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Welcome to Hip Hop Movie Club, the show that harmonizes the rhythm of hip hop with the

magic of movies.

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Today we're discussing episode three of the 2019 Wu-Tang Clan documentary of Mics and Men.

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We're three old heads who put their old heads together to vibe on these films for you.

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I'm Dyno Wright, podcaster, filmmaker, longtime hip hop fan, and I like to bring the

ruckus.

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I'm JB 80s and 90s nostalgia junkie long time hip-hop fan and Shame on you when you step

through to old dirty bastard Brooklyn.

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I Love that line

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No, this is a dope line.

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This is definitely a dope line.

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And I'm BooGie, a DJ, long time hip hop fan and I remember being completely

mesmerized when that Triumph video dropped.

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Like I recorded it just so that could watch it whenever I wanted.

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It was just insane.

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The special effects and everything.

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Completely mesmerized.

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In this episode we'll answer the question, what led to the turmoil among the members of

the Wu-Tang Clan in late 90s?

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In episode three of of Mics and Men, we see the Wu-Tang Clan reach international fame and

glory, but also turbulence as solo aspirations conflict with those of the collective.

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And we see the untimely passing of Old Dirty Bastard.

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Here are five things you need to know about episode three of Mics and Men.

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Number one, Wu-Tang Clan Takeover.

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The crew reaches international fame as they go from Park Hill to Beverly Hills.

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Number two, Bliss.

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Financial success made the crew happier than ever and free from persecution.

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Mostly.

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Number three, turbulence.

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Cracks in the armor show as a lack of communication leads to Ghostface Killah cursing out

Hot 97, the most influential hip hop radio station in the US, leading to their

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blacklisting.

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Number four, the schism.

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Solo success and aspirations begin to conflict with the continued success of the Wu-Tang

Collective.

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And number five, tragedy.

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Ol’ Dirty Bastard’s, legal troubles and untimely death leave a major mark on the Wu-Tang

Clan as a whole.

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All right, let's dig in.

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You see we have, I guess, rise, fall.

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A lot of stuff happened to this one in a short time.

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in episode three.

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So first is the Wu-Tang takeover.

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The meteoric rise is depicted and they gain international fame.

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They show them touring in Tokyo, chilling in Hawaii, all over the place.

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Again, we talked about it in the prior episode is they kind of had this

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Perfect formula, people were hungry for this style.

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It's something they hadn't heard before.

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And they reached enormous heights.

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Boogie, you wanna add to like that apex for the crew.

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so as you mentioned JB, we see some footage of the crew in Japan on tour

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I mean, they're absolutely revered in Asia.

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I mean you go to any countries over there, primarily, you we see them in Japan, but

everywhere they go, you know, you see people stopping them on the street, you know,

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feeding them food with chopsticks.

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It was insane.

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Like they were just having a great time.

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And like, it was good to see them outside of their environment where they grew up at,

because you could see their personality start to flourish.

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start to see them having fun, enjoying life.

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We see them in Hawaii, even though it's technically a part of the US.

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I mean being there definitely does feel like being in another country because of the

geography and where it's located.

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And the crowd is just going insane as they're rocking the crowd and you see them hanging

out in Beverly Hills.

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It looked like they actually had a mansion because they were all there.

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then you see Rae Kwon giving us a tour of the place and saying everyone has their own.

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area where they're at.

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it's like they must have had like a multi-room mansion of some sort.

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We see some footage of MTV Japan and them being interviewed in various places throughout

Japan.

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like I said, they definitely became international.

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I think adding to it as well, we see them have a tour that begins with them and Rage

Against the Machine.

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So they're not only just doing a typical, know, rapping in the hood, you know, but they're

also touring the country and performing in areas where they normally would not have gone

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and having a whole different demographic of fans, you know, joining their collective and

experiencing a different kind of concert because Rage Against the Machine, you know, they

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and having a whole different demographic of fans, you know, joining their collective and

experiencing a different kind of concert because Rage Against the Machine, you know, they

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were big and they had a different kind of crowd.

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and they had a different kind of performance than what they were used to, but they

flourished in it.

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know, RZA talks about being on that tour and seeing all of the different races of people

there and having an epiphany, you know, the Wu-Tang symbol, you know, raising his hands up

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and showing that, it made wings and seeing that we're going to use this as a

symbol.

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symbol.

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Symbolize the Phoenix.

