apart from all the influences and 0:15:55.920 --> 0:15:59.360 fads that were happening in the other four boroughs. A 0:15:59.479 --> 0:16:02.600 nine man hip hop crew based on mathematics, chess, comics 0:16:02.600 --> 0:16:05.239 and kung fuflicks wasn't springing up in the middle of 0:16:05.239 --> 0:16:09.440 a Manhattan arts scene. Only on a remote island can 0:16:09.479 --> 0:16:12.519 some thing like King Kong grow to his full capacity. 0:16:15.880 --> 0:16:18.680 But the projects in Staten Island were a difficult place 0:16:18.680 --> 0:16:21.080 to live. A few of the Wu Tang members have 0:16:21.160 --> 0:16:24.360 written books, and reading them it's clear that it wasn't 0:16:24.440 --> 0:16:26.680 just the remoteness of Staten Island that led them to 0:16:26.680 --> 0:16:30.720 the Wu Tang clan. It was also what they experienced there, 0:16:31.000 --> 0:16:35.080 especially in the projects. One Wu Tang member. You God 0:16:35.440 --> 0:16:38.480 wrote about the first time he saw somebody die. He 0:16:38.600 --> 0:16:41.399 was five years old, sitting with his mom listening to 0:16:41.479 --> 0:16:44.440 Loving You by Minnie Ripperton play on the radio outside. 0:16:45.600 --> 0:16:47.600 When he heard a crowd forming in the courtyard. He 0:16:47.680 --> 0:16:50.239 ran out to look. A woman was standing on the 0:16:50.320 --> 0:16:54.320 roof screaming. He watched so long his neck one stuff. 0:16:55.320 --> 0:16:58.760 Then she jumped or fell, You, God wrote in his 0:16:58.800 --> 0:17:02.600 book called Raw. I was a toddler. The sound of 0:17:02.640 --> 0:17:06.000 her hitting the concrete steps would resonate with me forever. 0:17:07.800 --> 0:17:10.439 So when Rizza walked Staaten Island, and it wasn't just 0:17:10.520 --> 0:17:13.159 this utopian vision of the isolated island where you can 0:17:13.200 --> 0:17:16.800 dream big. It was also the deeply segregated place where 0:17:16.920 --> 0:17:19.920 kids living on their own little island watched adults fall 0:17:19.960 --> 0:17:24.640 to their death, a kind of paradox. And my theory 0:17:24.720 --> 0:17:28.760 is that paradox was expressed in the word Shao limb. 0:17:32.320 --> 0:17:34.480 Yeah. 0:17:34.520 --> 0:17:36.760 When Rizza was a kid, he and his cousin used 0:17:36.760 --> 0:17:40.119 to go to a Times Square porno theater. Sometimes it 0:17:40.200 --> 0:17:44.000 showed Kung Fu and one movie that they loved, in particular, 0:17:44.560 --> 0:17:46.880 the thirty sixth Chamber of Shao Lim. 0:17:47.480 --> 0:17:50.520 But sure or a man choose, Oh well armed, what 0:17:50.560 --> 0:17:51.160 can we do? 0:17:51.560 --> 0:17:53.720 No man so we he cannot help. 0:17:54.720 --> 0:17:56.960 Most people came to that Times Square movie theater to 0:17:57.040 --> 0:18:00.040 jerk off, sniff glue, or shoot heroin. But Rizza would 0:18:00.080 --> 0:18:02.320 later say in interviews that he and his cousin were 0:18:02.400 --> 0:18:05.480 locked in on this poorly dubbed movie about a small 0:18:05.560 --> 0:18:08.680 village in China that was being oppressed by a distant government. 0:18:09.680 --> 0:18:12.440 Hero of the movie is a villager who journeys to 0:18:12.520 --> 0:18:15.720 the Shaolin temple in China to learn to fight back. 0:18:16.920 --> 0:18:22.320 Rizza saw this movie over three hundred times. He hadn't 0:18:22.360 --> 0:18:26.119 realized that kind of oppression happened to people who weren't black. 