DISGRACELAND - Ghostface Killah (Wu-Tang Clan Chapter 4): Angel Dust, an Unlicensed .357 Magnum, and Attempted Robbery

Episode Date: September 14, 2023

Ghostface Killah allegedly tried to steal three thousand dollars from a parking lot attendant. They said he was shot in the neck and shoulder in Steubenville, Ohio, shortly before the RZA went on trial for attempted murder. Or so the story goes. And it is true that he was busted with a .357 Magnum, hollow-point bullets, and a bulletproof vest during a routine traffic stop. It was stories and transgressions like these that led the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms to dig deep into Wu-Tang Clan’s past in order to build a new narrative that the music was merely a front for organized crime – a narrative that would soon go all the way to the FBI.To see the full list of contributors, see the show notes at www.disgracelandpod.com.Sign up for our newsletter and get the inside dirt on events, merch and other awesomeness - GET THE NEWSLETTERSupport our Advertising Partners:ZBiotics: ZBiotics.com/DISGRACELAND Code: DISGRACELANDLiquid IV: liquid-iv.com/disgracelandCode: DISGRACELANDFollow Jake and DISGRACELAND:InstagramYouTubeX (formerly Twitter) Facebook Fan GroupTikTok To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is exactly right. Double Elvis. When a group of women discover they've all dated the same prolific con artist, they take matters into their own hands. I vowed, I will be his last target. He is not going to get away with this. He's going to get what he deserves. We always say that trust your girlfriends. Listen to the girlfriends.

Trust me, babe. On the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This season on Dear Chelsea with me, Chelsea Handler, we have some fantastic guests like Amelia Clark. When like young people come up to me and they want to be an actor or whatever. My first thing is always, can you think of anything else that you can do? Rather be disappointed in. Do that.

David O'Yellowo. I love this podcast, whether it's therapy or relationships or religion or sex or addiction or you just go straight for the guts. Dennis Leary, Gaten Matarazzo from Stranger Things, Tana Monsu, Camilla Morone, Carrie Kenny Silver, and more. Listen to these episodes of Dear Chelsea on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Sometimes a suspect is found guilty before a verdict is ever read in court.

On the Wicked Words podcast, I talk with the writers who dig deep into the cases that changed history, including Marsha Clark, who went from prosecuting one of the most famous murder cases to writing crime fiction. It doesn't matter that you didn't take part in the murder. If you were at the scene at all, you're guilty of murder. Every week, the real story is revealed. Join us every Monday for new episodes of Wicked Words. Listen to Wicked Words on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Disgraceland is a production of Double Elvis. The stories about Wu-Tang Clan's Ghostface Killer are insane. He shot up someone's house while smoking wet. That's a joint dipped in angel dust and embalming fluid. And he was busted with an unlicensed 357 magnum, hollow point bullets, and a bulletproof vest during a routine traffic stop. He allegedly tried to steal $3,000 from a parking lot attendant.

And that particular offense got him sent to Rikers Island after he copped a plea for attempted robbery. And all of his real-life experiences on the street, have informed as music, great music. Some of the most lyrically dense stories ever put to tape, both as a member of the Wu-Tang Clan and as a solo artist. Unlike that clip I played for you at the top of the show, that wasn't great music.

That was a preset loop from my Melotron called Theatrical Neoclassical, MK1. I played you that loop because I can't afford the rights to Candle in the Win, 1997 by Elton John. And why would I play you that specific slice of Marilyn Monroe slash Princess Dye tribute cheese, could I afford it? Because that was the number one song in America on November 22, 1997. And that was the day that the manager of a hip-hop group in Ohio was shot dead. A shooting that resulted in unexpected yet serious ramifications for Ghostface Killa and the entire Wu-Tang clan. On this episode, smoking wet, an unlicensed 357 magnum, attempted robbery, a plea deal, and Wu-Tang Clan's ghost-face killer.

