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By: Hell Razah
for HipHopGame
Date: 06th Febraury, 2006
Source:
HiphopGame
I would say "The Last Shall Be First" is the most classic
version of Sunz of Man. It's like The Bible. If you don't
have this, then you don't know shit about what we're talking
about.
All of our fans know that this is our most
classical record. So much love was on this album. We had
Earth, Wind, and Fire, RZA, Wyclef, Method Man, ODB,
Raekwon, U-God...We were really in a zone at that time. I
even feel that we gave a spark to Nas off of this. His album
was "It Was Written" and we had a song called "As It Was
Written." A lot of people that really know about us had to
get a spark from us from this album. This album is on some
real spiritual shit. It's not so righteous where you'll feel
that we're a bunch of pussies. I would say it was "street
righteousness." We had a real respect for this shit.
Everybody can tell we're kicking some real shit.
Everybody at the time was trying to make some real dance
shit. Canibus came out around this time and we battled him.
We battled a lot of niggas. Sunz of Man is very
well-respected. If you don't have this album, well, you
probably can't even get the record now.We're working on an
album of all our classic records. We're going to put that
out. It's goiugn to have "Soldiers of Darkness," "No Love
Without Hate," and a whole bunch of songs that you didn't
hear. It'll have songs off of "Saviorz Day." It's going to
be a limited edition. It's going to be for the fans. We're
doing this shit for the people that are mad they never got
all these songs on one album. That's going to be like The
Torah. This album has a lot of
shit. We affected a lot of people. There's a lot of people
rhyming like us now. We're not mad at the biting. You can't
bite spirituality. We even went to Rikers Island to promote
this album. We kept it gangster
with this album.
-
Intro: I had done this where I
named all of the songs on the album. This was going to
run at the end of the album. I A&R'd this album. I
wanted to do some real poetry-type shit on this. I put
every song name into this. No one has ever done that
before. This was supposed to be an interlude, but it
came out incredible. People were like, "Damn son, how
did you come up with that?" I made a banging ass poem!.
-
Cold: This was me
and Prodigal Sunn, produced by 4th Disciple. We had done
this in the wintertime. 4th came with the beat, and we
heard the beat and went crazy. It had some wind blowing
in it. We were thinking of wintertime and shit,
and
we talked about how niggas get cold-hearted and how you
have to be able to hustle bundled up.! [Lyrics]
-
Natural High Wow. This is an incredible
record. We had released it as a single. It was an Al
Green sample that we had used that we were having
problems with in the beginning of getting it cleared. It
was me, Prodigal, 60-Second, Priest, and Tray Bag from
Ghetto Government. That's my brother. Supreme produced
this. He also did "No Love Without Hate" for us. We
wanted to keep that vibe and original Sunz of Man
flavor. We had to get a band to come and play it over
for us. The hook was saying, "We make that muuuusicccc
that moves your body!" We wanted you to know that Sunz
of Man is spiritual, lyrical, and political type of
dudes, but at the same time, we can make a groove and
make you move. Tray Bag came up with the
hook. We
laid the verses down so fast it was incredible. Next
thing you know, it's a single. When we had dropped it as
a single, Busta came out with the same sample right
after us. That was kind of strange because we knew the
God. I didn't know he had the same sample, but I guess
great minds think alike. Sunz of Man had a lot of those
incidents happen. [Lyrics]
-
Flaming Swords: This was done by True
Master and this has all four original Sunz of Man
members in it. Flaming swords were protecting the Garden
of Eden. That's what we are. True Master came with the
beat and you couldn't say no pretty-ass
rhymes to
that shit. You had to come real dungeon on that. It
sounds like bodies are being dragged down to the
dungeon. This was taking it back to the "Five Arch
Angels" type of style. This came out incredible. This is
definitely one of my favorite joints on here. [Lyrics]
-
Illusions: 4th Disciple produced this.
It was me, Prodigal, 60, and Masta Killa. I came up with
the hook first. I was feeling like, back in '98, there
were a lot of niggas popping mad shit. This was when the
commercial started taking over the
underground.
Music is music and Hip Hop is Hip Hop. There were a lot
of illusions and fake-ass shit. Everybody was so-called
"popping bottles" and all of this fake shit. I had come
up with the hook listening to 4th's beat. The beat
changed up
into two beats. We had to do this. We
told 4th that beat was incredible. "This rap game ain't
what it seems/Artists get cream/Turnin' fiends selling
people a dream." I wrote the verse that night because
the beat was so crazy. I was like, "I have to write this
shit right now." I laid it down, boom, and the first
verse is like murder. We told Prodigal to come in when
the beat changed up so it sounded like another part.