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know, it's gonna rise above racism. We have all these people here

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Yeah, we're bigger than that.

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You know, we can all work together, we can do things together as collective.

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So, you know, their mind-states were changing.

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You know, not just, they weren't just being famous, but you see their mind-states start to

change.

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They're start to flourish

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a little bit more.

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Yeah, definitely.

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I like that combination with Rage Against Machine.

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DynoWright you were a big Rage fan when I first met you.

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You had the Rage shirts.

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Yeah.

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Some old photos of us, you had the Rage shirt.

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Haha

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wish I still had that shirt.

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Yeah.

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So, yeah, I mean, they took off, they had massive success with the 36 Chambers album and

went worldwide, which led to point two bliss.

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Like they had this financial success.

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They were happier, than ever.

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And they mentioned they were free from, you know, being chased on the streets from their

upbringing.

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It's kind of like the biggie lyric, you know, this was like, would know rap would take it

this far?

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Like they would have never imagined.

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leaving the slums of Shaolin, Staten Island, and being able to enjoy the fruits of their

labor like that.

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So was kind of like a beautiful thing to see.

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I mean these guys from the hood that had a lot of difficulties in terms of their

upbringing, some them coming from broken homes, dealing with extreme racism, dealing with

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financial troubles, having to hustle, and being able to, again, enjoy the...

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the spoils like this.

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But, you know, leading to our next point is, know, turbulence starts to show.

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So early on this tour that we're talking about in Japan was like 94 and they're having lot

of success.

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And I think it was around 97 is the tour with Rage Against the Machine.

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But even there, the tail end of that, you start seeing, you know, are they getting as much

money as like the rage guys and stuff like that?

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The financial things start to pop up a little bit.

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And then,

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There was that mix up with Hot 97 that we alluded to, you know, in the takeaway where

Ghostface Killer, you know, cursed out Hot 97, which we all know is New York City's top

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hip hop station, which, you know, New York always leads the way for everybody.

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Whatever New York's playing, that's what everybody plays.

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So that was an issue where like, I guess they were overbooked or something like that.

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And, you know, there was a miscommunication where Hot 97 said, you guys got to be here or,

you know,

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We're not going to play your records and they were kind of forced their hand, right?

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Yeah.

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Yeah, it's crazy because I listen to Hot 97 every morning on my way to work when I'm

driving to work and they still talk about this, you know.

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And I not too long ago, it have been maybe like a, might have been right before winter

time.

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Funkmaster Flex was doing his PM show.

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But on and he's talking about having the Wu-Tang Clan come out and perform.

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He say, I just got off the phone with the RZA, we were talking.

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everything is good.

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We're gonna do some stuff together.

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I got some big things coming down the pipeline.

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And I'm like, wow.

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And I'm thinking in my head like, yo, that was a long time ago when that whole incident

went down.

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They just started to talk again.

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Like, wow, it's crazy.

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But yeah, that was huge.

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I mean Summer Jam was huge.

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I mean, it's still kind of big now, but it's nothing now like it was back in the day.

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Like you had to...

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call yourself a New York artist or claim to be one of the biggest artists in the world if

you didn't perform at Summer Jam.

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I see like pressure for them to come back and perform because they're actually on tour.

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They're on tour, they're booked and they use their own money to fly back to perform for

Summer Jam.

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And they get there and you know, this is at the era when you know, bad boy was all was all

over the place.

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And they realize that, you know, we just spent all this money to get back here.

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We're not getting paid.

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And Ghostface just got he had enough.

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And they look at him like, yo, man, don't do that.

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Like, what are you doing?

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Like, I remember.

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Who was it that was saying I think when I was in power, was my thing was Mook.

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He was like, man, stop, stop, man.

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Stop.

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Don't do that.

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Ghost had a little crowd participation moment.

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Hehehehehe

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Yeah, he even had the crowd chanting F hot 97.

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Like that's how beloved they were that they're cursing out the hosts of this event at

their, their own event, which was mega popular.

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As you said, that was the event to be there at the top station.

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I you gotta understand these, these radio stations held all the power back then.

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This is pre Spotify pre streaming really.

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And if you didn't get that airplay that drastically.

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drastically impacted your record sales.

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So they needed that.

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So 10 years was the stalemate where they didn't play their records.

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That was huge.

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Yep.

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Crazy.

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she's crazy.

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Yeah, exactly.

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I thought it seemed like kind of like extortion or something.

