Method Man Says GZA & RZA Wrote Most Of The Rhymes On Ol' Dirty Bastard's "Return To The 36 Chambers"

by Steven J. Horowitz

Meth says that ODB borrowed many rhymes from his Wu-Tang Clan cohorts while recording the 1995 release.

Method Man recently broke down his top 25 most essential songs for Complex.com, speaking on how he met up with Notorious B.I.G. and how he initially didn’t want to release “All I Need” as a single. But one of the most dynamic revelations was that Ol’ Dirty Bastard’s Return to the 36 Chambers: The Dirty Version was penned mostly by RZA and GZA.
Speaking specifically on his feature “Raw Hide,” Meth explained why RZA and GZA had to take on rhyme duties for the 1995 LP. “The majority of the verses on that album are old RZA rhymes and GZA rhymes,” he said. “’Approach the school, 9:30, you’re late,’ that’s RZA’s shit. I heard that shit when I was 14 years old. That whole, ‘Easy on my balls, they’re fragile as eggs,’ niggas said that in a rap battle in fucking 1989.
“Dirty took all their shit and made it his own and GZA ain’t say shit,” he continued. “Most of [Dirty’s verses] was GZA’s shit. I remember GZA and ODB got in an argument one night and GZA was like, ‘Nigga most of that shit you say on your fucking album is mines anyway!”
He did state that ODB wrote some of the songs, including “Brooklyn Zoo,” and stated that he himself wrote the first verse on Ghostface Killah’s “Cherchez La Ghost.”