Rza Okp new interview (*talks about his new projects,Inspektah Deck,Rae,Ghost)

[Elano]

The RZA is a cold beast! His body of work attests to it. The breadth and depth of his work goes well beyond that of the typical producer/rapper. He’s worked on movie scores (Kill Bill I & II, Ghostdog, and Blade among others), acted alongside Denzel Washington, produced for pop and alternative music’s elite, and contributed to developing the Wu brand to conglomerate status. And, oh yeah, he also helped to assemble what many believe is the greatest hip-hop collective ever with the venerable Wu-tang Clan.

All the while he’s kept the Wu ensemble on pretty much the same page over the last 16 years to the tune of roughly 20 million album sales. Most crews that tried to copy the Wu-Tang crew’s blueprint barely held things together for a year or two. No one could capture the chemistry, loyalty, and overall skill-set that this collective exhibited. Of course there were bumps in the road, but the Wu always came back to re-form like Voltron.

OKP’s Mel Blunt recently spoke with the RZA to get the scoop on the Afro Samurai 2: Resurrection project and what really goes on in the mind of a true master.

OKP: Tell me something about the Afro Samurai 2 soundtrack that defines RZA 2009.

RZA: It’s stuff on there that’s classic from the ‘92 to ‘93 era, songs like “War,” where I took that beat, off the Wu Killer Bee album--we never rapped on it before. The song features Kool G Rap, Ghostface, and myself. At the same time you hear songs like “Family Affair” with Sly Stone who is definitely a classic artist. The production on that cut is more futuristic. One moment I’m in the past and the next moment I’m years ahead. You can time-travel with my music.

OKP: How did you choose the artists for this project?

RZA: Well on the first Afro Samurai project I came with Talib, Big Daddy Kane, and the GZA; we even had Q-Tip from A Tribe Called Quest. Those brothers represented the pureness of hip-hop, the Afrocentric vibe as well as a raw street vibe. I wanted to capture some of the same elements on this project, but the female antagonist, [Cio] played by Lucy Liu, was like the main focus of the episode. It was all about Cio coming back and raising Afro.

I had to find a female emcee who could be pretty and deadly at the same time. That’s what I found in Rah Digga. I knew that I was going to have Rah Digga on it [Afro Samurai 2 soundtrack] while the script was still in development, before they started the animation. I reached out to her eight months before we did the soundtrack. I told her that I had something that I wanted her to do. These things [project development] take a little time to come to fruition given the time needed to create the animation, and compose the score. The soundtrack came last.

When the time came, and I had some footage to show her, I flew her to Cali and spent a couple of weeks with her, and we put in work.

OKP:You’ve worked with or contributed tracks to some of the top or most popular female emcees in the game; L-boogie, Charlie Baltimore, and Rah Diggah. Were there any near misses on potential projects with other female emcess or singers?

My first song that I attempted to write for, when I was like 15 or16, was Roxanne Shante.

OKP: What?

RZA: Word! Back when I was a young buck and my cousin GZA was signed to Cold Chillin and my manager Melquan was cool with Fly Ty and em’. I had a chance to write a couple of songs for her demo them, but they were never released.

As a producer, after Roxanne Shante, my company worked with a female named Entice. We also had The Venomz signed to Wu-Tang Records. I like to do whatever the times call for. Like now I’m working on the remake of The Last Dragon and you say who could be cast or who should we be thinking about putting in this movie? Who could make sense for our time and still keep it classic? I think like that. I try to figure what character or what energy could fit the vibe of my project. And on Afro Samurai 2, I felt Rah Digga was the female, who . . . you watch her in her videos, she always came out with the tough voice, she’d always have some good punch lines, yet she looked like a lady.

Then also on the record, you know I chose Kool G Rap. The reason I chose him was because on the last Afro Samurai I had GZA and Big Daddy Kane. That’s like me as an emcee, as a producer, and as a fan of hip-hop just wanting to hear these two dudes on a track. That’s the same thing with G-Rap and Ghostface, or G-Rap and Deck.

Deck is one of the most underrated emcees in the game.

OKP: Deck, now that’s my dude.

RZA: Yeah he’s a master, he still he doesn’t get that full type recognition. Now if they do a top 50 emcees list and they don’t have Deck up there, they must be crazy.

