In a new article in Urb Magazine, Rza, Rae, and the rest of the Clan lay some of their disagreements right out in the open….

“If Wu-Tang is foolish enough, and it’s possible to be foolish,” RZA says with a wide-eyed look of devastating reality, “if however many members of Wu-Tang are foolish enough to fall for the bureaucracy of the industry in 2007, then they are fooling themselves and taking themselves out of the realm of heaven.”

(dope quote by RZA)

“If the business is not taken care of [then] there will be no album or tour,” says Raekwon’s manager, Mel Carter, via e-mail. Raekwon canceled his appearance at the Wu’s scheduled photo shoot for URB, and Bodog, 8 Diagrams’s European label, two days before the shoot was set to go down in mid May. Rock the Bells, the multimillion-dollar hip-hop bonanza, which Wu is scheduled to headline in August with Rage Against the Machine, has already sold out its run. It ain’t Wu-Tang without Raekwon’s inventive slang or infinitely quotable rhymes on “C.R.E.A.M.”

“When it comes to photos and press and all that shit, I agree with anybody in the crew that say, ‘Yo, I want my business straight before I start talking to people,’” RZA says. “I understand that. I told them that’s their prerogative.”

Carter has since told URB that the business is “all good,” but the outside influence weighs heavy in RZA’s voice. Sometimes anger carries the brunt while other times it is an audible sadness, but it’s entirely unavoidable when more numbers are added into the mix.

“That’s a problem,” says RZA. “You talk to someone like Mel Carter, who’s my buddy or whatever. He’s not a Wu-Tang member. He could never understand the importance of what Wu-Tang is. He can only see it from a business point of view. Everybody be talking about the deals. Fuck the deals. We aren’t special because of no deals; we special because when we come together, we make music that changes the world.”

Even without the dotted I’s and crossed T’s of a contract, Raekwon still came through and recorded new verses for 8 Diagrams. In fact, as of the beginning of June, everyone has come through and recorded new verses, at least three apiece, according to RZA, except Ghostface Killah.”

“I told Ghost, ‘Yo, I’ll do this album without you, Ghost,’” says RZA. “‘I’ll do it without you, man, because it ain’t about you; it ain’t about me; it’s about Wu-Tang. It’s about what it means to the people. It ain’t about what it means to us no more.’”

“How has the South dominated hip-hop for the last four, five years without lyrics, without hip-hop culture really in their blood?” RZA asks. “Those brothers came out representing more of a stereotype of how black people are, and I think the media [would] rather see us as ignorant, crazy motherfuckers than seeing us as intelligent young men trying to rise and take care of ourselves.” (So True)

“I don’t think we’re going to achieve some of the same things that some so-called hip-hop artists do,” RZA says. “Let’s say Chris Brown— he’s considered a hip-hop artist, but he doesn’t rap, and he sells millions of records and has a real young audience. How do we compete with that? We don’t. Wu-Tang needs to aim at what’s us, what’s ours.”

“Right now, as far as the freshest voice on the mic, it’s the person you least expect,” RZA says. “U-God is on fire. Now how could U-God be on fire after all these years? After all the shit that he done been through, after U-God came on the radio publicly blaming me for his life. He’s the most in-tune motherfucker right now. ..This is a ***** that hates me.”

“I’m making songs, *****, songs that you can have Carnegie Hall play one day,” RZA says, also announcing that for the first time Wu-Tang will bring in big name outside producers (Marly Marl, Q-Tip, Easy Mo Bee and perhaps Dr. Dre) to add to RZA’s newly unearthed vibe.

“It’s gonna happen. It’s gonna happen because it’s inevitable—it has to happen,” RZA says. “[But] if it’s not coming this year, it ain’t coming at all. That’s my opinion. If it doesn’t come this year, it don’t mean nothing no more.”