Raekwon on new book ‘From Staircase To Stage’ and the future of Wu-Tang Clan

Wu-Tang Clan rapper Raekwon has spoken to NME about the revealing new memoir From Staircase To Stage and his hopes for the future of the legendary rap crew.

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The Brooklyn-born, Staten Island-raised rapper, who also goes by the name The Chef, first arrived on the scene as part of the Wu in the early ’90s. Since then, he’s gone on to become one of hip-hop’s most celebrated wordsmiths, both with Wu-Tang and as a solo artist.

“I felt like I was ready to tell my story,” Raekwon (real name Corey Woods) told NME of his decision to put out a memoir. “When you’ve covered as much ground as I have in the game and received so many accolades from peers and fans, you want to give them something else. Something that helps them paint a vision of how The Chef came to be.”

He continued: “I put in a lot of things that I felt were conducive to my world at the time. There wasn’t much I left out. I just told the story the way I wanted to tell it, pretty much painting that picture of a young dude with an opportunity to be a part of the culture and then becoming a part of the culture.”

In one excerpt from his book, Raekwon gets candid about a recent falling out with Wu-Tang leader RZA, over the new Wu-Tang Clan TV series, Wu-Tang: An American Saga.

The Hulu show, which first debuted in 2019, tracks the group’s formation and how RZA united the crew and turned them into the unlikeliest of American success stories. Raekwon’s character is played by The Get Down‘s Shameik Moore.

In From Staircase To Stage, Rae talked about the time he pitched to RZA the idea of a Leonardo DiCaprio-backed Wu-Tang Clan biopic – after sitting down with DiCaprio and him agreeing to be involved – explaining to him that it would be more financially beneficial “compared to a damn cable TV series”. He claimed RZA disagreed, insisting that a scripted series would be the best way to go, which in turn put a strain on their relationship.

When it came time to sign off on An American Saga, Rae refused to put pen to paper citing a lack of proper financial compensation and credits. “That didn’t stop RZA,” he wrote in the book. “He went ahead without me and tried to write the history of the Wu-Tang Clan without Raekwon.”

This prompted Rae to have his lawyer contact the production company to inform them they couldn’t do a proper Wu-Tang story “without one of the group’s top-tier, most outspoken and respected members”, and that if they intended to use Raekwon’s likeness they “needed to make me a better financial offer and get me involved in the storytelling process”. The company agreed and a new deal was struck.

After sharing his side of the story, he added in the book: “When RZA and his brother [Mitchell ‘Divine’ Diggs] read these words, they are going to say I’m frontin’ on how they handled the film offer and the TV show. They’ll say it’s all bullshit. To that I say, ‘You know damn well I’m not lying’.”

Asked whether RZA has reached out since the release of his book, Rae told NME: “Absolutely, yes. He congratulated me. He let me know, ‘Yo, I’m enjoying it and I’m proud of you’. He understands that we had differences and that’s the same with any crew. We go through these things.”

Although he said in the book that his and RZA’s “friendship and brotherhood were over” following the American Saga dispute, he insisted that their bond will forever remain intact. “The bottom line is that’s my brother and we understand business and my opinions are understood by him,” said the rapper. “It’s not like any quarrels or anything like that. It’s nothing but love always.

“That was a situation that was actual facts and I had every right to feel like how I felt. But I didn’t take anything away from him wanting to put guys in a different place where he felt like it would add on to our success. We just had differences and I didn’t really have too much Clan support to really say, ‘Yo, this is the way we should go.’ You know? It happens. You win some, you lose some when it comes to certain understandings within the crew. Everybody is not always going to see eye to eye. But that doesn’t take away from us still having a brotherhood.”

Since the release of their classic debut, ‘Enter The Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)’, Wu-Tang Clan have released a further five albums: ‘Wu-Tang Forever’ (1997), ‘The W’ (2000), ‘Iron Flag’ (2001), ‘8 Diagrams’ (2007) and ‘A Better Tomorrow’ (2014). There’s also the infamous ‘Once Upon A Time In Shaolin’, the group’s 2015 record, which is limited to a single copy and is the most expensive work of music ever sold.

Sharing his thoughts on the group’s future and whether they’ll ever release another album as a group, Raekwon told NME: “You gotta remember we did a ton of work together. We have our different lives and different things that we doing, and everybody has other visions of what they wanna conquer.

“I can’t say if it’s gonna happen, but I want it to happen, absolutely. It’s all about the timing. You got guys right now doing so many dope things from many different positions. So you never know.”

He added: “It’s too early to call those shots right now but you never know, tomorrow it could happen. We’ll just have to see.”

Raekwon also offered an update on his next solo release, ‘Scarlet Fever’, which he previously said would be arriving in the first quarter of 2022.

“Right now we’re really just still tweaking up a couple of things, dealing with some sample clearances and stuff like that,” he said. “We’re pretty much on schedule but there’s a couple of records that I do wanna change and get a little tighter.

“Things can go off course sometimes; I always prepare myself for that. So even if I say first quarter, it may come second quarter. Because for me, it’s like delivering a kid: you wanna make sure the proper nourishment is there so that baby can grow the way it needs to grow.”

On what ‘Scarlet Fever’ sounds like, Rae said it’s going to be “a nice piece” and “chunky”, which is a descriptive term he got from his Wu-Tang bandmate Ghostface Killah. “When Ghost says that word I know exactly what he means. So yeah, it’s gonna be chunky,” he promised.

As for the status of the long-awaited third album in his Only Built 4 Cuban Linx series, Rae confirmed that he’s been recording material but taking his time in order to make sure it’s a classic.

“I’m working on so many dope projects it’s really about making sure that each piece represents the next piece,” he explained. “When you hear ‘Scarlet Fever’ you’re gonna know where I’m going with [‘OB4CL3’] because it’s gonna have its connection somehow attached to it.”

He added: “One thing about me being The Chef, you never rush a meal. Never. When you prepare it you can’t rush it. The taste has to be there, the amount, the quality, everything.”

Raekwon’s From Staircase To Stage is out now via Simon & Schuster