Wu-Tang A Drive-By Away From Never Existing

According to Wu Tang's The RZA, the group was a drive-by away from never existing. Read some of the CNN interview after the jump:



(CNN) -- "The Wu-Tang Clan -- the New York hip-hop supergroup that spawned millions of album sales, nine solo acts and a few acting careers -- almost never was.

Method Man, the group's most recognizable voice, was nearly killed before the band formed, Wu-Tang's chief producer, RZA, writes in his forthcoming memoir.

Meth was walking to buy marijuana at 160 Park Hill Avenue in Staten Island -- the house in Wu-Tang's "Protect Ya Neck" video -- when RZA saw him across the street, he writes in the book.

"Come over here, yo!" RZA beckoned, according to "The Tao of Wu" (Riverhead). "He stopped and came running over. A few seconds later -- pow-pow-pow-pow-pow! -- a guy started shooting up the front of 160. A buddy of ours, Poppy, an innocent, school-going, nice guy -- he was shot and killed right there."

It wasn't the only close call RZA said could have snuffed the band that rewrote the rule book for hip-hop acts. The year before the group formed in 1993, RZA was acquitted on an attempted murder charge that could have put him behind bars for eight years, he writes in "The Tao of Wu," out Thursday.

Expanding on the book's anecdotes in an interview with CNN, RZA explained that if he had been imprisoned or if Method Man, aka Clifford Smith, had been killed, the band never would have come to fruition."

Read the full piece HERE.