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Wu Tang Clan’s RZA- Most Hip Hop Stars Are Marsh Mellows
“A lot of the artists acting so tough and wanting to be gangstas are marsh mellows. If you see them (in real life) they’re not the same person you see on TV. And when they get money they start acting even more gangsta’. It’s a lot of propaganda and bullshit. I remember when Wu Tang Clan used to come to the clubs, all those same artists would hide.”
Sitting in a luxury private members bar in London’s Mayfair, Wu Tang Clan founder and commander-in-chief Robert ‘RZA’ Diggs seems a million miles away from the bullets and bling of New York’s increasingly violent hip hop world. Not that he’s too personally concerned by events such the recent murder of Run DMC guru Jam Master Jay, whose killers remain at large.
“Somebody knows what happened with Jam Master Jay but I don’t think it was associated particularly with hip hop,” he told Skrufff’s Benedetta.
“That kind of thing happens every day in our community, somebody gets robbed, killed, shot, whatever. It just happened to be a celebrity that day.” Despite his apparently flippant bravado though, he’s more than happy to drop his mask.
“But none of us are so tough,” he admits.
“We all got a certain fear.”
Gun crime aside, he’s firing on all cylinders to promote his new solo album The World According To RZA, a collaborative project between the Staten Island producer and the cream of European hip hop. Combining RZA’s songs and production skills with French, British and German collaborators (including Blade, Skinnyman, Ghostface Supakilla and IAM) the record highlights hip hop’s truly global nature as well as RZA’s unusually internationalist outlook (for an American hip hop artist, anyway.)
“The album was originally going to be called War because I’m having a war to break down the barriers people put up against each other,” he explained.
“How can you have these borders where people are separated and try to kill each other if someone crosses the line. All it’s about (the Iraq War) is a small bunch of men in each of those places controlling the masses of the people. It’s like big gang banging- for real.”
RZA’s use of Ali G’s ‘for real’ catchphrase also appears to be less than coincidental.
“Ali G is crazy, Yo! he’s crazy,” he laughs.
“I didn’t even watch the show then everybody started calling me saying ‘Listen, this motherfucka’s acting like you’. I guess coz’ he had the glasses, the hat and the rings. I said ‘This guy is funny’. He is funny, though, let me tell you, he’s crazy. I don’t know if he chose to copy me or not but it looks like it. All my friends think so, anyway.”
Skrufff (Benedetta): The album was originally due to come out in 2001, why has it been delayed until now?
RZA: “We had a lot of label problems then I guess the 911 situation happening and the music industry going through its recession also played their parts. Releasing it involved a lot of politics between labels. Originally we were going to release it on BMG then we switched to Virgin Records which meant we had to do all the paperwork and legal stuff all over again. That’s one of the sad things about the music business- it sometimes hurts the music because it hinders its release. Fortunately, Virgin recognised the importance of the record and its potential, so they picked it up and have given it a fair shot.”
Skrufff: You’ve cancelled quite a few trips in recent months, was that connected with terror threats?
RZA: “No, no, no, the last time I was sick and I had family problems, that was in May, when I cancelled my whole European trip. I had too many things to do back home. The time before that, in March, it was due to bad scheduling by the record company. I was already on a tour and they wanted to fly me from Eastern Europe to London then fly me back for a concert and I was like ‘Hold on, this isn’t going to work’. I was flying all over Europe, doing press then flying to concerts and it got to the stage where my knees were so stiff that I wasn’t able to do my full energetic performance because I became fatigued. Not fatigued because I was tired, but rather from all the travelling- even now I’m still clogged up. It’s not healthy to travel like that, so I told the label ‘Look, the best artist is a healthy and happy artist’.
I’ll do anything you ask me because I love music and I love talking to music writers, other musicians, anybody that’s interested in hip hop; I love to give them my vibe and my way of thinking. Even this trip is hectic, I’ve flown in today when I should have flown in yesterday so I can rest, have a good meal and get a good night sleep so we could have focused conversation. Being an artist as well as an executive, I know how to do both roles and I know how to make it work.”
