My takeaways after finishing Raekwon's new book, From Staircase to Stage.

[Awesome Wells]

A lot of what Rae says in the book, has basically been said in mad interviews over the past 20 years.

I think the issue, is that the Wu brand became bigger than the bonds they had with each other. They always said they would just link up for checks and shows, but didn't have the same chemistry they had during '91-'93. Money ruined these dudes. The legacy will always be there, but we all know the second album wasn't on par with expectations. They blew fast and never really recovered, as a group.

RZA always said that some of them depended on him too much to carry them throughout their careers. As fans, we wanted RZA tracks on every album, but if they had the freedom to work with whoever they wanted to, they should've done that and been able to still make classic and dope shyt. Most members don’t even seem to know what's in their deals or have any awareness on what they're entitled to, and then they blame RZA for that. Seems like a lot of them don’t have enough accountability for how shyt has turned out for them, or for the decisions they've made. You can't blame RZA and 'Vine for everything.

 

[mson]

I’m glad y’all not buying his side of the story either. From what I gathered, after forever they all wanted to go do their own thing and 99% of that shyt didn’t hit the same. Meth found red man and had a good run and ghost did his thing. RZA went to Hollywood to produce and eventually direct movies. No they weren’t great movies but he made a lane out there for himself.

The rest of them dudes put out garbage to barely decent albums. Rae included, so for him and trash ass U god of all people to say the RZA fell off and held them back sounds crazy to me. I believe these books are fabricated to generate sales by over exaggerating tension they had. But what do I know. I could be biased

Rae carried the group from 07-10.

 

[Amestafuu (Emeritus)]

First off the second one is alright imo. Not the best beat but on some early 2000's commercial shyt it was okay.

Secondly, he didn't have the best ear for beats himself but cmon breh RZA's beats was iffy after a time. Even listen to Better Tomorrow. RZA did lose a step production wise and it's just a fact.

A real producer would have cultivated their projects kinda like a Westside Gunn and let others make the beats and just picked them or take a step further like Dre and tweak them but RZA doing whole projects after awhile would have been a bad idea.

RZA did everything you talking about on Supreme Clientele and ironically again on Cuban Link 2 which outside the first solo is Rae second best album. And immediately after Rae did that Shaolin vs wu underhanded shyt.

That whole lex diamond immobilarity era is trash. So if we look at history he does need RZA

 

[GunRanger]

Album had more than a few cheap imitations



This fake ass Knowledge God

This aint a bad beat

 

[mson]

Raekwon doesnt need Rza, he just needs better production. I liked FILA btw.

 

[mindgawn]

MOFUKA wanted RZA locked in the basement his whole life chained to the MPC, produce fire, own & run the Wu Brand, and do it for pennies to make sure it was an equitable brotherly all in the family split? FOH, give me my 58%

RZA wanted to maximize his individual earning potential so he does solo albums, gravediggaz albums, producing wu affiliate albums, score movies, produce and ep wu related albums,? And old pocket watching jealous ass Rae plotting on RZA and taking the brand down while demanding more individually for himself.

If Rza produced arranged and ep on OB4CL and SC he should still be demanding bread from dukes just to prove his point and get some of the money back Rae and Ghost have cost him over the years.

 

[Da King]

Rza being a washed snake isn’t news

 

[nieman]

Here an older interview around A Better Tomorrow, when Rae was being a hater. RZA comes with receipts. I timestamped it for when it starts about Rae.



There's tons of these interviews that just shows that Rae is a pocket-watchin hater. He's always been like that. I'm gonna dig up my old XXL & Source mags when he was going in on Bobby Digital, and talkin about Immobilairty... so this is the post Wu Forever era.

 

[TripleAgent]

If they ain’t like the splits, them nikkaz should have started making beats.

on the real though, they wanted Rza to take the same cut as them, despite him putting in way more work putting the albums together. Granted they came through and spit some legendary verses, but by all accounts, they would come through the studio, spit some shyt and bounce. Rza was in there all day and night putting them albums together for months on end.

And the thing is, he actually told them from The W onwards, if any of them wanna take over he would fall back and let them put together any group albums they want. 22 years later and none of em actually stepped up to make it happen. The only person who did was Mathematics in 2017, and U god wasn’t even on that shyt.

Deck has been making beats since the Forever days. Can't speak for the rest.

After finishing, I'm sure the truth lies somewhere in the middle, but RZA and Divine's conflict of interest was gigantic and fukked up a lot of the relationships. I can't say they were thieves, but, I will say all the "family" shyt went out the window at times. OTOH, RZA probably took years off his life working like a madman and dealing with 9 people, and the executive side. I 100% agree he should get paid for beats, but he could have split it more beneficially to the group. Also, it does appear he wanted to craft the albums to maximize that side as opposed to making the dopest shyt. But also,, he never had to let them off Wu-Tang Productions. He had them dead to rights on paper. As a fan, I almost didn't want to know some of that. Sad possible ending to arguably the greatest story in Hip-Hop. WTC is still the GOAT group.

