5 Fragen an den Rza...
It's true. Without RZA, hip-hop wouldn't exist as we know it. And instead of fading into obscurity or playing the coy game of retiring-unretiring-retiring, the founder of Wu-Tang Clan still pumps out new albums (the upcoming 8 Diagrams, DigiSnacks and production on Raekwon's Only Built 4 Cuban Linx II), cuts soundtracks (Kill Bill, Ghost Dog, Blade:Trinity), and sharpens his acting chops. True to form, in American Gangster, cash rules everything around him and co-star Denzel Washington. RZA talks to VH1 about his days in the ghetto, the future of hip-hop . . . and why making music is a little like dealing drugs.
VH1: Does American Gangster remind you of your past?
RZA: Yeah. I can relate to the movie because I lived it. The rise from rags to riches -- that's what I did with Wu-Tang Clan. Life was very bad: a bunch of guys from the streets that had nothing. A lot of us lived in the ghetto, working for some drug-dealer or whatever. Some of that stuff from the movie -- like the naked ladies making the drugs -- some of that stuff is real. It's real to my life. I've been involved with stupid sh*t like that.
VH1: Any similarities between making music and dealing drugs?
RZA: Frank [Denzel Washington's character] understands that he has a commodity, and he has a fair price for it, and there's a strong demand for it. Anytime you got that, you're going to win. Like when I started Wu-Tang Clan, I was doing deals that they couldn't refuse. We sold Method Man's first album for only $175,000, and it went on to sell 2 million copies. When I first signed with Loud Records and Steve Rifkind, he told me, "I don't have a lot of money." I told him, "I don't need a lot of money. Just give me 50G, 60G. I just want to get it out there. And when the people get it, it's going to make money." That's how it works. It works on Wall Street, it works in the crack house, it works for hip-hop. [Laughs]
VH1: How has the camaraderie of Wu-Tang changed from the early days?
RZA: Our lives have changed, our daily connections have changed. But when it's time for us to go to work, the studio hasn't changed. It's still a lot of weed, a lot of drinking -- not a lot of women in the studio, we don't allow that -- but there's a lot of jokes, a lot of bullsh*t, a lot of arguments. But work gets done. I think Raekwon said it best in a Source interview: "When we together, we don't have no problems. It's when we apart." And that's what's changed. In the old days, we could be apart, and everything would still be understood. And now when we're apart, we drift. We all drift.
VH1: So when you're not in the studio, what does the Wu-Tang do to screw around?
RZA: Bowling, playing chess, video games, kung fu. It's really the same thing that boys do. I like the fighting games the most. If you talk to Meth, he's into SOCOM, he's into the online entertainment. He's probably online right now, playing somebody. [Laughs] I like to play the sports games and the fighting games. Every once in a while if I've got a day to myself, I will do one of the role-playing games. The new John Woo game Hard Boiled -- it's like you're playing the movie yourself. It's is kind of fat, it's kind of deep.
VH1: Where do you see hip-hop heading?
RZA: In a good direction. The young people coming up, I think they're going to have more chances than we had. In the old days, everybody just wanted to be a rapper. That's all they want to be. Now, you don't have to rap, you can be a movie composer. You can compose music for the No. 1 film in the country. Or video games. There's so many outlets, I think it's going to continue to grow. I think this new Wu-Tang album will be an influx of creativity, because it will make people say, "We don't got to do it like that," because Wu-Tang did something totally sideways.
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