I'm Jake Brennan, and this is disgrace land. Tony was pissed. He just wanted to go home, but he couldn't. All four of his car's tires have been slashed while he and Frank were in the club. Hour, maybe hour and a half, not that long, and now this. This was bullshit. Frank was stunned, standing there with his mouth wide open, frozen. Tony motioned to the parking attendants nearby. These guys must have seen something.

Frank agreed, but just because they saw something didn't mean they were going to say something. They didn't need to talk, Tony said. He had a better idea. You know how much cash comes through here in a single evening? Let's go see what they got. Frank wanted to know if he should put his hood up. Tony said, probably not a bad idea. And what about the burner? Frank asked.

Tony said have it ready, but keep it hidden and keep the safety off. The attendants were as chatty as expected, which is to say not at all. Tony cuts the chase. Where's the money? No response. He asked again. Nothing. Tony zeroed in on one attendant.

Skinny, weak. Look at my car, Tony said to him. Look at what they did to my car. They did that to my car while it was parked in your lot, on your watch. And the kid got real nervous. He was shaking, trying to speak, but stuttering. Frank put his hand near his can to let the kid know something was under there. Tony barked.

The cash, motherfucker, give us the cash, and we'll forget about the whole thing. We'll walk away and leave you alone. Kid was as weak as Tony thought. He followed the instructions. Open the cash box at the attendant stand. Tony looked inside. Benjamin Franklin's stone gaze stared up at him from a stack of bills. A couple thousand in there, at least.

And this made Tony happy. This made things. Ghost-faced killer, the man born Dennis Coles, was one of Wu-Tang Clan's sharpest lyricist. Ghost, aka Dennis here, was a storyteller, a raconteur. Born in 1970 on Staten Island and now in 1997, 27 years old, Ghost knew a good yarn when he heard one. In his opinion, that's what he was hearing now. A good yarn, one hell of a story.

Nothing more, nothing less. The DA disagreed. The DA said it was a true story, and that in this true story, the character of Tony was actually a stand-in for Ghost's face. That Ghost was the one who found his car tire slashed outside the Palladium Nightclub in Manhattan. That, in a fit of rage,

Ghost got into it with the parking lot attendants. One of those attendants went on the record with a statement that Ghost nearly made off with 3K from their cash box. Now Ghost was looking at 5 to 15 for robbery. Unless that is, he copped a plea to a lesser charge, attempted robbery. That would get him a couple months in the pen and five years probation. Either way, the DA had him by the balls. Just like the NYPD had him by the balls a few weeks prior in Harlem.

Ghost was driving. His friend was driving his own car directly ahead. A police cruiser sandwiched its way between the two cars and pulled Ghost's friend over for some bogus traffic violation. So Ghost pulled over too. He watched the cops approach his friend's car. In Ghost mind, NYPD live for this. Not protecting, not serving, harassing. Ghost was out of his car now, making his approach.

The cops at the scene said it was at this time that Ghost Face began acting disorderly. Between that and the fact that you could clearly make out the bulletproof vest. under his coat, the cops had probable cause. And they searched Ghost's car, found his unlicensed 357 magnum and hollow point bullets in a hidden compartment behind the glove box. That was a careless mistake. Maybe it was hubris. Maybe he thought that because he was somebody now, a member of one of the biggest hip-hop groups

in the world, that he was somehow above the law. And if so, then he was wrong. Third-degree criminal possession of a weapon was a felony. It didn't matter who you were. Ditto for the body armor. Worst of all, getting pinched in Harlem was what alerted authorities to the fact that Ghostface had skipped a court date

on this whole palladium parking lot bullshit. The charge he was fighting now. And to think, 1997 had held so much promise. The year started on a high, with Ghost riding the success of his first solo album, Iron Man, released in October of the year prior on Epic Records. It debuted at number two on the Billboard 200 and quickly went gold.

Then on June 3rd, Wu Tang Clan dropped their long-awaited second album, the one they were recording out in Los Angeles when the notorious BIG was shot dead in the street. Wu-Tang Forever was bold. Double LP, 27 tracks. It was a massive success. The line of people at Virgin Records in New York City on release day stretched for blocks. Over 600,000 copies sold in the first week alone. It debuted at number one in the U.S. and in the UK.

