KingsOfKings
❄️ 𝟐𝟐𝟕, 𝖂𝖍𝖊𝖗𝖊 𝖜𝖊 𝕬𝖙 𝖂𝖎𝖙𝖍 𝕴𝖙! ❄️
RZA is many things—founder of the Wu-Tang Clan and a hip-hop pioneer, a Hollywood power player, an entrepreneur and spiritual motivator with a taste for Korean vegan food—but before it all, he’s a nerd at heart.
Before the shoot, he immediately begins searching not based on titles, but on the identification numbers on each film’s spine, and re-emerges with two choices: a box set spotlighting the work of actor, athlete, and political activist Paul Robeson and the 1959 legal drama Anatomy of a Murder. On camera, his choices are a combination of things you’d expect—a Bruce Lee greatest hits collection, Jim Jarmusch’s Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai (RZA composed the score for it)—and a smattering of classics across eras and genres. He speaks on writer-director John Cassavetes as affectionately as he does Godzilla, hitting loose martial arts poses and ending thoughts with his signature call of “bong bong.” As he makes his final choices, he asks the staff and me if we have any recommendations for Japanese films. I suggest a recent favorite: Masahiro Shinoda’s 1979 folk-horror movie Demon Pond. Into the tote bag it goes. “I don’t normally accept gifts,” RZA tells the staff as we’re about to leave, eager to take the 8-disc Godzilla set home to his son, “but this is a special one for me. Thank you so much.
Film was integral to the life of the man born Robert Fitzgerald Diggs years before he picked up a microphone. As a youth running the streets of 1980s New York, he and his cousin Russell Tyrone “Ol’ Dirty b*stard” Jones would spend weekends taking in kung fu flicks at theaters around 42nd Street. Samples from several of those films pop up throughout Wu-Tang’s 1993 full-length debut album Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers), meshing well with the dingy waterlogged beats RZA conjured for himself and his eight bandmates. There was a filmic quality to both his production process and the music it birthed, which manifested in both The Wu’s growing global dominance and RZA’s eventual breakthrough into Hollywood.
Ghost Dog was his first time working on a movie in any capacity, but his first time as something close to a director came in 1998 when he self-financed a short based on his album Bobby Digital In Stereo. He found it a bit “embarrassing” at first, mainly because he was more a glorified producer with notes than an actual director, but eventually screened it one time that year at the Staten Island Film Festival. It would be several years, albums, and lesser acting roles before he’d get his shot at directing proper with 2012’s kung fu epic The Man with the Iron Fists, which he directed and scored, and co-wrote with horror filmmaker Eli Roth. A student of John Woo and Quentin Tarantino as much as hip-hop, RZA found a way to bring his two worlds together, unlocking the next step in his creative evolution.
Today, those worlds are converging at a nexus point for RZA’s legacy. He’s on the verge of premiering One Spoon of Chocolate, his fourth film and first as a full-blown producer as well as writer-director, at the Tribeca Film Festival. He’s also less than two weeks away from the start of Wu-Tang Forever: The Final Chamber, a 27-date Wu-Tang Clan farewell arena tour featuring every living member. That’s a lot of pressure for anyone, but as we make our way from Criterion to a taping of the MSNBC program The Beat with Ari Melber, RZA is all smiles and good energy. In a checkered blue blazer and a flat cap any Black uncle would be proud to rock, he speaks often of people’s “chi,” and the Five-Percenter slang he’s trafficked in for nearly 40 years (“a-alike,” “build,” “overstand”) slips as easily into his business calls as it does into his casual conversations. At once, he’s both the man responsible for hip-hop’s most prestigious group and a fly, affable 55-year-old entrepreneur still chasing the cream and a dream. Below are excerpts from the handful of conversations RZA and I had over lunch and on the way to his other press appearan
More here:
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Before the shoot, he immediately begins searching not based on titles, but on the identification numbers on each film’s spine, and re-emerges with two choices: a box set spotlighting the work of actor, athlete, and political activist Paul Robeson and the 1959 legal drama Anatomy of a Murder. On camera, his choices are a combination of things you’d expect—a Bruce Lee greatest hits collection, Jim Jarmusch’s Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai (RZA composed the score for it)—and a smattering of classics across eras and genres. He speaks on writer-director John Cassavetes as affectionately as he does Godzilla, hitting loose martial arts poses and ending thoughts with his signature call of “bong bong.” As he makes his final choices, he asks the staff and me if we have any recommendations for Japanese films. I suggest a recent favorite: Masahiro Shinoda’s 1979 folk-horror movie Demon Pond. Into the tote bag it goes. “I don’t normally accept gifts,” RZA tells the staff as we’re about to leave, eager to take the 8-disc Godzilla set home to his son, “but this is a special one for me. Thank you so much.
Film was integral to the life of the man born Robert Fitzgerald Diggs years before he picked up a microphone. As a youth running the streets of 1980s New York, he and his cousin Russell Tyrone “Ol’ Dirty b*stard” Jones would spend weekends taking in kung fu flicks at theaters around 42nd Street. Samples from several of those films pop up throughout Wu-Tang’s 1993 full-length debut album Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers), meshing well with the dingy waterlogged beats RZA conjured for himself and his eight bandmates. There was a filmic quality to both his production process and the music it birthed, which manifested in both The Wu’s growing global dominance and RZA’s eventual breakthrough into Hollywood.
Ghost Dog was his first time working on a movie in any capacity, but his first time as something close to a director came in 1998 when he self-financed a short based on his album Bobby Digital In Stereo. He found it a bit “embarrassing” at first, mainly because he was more a glorified producer with notes than an actual director, but eventually screened it one time that year at the Staten Island Film Festival. It would be several years, albums, and lesser acting roles before he’d get his shot at directing proper with 2012’s kung fu epic The Man with the Iron Fists, which he directed and scored, and co-wrote with horror filmmaker Eli Roth. A student of John Woo and Quentin Tarantino as much as hip-hop, RZA found a way to bring his two worlds together, unlocking the next step in his creative evolution.
Today, those worlds are converging at a nexus point for RZA’s legacy. He’s on the verge of premiering One Spoon of Chocolate, his fourth film and first as a full-blown producer as well as writer-director, at the Tribeca Film Festival. He’s also less than two weeks away from the start of Wu-Tang Forever: The Final Chamber, a 27-date Wu-Tang Clan farewell arena tour featuring every living member. That’s a lot of pressure for anyone, but as we make our way from Criterion to a taping of the MSNBC program The Beat with Ari Melber, RZA is all smiles and good energy. In a checkered blue blazer and a flat cap any Black uncle would be proud to rock, he speaks often of people’s “chi,” and the Five-Percenter slang he’s trafficked in for nearly 40 years (“a-alike,” “build,” “overstand”) slips as easily into his business calls as it does into his casual conversations. At once, he’s both the man responsible for hip-hop’s most prestigious group and a fly, affable 55-year-old entrepreneur still chasing the cream and a dream. Below are excerpts from the handful of conversations RZA and I had over lunch and on the way to his other press appearan
More here:
”