Ghostface Killah’s Supreme Clientele is easily regarded among the greatest projects to emerge from the Wu-Tang camp and beyond, to the point where it’s praised as a definitive part of the hip-hop canon. A masterpiece from start to finish, Tony Starks’ album continues to fascinate hip-hop historians, and RZA recently unveiled an interesting tidbit about the album.
Speaking with HipHopDX, the RZA reflected on creating one of the album’s hardest tracks — the stacked posse cut “Buck 50,” featuring Method Man, Cappadonna, and Redman. “When Wu-Tang had success and we built our first studio, we would make the songs and then bring it downstairs to the car and play it in there,” he explains. “If sound bopping in there, you know you was good. Especially on an album like Supreme Clientele.”
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“I feel like almost every song, like when we finished that, we took it down,” he continues. I’ll never forget when Redman came to the studio, he actually wrote his [Buck 50] verse in the car. We put the beat on tape and he’s just going to take the beat downstairs and write the verse in the car.”
Given how thoroughly he snapped on the urgent classic — “The words you talk better be the words you walk / Body you in the bed where the nurses are / Put your vein out, watch me insert the dart / Til it plagues from Bricks to the Persian Gulf” — Reggie’s solitary process certainly paid off. In fact, perhaps its time to start recognizing Redman as one of the great lyricists,
For more from RZA, check out his full interview with DX right here. And for those seeking more hip-hop history, we recently spoke with the man behind Supreme Clientele, so be sure to check out our conversation right here.
LISTEN: Ghostface Killah ft. Redman, Method Man, & Cappadonna – “Buck 50”