I don’t know shit about U-God other than the fact that he’s responsible for the worst Wu-Tang song ever (”Black Shampoo”) and used to get locked-up a lot, which explains why his skills were a little rusty on Raekwon’s debut. He also yelled at Meth in The Show, which was one of the few highlights in a pretty shitty movie. (more…)

Considering that Method Man seized the spotlight early with his self-titled anthem on the flip of “Protect Ya Neck”, you would be excused for expecting dude to have ammassed an army of weed carriers by now. The only possible weed carriers that spring to mind would be Carlton Fisk and Streetlife, but I’m unable to confirm either are having held weed for Meth. Since I haven’t picked up anything he did since his under-whelming (although not completely without merit) debut, I have no idea who he’s running with now, but I suspect that his lacking rap credentials may explain why he’s “diversified” into the realms of movies and television in recent years.

Come to think of it, starring in a “screwball” comedy flick with Redman and a short-lived but universally-panned sitcom with said accomplice doesn’t exactly rate as “diverse”, but I’m guessing that film and TV crews have a lot of potential weed carriers. What else does the Best Boy do? (no homo) And have you ever noticed the credit for Boom Operator when the credits roll past? They’re not referring to the guy who holds those big-ass microphones, folks. Boom = boom, Operator = holder & roller. That’s supreme mathematics right there.

Remember how popular that song he did with Mary J Blige was? How can a guy go from being the only person in Wu-Tang to ship a platinum single to hawking roll-on deodorant? The more that I think about it, the more I suspect that Meth has never been a weed owner, and has in fact spent many years holding for Redman. The only reason that the Funk Doctor Spock agreed to do that stupid Blackout album was to return the favour for years of loyal weed carrying.

It’s perfect really. After spending years calling himself Johnny Blaze, rapping about weed and generally promoting himself as the Cheech to Red’s Chong (no homo), Methtical is the perfect carrier. Since he so blatantly promotes the stuff, the authorities assume that he wouldn’t dare carry weed, and therefore have never bothered to search him. Meanwhile, Redman is laughing all the way to the weed spot, permenantly zooted into oblivion.

Since the term “weed carrier” originated and developed almost purely around athletes getting caught with weed at airports, I figured I would point this story out. The National Football League has launched an investigation regarding Vikings running back Onterrio Smith, who was briefly detained late last month at Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport after police found several vials of white powder in his luggage. The powder was dried urine, part of a kit called “The Original Whizzinator” that was created to foil tests for illegal drugs. He didn’t get caught with weed, but he might as well have. If the NFL decides to punish Smith it could be costly, as Smith already has two strikes in the NFL’s substance abuse program, including a four-game suspension last season for marijuana. A third strike calls for a one-year suspension.

This man needs to take drastic action immediately. Smith has only been in the NFL for two years, and he already has two drug-based suspensions levied against him, with a third one obviously on the way. In 2000, Smith was also kicked off the University of Tennessee football team for marijuana use. In 2001, Smith was arrested for drunken driving. He was under 21 at the time, and was driving with a suspended license.

Unfortunately for Smith, a weed carrier may be of little use. He has never been caught with marijuana on his person, but rather, only in his system. And he may not be able to afford a weed carrier anyway on his (relatively) meager $380,000 a year salary.

So here’s my advice Onterrio: Find an affordable weed-carrier anyway. They are of tremendous use and provide countless hours of company in airports and during police searches of your car. Hell, you might be able to find a fanatic Vikings fan who will carry your weed for under $10 an hour. You also might want to find someone who looks just like you to take your drug tests, since the NFL is obviously aware that you are taking advantage of the whizzinator.

If you were expecting another Wu installment, you’ll have to wait a little longer (no homo). I’m kinda Wu-ed out at the moment, plus I don’t know shit about what U-God has been up to post-Wu Tang Forever, so a quick change of pace is in order.

