Country Dirt: ODB upstate.   (Photo: Matthew Salacuse)

Ol’ Dirty Bastard
Older, Not Dirtier
The Wu-Tang legend looks back. But the view isn’t exactly clear.

Amid the variegated chambers of the Wu, home to RZA, GZA, Method Man, Ghostface Killah, and Raekwon, Ol’ Dirty Bastard—a.k.a. Big Baby Jesus, Joe Bananas, Dirt McGirt, Osirus, and the Unique Ason—has always been the major off-angle, the Clan’s most arresting and arrested member, the Ringo of the group.

“Sometimes I was the clown, sometimes I was the thug, that was what I was,” says ODB, yawning, his diamond-encrusted gold teeth glinting in the dim room light of the Rockland County “luxury rental condominium.” Usually Dirty can be found under watchful eye at his mom’s house in Brooklyn, where he has lived since his release from prison last spring. But Mom, recently married, was on her honeymoon, so the Dirt found himself transported to this manufactured suburban nowhere for “a vacation.” Soon to turn 35, about 200 in rap years, he needed the rest. He was very, very tired, he said.

It has, after all, been a hectic decade for the erstwhile Russell Jones. Father of many children, ODB has a police record that’s equally fecund. It got to be joke after a while, the rapid-fire busts for crack, missing child support, driving without license plates, wearing “body armor” (ex-felons can’t wear bulletproof vests, even if they’ve been shot several times, like Dirty). Hip-hop is lousy with talkers, but few take it to the wall like ODB, who recorded the scabrously entertaining Nigga Please on the lam, later turning up onstage with his Wu brothers at Hammerstein Ballroom while the object of a nationwide manhunt—only to be caught outside a Philadelphia McDonald’s. With the hip-hop mags fearing for his well-documented tenuous mental condition, jail did not agree with the rapper.

“Some ups and downs, but I feel good about being a legend,” remarks the still-handsome Dirt, sitting stiffly on the condo couch, fingering his Five Percenter pendant as he watches Mrs. Doubtfire on TV. Once a more manically profane Redd Foxx, ODB rarely exceeds a sentence in his responses these days. No matter; he is in the midst of an improbable comeback, making a disc for Jay-Z’s Roc-A-Fella label and an MTV pilot called Everybody Loves Dirty, a nice bookend to the infamous MTV spot in which he took a limo to cash his welfare check. There is also a new line of Dirt McGirt–wear, jeans and athletic shirts, “the usual stuff,” ODB says.

Still, perhaps fearing fun deficiency in the Dirt aspect, Jarred Weisfeld, his current co-manager (and producer of the MTV series, which he calls “an urban Osbournes”), tries to open up his reticent client.“Drop some Dirtyisms on us. What’s your favorite part of a woman?” the manager cajoles the notoriously lascivious rapper. After some prodding, ODB blurts the name of a prominent private part and follows it with a quick jab of laughter. Then, after returning to Mrs. Doubtfire for a moment, Dirty shouts, “Jarred! Sushi!,” which means he wants Weisfeld to drive to the local Japanese restaurant.

After saying that when he is old and “sitting on his porch,” he will tell his grandchildren “I was a rapper for a living”—not that they’ll know what that is, “because rap will be gone with the wind like everything else”—ODB excuses himself to go into the other room, where he sits on his bed and slowly lights a cigarette. He takes a puff, coughs awhile, and then sighs. —Mark Jacobson

Suzanne Vega
Just Plain Folk
Keepin’ it real on the UWS.

After more than twenty years on the scene, Suzanne Vega is the epitome of the New York singer-songwriter, not only a throwback to a time when Joan and Bob strummed solemn chords at Gerde’s Folk City but also a New Yorker who’s made an ordinary life here—she can be found weekday mornings on the Upper West Side, loading her daughter on the school bus.
SALON KEEPER: “I go to the folk singer Jack Hardy’s house on Monday nights and hear a lot of different songwriters there. That’s an important part of the New York scene—it’s just that it’s not available for purchasing at the moment. There isn’t anything else like it. When I go there, I know people will notice the melody, the metaphors, the alliteration—they’ll hear everything and notice everything. Many of the songs on the first album were influenced by Jack’s style of writing. There are other songs that feature him as a character; he’s the one I had the midnight picnic with in ‘Tom’s Diner.’ ”
SOUNDS AND THE CITY: “New York inspires abstractly. There are specific songs that are New York–influenced—Luka lived here, Tom’s Diner is here. In other songs, there’s a sense of humor, or a sense of privacy or intellectualism, that comes from growing up here.”

The Strokes
A Hard Day’s Stroke
A fan’s guide to New York’s new Beatles.

The Agonizer
Julian Casablancas, front man, 25
PEDIGREE: Blames father, Elite Modeling Agency founder John Casablancas (who divorced his Danish-model mother and shacked up with Stephanie Seymour), for his misery.
WHAT’S TO LOVE? The group’s sole songwriter and biggest boozer (he spent eight months in rehab during high school). Used to puke before most shows. Can school almost anyone in chess and billiards. Lives with Albert. Sometimes styles hair with beer.
SOUND BITE: “Looking relaxed makes me feel weird.”

The Hotheaded Pretty Boy
Nick Valensi, guitar, 22
PEDIGREE: Raised by mother on Upper East Side.
WHAT’S TO LOVE? Tall and cocky. Has given up—for now—fighting with hecklers. Girlfriend dumped him for former Weezer bassist. Dates ex-wife of Duran Duran’s John Taylor, Amanda De Cadanet. Claims, believably, never to have made his own bed.
SOUND BITE: “I’d like to think that we’re all fucking classy guys, you know, like sort of fucking gentlemen, and not some fucking crass American rock band.”

The Genial Clotheshorse
Albert Hammond Jr., guitar, 23
PEDIGREE: Son of Los Angeles songwriter Albert Hammond. Met Julian doing 6 a.m. runs in the snow at a militaristic Swiss boarding school.
WHAT’S TO LOVE? Big, big hair. Arbiter of the group’s fashion and musical tastes. Like Stevie Ray Vaughan, sometimes Superglues his raw fingertips to his arm to rip off fresh skin.
SOUND BITE: “If we’re up there with Britney or Justin, that’s what it’s about. If you don’t dream big, what’s the point?”

The Intellectual Dreamboat
Fabrizio Moretti, drums, 23
PEDIGREE: Born in Rio; met Julian and Nick at the Dwight School.
WHAT’S TO LOVE? Calls girlfriend Drew Barrymore “one of the most perfect people I’ve ever met.” Twice hosted Christmas for the boys at his apartment. Is Julian’s favorite target for biting and dry-humping. Compulsive doodler and accomplished sculptor. Throws Latin into everyday conversation.
SOUND BITE: “I’d be an ignorant fool if I didn’t realize that Julian is primus inter pares.”

The Introvert
Nikolai Fraiture, bass, 24
PEDIGREE: Met Julian at Le Lycée Française at age 6.
WHAT’S TO LOVE? Seeks out the darkest corner upon entering any room. Considers Jung and Dostoyevsky pleasure reading. Lives with brother in parents’ old apartment on 84th Street. Is lookout for Al and Jules when they piss on the street.
SOUND BITE: “I would pay to go to see the Strokes. We would be my favorite band.”

The Sixth Stroke
Ryan Gentles, manager, 25
WHAT’S TO LOVE? Roomed with Fab. Gets a sixth of the band’s money. Looks like Nikolai, only much, much smaller.