Raw
My Journey into the Wu-Tang
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4.5 • 80 Ratings
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
A PERFECT COMPANION READ TO THE SHOWTIME DOCUMENTARY, WU-TANG CLAN: OF MICS AND MEN
Selected as a Best Book of the Year by Esquire
"Couldn't put it down." – Charlamagne Tha God
"Mesmerizing." – Raekwon da Chef
"Insightful, moving, necessary." – Shea Serrano
"Cathartic." –The New Yorker
"A classic." –The Washington Post
The explosive, never-before-told story behind the historicrise of the Wu-Tang Clan, as told by one of its founding members, Lamont "U-God" Hawkins.
“It’s time to write down not only my legacy, but the story of nine dirt-bomb street thugs who took our everyday life—scrappin’ and hustlin’and tryin’ to survive in the urban jungle of New York City—and turned that into something bigger than we could possibly imagine, something that took us out of the projects for good, which was the only thing we all wanted in the first place.” —Lamont "U-God" Hawkins
The Wu-Tang Clan are considered hip-hop royalty. Remarkably, none of the founding members have told their story—until now. Here, for the first time, the quiet one speaks.
Lamont “U-God” Hawkins was born in Brownsville, New York, in 1970. Raised by a single mother and forced to reckon with the hostile conditions of project life, U-God learned from an early age how to survive. And surviving in New York City in the 1970s and 1980s was no easy task—especially as a young black boy living in some of the city’s most ignored and destitute districts. But, along the way, he met and befriended those who would eventually form the Clan’s core: RZA, GZA, Method Man, Raekwon, Ol’ Dirty Bastard, Inspectah Deck, Ghostface Killah, and Masta Killa. Brought up by the streets, and bonding over their love of hip-hop, they sought to pursue the impossible: music as their ticket out of the ghetto.
U-God’s unforgettable first-person account of his journey,from the streets of Brooklyn to some of the biggest stages around the world, is not only thoroughly affecting, unfiltered, and explosive but also captures, invivid detail, the making of one of the greatest acts in American music history.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
"I don't consider myself an ex drug dealer or an ex-criminal," rapper Hawkins writes in this sage, fast-paced memoir. "I consider myself to be an experienced fucking person who went through a lot of hell to come out right and get where I am today." Hawkins, a member of the Wu-Tang Clan, describes New York during the less glamorous (and more dangerous) 1970s through the early 1990s, when lived with his single mother in a crack-ravaged Staten Island neighborhood; he dealt drugs as a teenager, eventually running a mini-empire. During this time, Hawkins and his friend Method Man honed their rap skills. They joined other determined, songwriters to form the Wu-Tang Clan. Along the way, Hawkins spent a year in prison for drug possession and, sometime after, was admitted to a mental institution after he was found wandering around his neighborhood in a bathrobe ("Maybe one of my girlfriends poisoned me"); he became a father and later dated Janet Jackson, on whom he had had a crush as a kid. Hawkins is a wonderful storyteller who spares no detail (he writes of using plastic wrap as a prophylactic), and his willingness to share his wisdom in nonsaccharine terms yields an inspirational coming-of-age story.
Customer Reviews
Good book with gaps
Congrats to Baby U for putting his story down on paper. It’s a true ghetto tale complete with detailed description of how wild it is to be raised as a black man in the New York projects. His drug game narratives are on point. He lets many poor blacks are really living in another world. What’s missing is the development of the Wu. It’s goes from he’s in jail to they are on tour without mention of their formation or the early days before they got signed. GZA and RZA are barely mentioned, same with Deck
Wu Tang Forever!!!!
Great book! U-God is an excellent narrator. His book excellently demonstrates the rites of passage that many African American men had to endure to make their dreams a reality. Thank you and bravo!
Raw
This was such an amazing book. The storytelling was even better… I had to buy this book!