RZA Responds to the Disparaging Claims U-God Made in His Memoir

RZA counters U-God’s claims

RZA, mastermind of the Wu-Tang Clan, has responded to the disparaging claims made my group member U-God, in his just-released memoir Raw: My Journey Into the Wu-Tang.

In the book, U-God claims that the Wu-Tang Clan have become fractured. U-God largely blames RZA for this. He says that the producer is a “control freak” who won’t let members of the group use the Wu sign without paying franchise fees. He also says that RZA and his partner, his brother Divine, handled most of the business but the two didn’t know what they were doing. U-God claims that the two never connected the members with proper representation. 

WATCH: U-God Criticizes RZA For Turning The Wu-Tang Clan Into A “Dictatorship”

In a new interview with Rolling Stone, RZA gives his side of the story, at one point saying he didn’t “know if this book falls totally in nonfiction.”

When asked about the claim that he’s a control freak, RZA said:

I could never be a control freak…If Wu-Tang is a dictatorship, how does every Wu-Tang member have their own contract, their own career and have put out more albums without me than they’ve done with me? Secondly, if I’m the problem for anybody’s growth and development in music, then why [is it that] after 18 years after everybody got released from the Wu-Tang Productions contract in 2000, your growth has not shown through your own talent then if that’s the problem?

READ: U-God Is Suing Fellow Wu-Tang Clan Members For $2.5 Million

As for the fact that members have to pay to use the Wu sign, RZA says that is something he started implementing because he saw the brand being “diluted.” RZA says he started asking for fees in 2014, after the release of A Better Tomorrow:

 Even if you think in old, Staten Island mafia terms, you’ve got to kick something back to the family…For 12 or 13 years, the logo was so diluted, diminished and free-to-the-public that I had to take a legal stance.

As far as Divine being part of RZA’s business plan, the producer says:

That’s out of my control…Agents solicit you…You don’t solicit them. I got my agent because I wanted to score movies – I did Ghost Dog – and my manager thought it would be smart to get an agent and I signed with UTA and I ended up becoming a good piece of business for Hollywood, and I grew. That is that.

Head to Rolling Stone to check out the entire interview.

Source: Rolling Stone