Then we threw Masta Killa on it after we had the song
done. We had played him the song and as soon as he heard
it, he wanted to get on that. You've never heard Masta
Killa like how you heard him on "Illusions." We had
brought a part of Masta Killa out that sounded real
good. [Lyrics]
-
Shining Star: The story behind "Shining
Star" is so deep. The original track was done by me and
Priest and RZA had done this beat. We were out in Cali.
We recorded 85% of this album out there. This is when
Wu-Tang was out there doing "Wu-Tang Forever." We had
done the original song. I ran into Wyclef at "The
Jungle" shit for Muhammad Ali at Radio City. We were
talking about doing a song together. I had lost contact
with Lauryn Hill, but I had a talk with Wyclef about how
he felt about doing a track for us. The track that he
had originally gave us, we had tracked it up, but we
really wanted to make history with him. We were like,
"Yo, we need a beat for this "Shining Star" remake of an
Earth, Wind, and Fire joint. The second version we had
done sounded like some roller-skate-type shit. We needed
something gritty. We didn't want to sound pop.
We recorded it with Earth, Wind, and Fire. This wasn't
no Pro Tools shit. We were with them! We met their
family, their kids…we had done this song and Dirty came
to the studio, Rest in Peace, ODB came to the studio and
when he heard this…he had
been with Wyclef doing
"Ghetto Superstar." When we had done "Shining Star," it
was kind of weird because Pras came into our studio and
asked ODB to do a verse for "Ghetto Superstar." We were
bugging at the time because we didn't know they were
going to call that "Ghetto Superstar." We felt that some
funny stuff was happening. We're doing "Shining Star"
and now you're doing "Ghetto Superstar"? It went down,
we did the track with Earth, Wind, and Fire. Wyclef was
real good. I have footage coming out on a DVD showing
the making of this song. Wyclef came in and got us to
chop our verses down to eight bars. Wyclef thought we
should break it into pieces where we all come in
sporadically. This came out incredible. When we finished
it, we were like, "This song right here is history" It
took a lot to get this song done, and we earned Earth,
Wind, and Fire's respect because they had never heard
anyone rap on some positive and spiritual vibes before.
[Lyrics]
-
Israeli News: Tray Bag and Killah
Priest came up with the hook for this. We had a studio
that we had built in New York to record at. Supreme did
the beat. I came up with the title for this because
we're about spreading the truth about the children of
Israel everywhere. I came up with the title. They came
up with the hook and everything. Once Priest laid his
verse and opened it up, we were writing and smoking.
That was a crazy session. We were in there building on
scriptures and
everything. Tray Bag laid his verse
down, and then I came in to clean up. I cleaned it up
with the last verse. Once that shit was done, we were
listening to it like, "Yo son, this song is single
potential." Our single was supposed to be this or
"Natural High" for the single and "Natural High" had the
most votes. This is my #2 favorite right here. [Lyrics]
-
Tribulations: We did this in
California. The way this came about is ill. Prodigal
came up with the hook for this. Prodigal had the hook
before we even heard the beat. This was produced by RZA.
RZA played some beats while we were recording
the
album. He came through and he had played some beats that
were for the "Wu-Tang Forever" album. I was in the booth
when he played the beat and Prodigal called me out of
the booth. Prodigal was saying we had to do that song
right now. He kicked the hook to me and I was like,
"That's an automatic banger. Let's do it." 60 and Priest
were cool with it and we did it. Prodigal and 60 were
going back-and-forth and we were like, "They killed it,"
so me and Priest did the back-and-forth. That was a Sunz
of Man/Wu-Tang-type of song. We were going through a lot
of tribulations trying to get this album done. Sunz of
Man was getting in and out of deals, we were going
through some street shit, 60 was in trouble with the
authorities, so we were like, "Let's call this shit
'Tribulations.'" [Lyrics]
-
The Interview: This is my comic side. I
come from the days when we used to rip on niggas. I
wanted to show people that we could laugh. We even got
revolutionary jokes! This was an era in '98 when
everyone was on some battle shit. I wanted to do a
battle where one nigga said something about another
nigga's father and then they got to fighting. Some real
shit happened like that, but not in that way. We were
battling with some niggas and then we ended up beating
them up. It wasn't because
they were more lyrical
than us, it was because they started talking shit. We
used to whoop niggas' asses! We had to stomp a nigga out
in Club New York and then a riot broke out.
