Raw: My Journey into the Wu-Tang

Raw: My Journey into the Wu-Tang

by Lamont "U-God" Hawkins
Raw: My Journey into the Wu-Tang

Raw: My Journey into the Wu-Tang

by Lamont "U-God" Hawkins

Paperback

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Overview

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.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781250191175
Publisher: Picador
Publication date: 03/05/2019
Pages: 304
Product dimensions: 5.80(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Born Lamont Jody Hawkins, U-God is an American rapper and hip-hop artist and one of the founding members of the legendary Wu-Tang Clan. A native New Yorker, Raw is his first book.

Table of Contents

CONTENTS

Prologue 1

1. Started Off on the Island 5
2. Growing Up on the Crime Side 20
3. RUUUUMBLEEE!! 28
4. The 5 Percenters 35
5. Hip-Hop Was Our Way of Life 42
6. Crack Hits the Hill 66
7. It’s Yourz 94
8. Cash Rules Everything Around Me 108
9. Enter the Wu-Tang 131
10. Turbulence 139
11. On the Inside 148
12. Headed Up North 160
13. When You Come Home 172
14. Saber-tooth Tiger in the Booth 187
15. The Night the Earth Cried 198
16. Redemption 204
17. Tour Life 227
18. Cracks in the Foundation 264
19. The Legacy 286

Acknowledgments 291

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