This was year five of the Riza's five-year plan, by the way. Just as Riza promised, Wutang went all the way to the top. Days after the album's release, however, Wu-Tang was banned from one of the biggest hip-hop radio stations in the country. Hot 97's annual Summer Jam concert should have been a victory lot. But when the station, threatened to pull Wu Tang's music from the airways if they didn't perform a headlining set, an appearance which was promotional in nature and thus did not pay,

it felt a little like extortion. Wu Tang went ahead and played the show, and they closed out the night with incredible energy and cool to spare. They also had a very clear message for the tens of thousands of people in attendance, a message which was delivered off the cuff by Ghostface with no warning, and that message was, I want every motherfucker in here to say, fuck hot 97. With their music no longer allowed on one of the biggest hip-hop radio stations in the country,

Wu-Tang then hit the road. Their joint tour with Rage Against the Machine was the hottest ticket of the summer of 1997. It was also an opportunity to greatly expand Wu-Tang's audience. Black, white, male, female, high school kids, college kids, rock fans, rap fans. it didn't matter. Everyone was down with Wu-Tang, but Wu-Tang wasn't down with touring. Real touring anyways. Touring like a rock band. That was hard. And there were schedules to keep call times to make endless protocols and rules. Ghosts and Wu-Tang didn't do rules. So at the height of this huge cultural moment, one of the biggest records of the year,

one of the biggest tours of the year, quoting headline controversy like only the greatest artist can do, Wu-Tang bailed and went home. Ghost, for one, struggled. Not because he told Hot 97 to fuck off, and not because his group abandoned rage. Wu-Tang was formed against the odds, and they flourished against the odds. Professional odds would always be there.

Ghost's problem was personal. His diabetes was getting worse. It made him dizzy, blurred his vision, gave him migraine so bad it felt like his head was going to split into two. It felt like everything inside, the dense, overgrown language in the art of storytelling, the things that were as bread and butter as an MC, that they would all pour out of that cracked dome and spill all over the floor.

His drinking and smoking, it wasn't helping. PCP in particular was a favorite, but it made the dizziness and the paranoia even worse. He was still looking behind his back. even from the vantage point of some of the biggest stages in the world. He was the guy from the Stapleton projects. He did live that life and he did represent that culture. He was authentic. Being authentic was about being real,

which is not the same as saying it was the truth. Ghostface Killa was a character, part truth, part fiction. The truth gave credence to the made-up stuff and fiction went a long way when the truth got stabbed. Back when Wu-Tang first started, Ghostface wore a stalking mask at their public appearances, but why? Depended on who you asked, there was a warrant out for his arrest, or there was a bounty on his head from a rival crew. These were stories. Stories like the one about Tony and Frank trying to rob some dudes in a nightclub parking lot.

Were they true? Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe go fuck yourself. The DA didn't care for Ghostface's Cavalier. attitude. In a sense, his authenticity was his worst enemy. The parking lot story was one that he couldn't write himself out of, so he took the plea deal, five years probation after he did four months at Rikers Island. Ghost figured it was fodder for another good story, a story about coming

outright, and how in the end you got to go through hell to come out right. Everyone does. There's two golden rules that any man should live by. Rule one, never mess with a country girl. You play stupid games, you get stupid prizes. And rule two, never mess with her friends either. We always say that trust your girlfriends. I'm Anna Sinfield, and in this new season of the girlfriends, Oh my God, this is the same man.

A group of women discover they've all dated the same prolific con artist. I felt like I got hit by a truck. I thought, how could this happen to me? The cops didn't seem to care. So they take matters into their own hands. I said, oh, hell no. I vowed. I will be his last target.