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was like, play, come fly out from wherever you are elsewhere in the country to play the

show or else we won't play your records.

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Yeah.

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Mm-hmm.

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It seems, I think that all could have been its own documentary, like what happened there?

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you kind of can not blame Ghostface for taking that stance.

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Yeah.

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Exactly.

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Yeah.

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know, you get pushed around like that, like, they've had their whole lives pushed around.

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Why would they get stuck being pushed around then?

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Right.

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And you get there, you're not even like treated like you're any kind of a headliner or

anything, you know, like no significance or anything.

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So, yeah.

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You know, at that point, so at that point, that's, their, Forever album had been out and

it's, their most successful album yet.

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it's like, you know, they've had the, like, there were no other choices, right?

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So you had to, you had to go do this.

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And, you know, it was like a ticking time bomb.

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Mm-hmm.

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Yeah.

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Yeah, I mean...

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Crazy.

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We forgot to mention, so you mentioned Wu-Tang Forever.

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That reminded me how successful that whole campaign was in the album and like Wu-Wear was

everything like led to the fashion and had these pop-up stores or these actually

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standalone stores all throughout the country.

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Even I think in international sites, were, they couldn't keep stuff on the shelves.

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And because of that, they were making like $25 to $50 million profits, like because of

everything between the music and the merch and

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whole package which is insane how anything they touch turned to gold at that point.

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Yep, first five solo albums were flying off the shelves as well.

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Only built for Cuban links, Iron Man, Liquid Swords, Tical went platinum right away,

Return to the 36 Chambers.

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mean, Iron Man, oh man, I love that album.

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I listen to that album all the time.

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That's probably my favorite one.

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Yeah.

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That's a tricky choice, which of the five solo albums is the best one?

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That's a...

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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Absolutely.

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And I remember they mentioned Capadonna as well, because Capadonna wasn't even on wasn't

even signed to them at first.

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Because I remember I said, where did this guy come from?

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He's nice.

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But like he was in jail while they were, you know, doing the first album.

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But, you know, he came out.

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Divine signed him right away, gave him a $250,000 check.

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As soon as he got out of prison, like, man, he's like, yeah.

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He's like, yeah, he's one of my favorite MCs.

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I had to get him right away.

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As soon as he came out, gave him a check.

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It was like, dang.

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Don't get no better than that.

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I mentioned that Triumph video, that Triumph video was a crazy...they spent a million

dollars on that video.

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That was the first million dollar hip-hop I remember the first time I heard that I was

like, gotta be kidding.

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And then they said, no, that's true.

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Yeah.

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I think that banishment from Hot 97 was kind of like a turning point.

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then, you you see some more cracks in the armor.

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Ghost ended up leaving and went to Africa for a year, right?

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some of the ego started getting in the way, right?

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And then you started seeing some of the legal troubles with ODB getting arrested.

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Uh, interesting character, you know, ODB, you know, and he escaped from the California

rehab and a lot of that stuff happened.

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And a lot of these things were kind of like, all right, cause they had all this fame and

you see their families were growing.

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And so then you get more and more responsibilities and it's like, all right, where are my

priorities?

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You know, I want to be my family.

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I want to record my solo stuff.

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Everything was kind of like a little all over the place.

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And so when it's like, all right, well, we got to keep the Wu Tang going.

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Like where, where you draw that line of.

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keeping everything afloat, just too much going on.

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U-God expressing some of his frustration.

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Cause I remember he was popping up on everybody's solo projects.

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But then, you know, when he wanted to get his album done, everybody was so ready to work

on their albums, work on their next album.

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He couldn't get his done.

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He said, Hey, I need, I need people to get on my album.

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Like I was on your album, you know, Divine and RZA was saying like, you know, they had a

formula.

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we roll these out.

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There's a formula.

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Like we all help one person get the album out.

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Then we help the next person get the album out.

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Then we help the next person get the album out.

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Then we help the next person get the album out and so forth and so forth.

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because the egos and everybody, you know, get a taste of that solo success, know, they're

ready to put out the next album, you know, ahead of the plan.

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And the formula that was laid out, you know, and then you start seeing that frustration as

well because,

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You guys say, hey man, I gotta get my album out.

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It's kind of predictable that something like that would happen.

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Maybe not to that extent.

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We have so many talented performers and then they do have these solo deals.

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they're just not enough.

