All three shared a love of rap and kung-fu movies, as evidenced from their group name, which they took from a powerful sword used by mythical warriors. Critics credit Wu-Tang Clan for setting a rugged yet intellectual new tone in hip-hop, and cite their debut album, Enter the Wu-Tang The 36 Chambers , as one of the most influential works of the s. With as many as 10 members producing and emceeing, Wu-Tang Clan boasts an unprecedented array of rapping styles.
With RZA laying down hypnotic, portentous soundscapes, the large crew of emcees delivers complex tales from life's rough side, pregnant with paranoia and grisly existentialism. More than just a group, Wu-Tang Clan became a corporation, creating clothing and footwear lines, a video game, and a comic book.
Many of the group's members also have maintained critically and commercially successful solo careers, further spreading the group's influence throughout the hip-hop world.
ODB established himself as a unique voice with his gold-selling debut album, Return to the 36 Chambers. Songs such as "Brooklyn Zoo" and "Raw Hide" display his unconventionally profane and occasionally nonsensical delivery, while other cuts feature startling eruptions into off-key singing. Throughout the disc, producer RZA's brisk piano motifs and stripped-down funk beats and the Neptunes' tight, bouncy funk foundations contrast with ODB's undisciplined lyrical flow.
Steve Huey observed for the All Music Guide : "[Even] though Return to the 36 Chambers might not be the most earth-shattering piece of the Wu-Tang puzzle, it's an infectious party record which proves that, despite his limitations, Ol' Dirty Bastard has the charisma to carry an album on his own. Following the triumph of his debut album, ODB became entangled in a lengthy legal nightmare. His problems began in November of when he neglected to pay child support for three of his 13 children.
He pleaded guilty to an attempted assault on his wife, Icelene Jones, in April. In June of , a robber shot him in the back in his Brooklyn home; he suffered only superficial injuries and was hospitalized, but walked out of the hospital before treatment was completed against doctor's orders. He ignored his court dates to spend time in the studio with a group called D. He was still driving on a suspended license, but what was more serious, officers discovered not only marijuana, but 20 vials of crack cocaine.
He was able to post bail, but didn't return to Los Angeles for a hearing in the body-armor case, and his bail there was revoked and a bench warrant issued for his arrest.
In mid-August, ODB checked himself into a rehab center in upstate New York, hoping to address his escalating problem with hard drugs; he soon transferred to a different center in California. Somehow, in the middle of his incredible, headline-dominating run as a bicoastal outlaw, ODB had found time to record a new album under the auspices of several different producers, including the RZA and the Neptunes.
Released in September , Nigga Please entered the charts at number ten, aided by his position as the undisputed king of hip-hop bad boys; it also spawned a minor hit single in "Got Your Money. Despite the fact that a resolution was in sight, ODB complained during the sentencing hearing that he felt police had been targeting him excessively.
That sense of persecution manifested itself in a January hearing in New York, related to his drug charges; apparently exasperated by all the chaos, a sullen ODB ignored the presiding judge, talked dirty to a female DA in typically bizarre fashion, he reportedly called her a "sperm donor" , and actually took a nap, thereby erasing any inclinations the prosecution had toward leniency. Afterward, he apparently got drunk, violating the terms of his rehab program and probation conditions; upon returning to California, he was kicked out of rehab and transferred to jail.
Although he could have faced prison time for breaking probation, ODB received a more lenient sentence of six months in rehab. Up until this point, ODB had managed to avoid prison time, since he was clearly a drug addict in need of help. Yet at the same time, his apparent unwillingness to be helped meant that, for better or for worse, he was running out of chances.
While he'd suffered some terrible luck in his run-ins with the law, the last straw was entirely of his own making: in October , with just two more months in rehab to go, ODB made a run for it. He spent the next month as a fugitive from the law, making his way across the country and secretly recording some new material with the RZA.
ODB turned up in a very public fashion at the November record-release party for the new Wu-Tang Clan album, The W which had been dedicated to him, and featured his vocals on one track, "Conditioner"; other contributions had been deemed too bizarre for release.
He took the stage in the Hammerstein Ballroom in front of hundreds of incredulous, wildly cheering fans, and only added to his mystique by managing to leave the facility without getting arrested, despite the large police presence outside.
After a few more days on the lam, ODB was captured in a McDonald's parking lot in Philadelphia while signing autographs for a large crowd of fans; in fact, the crowd was so large that the restaurant manager had called police, not knowing what was going on.
ODB was extradited to New York, where he stood trial on not only his prior drug charges, but also the various traffic violations and a charge that he violated the protection order on Icelene Jones in After several trial postponements, in April ODB accepted a deal from prosecutors that essentially wiped out his other offenses in New York in exchange for a guilty plea to the cocaine possession charges.
He received the minimum sentence of two to four years in state prison, and received credit for the eight months he'd already served; moreover, he was allowed to serve the jail time he owed the state of California concurrently. Still, the daunting prospect of state prison was nearly too much for ODB to bear; in July, he had to be put on suicide watch pending a psychiatric evaluation, and reports surfaced that he'd suffered a broken leg after being assaulted in a holding facility.
It remained to be seen how ODB would hold up under the harsh environment of prison, and whether he would ever resolve his legal problems to the point where he could once again enjoy a productive recording career. In early , some of the material he'd recorded during his fugitive days surfaced on the new album The Trials and Tribulations of Russell Jones , put out by the small D-3 label.
With a dearth of actual ODB material to rely on, the album was padded out by a number of guest rappers and handled by unknown producers even the RZA steered clear of the affair , and ODB himself went on record as knowing virtually nothing about the release. The reviews were almost uniformly scathing, calling Trials and Tribulations a shoddy piece of exploitation.
He spent a chunk of the money from his advance on a jalopy in North Carolina and would go AWOL for long stretches of time, taking impromptu drives and writing on the road. He would bail out of songs mid-recording, vanish for days at a time, and then pop up drunk, destructive, and unpredictable. The album took nearly two years to make because of this fitful approach. ODB was surrounded by a small team doing its damndest to keep him recording, but he could not be collected and he would not be rushed.
Tical , which went platinum in less than a year and spawned a Grammy-winning Hot hit, was the perfect springboard for an ODB belly flop.
Years before linking with Pras and Mya, Dirty became the ghetto superstar. He wanted to luxuriate in the rap-star lifestyle, to conjure the euphoria of karaoke. His verses were as irresistible as they were startling. It is fun to mimic. His raps wormed their way into the brain in unusual ways, the product of his unusual methods. Those methods required several measures to wring an entire album out of Dirty.
RZA was the hands-off architect. Buddha Monk was the handler, body man, and engineer, tasked with getting ODB prepped and into the studio, and making sure his vocals sounded right. Top Charts. Hot Songs. Billboard Top Videos. Top Articles. By Billboard Staff.
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