Episode #145 | 9.26.23
Inspectah Deck (Wu-Tang Clan Chapter 5): Running Scams, Doing Time, and NYC’s Ongoing War Against the Drug Trade
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In this episode
At just 15 years old, Inspectah Deck had to learn how to hold his own against older, more dangerous convicts when he was sent to jail for selling crack to an undercover cop. It wasn’t the first time he did hard time. Multiple stints behind bars gave him nothing but time – to reflect, to strategize, to learn how to rap, and to take that new skill and use it to turn his life around on the outside. But years later, the bad decisions of his youth were just some of the reasons why the the NYPD, the ATF, and the FBI were so interested in his groundbreaking hip-hop group.
Sources
From the Streets of Shaolin: The Wu-Tang Saga, by S.H. Fernando Jr.
The Wu-Tang Manual, by the RZA
From Staircase to Stage: The Story of Raekwon and the Wu-Tang Clan, by Raekwon with Anthony Bozza
Raw: My Journey into the Wu-Tang, by Lamont “U-God” Hawkins
Wu-Tang: Of Mics and Men (2019, mini series)
A Close Look at the FBI's File on Wu-Tang Clan (Vice)
I got Ol' Dirty Bastard's FBI files (Gun.io)
Inspectah Deck Confirms Lost "C.R.E.A.M." Verse & Wu-Tang Reunion Album (HipHopDX)
Inspectah Deck on People’s Party with Talib Kweli (YouTube)
Slain Man Linked to Big Drug Theft (NY Times)
Inspectah Deck Interview (Montreality)
3 Officers Shot, One Fatal, in Lower East Side Drug Deal (NY Times)
Inspectah Deck: After “C.R.E.A.M” Dropped I Knew Wu-Tang Made It (VladTV)
Inspectah Deck Confirms Lost “C.R.E.A.M” Verse & Wu-Tang Reunion Album (HipHop DX)
Wu-Tang Rappers Eyed in Fed Weapons Probe (NY Post)
Disgraceland is a podcast about musicians getting away with murder and behaving very badly. It melds music history, true crime and transgressive fiction. Disgraceland is not journalism. Disgraceland is entertainment. Entertainment inspired by true events. However, certain scenes, characters and names are sometimes fictionalized for dramatic purposes.
Credits
Hosted by Jake Brennan.
Written by Zeth Lundy.
Copy edited by James Sullivan.
Scored and mixed by Colin Lester Fleming.
Additional music and score elements by Ryan Spraker.
Disgraceland theme song, “Crenshaw Space Boogie” written and produced by Jake Brennan. Performed by Jake Brennan, Bryce Kanzer, Jay Cannava, and Evan Kenney. Mixed and engineered by Adam Taylor.
*illustrations by Avi Spivak @avispivak