Another
time we were in the club in the bathroom and we were in
Vegas, and some shit happened with 60. Niggas recognize
niggas and they were on our dicks. It's some other rap
niggas and they're still out now. We were chilling with
Meth and RZA, and those niggas wanted to be on our
dicks. We were like, "Yo man, get the fuck out of here
with that shit!" We were like, "Let's make a shit about
what niggas are doing that other rappers can relate to."
We also did a skit about niggas leaking out your shit
before you finish. We had some comedy here, but it's
real shit. Comedy is real shit. You laugh at shit you
think a nigga should have never said. When we're smoking
weed and we're flashbackin', that's how we are.
-
The Plan: This is the shit. It
started from the original record that 4th was playing.
We were feeling that, so 4th made the beat right there
on the spot. 4th Disciple is one of the most
incrediblest producers I have ever seen. He just wanted
the room for an hour. We went to go get blunts and shit,
and he had the beat done. That shit was incredible. It
was supposed to be a song for 60's solo album. 60 had
laid his
shit down to it but then he wanted all of
us to get on it. We had done it twice because the first
time it was 60's solo song. That shit was hot. 60 didn't
want to do it as a solo song. He wanted to make it as a
Sunz of Man record. We came back and laid our verses and
it turned out to be one of our singles. We recorded this
in California too. The hook is talking about how you
think you have the perfect plan. We wrote our verses
about how people thought they had the perfect plan and
the shit went bad. That's happened to everyone. Nobody
ever thought that Dame Dash and Jay-Z would break up.
You think you have the perfect plan and the shit will
fall apart. No one ever thought the shit would change
how it did. We were talking on real life topics.
Everybody's had a plan that went bad and that was the
motivation for this song. [Lyrics]
-
Collaboration '98: This was done by
True Master. We did this one in New York. It was me,
True Master, and Prodigal in the studio. True Master was
playing some beats and Meth came through the studio to
check us out. We were in the studio and
we were just
rapping with each other, just bugging. We were telling
True Master to rhyme on it. A lot of people think he
just makes beats, but he can rhyme. This is one of the
first songs when you can hear True Master kicking rhymes
on his own
beat. Meth was in there on some "checkin'
us out" shit, and he heard my verse. Me and Meth have a
good chemistry together. There's a lot of shit that I've
laid for Meth and Meth's laid for me. At the end of my
verse, I said a rhyme where I said, "can't
you see
my love even though we be thugs." When Meth heard that,
he was like, "Yo son, I want to make that the hook." I
was like, "Bet, that sounds ill." Meth took what I said
in my verse and made a hook out of it. He wrote the hook
and wrote a long-ass verse. He was like, "I'm going to
lay this down for y'all." He laid it down on the
strength of the record. Then Prodigal closed it up and
the rest is history. This is one of the illest records
on the album. [Lyrics]
-
Inmates To The Fire: Wow. This
comes from the "Five Arch Angel" days. This was done at
RZA's house, where we also did "Soldiers of Darkness."
We had done this around the same time they were doing
Rae's album. We had done another song called "As It Was
Written" that didn't make the album. Those two songs
were on the same reel. We couldn't find the beat because
of everything RZA lost in the flood in the studio. It
was through the will of God that we found it. We had to
redo the
vocals over and all sorts of crazy shit.
Killah Priest was on the original song. He was recording
"Heavy Mental" when we were recording some of these
songs, so we couldn't get a hold of him. We recorded
this shit with me, Prodigal, and 60. RZA heard this and
told us we had to throw it on the album. He wanted to
mix it down first. When we got it back from him, it
sounded completely different. This is related to "The
Book of Daniel." Daniel was thrown in the lion's den. We
used the concept of the lion's den because he was cast
into the fire. If you could be in the fire, that will
purify your soul because fire will cleanse you. Fire
purifies gold. We laid this down and it was a wrap from
there. [Lyrics]
-
Not Promised Tomorrow: We had done this
in New York. 4th Disciple played the beat for me. When I
heard the song, I wanted to do the hook with a female. I
wanted Tequitha. She had sung "One Step" for Priest.
