Celebrating the Life and Death of Osirus.

from '100,000 Years in Detention'

The following took place in 2005.


The Hard Rock Live venue is almost too nice. A motorcycle is parked on a raised dais in the middle of the bar, and the stage has a large red velvet curtain draped over it to hide any crew setting up or bands wishing to make an already on-stage appearance at the beginning of a set. The balcony looks ancient beyond possibility and pillars and large double doors litter the lobby.


A large electronic marquee outside read “Tonight Only” followed by “The Wu-Tang Clan” followed by “SOLD OUT!,” repeated over and over again. On the way in, two large men gave out promo posters for a new album, Fishscale, released March 28th on Def Jam Records.


Fishscale is the latest solo effort by Wu emcee Ghostface Killah, his fifth in a decade, and features one rap verse by the band’s self-described “fallen soldier.”


The late Osirus is related to RZA, the band’s leader and beat guru. RZA told a story about the two of them and several of their friends walking down the sidewalks of New York City one day. A van came up and slowed down next to them. A window near them rolled down and a shotgun poked out. Everyone froze except Osirus, who instantly grabbed the shotgun out of the van and turned it around on the owner. The van sped off.


Any music fan talking about a band he or she respects to a large extent can come across esoterically, but the Wu-Tang Clan are, to say the least, pioneers in the field of rap music.


Formed in 1992, cutting their first album for $50 per member, they were the first music group in history to mix martial arts film samples (and traditional Asian culture) with rap beats and the first rap act to make the transition from the stiff 1980’s sound associated with Run DMC and Public Enemy to the smooth, internal rhyming of today’s rap. Wu-Tang are almost rap’s Beatles in the way they changed popular music so completely.


Wu-Tang signed a record deal that put all of their group albums under one label, but only on the condition that each rapper could release his solo albums on any record label to which he chose to sign himself, with a portion of the proceeds returning to the entire Wu-Tang Clan. This way, with one rapper signed to Tommy Boy Records and another signed to Elektra, their successes would reap money for all nine members and record labels would compete with each other’s rapper, all the while doing the band’s work for them. In addition to this, each emcee could search for unknown talent and sign them to the labels to which they were signed, earning royalties from those albums as well. By 1997 these nine men controlled over 1/3 of all the money in the American rap industry, coming in from hundreds of rappers on different labels.


A screwdriver is between 1/3 and ½ vodka, depending on who pours it, and the rest is good ol’ Florida orange juice. So in Orlando, at one of the most important concerts of my life, I had high expectations for this drink to kick off the night ahead. Both the quality of the orange juice in Florida and the much-needed relaxation one drink would give me surrounded by 700 audience members who dwarfed me in size and ethnicity were of the utmost importance.


Surrounded by giants, I felt the same feeling I used to wear like a coat when I tried to hang out with my older brother’s friends. I went to the show to cover it for the local school paper, The Spectator, and wore this like a badge in case anyone asked what in God’s name I was doing there. I slowly understood why my friends warned me about this before the drive to Florida. Elizabeth said, “I’ll pray for you.”


Most concerts I can take or leave. I’ve seen Nine Inch Nails live three out of the five possible times I could have, and I own somewhere between 20 and 30 of their albums, singles, imports, bootlegs, demos and movie soundtracks containing their contributions. My parents’ philosophy seeps in whenever concert tickets go on sale. You can see that anytime; bands tour every year or two anyway. This was different. This was a reunion show after three years off-stage and a death in the band, quite possibly the last tour of one of rap’s milestone acts. My biggest hope was that the experience would stay with me longer than most concerts, which tend to fade away with the ringing in my ears.


The doors opened at 7. The opening act played through an uninspiring set. The audience checked their watches like leaves blowing on a tree. A half hour after the opening act finished, Ghostface’s first video from Fishscale played and pacified us for a further 20 minutes. Then, while waiting for Wu-Tang to get drunk and high before they played, jeers and middle fingers surfaced and grew in number.


“Raekwon better be back there chokin’ on a goddamn chicken wing or somethin’!”



