It’s as if Muhammad returned from the cave of Hira to prophesize revelations of seasoned giraffe ribs, Scooby Snacks, dancing with the most sexually vibrant member of the *Golden Girls, *and how his dick made a magazine cover (“count how many veins on it”).Ībout two years later, a fully clothed Starks actually made the cover of The Source and explained the knowledge self-obtained in Africa. Sans beats, the Wallabee Champ scrawls countless transmissions snatched from the thundering din in his head. In an attempt to save his life, he seeks out a medicine man in his ancestral homeland and achieves esoteric and sobering realizations about existence. It’s a masterpiece of comic absurdity and cosmic exorcisms, existential paradox and mathematic precision. That’s where Tony Starks wrote “Nutmeg” and several other album tracks in a purge of voodoo spirits, occidental poisons, and crazy visions.

The spiritual nucleus of Supreme Clientele spawns from that pilgrimage. RZA had brought Kung Fu flicks-specifically Blade of Fury-which they watched alone as honored guests, the tribe’s children looking on in awe of them and the village’s only TV. When the RZA showed up to meet Ghostface, he saw his bandmate materialize in a dashiki, full beard, and unkempt hair puffed out. The inhabitants lived in mud huts and slept on the floor. Wary of Western medicine, Ghostface flew to Benin to be treated by a bush doctor in a remote village several hours outside of Cotonou, the nation’s most populous city.

When medical professionals finally tested his blood sugar it was 500 mg/dl. Even before the diagnosis, he convinced himself of his impending demise, fearing cancer, though more likely AIDS.

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