ODB / Method Man - Throwback Interview [1997]

Ol' Dirty Bastard was born Russell Tyrone Jones in Brooklyn in 1969, and grew up in the neighborhood of Fort Green as a welfare child. As he got older, he started hanging out more and more with his cousins Robert Diggs and Gary Grice; they all shared a taste for rap music and kung-fu movies. The trio parlayed their obsessions into founding the Wu-Tang Clan, renaming themselves Ol' Dirty Bastard (since there was no father to his style), the RZA, and the Genius, respectively. Method Man was born Clifford Smith on April 1, 1971, in Hempsted, Long Island; he split his childhood between his father's Long Island residence and his mother's Staten Island home. It was the latter locale where he met his future Wu-Tang cohorts RZA, Genius/GZA, and Ol' Dirty Bastard. Method Man was one of the first to sign on. Meth was heavily featured on the group's classic late-1993 debut, Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers), even getting his own showcase track with "Method Man," which certainly put him out front in terms of name recognition.