OKP: One thing I’ve noticed with Deck is that he’s like your lead-off hitter.

RZA: Yeah exactly, that motherfucker gets on base. And so I figure let’s get G Rap, who’s like a godfather to a lot of emcees; lets get Deck, who most emcees respect, but sometimes overlook; then add me and Ghost. We listened to G-Rap back in our street days. Then again, I just jumped on it just because I can.

OKP: Is there anything artistically on the Afro Samurai 2 project that you think needs explanation for fear of flying over some listeners’ heads?

RZA: You really shouldn’t have to explain art, but people have to understand that this is a soundtrack to an animated series. I made all of the music for animated scenes. Yet some of the themes of the project were not intended to be songs. Like on “Dead Birds,” we have Killah Priest, who’s also a dope emcee, and Prodigal Sun from Sunz of Man.

They spit over a rock and roll beat with my man Shavo Odadjian from System of a Down playing the guitar. The idea of that, when you watch the series you’ll see a scene when the same beat comes on and it makes the whole fuckin’ scene exciting.

Now making a rap out of it was not an easy job, but I put it together, they came in and tried something, but it doesn’t fit into the whole hip-hop vein, so that’s an experiment.

But one song …Cio’s theme, she wanted to kill Samurai for her family for her brother. That’s why I recorded that song and put it on the soundtrack.

There are some things, if you don’t watch the series and you’re not into the characters that you might not be able to relate to. You may not comprehend why I made a song of it or why this song came after that song. It all fits into the Afro Samurai picture.

OKP: Did you get to work with or build creatively with Sam “Mutherfuckin” Jackson?

RZA: Not really, we didn’t have to check on each other on nothing more than just promoting the project together, sharing a few laughs together, and talking together. He’s a totally independent master at what he does, and I’m a totally independent master at what I do. In fact, there was an incident during episode I, when somebody was bragging about me, and they said, “Rza did all of this in one night, he took the music to another level, he made the trailer so beautiful and saved the day.” Sam said “that what he’s supposed to do nuh!”

He was basically saying if RZA said he could hold that sword, then he better be able to hold that sword. That’s respect, as well as his way of complementing me.

OKP: Do you have creative input into the Afro Samurai brand?

RZA: The director, Bob Osaki, is a big fan as well as a friend. We became friends over the last four years. It’s the little things that you’ll see on the project that you know come from me. Some of the animation is made to fit the music. When the ninja dies in episode I, he does the hand signal to Afro. That hand signal is the same one that I use when I leave Japan, when I leave the meetings. When they included that, they sent me an e-mail that said this is a gesture from the director for how much respect he has for you. You’ll also see that they have a DJ with the Bobby Digital mask on. I also did the voice for the DJ character. That was the director’s way of incorporating my spirit into the project beyond the music.

I was brought into this project before it became a cartoon, when it was just a pamphlet of a few drawings and some potential contributors that we felt could make this a solid American/Japanese production.

OKP: Wu-Tang revolutionized the game in terms of allowing individuals to sign independent solo deals although they were signed as a group with Wu-Tang Clan. It seems like that would be conducive for financial harmony. However, it seems that there is some dissension in regard to finances among the Wu ranks lately.

RZA: It’s always going to be like that, Wu-tang was like that before we became world-wide hip-hop stars. Just like in the hood. Plus most of us are from two different housing projects as well. One minute you don’t know if Rae and Ghost are going to shoot each other, because one is from Park Hill and the other is from Stapleton; the next minute, they’re the tightest dudes in the world. So that comes from having years of friendship. A lot of us have been friends for 25 years.

So that shit goes up and down and everybody’s got their opinions and shit. At one point every opinion was my opinion, because at that point I was the best thrower, I was the one who had the most experience, but now that everyone else has grown, they voice their opinions. Sometimes their opinions are right, sometimes they’re wrong. The same goes for me, but sometimes it’s a matter of perception. When it comes to what I do, I do it how I do it yo, and that’s how I do!

If music was compared to a drug, you have green weed and you have brown weed. You want green weed and that’s what I sell, that’s what I got man. If you were in the mood for brown weed, don’t get mad at me, I don’t have the brown, all I have is the green.