“If Meth ain’t back there rollin’ up joints for everybody, I’m gonna be pissed!”


It was almost 11:30pm by the time the show started.


Just two emcees occupied the stage at the beginning: U-God and Cappadonna, arguably the two least popular of the group. Cappadonna is merely a guest star on a handful of the Clan’s tracks and most of the crowd couldn’t be bothered with his presence. As much as the crowd had surged with the initial dimming of the lights, everyone seemed to be looking around and thinking, Alright, alright, when are the real emcee’s gonna come out?


A song at a time, one Wu rapper came out to perform until all of them showed. U-God and Cappadonna were followed by Masta Killa, whose first solo album hit shelves in late 2004. Inspectah Deck was next, followed by Raekwon the Chef. It’s said that you should never trust a skinny chef. If that’s true, Rae is one of the most trustworthy men on Earth. A companion shouted in my ear over the din, “One thing’s for sure: The Chef is fucking enormous!” His shirt size is, at minimum, a double-XL, if not triple.


Ghostface came on next, and got the crowd going. He’s a very agreeable lyricist and signified that the big guns were about to appear. He was followed by Genius, or GZA, who launched into “4th Chamber”, the most infamous of his solo singles. GZA is Osirus’s cousin as well as RZA’s.
After GZA performed “4th Chamber,” the RZA eased onto the stage and performed. RZA is often described as The Abbott of the clan, the mastermind who got all nine original rappers their own record deals and helped them control over 1/3 of the cash flow in the rap industry by the mid-late ‘90s. He bobbed and weaved more than he actually danced, holding a champagne bottle in his hand and sliding through tracks effortlessly. RZA scored both Ghost Dog and Kill Bill and based Wu’s career around Chinese mythology and Zen philosophy.


Finally the Method Man came out, to a musical cue of a song named after him that appeared on the first Wu-Tang album. In the middle of the song, an audience member threw onstage a blunt, or cigar stuffed with marijuana, and without missing a beat Meth grabbed it and smoked while he rapped. Once all nine emcees were out, it was already nearly 20 minutes into the show and the crowd’s energy surged.


They played for a total of an hour and a half, including a tribute to the only original member who couldn’t be there, the one who succumbed to drug abuse and died of a cocaine-induced heart attack in November of 2004.


Every group of friends, every platoon in the Army, every office in a company, has one frequenter who is, in the best of ways, a Fuck-Up. RZA, his cousin, wrote a book about the Wu-Tang Clan and described him as “the dirty rat; somebody who, no matter what he does, does wrong. Even when he does right, his intent is to do wrong…he’s a true American free spirit. He scares some people, but other people love him because he’ll do what they wish they would do but are scared.” This is the way of the aptly named Ol’ Dirty Bastard, alias Osirus. He’s the one who’s such a bad person, he’s almost good. His history is so diabolical, you can’t help but laugh along.


Case in point: Ol’ Dirty once cashed his welfare check on MTV. Millions of people (including myself) watched live, on repeat, or on the computer from downloaded video files as he rode up to the office with his family and a camera crew, in a limo he’d rented with his own money. In the middle of corralling illegitimate children, he told the workers in the drab government building that he needed the money to support his kids because he couldn’t afford to feed them. They gave him his $400 and he complained and demanded more, until his kids got so rowdy he told them he wasn’t taking them out to the Burger King because they were being too loud. MTV still hails it as their most notorious moment, but to Dirty it was business as usual.


To commemorate the Ol’ Dirty Bastard, alias Osirus, alias Big Baby Jesus, two of his younger brothers got onstage and rapped two of his songs in his honor. A silent vigil was held, the kind of silence impossible for 700 people to achieve in a crowded venue.


As I left I couldn’t help but wonder if all of the remaining members would be seen together again. I returned to Georgia, to Valdosta, to Centennial Hall, to my normal life, and the ghosts of the experience and of a man too wild to live weighed down on my shoulders and breathed down my neck like a cold, thick mist.