She's like our sister. I wanted her to sing that hook
for me. She knocked it out. I laid my verses down and
Prodigal had laid his shit down. 60 came and did his
verse. We had to beat up the engineer that night. He
wasn't listening and he was giving us attitudes. We had
to kick his ass and keep him in the room. We had paid
for studio time and we were going to do it right. We sat
that nigga down and the song came out good so we threw
it on the album. [Lyrics]
-
For The Lust of Money/The Grandz: Oh
man! "For the Lust of Money" was another song that we
had done with True Master. We wanted to do a song about
money. This was when the "Benjamins" were going out. We
were saying, "Fuck the Benjamins, we're about the
grandz." This is how this came about. We didn't have
a money song on the album and we wanted to do one. True
Master gave me a beat that was supposed to be for Method
Man. Once he threw this shit on, we started writing. We
knocked this out in the same day. It was me and Prodigal
in the studio. 60 came from Brooklyn to meet us there
and as soon as he got there, he wrote his shit, and it
was a song. I still get asked about this record to this
day. [Lyrics]
-
Can I See You?: This is another
vintage "Five Arch Angels" record from those days. RZA
did this beat. It wasn't supposed to be on the album. Me
and Prodigal did a song about our niggas locked up. It
was a "miss y'all niggas"-type record. 4th was in the
studio and everyone thought he did that beat, but it was
RZA actually. 4th came to the studio with Berretta 9
from Killarmy. He kicked his verse and Prodigal wanted
him to get on the shit, so we threw Berretta 9 on there
and did Sunz of Man/Killarmy collaboration. This song
got such a response.
They said the DC sniper was
listening to our records in his car. They said he was
listening to "Can I See You." We got niggas like that
listening to our shit. If he felt the vibe, he felt the
vibe. We didn't give him the shit to go out and snipe
people, but the song is crazy. It's for all our prison
niggas locked up that we haven't seen in a long time.
[Lyrics]
-
The Battle Interlude
-
Next Up: We wanted to do some real Hip
Hop type of shit. I wanted to make a "Symphony"-type
song like Marley Marl. We knocked it out, the beat was
crazy. True Master banged this shit out. Me, Prodigal,
and 60 laid the verse. We brought this with us to
California. Meth used to always hang with us. Meth came
to the studio and we were smoking and shit, he heard
this, and he said, "I want to fuck with that." We had
two songs with Meth on "The Last Shall Be First." This
is some real Hip Hop, pass the mic-type shit. [Lyrics]
-
Intellectuals: This was one of the last
songs we did. We had the beat and we were sitting there
just vibing to the beat. We didn't have a hook for. We
were in a session with U-God with the beat rocking. It
was True Master, U-God, and then Raekwon
came
through. Rae hopped on this song. Rae laid his verse to
the beat first. We didn't even have a hook. He did the
verse and told us to just go from there. Once Raekwon
laid it, we were sitting there like, "We need a hook." I
did my verse, and then when I finished, U-God was like,
"Y'all niggas is intellectuals rhyming professionals."
He said that on some talking shit. I was like, "That's
the hook!" U-God got into the booth and said,
"Intellectual, rhyming professionals." That was the
hook. 60 came and laid his verse. U-God wasn't on the
album but he wanted to get on it so he wrote his verse
right there in the studio. He laid his verse and that
was it. We had one more song to do and we were done with
the album. [Lyrics]
-
5 Arch Angels [Outro] This song was
done when we were signed with Priority and we had
switched labels, so we had to re-record it. Songs like
"No Love Without Hate" and "Soldiers of Darkness"
couldn't be on the album. I was like, "Fuck that,
I'm going to jack this shit and use it as the outro."
Niggas got upset because they wanted to hear the whole
song. I meet niggas to this day that ask me why "Five
Arch Angels" wasn't on the first album. This is the
birth certificate of the Sunz of Man. It was Shabaaz the
Disciple, Prodigal Sunn, Hell Razah, Killah Priest, and
60-Second Assassin. This is one of the main songs that
has all five of us on it. The title came from Priest,
Shabaaz, and 60. We were talking about The Scriptures,
flipping…when 4th Disciple played the beat, it sounded
so holy. That was a holy day. It should go down as a
holiday the day we recorded this for Sunz of Man.We were
building, Bibles were out, 60 was singing...60 goes into
these moods where he'll be singing. He went into the
booth and sang over the whole track. 4th went in there
to
record him and he mixed it down to where 60's
vocals were singing along with the beat. We were all
going in right after each other. 60 did the first verse
and he came in killing it. We were like, "Oh shit, it's
on now." You might get cut in a studio session with us
because we're all sharp. This became the B-Side to
"Soldiers of Darkness." We let the fans know that we
didn't forget them and we slapped it on as the outro.
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