He's going to get what he deserves. Listen to the girlfriends. Trust me, babe. On the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This season on Dear Chelsea, with me, Chelsea Handler, we have some fantastic guests, like Amelia Clark. When like young people come up to me and they want to be an actor or whatever,

my first thing is always, can you think of anything else that you can do? Rather be disappointed in. Do that. Dennis Leary. I wake up and I'm hitting him in the head with a water bomb. And Bruce Jenner is on the aisle in a karate stance like he's about to attack me. Making karate noises. And his entire, the Kardashians family over there, everybody's going.

And the airman. March is trying to grab my arms and screaming. I immediately know that I've been at sleepwalk. David O'Yellowo. I love this podcast, whether it's therapy or relationships or religion or sex or addiction or you just go straight for the guts. Guy Branham. So anyway, Nicole Kidman

broke up with Keith Thurbin. Being half of a country couple was always a hat she was going to wear, not like a life she was going to lead. Oh, interesting. I like that. Did you practice that on your way over? Gaten Madarazzo from Stranger Things. Tena, Monjou, Camilla Morone, Carrie Kenny Silver, and more. Listen to these episodes of Dear Chelsea on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Remember when you'd walk into your local video rental place and there were always those two employees behind the counter arguing about movies? Well, that's us. I'm Millie to Cherico. And I'm Casey O'Brien. And now we're arguing about movies on our podcast, Dear Movies I Love You, from the Exactly Right Network. Can I say something about the Criterion Clause? Go ahead, dude. They're letting too many people in there. Okay, that's another film, grape I got to.

Sadly, that rental place doesn't exist anymore. It's probably a store that sells running shoes. Or an ice cream shop with an extra pee and an E at the end. So consider us your slacker movie clerks in podcast form. I would like to establish a timeline of the moment you have, figured out who Channing Tatum was. Every Tuesday, we dig into the movies we can't stop obsessing over, from hidden gems to big screen favorites.

New episodes drop every week on the exactly right network. Listen to Dear Movies I Love You on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The first bullet hit his neck. The next one caught him in the shoulder. It all happened so fast. Blood spurred from his wounds. His neck went numb with shock.

He screamed and threw his arms up, pure reflex. He grabbed the dude's piece and tried to wrestle it from his grip. Again, reflex. And knuckles cracked as he turned the barrel around and aimed it back at the guy who had just clipped him. He managed to wrap his finger around the trigger, and then he fired. He shot a guy with his own gun.

When the smoke cleared, he got the hell out of Ohio. Stubinville was a shit show. birthplace of Dean Martin and Jimmy the Greek, a grid of steel mills and coal mines and now, in 1991, the place where Ghostface Killa, then still known as Dennis Coles, then only 21 years old, got shot. He went back to New York before things got really bad, and Dennis's guy Bobby, aka the Rizza, he could vouch for the really bad shit. The cycle of non-success was a tough one to break.

It was a cycle that had been spinning. since the day guys like Dennis were born. A cycle of little opportunity and even less support. Homes broken far beyond repair. There was a reason the projects in Staten Island were set up the way they were. They kept everyone inside, like caged animals. And the only way out was to claw your way to something better.

Sometimes that meant squeezing a trigger. And when the Rizza formed Wutang clan, those lives and that culture and that fight-or-flight mentality, all became a part of the mythology, the new thing they were creating. They rearranged the world as they knew it. Staten Island wasn't just Staten Island anymore. It was Shaolin, a place that was partly true and partly made up.

The stuff that was 100% true, all that happened long before Riza assembled Wu-Tang, and long before Dennis became ghost-faced killer, the hip-hop alter ego named after the villain from one of the clans cherish kung fu movies. It happened in the Stapleton Houses project on Staten Island in the 70s. Fifteen family members squeezed into a three-bedroom apartment, four bodies to a mattress, cereal for breakfast in the morning, after you picked the roaches out of the box.

The sounds of the Delphonics and the temptations on the radio to tuck you in at night. Dennis' father was gone. His mom was it. But mom was overwhelmed, and she hit the bottle to cope. The dentist helped out however he could. As young as 10 years old, he was lifting his two younger brothers, both stricken with MS, onto the toilet.

