U-God has a lot of things on his plate right now. The Wu-Tang member is getting ready to release his new album Venom, which serves as his first solo album in fiive years, at the end of this month. However, the rapper just released his book RAW: My Journey into the Wu-Tang on March 6th. The book shared a lot of insight to Wu-Tang Clan's structure and some of the good and bad things that went on behind the scenes. In an excerpt from Rolling Stone, U-God goes into details about some of the behind the scenes politics.
U-God explains in the excerpt that he, Masta Killa and Inspectah Deck's debut albums didn't get the same support as other members of the Wu while they also didn't have the same budgets. At the same time, they weren't allowed to perform new music off their projects at Wu-Tang shows but rather, resorted to playing the group's classics. Their team effort slowly died down over time.
"Now that the days of gold and platinum plaques had dried up, dudes started fighting over the W. The whole foundation that we were built on and that made us powerful fell apart. We weren’t building anymore; we were destroying ourselves." He wrote.
He explained that while RZA's dictatorship was necessary because otherwise, it would becomes a free for all.
"On the flip side, you need somebody calling the shots, or it becomes every man for himself." He said, "We still needed order, and he was the mastermind who had brought us up to this point. But it can’t become a dictatorship, with everything coming from the top down. It takes a certain kind of personality to be able to run the ship but still be open to ideas and collaboration."
RZA's position as the head huncho eventually led to the group's downfall, according to U-God.
"See, he put his family in charge of shit, and for years, we would go on the road but the money came up short. Whether it was because [RZA's brother and Wu-Tang Production CEO] Divine overpromised or cut a deal he couldn’t deliver, or he made bad management decisions, I don't know." He said.
He continued to say that the Wu still come together and work out their differences but they were never placed with an A-list agency at the reluctancy of RZA.
The excerpt details a lot of what went down with the Wu-Tang Clan and some of the issues they've faced as a group overtime. You could read it here.
