Inspectah Deck is one cool brother. One of the charter members of the legendary Wu Tang Clan Deck has left his mark on the rap industry just with sick verses from “C.R.E.A.M” and “Triumph” alone. His legacy with the Clan is less stated than some of the more well known members but that’s mainly due to his personality and label problems then with style and lyrical ability. We caught up with Deck right after the second Roy Jones debacle to see what was going down and talked a little boxing, but mostly we kept on topic with Wu history, politics of the business and the future of the Clan. Enjoy.

Wu Tang Albums:

Iron Flag (2001)

The W (2000)

Wu Tang Forever (1997)

Enter The Wu Tang: 36 Chambers (1993)

Solo Albums:

The Movement (2003)

Uncontrolled Substance (1999) 

Halftime: We was just talking about Roy Jones. Are you a boxing fan?

Inspectah Deck: I’m definitely a boxing fan. Did ya’ll see the fight the other night?

Halftime: Yea, that’s what we were just talking about.

Deck: He laid that motherfucker out. 

Halftime (Jbutters): That hurt me man.

Deck: It didn’t really hurt me because I felt like how everyone else felt about Roy, that he was nice and all that shit but I didn’t see him knock a live nigga’s head off. Tarver ain’t even considered live to me, but he kinda exposed him. Roy always do that shit where he’ll punch you and run in one move. Bernard Hopkins will punch you and rush you with his shoulder or something. Roy will punch you and run the other way in the same move and niggas will say his speed is awesome! I’m like that nigga ran. I’m one of them dudes. I be looking at the fight like he threw a hook, body shot and an uppercut all with the left hand. I look at the schematics.

Halftime (Jbutters): I’ve never seen nobody put to sleep like that. He looked like he was in a coffin.

Deck: I felt sorry for the nigga at the end. The punch didn’t look too hard but son banged his head on the canvas and it could have been a combination of that and he caught him catching a breath because shortness of breath will fuck you up.

Halftime (Marcus): That’s what I be telling niggas that if a big dude hit you hard in the body you don’t want to move and its hard for you to do all that running. Halftime (Jbutters): When I saw the replay, I’m like dude took fifteen minutes to hit him with the shot. He didn’t even move but he had to see that punch coming from a mile away and he still got bombed on. But aside from Roy we wanted to touch on some Wu Tang history, mostly your background and the part you played in creating the Wu Tang legacy. I read in a bunch of interviews with you and Ghostface and noticed that you both say that your 70’s babies infused with the soul of that era.

Deck: Word, I always say that.

Halftime (Jbutters): What were some of the instances that you had as a youth that helped create the mentality you have now.

Deck: It’s hard to explain that but it’s a combination of things. My moms really had to raise us on her own because my pops passed away when I was six. Seeing her hold it down, that showed me things were real because it’s fucked up when you see your moms really handling it. So it was a combination of my moms and my pops who was an artist who actually drew and played the trumpet. He was a real crafty fella so I take the artistic side from him and then my life on the streets. I always consider my life like one of them blackploitation flicks and the shit that they going through. When I step in the room the shit be like ‘da na, da na daaan’ like you that cool brother. I be applying that to my life everyday like the Richard Roundtrees and all them cats. If you gonna be cool, cool speaks for itself you don’t have to say shit. Everybody screaming gangsta, but gangsta is gonna show. A gangsta is gonna kill your kids, he ain’t gonna advertise that. I try to disassociate with all of that. On the forming of the Wu Tang my whole thing with being the Inspectah was that you had a whole lot of characters that were loud. Dirty is a loud cat, Rza is loud, and Meth is wild child. Everybody had a crazy personality. U-God is kinda like the grouch among other things but I’m jut pointing out that characteristic. I’m the laid back nigga. If you see that movie with Cam’ron called ‘Paid in Full’ I’m comparing myself to how AZ was out there hustling but he is still holding his head while Cam is wilding out. I’m always going to be that laid back cat, observant and doing the knowledge but there are other facets to me that are outgoing that I don’t allow folks to see like that. I just chose to be the Inspectah to analyze because you get more information that way.

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Posted by Halftime on Monday, November 22nd, 2004 and is filed under HIP HOP ICON SERIES.