All the while, hoping the toilet paper roll still had a few squares on it. And if it didn't, hoping that there was enough newspaper kicking around to make a half-decent substitute. Let's face it, the newspaper didn't cut it, though. Tor your ass up. And the easiest way to escape at all was to smoke your way out. Stapleton's high of choice was weed dipped in amyed in, Angel dust and embalming fluid, smoking quote unquote wet or getting dusted as it were called,

produced a high that stretched out not just over time, but into time. The high was time. There was no past and no future when you were dusted. Only a lawn drawn out now, a now that takes forever to happen, so long that it doesn't even feel real. Your eyes bug out. You walk slow, but you stumble like you're drunk. Someone else has to steady you.

And when they do so, their hand touches your arm and suddenly your mind's racing a million miles an hour. You see and hear things that aren't there. People dead, alive. And your piece of shit father, fuck off. Some hot young thing from around the way. What's up, baby? A cop in plain clothes.

Damn. They're all looking at you. They talk to you and you talk back to them. It's all totally normal. Everything is. Every choice makes perfect sense. Whip out your dick and piss inside of a subway car. Strip your clothes off.

Flip a razor blade between your fingers like it's a casino chip. Try to lift a car into the air or point a pistol at an old lady's house and shoot. 1992, Staten Island, Park Hill. Ghostface Kilo was dusted. A house in front of him wasn't in his neighborhood in Stapleton. He was standing in rival territory, a gun in his hand. His mind raced with memories, older memories, like the years he took care of his brothers. Years spent crammed inside of an apartment with extended family.

More recent memories like getting clipped in Steubenville, nearly a casualty of whatever the hell was going on there. As clear as that particular memory was, however, and as much as he didn't want a replay of that incident, ghost's mind was not in a good place. It was warped by PCP. And to that warped mind, what he was about to do made complete sense to him. He was going to shoot up the house that belonged to a mother who was the same age as his own mom. It wasn't the mother he was after. It was her son.

Dude was hiding out inside after getting into it with Ghost's friend over a drug deal gone bad that had put that friend in jail. This was revenge. This was payback. His motions were. were slow but deliberate. He raised the piece, took game, and fired. Bullets ricocheted off brick and pierced glass. To ghost face, the whole thing felt like an hour. In reality, it was quick work. Just a few seconds and he was tearing ass down the street in a car. He should have known that Dust Head Vigilantes don't go unpunished. An eye for an eye and all that. And the other guy,

the guy ghost had tried and failed to shoot, didn't wait long to exact his revenge. He drove over to Stapleton that same day, it ghosts his mom's house, and pumped it full of bullets. Putting your own mother in danger has a way of putting everything in perspective. Once the angel dust wore off, that is. Luckily no one was hurt at either house, but the thought of his mother under fire ate at him from the inside. And there was more. The guy that ghost went after?

The guy who emptied a clip into his mom's house? That guy was super tight with Corey Woods, aka Rayquan the chef. And Raqon was, alongside Ghostface, a founding member of the newly assembled Wu-Tang clan. Whatever this dispute was, it ended now. Time to put away childish things. Time to grow up. Rizzo wasn't just forming a band. He was brokering peace.

Wu-Tang was intended to legitimize all nine guys, trade in the street hustle for a music industry hustle. But it wasn't that simple. They didn't make millions overnight. night. Rayquan and Methodman continued to deal for a little while at the beginning, and Ghost continued to be an ambassador for the culture that continued to fuel many of his crime-obsessed rhymes. He understood that culture, how it feels to be left for dead, underestimated, fending for yourself. The very word, culture, has major significance. Culture is the fourth supreme number, as in supreme mathematics, the building blocks of the 5% nation, aka the nation

of gods and earths. One, you do the knowledge. Two, you act upon what you know. Three, you understand it. And then four, you live it. The culture, the way of life. But not the way of life that you're familiar with. This is a better way of life, a better culture.