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It's like, you know, there's only one, you know, trying to make a sports analogy is kind

of like sometimes you need more than one basketball, but like one at a time, you know,

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it's like everybody's got their own thing.

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You kind of have to wait, wait in succession, especially if you're all producing this

stuff like with some of the same

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Yeah, producers.

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and it's a lot of them.

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It's lot of them.

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You you see problems when it's only like you know three guys or something like that you

know four guys two guys right exactly it's like you know you know so it's a you know they

250

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got a whole you know starting five and some bench people you know right and you got you

know you think about you know they got five albums out already and those five guys are

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ready to get back in here to do those five and the other

252

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You know, I haven't even touched their first album yet.

253

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Mm-hmm.

254

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What about me?

255

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What about me?

256

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I get it.

257

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Yeah, It's like the Diva wide receivers like, I'm open, give me the ball, give me the

ball.

258

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Yeah, And we're putting points on the board, but I want my stats, you know, it's cool.

259

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Yeah, it's wild.

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then they talk again, then it focuses a lot more about ODB and unfortunately like leads up

to.

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his untimely death is that, you know, he's arrested and it's like, at one point it's like

he was arrested just for wearing a bulletproof vest.

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Cause when you, you know, had a, you had been convicted prior, there's a law that you

can't wear bulletproof vests.

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I'm like, what?

264

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That doesn't make any sense to me.

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But they were, he seemed to be targeted a few times rightfully or not.

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And then some of the things he did were some indiscretions.

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However,

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He goes to jail and he comes out and then Damon Dash, right?

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Signs him right away because there was some frustration.

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ODB was like, hey, everybody else was a free agent, able to do their own thing.

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then he didn't connect with RZA.

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RZA wanted him to be signed.

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And then it was like, nah, there was a beef going on there.

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It's kind of sad to see because a guy in there, you

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They're related, they're blood, right?

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And it reminded me even though Phife and Tip weren't blood, but like to see them back and

forth in terms of, well, at least ODB was just very upset because he didn't have that

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freedom to sign where he wanted.

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he didn't feel like he was being treated fairly.

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Yeah.

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was interesting that they had this footage from him leaving his contract with Wu Tang.

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Very prescient to be recording at that time, before smartphones and everything.

282

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How did they know to be recording that?

283

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Yeah.

284

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Yeah, I Briz-

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had the main character energy going.

286

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Mm-hmm.

287

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RZA said he had a plan for him.

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He's got, got a plan for, you know, I'm all, we're all set, you know, when come out and,

you know, ODB wanted to, you know, kind of do his own thing and Roc-a-Fella was huge, as

289

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you said, you know, well, also Bad Boy was huge, but also Roc-a-fella we had talked about

that in the past.

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These were the two like gargantuan's in the game at that point.

291

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And so, know, Damon Dash gave him a bag of money and RZA was hurt by it.

292

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He said, I was, I was hurt.

293

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You Yeah.

294

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can see it.

295

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was he was definitely hurt just talking about it.

296

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Yeah.

297

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But ODB said he had no money.

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I mean because he had child support, you know, he had probably legal fees, a lot of stuff.

299

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It's like, I got no money.

300

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Like all this money that our group has amassed and like, I got nothing.

301

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So I don't know where the total disconnect was or if he didn't get his fair share or he

just burned through it.

302

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I'm not sure, but like he did what he needed to do, you know, for his family.

303

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Yeah.

304

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Yeah.

305

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I remember like, Ghostface said he had to fight to get out.

306

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know, Inspectah Deck said they had to go to court.

307

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And then, ODB was sitting jail and he's seeing everybody getting released.

308

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And yeah, I think there was a big disconnect and I think they probably could have talked

it out.

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it appears that, maybe somebody might have gotten in ODB's ear.

310

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Cause I think they alluded to something like that when,

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GZA called him one time and he was on the phone with GZA and he got off the phone when his

mother was there and said, yeah, somebody called him and told him something.

312

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So he called, you know, ODB to try to figure out what was going on as well.

313

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It was like, it seemed like it was a lot of he said, she said things going on and a lot of

convoluted conversations.

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I think they probably could have squashed it if they had they actually sat face to face

instead of having a lot of those phone conversations, you know.

315

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Sometimes when you're to face with somebody, especially family, that you can see the

emotion and facial expressions, those things carry a lot of weight.

316

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like ODB was saying, he's like, you know, we started together before we was Wu-Tang.

