The Staten Island Ferry ride from Manhattan is unique even in a city famous for its public transportation. Something about traveling over water instead of underground train tracks or street-level asphalt makes the 20-minute jaunt across the harbor a singular New York experience. Residents of this neglected borough often feel like shadow New Yorkers, stepchildren of the city even. In the early '90s, this all changed.

Musical revolutions often occur in unlikely places--that is, places deemed unlikely until a group of gifted individuals permanently engraves the locale in question on the world's consciousness. Putting one's town "on the map" is a time-honored tradition. The Wu-Tang Clan, now synonymous with their Staten Island stomping grounds, may prove to be the ultimate example of this.

Wu-Tang's resumé is well-known to most hip-hoppers, but bears retelling time and again. Having both suffered horrifying maiden voyages in the rap industry, Prince Rakeem (aka Rza, pronounced rizza) and The Genius (aka Gza, pronounced gizza), two cousins from Shaolin (Staten Island), came up with a plan. Mindful of the deep talent pool to be tapped among various family members, friends and acquaintances, they formulated the Wu-Tang concept with great care and foresight. A cunning clause in their group contract allowing each member to sign a solo deal with any label and use the Wu-Tang logo at will has resulted in four solo albums in less than two years, each produced by Rza, and all certified either platinum or gold. Beginning with their group debut, Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers), in 1993, and following with the succession of solo hits by Method Man, Ol' Dirty Bastard (ODB), Raekwon and The Genius, Wu-Tang invaded the rap industry and shook it to the core. Nine members strong--more counting loose associates--and each with his own distinctive voice and style, they are their own rap industry, and they're unstoppable.

This self-contained industry is based in the third and fourth floors of a fairly nondescript business building across the street from the Ferry slip. When I arrive one breezy early-spring evening, assorted members of the Clan are hard at work on Ghost Face Killer's solo album, the next installment of the Wu-Tang saga, slated for a May release on Rza's new Sony-distributed label, Razor Sharp. After that, a new Wu-Tang album will be recorded and released in July.

The mood is relaxed, yet focused, which allows them to complete three whole new songs during the six hours I am there. Rza and newest member Cappachino are in the vocal booth making lyrical contributions, while Ghost, Inspectah Deck and group affiliate Shyheim, a teenaged rapper/actor of growing renown, join the engineer in the control room. A picture window offers a gorgeous view of the Ferry terminal, the harbor and Manhattan in the distance.

It doesn't take long before I'm asked if I brought along any of "that good shit." Several White Owl blunts later, even Rza has broken his personal rule not to smoke during recording sessions, having previously caught a whiff of the unrolled buds. Ghost Face, a professed nonsmoker, thumbs through the magazine and seems quite impressed. "Damn, this shit shows you that good weed. Make a nigga wanna start smoking again!"

As the evening progresses, more members appear (ODB and Gza are the only no-shows), beginning with Raekwon, who hears the track in progress and immediately reaches behind the sofa for his notebook, adding, crossing out, altering and rehearsing lyrics for his upcoming turn. There's a lot I want to ask, especially of Rae, considering that his solo album, Only Built for Cuban Linx, featuring the "Ice Cream" hit single, came replete with numerous coke references, including snorting sounds on one track. Later on, during a food break in the TV room/kitchen, I hit him with the big "C" question.

"Yo, a lotta people be asking do I be sniffin' and all that shit," replies Raekwon wearily. "Like, nah, I don't be on that shit. I just took it back there 'cause that's the way a lotta shit took place in my life, with all that type of shit going on. I ain't encouraging nobody towards that shit. I just rhyme for people who understand. I refuse to rhyme about something I ain't seen, lived or been through."

Rza, listening intently as his hair is being braided, pipes in: ``We lived it out here. Wu shit is true life. Everytime you hear our shit, it's more shit that we've been through that you're gonna have to go through to get to where we got to.''

Mob movies inspired that particular project, says Ghost Face. "We bug out off a lot of Italian flicks, gettin' niggas amped and shit. Scarface, The Godfather, Once Upon A Time In America. They all dealt with drugs, and we grew up around that too."

When Rza, Gza, Meth, Rae, ODB, Ghost, Inspectah Deck and U-God selfreleased the single, "Protect Ya Neck," in the summer of '93 (the "Method Man" B-side featured Meth's signature weed rap, "I got fat bags of skunk, I got White Owl blunts, and I'm about to go get lifted."), East Coast hip-hop was a long way from its celebrated '87-'88 glory days, taking a sound beating on the charts from the West Coast G-Funk squad spearheaded by Dr. Dre and Snoop Doggy Dogg. The "Protect Ya Neck" single swept the underground, and many of the same labels which had previously rejected various members of Wu-Tang came running back with offers. They held out, though, for a deal with a label which would supply the aforementioned clause.

This turned out to be Loud/RCA, and Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) was released last November. Its impact was immediate. The combination of raw, hypnotic beats, martial-arts mythology and sound bites, colorful characters and endless lyrics proved irresistible, and the album ended up platinum at a time when such a thing was virtually unthinkable for a hardcore New York hip-hop record. Def Jam promptly released Method Man's solo debut, Tical (a slang for weed), which despite its highly experimental nature also produced platinum results.