One that you can only grasp once you are seeing clearly. That kind of culture is freedom. Freedom is what everyone wants. Freedom from harassment, freedom from repression, freedom from bad cycles and worse circumstances. But most of all, freedom from the past. We'll be right back after this world, word, word. There's two golden rules that any man should live by. Rule one, never mess with a country girl.

You play stupid games, you get stupid prizes. And rule two, never mess with her friends either. We always say that trust your girlfriends. I'm Anna Sinfield, and in this new season of the girlfriends, Oh my God, this is the same man. A group of women discover they've all dated the same prolific con artist. I felt like I got hit by a truck. I thought, how could this happen to me?

The cops didn't seem to care. So they take matters into their own hands. I said, oh, hell no. I vowed. I will be his last target. He's going to get what he deserves. Listen to the girlfriends. Trust me, babe. On the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.

This season on Dear Chelsea, with me, Chelsea Handler, we have some fantastic guests like Amelia Clark. When, like, young people come up to me and they want to be an actor or whatever. And my first thing is always, can you think of anything else that you can do? Rather be disappointed in. Do that. Dennis Leary. I wake up.

And I'm hitting him in the head with a water bomb. And Bruce Jenner is on the aisle in a karate stance. Like he's about to attack me, like, making karate noises. And his entire the Kardashian family over there, everybody's going, and the air marshal is trying to grab my arms and screaming. And I immediately know that I've been asleep walking. David O'Yello-O. I love this podcast, whether it's therapy or relationships or religion or sex or addiction

or you just go straight for the guts. Guy Branham. So anyway, Nicole Kidman broke up with Keith Thurban. Being half of a country couple was always a hat she was going to wear, not like a life she was going to lead. Oh, interesting. I like that. Did you practice that on your way over?

Gaten Matarazzo from Stranger Things. Tena Monsu. Camilla Morone at Carrie Kenny Silver. And more. Listen to these episodes of Dear Chelsea on the IHeart Radio app, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Kate Winkler Dawson, host of the Wicked Words podcast. Each week I sit down with the true crime writers behind some of the most compelling true

crime stories and discuss their years spent investigating and why it still matters. He sees his father coming out of the woods with his hands over his face and he knows something happened. His father just grabs him and says she's gone. She's gone. These are the cases that leave survivors, families, and the journalists who cover them changed forever. Working in national television, it'll push you to your limits, and you'll end up doing things you never thought you do. You know, you look back at it and you're like, I can't believe that really happened. Join me and step inside the investigation. New episodes drop every Monday on the Exactly Right Network.

Listen to Wicked Words on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. One of the inmates down the hall was freaking out. You didn't actually have to see him to know he was on the floor. Arms smacking against the concrete. A demonic wheeze coming from his chest. Seizure or asthma attack, hard to tell which. The CEOs didn't pay any mind one way or the other.

The CEOs worked double shifts and gave zero fucks. They walked on by every time. And they did what they wanted. And what they wanted was simple. make life for inmates at Rikers Island a living hell. A CEO wouldn't think twice about tossing tear gas in your face or tossing your ass in solitary or just denying you your basic rights as a human. No water, no showers, no phone calls, no food.

And for Ghostface, no insulin. It was early 1998, January or February. Ghost had lost track of time. He was days or weeks into his four months. for the alleged attempted robbery outside the Palladium. His diabetes was worse now than it had ever been. And the CEOs could care less. They denied him anything that would make his life easier.

They denied him as insulin. Without insulin to manage his blood sugar levels, every hour was harder than the one before. He became disoriented. His cell seemed to spin violently and spun all around him. He was nauseous. A headache raged between his eyes, bore down on him like a dark cloud, and he dropped to his knees.

He fell over and steadied himself with his hands, and they tingled, and then he was down, lying still on the cold, slimy, concrete of his cell floor. He closed his eyes. The bare floor of the Rikers prison cell was gone. In its place was the bare dirt floor of a village hut, West Africa, the country of Benin, to be precise, where voodoo is the state religion. He was here once, months ago, in real life, looking for an alternative to Western medicine, a cure for his diabetes that didn't involve sticking himself with a needle every day.