317

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It was just you and me.

318

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Like we were together.

319

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It was just the two of us before we was even Wu-Tang, you know, like we family, But, you

know, sad.

320

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It was sad to see that though.

321

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I mean, then they mentioned that ODB had given the group that confidence, almost like that

cachet Like ODB was like more or less the household name because he had risen to such

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great heights.

323

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You he had that song with Mariah Carey.

324

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He had other collabs that became like hit sensations right up the charts, more popular

than a lot of the other songs that Wu-Tang did as a collective.

325

00:20:52,416 --> 00:20:54,666

Yeah, he had a larger than life personality.

326

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His personality was all over the place.

327

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Like if you saw him, you saw him.

328

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There's no doubt about it.

329

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like got your money and ghetto superstar like all that like insanely popular.

330

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When he died, it left a huge void for the group.

331

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So it was very sad.

332

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Yeah, I think one thing that stuck out, his mother was talking and she said, yeah, I heard

it.

333

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Somebody said to her, I guess it like it was an interviewer said, yeah, we heard that you

didn't cry when he died.

334

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And she said, no, I didn't.

335

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he died, she I knew where he was at.

336

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She said, I cried more when he was alive because I didn't know where he was and I was

always worried about him.

337

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I was like, man.

338

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She said that, was like, wow, that's, yeah, wow.

339

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profound.

340

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Yeah.

341

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absolutely.

342

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Yeah.

343

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a free spirit, one that flew too close to the sun, you know, just that type of thing.

344

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Yes.

345

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Yeah.

346

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Yeah, the same.

347

00:21:55,916 --> 00:22:02,125

But that's kind of where this episode ends, you know, with ODB's passing and they play

shimmy shimmy ya at the end, I love.

348

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349

00:22:05,666 --> 00:22:06,750

Great track.

350

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Absolutely.

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know, part of this episode, it kind of made me think of our, our live event at Rider with

Mickey Hess.

352

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We were talking about when he was on the run and nobody knew where he was.

353

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And, I can't think of his name right now.

354

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I was wondering the guys he said he interviewed and he said that he actually knew where

ODB was during that period.

355

00:22:30,541 --> 00:22:32,750

Yeah, Buddha monk was that Buddha monk?

356

00:22:32,750 --> 00:22:34,041

think might have been Buddha Monk.

357

00:22:34,041 --> 00:22:34,916

Yeah.

358

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He said, yeah, nobody knew where ODB was.

359

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And he said he knew where he was.

360

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I was like, wow.

361

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I had to cringe when manager at Rockefeller, Jared.

362

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He didn't recognize RZA and I thought, you know, it's hard sometimes to recognize people

out of context, but you're supposed to be a professional manager of a rap star.

363

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You should know the industry a little bit, I would think.

364

00:23:00,500 --> 00:23:02,666

And then he was talking about his height, like, ooh.

365

00:23:02,666 --> 00:23:05,083

Yeah, I thought you didn't realize it was as tall.

366

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It's like, okay, buddy.

367

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something to talk to, but that really conversation piece, that's very awkward.

368

00:23:11,833 --> 00:23:15,833

thought that was really like, you're out of your depth here, buddy.

369

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What's going on here?

370

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That was really, that was interesting to watch.

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Hip Hop Movie Club is produced by your HHMC's JB, Boogie and Dyno Wright.

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Theme music by Boogie.

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Join us on April 24th at the Frank Banko Alehouse Cinemas at SteelStacks in Bethlehem PA

for a screening of Hustle and Flow in 4K starring Terrence Howard and Ludacris.

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00:23:41,125 --> 00:23:43,875

Tickets at SteelStacks.org.

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00:23:43,875 --> 00:23:49,125

As always, check out our full live event schedule on our website, hiphopmovieclub.com.

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Thanks for listening to the Hip Hop Movie Club Podcast.

377

00:23:52,541 --> 00:23:55,125

If enjoyed this episode, please share with a friend.

378

00:23:55,125 --> 00:23:57,125

It's a real power up for us.

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And remember, don't hate, advocate.

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advocate.

381

00:24:05,791 --> 00:24:06,791

Yes.

382

00:24:08,916 --> 00:24:10,875

We advocate for hip hop, baby.

383

00:24:10,875 --> 00:24:11,791

Yeah.

384

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For the culture.

385

00:24:14,166 --> 00:24:15,125

Yes, sir.