Inspectah Deck (Wu-Tang Clan Chapter 5): Running Scams, Doing Time, and NYC’s Ongoing War Against the Drug Trade
DISGRACELAND
Exactly Right and iHeartPodcasts
4.6 • 13.4K Ratings
🗓️ 26 September 2023
⏱️ 32 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
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.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Disgraceland is a production of Double Elvis. |
| 0:19.6 | The stories about Wu-Tang Clan's inspected deck are insane. |
| 0:25.7 | Growing up poor in the Staten Island projects, he stole and ran scams to get the things he didn't have. |
| 0:32.8 | When he was 15, he was arrested for selling crack to an undercover cop. |
| 0:40.0 | In jail, he learned how to hold his own against older, more dangerous convicts. But despite what he learned, he was busted for drugs |
| 0:47.1 | again and wound up doing nearly two more years behind bars. It was in prison the second time that he began to work on his rhyming skills. |
| 0:57.8 | He made his tongue as sharp as a sword. And with that razor sharp tongue, |
| 1:03.6 | inspected deck made great music, some of the greatest music in hip-hop history as a member of Wu-Tang Clan. |
| 1:12.8 | Unlike that clip I played for you at the top of the show, |
| 1:15.8 | that wasn't great music. |
| 1:18.2 | That was a preset loop from my Melotron called Resuscitation Dummy, MK2. |
| 1:25.5 | I played you that clip because I can't afford the rights to Escapade by Janet Jackson. |
| 1:32.0 | And why would I play you that specific slice of save your troubles cheese could I afford it? |
| 1:39.4 | Because that was the number one song in America on March 6, 1990, and that was the day that two detectives |
| 1:47.9 | were injured and one state cop was killed during a drug bus gone bad on the Lower East Side. |
| 1:54.9 | The latest boondoggle in New York City's ongoing war against the drug trade, a war that inspected deck was both caught up in |
| 2:03.7 | and desperately wanted to escape. On this episode, running, rhyming, undercover cops, dangerous |
| 2:12.1 | convicts, drug busts gone bad, and Wu-Tang Clan's inspected deck. |
| 2:53.6 | I'm Jake Brennan, and this is This Graceland. 1985, Brooklyn House of Detention |
| 2:56.6 | The kid kept to the corner of his cramp cell. |
| 2:59.6 | He was quiet, reserved. |
| 3:01.6 | He minded his own business, and he listened. |
... |
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