Dirty old bastard had “legitimate concerns” about government oversight

A new documentary about the life of rapper Ol’ Dirty Bastard highlights his distrust of government in the 1990s — years before it was revealed that the FBI had been monitoring him and his group Wu-Tang Clan for five years.

In the emergency room Dirty old bastard: A tale of two dirty men, The popular MC’s associates recount his tumultuous life, including his run-ins with law enforcement, all of which occurred decades before the Freedom of Information Act request that revealed the scale of the New York Police Department’s attempted RICO case against the Wu-Tang Clan — an effort that ultimately fell through, despite the infamous 95-page FBI file reviewed in detail by VICE in 2016.

“He would literally come into my record company office twice a week with a record, not a CD, just to relax. I don’t know if it was the drugs, the drinking, the pressures of his life… I thought it was paranoia, but he really had some serious issues,” music executive Steve Rifkind says of ODB in the documentary. “I called a few people and that’s when I realized the police were definitely looking at him.”

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As noted in the documentary, the New York Police Department’s Operation Enterprise Unit (referred to in the film as the “hip-hop police”) was known for tracking down influential local rappers. As the documentary points out, the NYPD would stop someone like ODB when he left his house to go to concerts.

“Dirt was one of those guys who was like, ‘Hey, the government is after us.’ They’re gonna try to kill me like this, they’re gonna try to kill me like this,’” Wu-Tang’s Ghostface Killah recalls in the film.

As it turns out, ODB’s suspicions that the government was after him were “correct,” journalist SH Fernando Jr. confirms in the documentary. “People think Dirty was crazy or that the drugs made him paranoid or whatever,” Fernando says. “But he actually had a legitimate fear that the feds were after him. He knew he was on law enforcement’s radar.”

“They’ve been following Wu-Tang for years,” he adds.

While ODB died of a drug overdose in November 2004 at the age of 35, the scope of the five-year (1999-2004) FBI file on the Wu-Tang Clan wasn’t released until eight years later. VICE noted in 2016 that the file contained “inflammatory allegations” related to extortion. No charges were ever filed against the legendary hip-hop group.

A Tale of Two Dirty Guys covers the rise of Wu-Tang, ODB’s solo success, the moment he saved a 4-year-old girl from under a car, his iconic “Fantasy” team-up with Mariah Carey and his untimely death from an overdose. The documentary also features Carey, members of ODB’s immediate family, Ghostface Killah and their Wu-Tang bandmate Raekwon.

Dirty Old Bastard: A Tale of Two Dirty Old Men Premieres Sunday, August 25 at 9:00 PM ET/PT on A&E.