And now he was here again, inside his own mind. He saw candle wax and palm oil, the blood of a goat and the feathers of a chicken. A group of women assembled in a street, white robes, voices in perfect harmony. The women beat out a rhythm on their chests. and the rhythm grew faster. Someone screamed. A figure draped in black, impossibly tall,

as tall as three men standing on top of each other's shoulders, burst through the dust that hung in the air. Bad spirits make haste. He suddenly tasted gin in his mouth. Don't swallow it. It's fire water. Spit it once, twice, three times is the ritual. Now pray for help.

Pray for healing. His body shook, beads rattled in the distance. Men and multicolored men. mass lurked behind him, more blood, more feathers, dehydrated skulls of monkeys and stray cats. The voices of women became louder, faster, out of sink. Another spray of fire water, another scream, and then. Ghostface woke with the urgent need to piss.

His temples were throbbing. There was a drum in his head. The rhythm was strong and loud. Not unlike the rhythms that Riza sampled on his ASR-10. Not unlike the rhythms of ritual in Benin. Voodoo wasn't a cure-all. Ghost found no magic wand in West Africa for his ailments. But he did find a simpler way of life there.

In Benin, no one cared about the label on your shirt or the brand of your shoes. It was the same here at Rikers. In prison, life was reduced to its most elemental state. Some guys fought to survive. Others told stories. Ghosts knew he had to hold on. Just a few months longer. He was strong.

He'd bent through worse, and you could sweat it out, busy and nauseous, the headaches giving him fever dreams and tunnel vision. As long as there was light at the end of that tunnel, he just wasn't prepared for what was on the other side. November 22, 1997, Steubenville, Ohio. Greer Montgomery, aka Wise God Allah, manager of the local hip-hop group Kill Army, walked briskly along Logan Street on his way to a recording studio. A party was raging at number 635. Nine members of the Steubenville Crips stood outside. The Crips weren't down with Wise God.

They all suspected he was a blood. Whether or not he actually was wasn't important. They thought he was, so that was that. He was a sworn rival. One Cripp in particular blame Wise God for robbing his mom. Still, the nine dudes didn't make a move. They just stood there as Wise God made his way. They all gave him a look.

It was a look that said, keep walking. So he did. But as he walked, he lifted his shirt to display the 357 concealed there. All nine crips immediately drew their weapons. Wise God went from a stroll to a sprint. The still of the night was shattered by an octet of steel and smoke, the sound of nine guns firing off multiple rounds. And for a few seconds, Wise God dodged the ridiculous hail of bullets.

In all, the Crips unloaded over 60 rounds. Most of them miss their target, but it only takes one shot. Wise God was hit once in the head. His body fell to the ground, dead on impact. Months later, Ghost Face Killah completed his sentence at Rikers Island and walked out the front door of free man, as free as a man on probation can be. He came out right. He had managed to keep his nose clean on the inside.

The only fight he had at Rikers was with his own body, and now he planned to take control of that. fight on the outside. No drinking and no smoking? Maybe. To start, though, less drinking and less smoking. For now, less was something. Less made him feel better. Less headaches, less dizzy spells. Less of the petty shit that consumed everyone on a daily basis. He thought about the people he met in West Africa. They had less, but they seemed happier with less. Less made him focused. The arrest in Harlem, the thing at the palladium, his time in prison. None of that was going to cling to him like an albatross. But yet he held on to these experiences, and they made him tough like an elephant tusk.

They were fuel. And this new stuff, the second solo album he was cooking up. The follow-up to Iron Man, that was going to be killer. The kind of record that ups everyone's game. Ghostface, Wu-Tang, all boats lifted by the rising tide that flowed, from the mouth of hell. Ghost-faced sophomore album, Supreme Clientel, was another instant classic in a small group of solo Wu-Tang efforts.

Like Rayquans, only built for Cuban links and old dirty bastards returned to the 36 chambers. When it was finally released two years after Ghost left Rikers, it was the year 2000. Wu-Tang was busy cooking up their third record. And more than just music, Wu-Tang was building a brand. They were more than a hip-hop group.