Skrufff: Four of your collaborators are from France what drew you to use so many French artists?
RZA: “At first we only scheduled three of them, but what happened was we winded up meeting other artists that were friends of the first three, who were dope (good). NAP were friends of Passi, they were hanging together so we said let’s do a song. There were also some other songs from France that didn’t make it onto the album, because we had too many tracks. We spent a lot of time in France and it was a really good vibe. I liked lots of music from there, that’s why there’s lots of French artists on the record, they were hungry to get involved.”
Skrufff: How are French artists and musicians seen in the US, since the Iraq war?
RZA: “I can’t measure that because I have a lot of love for the French and I’m shown a lot of love back. I’m biased towards the French. I’ve heard people say things but to me they’ve always been cool, it’s more TV hype than anything else. People aren’t really pissed off at each other, maybe at each other’s governments but not each other.”
Skrufff: Who have you got from the UK?
RZA: “We have Skinny Man, Blade, Bronz N Black and Mr Tibbs; all on the album. It was bad news with Bronz N Black they did two songs, one with Ghostface, but I couldn’t find it until I’d finished mastering the album. So we’re going to try and release that as a bonus B side single for the UK, because Ghostface went great with those guys. It also shows the unity of American and UK hip hop. We also have Skinnyman on a track, who I think is a very dope, up and coming artist from here. He doesn’t try to be American with his style, he sticks to his roots, he has a perfect London English accent and he has his whole original character- he’s real hip hop.”
Skrufff: The UK hip hop scene still seems significantly smaller than the US, why do you think this is so?
RZA: “I was talking about this with Tim Westwood recently and we reckoned it’s because there’s not a lot of artists out here who are being supported by the record companies. We both thought the problem is because this is an English speaking country, it’s very simple for British people to understand American hip hop artists so therefore the record companies, who are based in America, focus on the artists with whom they’ve already got an investment with, ie American artists. You’ve got artists like Ms Dynamite breaking out, and a few groups breaking out here and there. One of the greatest hip hop rappers of all time, in fact, is a native of London and that’s Slick Rick.”
Skrufff: You’re the producer of this project, what did that involve in practical terms?
RZA: “We flew to seven or eight countries which involved a lot of planes, trains and automobiles. I stayed in lots of studios to record this album. It was almost like a tour but it was a really good experience. I actually recorded the whole record in 36 days. Then I had to go back home and fine tune it and add the American flavour. The European artists worked very fast, very well, they were hungry and ambitious and they actually rekindled my ambition. Lots of artists can’t make music without money no more, that happened to me at one point, I couldn’t make music unless a budget was on the table and you don’t want to get like that. For this album there was no money on the table, it was a struggle, it wasn’t in summer, it was done in a cold spring with lots of travelling. I’m also a vegetarian, so I had a very hard time getting a proper diet. But I did it and I loved every moment.”
Skrufff: The album’s called The World According to RZA, how do you see the state of the world?
RZA: “My album was originally called War because I’m having a war to break down these barriers people put up against each other. How can you have borders between four countries within a hundred miles, where people are separate and will try to kill each other if you cross this line. All it is about, is a small bunch of men in each of these places controlling the masses of the people. It’s like big gang banging. For real. I don’t really approve of it because we’re all the human family. It’s been told by many great prophets throughout history and many great civil rights teachers, people like Ghandi. Even if you look at people like Stalin or Hitler who were terrible in history, their idea was to unify the people as one. Unity is the key. The euro is an example of people trying to unify but they’re only trying to unify through the dollar and not through the heart and that’s another problem.
We’re knocking down all barriers and there’s no separation in hip hop, we’re not going to say there’s West Coast or East Coast hip hop, American hip hop or European hip hop, it’s got to be the movement of our generation, one hip hop. I like to say this quote; hip hop; the sound and soul of our generation, that’s my favourite quote.”