0:18:27.560 --> 0:18:29.880 This is from the thirty six Chamber when our hero 0:18:30.000 --> 0:18:31.600 learns what Shaolin. 0:18:31.360 --> 0:18:33.640 Is shallin school is restricted. 0:18:35.000 --> 0:18:39.040 Only monks had taught that if Shaolin techniques could be 0:18:39.080 --> 0:18:42.280 taught here and the people could use it to fight 0:18:42.320 --> 0:18:44.600 the Manchu troops, that would be good. 0:18:45.480 --> 0:18:48.600 At some point, Rizza started to call Staten Island Shaolin, 0:18:49.200 --> 0:18:52.000 the place he learned his secret weapon to fighting oppression 0:18:52.080 --> 0:18:55.600 hip hop but Staten Island was also a version of 0:18:55.600 --> 0:18:59.560 that distant oppressive government he saw in the films. And 0:18:59.600 --> 0:19:01.520 as he walked the island trying to come up with 0:19:01.560 --> 0:19:04.240 his next play, he didn't decide to start a group 0:19:04.280 --> 0:19:07.160 called the Shaolin Clan. He came up with an idea 0:19:07.240 --> 0:19:10.880 for something called the Wu Tang Clan, named after Chao 0:19:10.960 --> 0:19:14.680 Lin's rival. This is from another kung fu movie they loved, 0:19:14.800 --> 0:19:16.920 called Shao Lin Versus Wu Tang. 0:19:17.440 --> 0:19:19.200 Isn't it true that you think you're better than us, 0:19:19.240 --> 0:19:20.960 but you're afraid that one day the Wu Tang will 0:19:20.960 --> 0:19:21.600 overtake you? 0:19:21.360 --> 0:19:23.160 You so you he was your special person to get 0:19:23.200 --> 0:19:23.400 rid of. 0:19:23.360 --> 0:19:25.160 By master, who was your biggest threat on sen No, 0:19:25.240 --> 0:19:27.960 it isn't nice song with my own earnsense, Chao Lynn, I'm. 0:19:27.880 --> 0:19:29.800 Afraid of the Wu Tang will Wu Tang will find 0:19:29.840 --> 0:19:30.280 Listen to me. 0:19:30.920 --> 0:19:32.160 Someone is trying to frame me. 0:19:34.720 --> 0:19:39.760 Rizza kept walking and thinking Shao Lin Wu Tang thirty 0:19:39.800 --> 0:19:46.440 six chambers, Shao Ln Wu Tang thirty six chambers. Wu 0:19:46.480 --> 0:19:50.080 Tang biographer Skiz Fernando knew all about those walks Rizza 0:19:50.120 --> 0:19:50.520 would take. 0:19:51.520 --> 0:19:53.720 That's one good thing about state. Neile and you can 0:19:53.800 --> 0:19:58.880 walk around in these nice neighborhoods with like Victorian mansions, 0:19:58.920 --> 0:20:01.760 you don't have to worry about getting bugged necessarily. 0:20:02.920 --> 0:20:04.800 And what would have been on the lawns of all 0:20:04.840 --> 0:20:08.960 those Victorian mansions. Rizza was walking by signs that said 0:20:09.080 --> 0:20:12.280 vote yes for the City of Staten Island, secession means 0:20:12.320 --> 0:20:16.359 a better life, billboards for secession above the streets, the 0:20:16.440 --> 0:20:18.400 same thing as was on the front page of the 0:20:18.440 --> 0:20:21.800 paper all the time, the same thing the NAACP of 0:20:21.840 --> 0:20:25.320 Staten Island was hosting meetings about, worrying that this could 0:20:25.360 --> 0:20:28.080 be really bad for black people living on Staten Island. 