All Wu-Tang recordings are overseen by Rza, who has become possibly the most imitated and sought-after rap producer on the East Coast due to his spellbinding and immediately-recognizable trademark sound. It appears deceptively simple at first, but repeated listens reveal complex layers of eerie piano loops, ghostly operatic wails, creepy strings and head-nodding drum patterns. From this basic template, he has fashioned slight variations for each album tailored to suit each member: mysterious and abstract for Method Man; bouncy and funky for Ol' Dirty Bastard (Return to the 36 Chambers: The Dirty Version on Elektra); a spectacularly creative large-scale opus for Raekwon (Only Built for Cuban Linx ); and low-key, intelligent and accomplished for The Genius (Liquid Swords on Geffen). Ghost Face Killer's Iron Man was still being recorded at the time of this writing.

Articulate, friendly and intellectual, Rza is the man with the plan for the Clan. Having released an ill-fated single in 1991 on Tommy Boy ("Ooh We Love You Rakeem"), he is well-versed in the evils of the music business, and in just under three years has managed to beat the industry at its own game. "This is the last generation, and that goes for all walks of life extending to the hip-hop game," explains Rza. "So it's time for brothers to come with the strength of it, the realness of it. Brothers who lived it, man, gotta talk about it. A lot of things that the media create and sell are things they saw and capitalized on and exploited, and not something they lived themselves. You can watch a movie and see an actor portraying a part, something he hasn't lived.

"That's how hip-hop was, a lot of MCs that weren't MCs. We're the generation that when hip-hop was makin' it in '88, we were listening, and living through all kinds of shit. Our generation is of age now, that's how come the Wu-Tang shit is gonna last. It's the Final Chapter."

When asked about the role of marijuana in Wu-Tang's music and creative process, he muses, "Weed makes the beats crazy. It's guaranteed to enhance the beats. It's like, sometimes with weed I can make a beat quick-fast. Sometimes it slows me down. So I take in the different phases of it, different seasons. The Cali shit makes me laid-back with my beats. I get smooth on that Cali shit, the real good shit. In New York, a bag of stress makes my beats tight and rough and mean. If you're blunted and you hear Wu-Tang's shit, you really love it. When I produced Rae's album, it was mostly hash...."

When Method Man strolls in several hours later, he brings a charismatic vibe that is infectious and fills the studio as he greets his partners. Then he immediately gets down to business--rolling a blunt. As the Clan's most recognizable face, Meth has had to deal with the spotlight more than anybody. If Wu's success is a hardcore hip-hop fairytale, he is the Cinderella of their story. Meth has a kind of star quality that cannot be conjured in a publicist's office. He's the real deal. He's also probably rap's most dedicated and vocal pothead since Cypress Hill and Redman.

"I'm fucked up right now," Meth drawls. "Talkin' bout in the zooone...."

I presume nowadays he can afford more and better weed. "And more often! But see, see, see, when it comes to this rap shit, it go beyond that. It go beyond smokin' weed. It gets deeper as far as yourself. Knowing who you are and what your limitations are and what you're capable of doing. With or without this [the blunt], or beer or whatever. It's like knowing yourself, period. That's why I tell anybody, you know, I'm not here to be your role model--you make your own decisions. When you come of age where somebody throws a joint in your face, and it's up to you to make that decision whether to take that drag or not, just remember it's the rest of your life, Pop. Word up."

How old was he when he made that decision? "It was in my face since I was a shorty. I used to see the roach clip in the ashtray and wonder what the fuck it was. I was one of them Seventies babies. Shit, thank God it wasn't blow. I never fucked with that--never, ever, ever. Nothin' goin' up my nose, Pop. Strictly herbals.

"They say some of the best philosophers in the world smoked herbals. It's a lot of herbs and shit out there that you could probably mix together and cure AIDS if you really think about it. Maybe marijuana is the cure for AIDS--know what I'm saying? With any substance in the world, it's either you control it or it controls you. That's why crack is a `controlled substance,' because it controls. That's what it's there for. Whereas marijuana, it's like, shit, man, I ain't never killed anybody for a bag of herb. Worst shit that happens with weed is, if you on a job hunt, you ain't gettin' that job. And if you a lazy ass, you gonna be an ultimate lazy ass. It takes all the motivation out your body for shit that don't appeal to you. Now I'm the boss, so I can smoke this shit all day!"

Like with the coke references, I have to inquire about the occasional allusions to Angel Dust use in Meth's lyrics. "I ain't smoked that shit in so long, man, I don't even remember the effects," he admits. "I had to clean that shit out of my system, that shit is poison. Anything make you dummy out like that you don't need. That's for real." When asked if he had been a regular Dust smoker in the past, his reply is a quiet, "Yeah."

Meth's hardship-laden background is never far from his mind, because it wasn't too long ago that he was staring at a bleak future. "Man, when I was on the block strugglin', all these industry types who sweat me now didn't give a fuck about me. They didn't wanna see a nigga, didn't wanna smell a nigga. I can't believe some of the shit I seen and heard since I been up in this industry. I just wanna keep it real." (For more on Method Man, see the May '95 HT.)

"Keeping it real" is a much-abused expression in hip-hop, but Meth and his cohorts are true masters of reality. This allowed Ol' Dirty Bastard to appear on a Mariah Carey remix of "Fantasy," and his audience to get the irony and absurdity of it all. It let Meth team up with celebrated R&B songstress Mary J. Blige, only to end up with a #1 pop hit (the remake of Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell's "You're All I Need to Get By"). This all contributes to the Wu-Tang mystique.

Their constant use of martial-arts movie-samples reinforces this mystique. Fraternal honor, spiritual advancement and, of course, self-defense are important components in the Wu-Tang mix. By trusting their gut instincts regarding what's feasible and what's deemed impossible, Shaolin's Wu-Tang Clan have pulled off a carefully-planned and thorough assault on the music industry. This philosophy is applied to smoking weed as well. When asked about legalization, Rza and Method Man reply identically: "It's legal to me!"