RZA explains why Ol’ Dirty was frustrated by Grammys snub
RZA sheds more light about what went down when Ol’ Dirty Bustard jumped on and crashed the stage during the 40th annual Grammy Awards at Radio City Music Hall in New York. Ol’ Dirty grew angry after Wu-Tang’s Wu-Tang Forever lost the Best Rap Album Award to Diddy’s No Way Out.
“I actually said to him, I said, ‘Listen, they’re not gonna give us no award, G,'” RZA recalled in an interview with GQ. “It’s like, I was very pessimistic in that, at my younger age. I was like, we lack validation. Like, they ain’t gonna give it to us. ‘Look at us. We the real shit. Look at where we at’ And so he misinterpreted that when I said, ‘Look at us.’ So he was like, we lost because we wasn’t dressed for the occasion.”
He added, “So for the Grammys, he went like, ‘Fuck that. I’m gettin’ right.’ Cause he knew and felt that arguably—and they say self praise don’t mean nothin’, and I’m gonna praise myself. But if I was to put it on a scale of measurement of hip hop lyrics and rawness and what hip hop is? Yeah, we was the best. Okay? And so when you’re the best, you think the best wins. But that’s not the case in many fields. You know I mean? And he was just unaware of that, I think. He didn’t realize that the vote was already casted before you got there that night, brother. You know I mean?”