0:20:29.280 --> 0:20:32.320 Let me be clear, I have never found Riza himself 0:20:32.360 --> 0:20:35.720 talking about Staten Island secession, but in my Kasmon mode 0:20:35.840 --> 0:20:39.120 I see a connection. Because as he walked a Staten 0:20:39.160 --> 0:20:41.400 Island that felt like it wasn't welcome in New York 0:20:41.440 --> 0:20:44.480 City and was striking out on its own, this guy, 0:20:44.520 --> 0:20:46.680 who had had every reason not to feel welcome on 0:20:46.760 --> 0:20:49.920 Staten Island formed a plan for an unlikely hip hop 0:20:49.960 --> 0:20:52.800 group from Shoolin that was about to do the same. 0:20:53.920 --> 0:20:56.920 Maybe he thought they could skip the whole major label 0:20:56.960 --> 0:20:59.720 thing that had screwed him before. Maybe he didn't have 0:20:59.800 --> 0:21:03.639 to sanitize his life in character to succeed. Maybe there 0:21:03.680 --> 0:21:05.879 could be a hip hop group from the forgotten borough 0:21:06.400 --> 0:21:09.040 that made it all happen on its own, and that 0:21:09.080 --> 0:21:13.800 group would be Wu Tang Clan. He began to assemble 0:21:13.840 --> 0:21:17.200 his crew, and the core ideology for Riza I think 0:21:17.640 --> 0:21:20.040 had a whole lot in common with the Secession movement. 0:21:20.400 --> 0:21:25.159 It's the exact same fantasy. If some central authority is 0:21:25.200 --> 0:21:27.760 dominating you and you don't like it, what do you do? 0:21:28.680 --> 0:21:32.200 Go away to shoolin, learn the truth, build a movement, 0:21:32.760 --> 0:21:35.800 and go to war with the oppressor till you remake 0:21:35.840 --> 0:21:51.160 it in your own image. Let me put my kasavon 0:21:51.360 --> 0:21:53.720 rode back on and bring you back into my library. 0:21:54.120 --> 0:21:59.080 Please sit at the table, have a mug of tepid tea. 0:21:59.160 --> 0:22:01.960 I believe that the fantasy Wu Tang Clan had was 0:22:02.000 --> 0:22:03.880 that there's a way to strike out on your own, 0:22:03.960 --> 0:22:07.520 independently and take over the forces that oppressed you. And 0:22:07.560 --> 0:22:11.119 that's the exact fantasy of the secessions emanating from the 0:22:11.280 --> 0:22:14.160 exact remote island at the exact moment. So many people 0:22:14.200 --> 0:22:18.040 on the island experienced it, and it was the spirit 0:22:18.160 --> 0:22:21.400 of what skiz that Wu Tang biographer told me that 0:22:21.520 --> 0:22:22.680 Riza did next. 0:22:23.760 --> 0:22:26.560 He took the whole mythology that was in the movies 0:22:27.560 --> 0:22:35.119 and he appropriated it to his current conditions of a 0:22:35.200 --> 0:22:40.920 black man living in Staten Island doing battle in this 0:22:41.200 --> 0:22:44.639 game call rap against the music industry. 0:22:45.040 --> 0:22:47.520 Walking the island. Rizza had come up with a five 0:22:47.600 --> 0:22:51.280 year plan. He'd go to the greatest underrated mcs he 0:22:51.360 --> 0:22:53.680 knew on the island and banned them together into the 0:22:53.720 --> 0:22:56.640 Wu Tang clan. He'd been burned by the labels before 0:22:56.720 --> 0:22:59.320 with that Prince Rackim album, so now he wanted to 0:22:59.360 --> 0:23:02.440 go it alone. He'd take the ten thousand dollars he'd 0:23:02.440 --> 0:23:05.119 saved and use it to start a production company. 0:23:05.800 --> 0:23:09.280 These guys had absolutely no future. They're all caught up 0:23:09.280 --> 0:23:14.280 in the same They're all selling crack, you know, two 0:23:14.320 --> 0:23:16.560 for five on the street. 0:23:17.120 --> 0:23:20.320 They didn't want to be doing that. The guys all 0:23:20.320 --> 0:23:23.360 went out to a diner on Staten Island. They toasted 0:23:23.400 --> 0:23:26.440