The Kings of Rock are regarded by many as The Greatest Rap Group Of All-Time (GRGOAT), and with good reason. Not only did they single-handedly bring about the end of the Old School, they also stopped rappers from wearing sequins and capes for a couple of years (at least until the World Class Wrecking Krew came out). With this in mind, it makes perfect sense that Run-DMC generated a sizable group of weed carriers over their long careers.

The mastermind of all of this was the late, great Jam Master Jay. Not only did he provide the musical backbone to the group, his crew from around the way also made sure that no one fucked with Darryl and Joe in the early days. Not only that, but he proved to be a master in the art of weed owning, which would proved to be essential as the crew’s popularity started to fade in the ’90’s.

One of their earliest cheeba-stashing squads was Hollis Crew, which consisted of guys (DJ Hurricane, Kool T and some other dudes) from Jam Master Jay’s neighbourhood crew of the same name. Jay produced their classic “It’s The Beat” record around 1985, and by 1990 the same guys got another deal by wearing wigs and calling themselves The Afros. You can spot them hanging around on stage at Run-DMC shows from that period, and Jay used to randomly yell “Afroooos!”. I can’t remember much about their album, but I guess those afro wigs were great for carrying weed.

Some guys called Serious-Lee-Fine carried for Darryl and Joe around 1987-1989 (I think they were from Texas) and made an album which no one remembers. Over the years Jam Master Jay also had a group called FU-2 hold for him for a minute, as well as The Famlee, but when he convinced some guys with green dreadlocks and Doc Martins - who danced at a local club - to shave their heads and call themselves Onyx, he was really onto a winner. Before he was murdered, Jay also had future weed owners like 50 Cent carrying for him. While 50 hasn’t done much to continue Jay’s musical legacy, at least he learnt from the best when it comes to owning weed.

Run started his career as “DJ Run - The Son (read: weed carrier) of Kurtis Blow” which speaks for itself. The group also had people like LL Cool J and the Beastie Boys carrying weed for them during their prime. The Beasties did such a good job - being token cracker weed holders and all, which proves to be handy in many parts of Manhattan - that Run and the guys gave them “Slow And Low” as a reward. LL assumed he could do the same thing, attempting to remake “Peter Piper” with his original version of “Rock The Bells”. I guess he was doing a pretty shitty job of carrying though (possibly leaving a bag of trees at the gym after a particurly vigorous stomach-crunching session), as Run screamed at him to change the beat to the song and promptly relieved him of all holding duties right then and there.

Did somebody ask for a look at weed carriers in grime? If so, you’re in luck.

Not content with continuing to push the envelope of lyrical slaughter (check J-Love’s “Come On” - aka the remix to Cormega’s “Tony/Montana” - for proof), Tony Starks has also become quite the weed owner in recent times. While Cappadonna provided full-time weed carrying duties thoughout the Ironman album, it wasn’t long before Ghostface realized that this was a task for more than one holder. So began the formation of the Theodore Unit.

Despite being awarded the dubious honour of one of XXL mag’s most hated crew names, Theodore Unit contains all of the ingredients of the perfect weed carrying squad. Trife provides the required skill quotient, Cappa is the link to the past and Shawn Wiggs is the all-important token “amazin’ Caucasian”. There are also some other guys such as Solomon Childs to make up the numbers for this well-rounded stasher set. As a bonus, Ghost even threw a couple of dope songs like “Gorilla Hood” on their album, which is a step-up from Biggie’s guest shots on Junior MAFIA’s debut.

I also dug-up an old tape with a radio interview with Ghost from 1996.

The Chef can rest easy knowing that “Only Built…” is one of the best rap albums ever made, and as a result his weed owner status will never be revoked. Ghostface was on almost every song, but obviously wasn’t holding for Rae. That position was filled by a guy by the name of Cappadonna, who could often be seen carrying a baseball bat filled with dank. He was so busy holding huge stashes for the two from the Wu that he neglected to develop things like timing and breath control when it was his time to shine in the booth.

