On this day in 1999, the late great Ol’ Dirty Bastard of the Wu-Tang Clan dropped his second studio album Ni**a Please on the Elektra label.
Before settling on its now-infamous title, ODB toyed with a couple of names that were equally outrageous: God Made Dirt And Dirt Don’t Hurt and The Black Man Is God, White Man Is The Devil. True to form, ODB chose the one that would spark the most conversation and controversy, a fitting extension of his unpredictable persona.
Between his debut and sophomore albums, ODB kept himself in the spotlight with wild antics that blurred the line between chaos and genius. From raising bail money on the streets, to surviving a shootout with police, to storming the stage at the 1998 Grammy Awards, and even pulling up to a Brooklyn welfare office in a limousine to collect food stamps, he made sure his name stayed in the headlines.
That energy carried over into the music. Ni**a Please debuted at #10 on the Billboard 200, selling 93,000 copies in its first week. The project was later certified gold by the RIAA in the same year, solidifying ODB’s larger-than-life reputation in both music and pop culture.
Twenty-six years later, Ni**a Please still stands as a raw, unpredictable, and unforgettable chapter in the Wu-Tang legend and in the legacy of Ol’ Dirty Bastard.