 

[mindgawn]

Deck has been making beats since the Forever days. Can't speak for the rest.

After finishing, I'm sure the truth lies somewhere in the middle, but RZA and Divine's conflict of interest was gigantic and fukked up a lot of the relationships. I can't say they were thieves, but, I will say all the "family" shyt went out the window at times. OTOH, RZA probably took years off his life working like a madman and dealing with 9 people, and the executive side. I 100% agree he should get paid for beats, but he could have split it more beneficially to the group. Also, it does appear he wanted to craft the albums to maximize that side as opposed to making the dopest shyt. As a fan, I almost didn't want to know some of that. Sad possible ending to arguably the greatest story in Hip-Hop. WTC is still the GOAT group.

Why would he split the beats portion to be more beneficial to the group? Just curious

Also in a Family everything split evenly? Just curious

I would agree if we find out he took 50% on beats he aint produce...I could call snake then but the mc and beat % he earned he should keep. Also if it is indeed his company with Divine & Power then the workers should have been understood the splits.
The tiers make since for Rae, Ghost, and Meth by proxy RZA if he produced them shyts his splits should add on a % of what they asking for...leaving pennies to the rest of the clan...

No doubt there are opportunities to snake ya team but getting you solo deals, letting you out ya production deal, stating you can pick the producers you want but you call em and negotiate the costs all seems fair to me...let alone never ever outwardly sling mud and step all on ya shyt after all the lawsuits and public disparaging remarks seems righteous to me.

But as with all thing Everything is Everything.

 

[TripleAgent]

Why would he split the beats portion to be more beneficial to the group? Just curious

Also in a Family everything split evenly? Just curious

I would agree if we find out he took 50% on beats he aint produce...I could call snake then but the mc and beat % he earned he should keep. Also if it is indeed his company with Divine & Power then the workers should have been understood the splits.
The tiers make since for Rae, Ghost, and Meth by proxy RZA if he produced them shyts his splits should add on a % of what they asking for...leaving pennies to the rest of the clan...

No doubt there are opportunities to snake ya team but getting you solo deals, letting you out ya production deal, stating you can pick the producers you want but you call em and negotiate the costs all seems fair to me...let alone never ever outwardly sling mud and step all on ya shyt after all the lawsuits and public disparaging remarks seems righteous to me.

But as with all thing Everything is Everything.

Because if they're "family", and he just wants everyone to come together for the flag, AND he's likely getting the most anyway, then why not?

 

[nieman]

Because if they're "family", and he just wants everyone to come together for the flag, AND he's likely getting the most anyway, then why not?

When they had even splits, some dudes were still mad (Rae, Ghost, Uey). The 50/50 splits were also only for the solo albums, not Wu-Tang albums. Ghost sued over his solo albums. From all of the accounts that we heard so far, they made equal money as artists off the group albums (meaning RZA actually got less than what he deserved, but also meaning Power, Divine, RZA & Ghost got a little extra from being execs). Also, the other split was for Wu-Tang Productions was everyone contributed a percentage of their individual income outside of the Wu, and kicked it back up to the pot, so that it was shared success and money. That was the system they had a major problem with after a while.

 

[TripleAgent]

When they had even splits, some dudes were still mad (Rae, Ghost, Uey). The 50/50 splits were also only for the solo albums, not Wu-Tang albums. Ghost sued over his solo albums. From all of the accounts that we heard so far, they made equal money as artists off the group albums (meaning RZA actually got less than what he deserved, but also meaning Power, Divine, RZA & Ghost got a little extra from being execs). Also, the other split was for Wu-Tang Productions was everyone contributed a percentage of their individual income outside of the Wu, and kicked it back up to the pot, so that it was shared success and money. That was the system they had a major problem with after a while.

That depends on who is saying it, and when. We will probably never know for sure.

 

[mson]

When they had even splits, some dudes were still mad (Rae, Ghost, Uey). The 50/50 splits were also only for the solo albums, not Wu-Tang albums. Ghost sued over his solo albums. From all of the accounts that we heard so far, they made equal money as artists off the group albums (meaning RZA actually got less than what he deserved, but also meaning Power, Divine, RZA & Ghost got a little extra from being execs). Also, the other split was for Wu-Tang Productions was everyone contributed a percentage of their individual income outside of the Wu, and kicked it back up to the pot, so that it was shared success and money. That was the system they had a major problem with after a while.

Didn't they win the lawsuit?

 

[Ziggiy]

Didn't they win the lawsuit?

Ghost won his lawsuit. Not sure about the others.


Ghostface Wins Royalties Lawsuit Against the RZA