It wasn’t until his outstanding appearence on “Winter Warz” that Cappadonna actually made an impression, and combined with his dope “‘97 Mentality” 12″, dude actually had a nice buzz for his solo debut. Sadly, RZA’s weed carriers handled the production and Cappa was less than inspiring on the mic, making for a boring-as-fuck release that even the most devoted Killer Bee fan would struggle to sit through.

Remarkably, Cappadonna has proved to be quite resillient, and released two more solos albums following The Pillage before he was ousted from the Wu when it was discovered that his cracka-ass manager was a police stoolie. Proving that he’s got a heart the size of a whale, Ghostface was able to forgive Cap’s mistakes and allowed him to resume his weed carrying duties as a member of Tony’s Theodore Unit.

Raekwon has meanwhile gone through a couple of weed holding squads, as during the highly unpopular Immobilarity chamber, he had some guys called American Cream Team looking after the hydro. The release of The Lex Diamonds Story saw his weed carriers renamed Ice Water, although it’s most likely the same guys as the Cream Team (I really haven’t paid them enough attention to confirm this though). By the way, “Smith Bros.” and “Missing Watch” are fucking great songs if you missed the last album.

Next up: Ghostface.

Dwayne Wade, Shaq’s latest star guard weed carrier has to be careful not to get gassed. He scored double Shaq’s points in the final game of the Heat’s sweep of the Nets. Now everyone is adding his name to their hot-this-summer list, including P. Diddy who just signed Wade as a Sean John model.

Then there’s all the sports articles that read something like this:

“Dwayne Wade showed again Sunday there’s more to the Miami Heat than just superstar centre Shaquille O’Neal. Wade more than filled the void of O’Neal’s scoreless first half by scoring a career playoff-high 34 points and setting up O’Neal for most of his 17 second-half points…”

Whoa. Write-ups like that are bound to have Wade make the same mistake as Kobe and Penny and start to treat Shaq as a carrier instead of an owner. My advice to Wade- don’t do it, my dude. Keep ya mouth closed, and win a ring.

When it comes to the RZA, there’s no escaping the fact that pretty much anyone that’s been within a hundred miles of Staten Island has carried this guys weed. He’s never made a secret of his love for buds, and I suspect that his whole motivation to create the Wu-Tang Clan stems from his masterplan to create a world-wide weed carrying network. While Public Enemy once aimed to “create 5,000 Black leaders in the next five years”, Prince Rakeem promised to have “10,000 weed holders in every corner of the globe by Y2K”. Evidence of just how effective this plan was can be seen it projects such as The World According To RZA, which shows that whatever country The Abbott visits, his weed carrying requirements will be taken care of.

During his busiest period in the mid-90’s, Clan members would have to battle for tracks - not with a war of words, but by a test of stashing abilities - to see who could get which of RZA’s in-demand beats for their solo projects. Method Man, ODB and Raekwon The Chef proved to be RZA’s most trusted weed carriers at this point, which explains why they had the first lot of solo albums to be released. Those who under-performed were sent back to weed holder training camp, which may explain why Masta Killa only just released his album last year. Female weed holders Blue Raspberry and Tekitha were rewarded for their services with cameo spots, but never graduated to weed owner status, despite numerous threats of RZA’s “blunted soul” project.

Now that RZA hangs out with guys like Quentin Tarinteno, he doesn’t seem to have the same weed carrying requirements as he once did, although the occassional Bobby Digital album sees new weed carriers like Holocast and Dr. Doom (which must be reference to Kool Keith’s Dr. Dooom album and it’s Robbie Analogue preview) - as well as weed holding mainstays like Killarmy - on deck to keep the stash safe.

A Salute To Weed Carriers takes it’s Stetson hat off to the RZA - Greatest Weed Owner Of All Time (GWOOAT).