They were a business. Their clothing line, woo-wear, was grossing millions of dollars a year and outfitting their eclectic demographic with that now iconic yellow W symbol. By this point, however, in the year 2000, it wasn't just hip-hop heads and parole officers who were keeping tabs on Ghostface and Wu-Tang clan. Not everyone looked at Wu-Tang and saw a legitimate business that was making good on the promise of the American dream. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, the ATF, saw in Wu-Tang a front for corruption. Dirty money laundered through album sales and concert tickets and clothing lines.

The ATF poured through Wu-Tang's past transgressions with a fine-tooth comb. Most of these guys had records. I'm not talking albums, I'm talking criminal rap sheets. Some of them, like Ghost, had even done time. And then, there was this thing with guns. Guns were everywhere, like that unlicensed 357 magnum behind Ghost's glove box. The ATF turned back the clock to 1991, Stubinville. Dennis Cole's, aka Ghost Face Killer, gets shot.

Bobby Diggs, aka the Rizza, goes on trial. They both leave, but part of them stays. The ATF drew a line from Ghost to the Rizza to Wise God Allah, the manager of the hip-hop group Kill Army, who was gunned down by members. of the Crips in 1997. The ATF knew that Rizzo was a known associate of Wise God. Hence, it wasn't a stretch to think that Rizzo was also known to the Stubanville Bloods, of which Wise God was a rumored member.

And it wasn't just Stubinville. One month after Wise God Allah was shot dead, on December 30th, 1997, a man named Robert Johnson was jumped by two masked men in the St. George District of Staten Island. They shot him several times and left his mortal wounds bleak out on the pavement. Robert Johnson was a known associate of a man named Darryl Hill, aka Capadonna, a Staten Island

native who, once upon a time, taught various Wu-Tang clan members how to rhyme. This was way back in the day. When Wu-Tang formed, Cap happened to be serving his own stint at Rikers Island. Recently, however, he was welcomed into the clan's fold as an honorary member. The ATF were interested in how Ghostface and the Rizza and Capadonna and the entire Wu-Tang clan tied into the cases of wise god Allah and Robert Johnson. Not simply because they knew the departed. It wasn't a crime to know somebody.

This was deeper than that. The ATF were interested first in the proximity of these two shootings. They happened a mere month apart. Perhaps a coincidence that two men died violent deaths in two different cities. two men who just so happen to have ties to members of one organization, the organization in question being a hip-hop group. The ATF were also interested in the police work conducted by detectives in Steubenville in Staten Island, specifically information collected about the weapons used in both crimes.

It was determined that guns used in both shootings could be traced back to a single batch of guns that had been bought in Stubinville, a batch bought by known associates of Wutain Clinton. It didn't take the ATF long to string their story together. And that story went like this. Wutang Clan, one of the biggest hip-hop groups on the planet were, in reality, hiring friends to purchase weapons in Ohio, which were then transported to New York, where the group used them for their own protection.

To the ATF, Wutang Clan weren't just a collective of MCs and producers and artists. They were gunrunners. I'm Jake Brennan. in this episode of Disgraceland is to be continued. Disgraceland was created by yours truly and is produced in partnership with Double Elvis. Credits for this episode can be found on the show notes page at disgracelandpod.com. If you're listening as a Disgraceland All-Axist member, thank you for supporting the show. We really appreciate it.

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disgraceland pod, and on YouTube at YouTube.com slash at disgraceland pod. When a group of women discover they've all dated the same prolific con artist, they take matters into their own hands. I vowed, I will be his last target. He is not going to get away with this. He's going to get what he deserves. We always say that trust your girlfriends. Listen to the girlfriends.

Trust me, babe, on the IHart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This season on Dear. Chelsea, with me, Chelsea Handler, we have some fantastic guests like Amelia Clark. When, like, young people come up to me and they want to be an actor or whatever. And my first thing is always, can you think of anything else that you can do? Rather be disappointed in. Do that. David O'Yello.

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