And so here, for the first time, are some of those lines that he'd submitted for this album.

When I was young, I used to play in the park.

These little girls would eat our candy up and play with our hearts.

Once too young to give the panties up, we played till it's dark.

Then we would listen for the gunshots, cause some shots rang in these parks.

It ain't our fault, just the way we were taught.

Never tell on your team or take shots when you're selling the fiends.

I don't.

Shit, when they finally came out, I was like, that's them kids.

Like I said, it's dope that we had the Mikes and Men of Mikes and Men documentary because a lot of that footage I hadn't seen before.

minute and what sticks out the most in my head as far as that documentary is the making of cream right if you watch it you'll see inspector deck is in the booth recording but rayquan the chef the camera's on rayquan the chef who's standing behind the mixing board with the engineer, chef saying every word for word, every word for word.

And it didn't hit me to that point where it's like, people don't know that we had these rhymes for years.

Like we used to say these shits in the staircase, like this process, we didn't know we was doing the work and that we, when we were doing the work, it didn't feel like work.

So we didn't know we were doing the work.

before we even knew we were going to get a deal.

on that a little bit?

Baha Mar, life spectacular.

Back then, I ain't gonna- Oh, oh, some, some niggas would say, "Man, Biggie big." [laughs] Look, I was a fan of, still of the music and all that shit, but I didn't give a fuck about niggas.

I was with the livest niggas in my opinion.

Mm-hmm.

I was with the livest niggas in the motherfucking industry.

Right.

So I ain't give a fuck.

[laughing]

Brunson.

Fox.

Oh, Brunson? Oh, man.

Um, he has put himself in the upper echelon of, um, of, uh, Knick lore, I believe.

Um, but, um, I think he's in the top five.

I, I, I'll say top five.

I won't, I won't, um, you know, uh, put more names on it.

Of the former Knicks who sit courtside, and even some who sit within the first couple rows, like, which of them do you especially love running into on a night like last night?

Mm.

And it's something that he could either take advantage of in the moment or, you know, stay focused on what the prize is, which he thought was the job, but it was actually-

Mm-hmm.

And it's always gonna be someone who wants to keep up with the Joneses, but there are very few Joneses that wanna keep up with anybody.

Mm-hmm.

So when you find yourself in these spaces where you wanna live that fantasy and have that happy ending and [beep] and it turns out not to be that happy ending- Mm ... you have to bear with that and then move on.

Mm-hmm.

And that's it.

Sorry.

I like that, because you gotta give something away.

It feels like you have to give something away.

You have to sacrifice a part of yourself and shit to be vulnerable, and especially when you're out ...

Let's just put it this way, but when we leave out of our homes and we go into our workforce, we're dealing, we're battling all day long.

Mm-hmm.

And what I can give this new generation credit for is that they did a lot more business than show in the show business part of it, you know.

Um, we're creating generational wealth, and, um, they're the babies of that.

Mm-hmm.

And it's something that he could either take advantage of in the moment or, you know, stay focused on what the prize is, which he thought was the job, but it was actually-

I don't know what the background is.

I feel like everyone wants to live in their purpose.

Sometimes they just don't know what it is.

And when they watch movies like this, or even social media, they live vicariously through the people they connect with.

Mm-hmm.

But when he comes home, he wants to have peace, comfort, and everything that comes with that.

This is where he can be vulnerable because his woman, i- who he's involved with or whatever your significant other is-

Mm-hmm.

And what I can give this new generation credit for is that they did a lot more business than show, in the show business part of it, you know? Um, we're creating generational wealth, and um, they're the babies of that.

And I mean, we, we could be in a, a way better place, especially with the message, of course.

And when I was doing it back in the day, I, I mean, we...

Wu-Tang had a message, regardless of whether you heard Gunshot or Swords, there was still a message there.

Can you explain to me though, what in hip hop is called a Wu-Tang deal?

Okay, so initially when we signed as a group, Steve Rifkin, who is a, I guess, I wouldn't, well, Steve is like, he's like my brother, but he took a chance on a bunch of guys in a group, not knowing whether it would work or not because it hadn't been done before.

And the thing about I'm all over the place, but the thing about RZA and GZA was they had had deals prior to us getting our deal.

So RZA approached the game a little bit different than we all were approaching it.

It was just rhymes and beats for us.

For him, it was rhymes, beats, business, but not in that order.

So I'm guessing when they sat down to make this deal, RZA seen an opportunity not just for the group to eat, but us to eat as individuals.

Yeah, so was there any fear in making that jump and having the possibility that it wouldn't go your way?

So RZA was kind of the quarterback, so to speak?

Yeah, him and Genius had prior record deals.

So they were kind of like the, what do they call it, test monkeys.

for what it was going to be.

RZA, his first single came out, it wasn't what he was about.

It wasn't as hardcore as we knew he was, so he was trying to fit into a puzzle that didn't fit him.

GZA, same thing.

Who are some of the earlier, like, inspirations for you? Like, if you're working with Sam Jackson, are you learning from him and picking it up?

When he was talking, I've wondered this about whether Wu-Tang, once the money gets involved, right, business complicates things, whether Wu-Tang would be closer to family or team given how money can contaminate something that is not actually family.

That's a great question.

For us, it was a bit different because we signed a deal that was so unique.

There are people now benefiting from the deal that we signed.

We signed a deal as a group with the option to sign as solo artists.

So there you go.

That solves your problem of how do you feed all of these guys.

That itself is this larger statement.

20 plus, 15 plus

years.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And like I said, it's that nostalgia.

Once that shit comes back around, I mean, if you're smart, you take advantage of the moment.

If not, you just sit on the couch and then you just reminisce about shit, not do nothing about it.

But we were in a great space before the final tour came up because we had just did a residency in Vegas, which went really freaking well.

They said he got like a George Lucas deal for Star Wars type.