Skrufff: But the Wu Tang Clan also looked very much like a tribe?
RZA: “It’s OK to feel part of a tribe or part of a group but we should still have a basic common law. But what happens is that each place has its own laws on top of its traditions. Traditions are one thing and law another. The law has been given to us in books already by a group of great men already. If you go to Israel, they have a book of law, Moses left a book of law. Buddha had a book of law for the Chinese, Krishna had a book of law for the Indians. And all these laws are similar, if you read them they’re all talking about love each other, peace, take care of yourself, if you do bad shit bad shit will happen to you, it’s all the same laws. Native Americans had the same laws. People always try to use Government and ideology to overcome the natural law that’s already placed by God.”
RZA: “Puff Daddy and Mariah Carey recently demonstrated against America’s horrific drug laws, specifically New York’s anti-cannabis Rockerfeller Laws, where do you stand on it?
RZA: “I’m against those laws, should cannabis be legal? Of course it should be legal but controlled. Alcohol was illegal at one stage so they had gangsters and mobsters killing each other over who’s going to sell alcohol. It was still there, and it’s still the same drug now, but the government controls it now and it’s legal. These laws are just about a bunch of greedy old men finding a bunch of ways to oppress young men. They know that any young kid is going to experiment with alcohol, or marijuana or any drug that’s available, we all experiment and that’s the duty of life. When you see something like that, it means these old men are looking to incarcerate more young men in jail.
What’s happened in America is that there are more weed dealers than crack dealers because some kids don’t want to sell crack not only because of the strict laws against it but also because they’re starting to feel guilty about doing it. They feel guilty about what it causes. Everybody sells weed, fuck, I sell weed, you don’t feel guilty when you sell weed.. 60 to 70% of our country should go to jail if they really crack down on weed because that’s how many people in our country smoke it. The guy that just interviewed me was about 50 and he said he’d been smoking weed for 30 years, should he go to jail if they found some weed on him?”
Skrufff: how do you feel about the anti-tobacco laws in New York?
RZA: “I disagree with smoking tobacco inside parties, because smoking is a bad feeling, to breathe someone else’s smoke is horrible, there should definitely be designated smoking areas. I shouldn’t have to suffer your smoke, but if you want to smoke, smoke your life away. If weed is illegal, then tobacco should be illegal. Artificial colouring should be illegal. Artificial is proven to cause cancer.”
Skrufff: Hip hop seems plagued by ultra-violence again, why is it escalating again?
RZA: “As far as the violence is concerned, it escalates because it’s promoted. Hip hop is already a competitive sport naturally, it’s already a violent sport and it actually started out as a way to express violence without using violence, so the words have been violent for many years and very attacking. Hip hop was a way of expressing violence without inflicting physical violence on each other. But now the media’s got hold of it and taken it to another level. Then the artists start wanting to be so tough, everybody wants to be like Tupac, or Biggie, everybody wants to be what they ‘ain’’ so they act like that. A lot of the artists acting so tough and wanting to be gangstas are marsh mellows. If you see them they’re not the same person you see on TV. Then when they get money they act even more gangsta. It’s a lot of propaganda and bullshit. There’s always going to be some rawness. I remember when Wu Tang Clan used to come to the clubs and all those same artists would hide.But none of us are so tough. We all got a certain fear.
The sad part of it is the influence it has on the children, because the children do believe these guys are tough. You might think Sylvester Stallone really can fight like Rocky but it’s just a movie, it’s imagination. Or Chuck Norris, or Steven Segal. They’re actors. Look at Al Pacino, he was Scarface then in Dogday Afternoon he played a gay bank robber. When kids watch Scarface they go crazy for Al Pacino. I’m a patriot, but America is a place that was born out of violence. So therefore, if they don’t realise that and move away from violence they’ll be destroyed by it.”
The World According to RZA is out now on Virgin Records.
http://www.wutangclan.com (Wu Tang Clan)
by: Benedetta Skrufff (Skrufff.com)
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