I think that was the case with 8 Diagrams; brothers were looking for a certain flavor. It’s not that I can’t produce that flavor, but this is what I’m making for the Wu fans. I’ve done songs with people from Bjork to Bono; from rock-n-roll people to soul people; from B.I.G. to all types of people who I’ve produced for. For Wu, I always thought it was spiritual, I always felt that it had to have a certain twang, that’s why I do it that way.

OKP: Now is this dissension just a family squabble or something deeper?

RZA: Every time you get a family squabble it comes from individualistic people. It comes from an individual making a mistake and not realizing the root of the mistake. I’ve never messed up any of my brother’s money, that’s one thing that I’ve never done.

If you go back and check from my side of the story, I recently heard about an interview concerning all of that money talk and that shit was just a myth. A lot of brothers realized it and apologized to me personally for that, but not publicly for that.

RZA Mathematics

RZA: But the whole thing is G, I don’t have your damn money. In a nutshell, let’s take Raekwon for instance, OK he has a platinum album, Cuban Links, he has a gold album, Immobilarity, and he has the success from the Wu Tang Albums, OK. Now you put that all together. A Wu tang album is split between 10 dudes, now that’s a hard count. Let’s say altogether, Rae sold 1.5 million records. I share writing credit with him. I went platinum with him on Cuban Links, I had 50 percent of every song on that one. But even though I have a cut of those 1 million sales, I also have 50 percent of an additional 2 million records I sold with Method Man. As a matter of fact he went double platinum twice, that’s 4 more million records I’ve got a cut of. So now I’ve got a piece of 5 million records, you’re [Raekwon] still at million.

Now I’ve got another million records that I did with Ghost, now that’s 6 million records that I share credit on. Then I’ve got another million with GZA; another million with Dirty, another million with Grave Diggaz, another million with Bobby Digital. So the bottom line is that my workload is heavy, my output is heavy. So maybe Raekwon has 150 songs in his catalog—I have 600 songs in my catalog.

I think brothers aren’t realizing—they’ll take a look and say how come after all of these years, why do I have more or less than what they have. It’s because of my work yo, it aint’ because I’ve got your shit. What’s yours is yours, what’s mine is mine. I put in so much work yo. It’s common sense. It won’t seem like common sense if he’s [Raekwon] only evaluating his work with me.

And Inspektah Deck could say “well look at me.” Well Deck, you only have one gold record besides the Wu projects. I’ve got gold Grave Diggaz albums to match that, I’ve got two as a matter of fact. I’ve got a gold Bobby digital album to match that. So it’s like in my producing/rapping career, I’ve sold more records than you as a rapper, I don’t mean nothing against him.

Then to take it to another level, we sold 1.7 million Kill Bill Soundtracks on part I, another 700,000 on part II. Blade went gold in four or five different countries. I’m involved with movies that gross $120 million at the box office. I’ve been doing that since 2001. So when the other brothers are not having the same success, they’re like “how come the god is still holding his weight?”

It’s not because of what I did with Wu, that’s some of the weight. The rest comes from my continuation of work. I think that’s where the brothers got it twisted. Now when they’re talking to their lawyer or their manager, they’ve got to have an imagination about it. With that, it won’t be the truth.

It’s not Louds’s problem or Universal’s problem that 10 dudes are splitting $1 million. If it was all going to one dude, he’d be like a Mother . . .So we’re coming together to do this. Now on the last album, of which I feel really disrespected because brothers were griping about money, I took way less than market value for my beats. I’m talking $20,000 less than what I normally get.

I told Rae I worked on that album for eight months. Now I made a Belvedere commercial that took two days to produce. I made the same amount of money on each venture.

I can’t exploit my value with my brothers. I was telling Rae, you and Ghost, you may have done a verse and got paid for your services. You get four or five verses on a project, you’re straight. You get paid more from me that you would charge a N%$&* in the street!

You can’t overlook those things, but you know, with such a big world and with so many different people in our ears—nah it’s Wu-Tang forever! Every time the flag goes up I’m there. I’m quite sure that all the brothers feel like that, at the end of the day. Because we still tour together, you’ll see Cuban Links II is coming out.

OKP: What’s your involvement with Cuban Links II?

I’ve got songs on it, I produced some songs on there. Really the bulk of the album was produced under my reins. I let Rae take it and do what he wants with it. On the business side of it you know what? You can handle the business, because you know I had a hook-up at Aftermath, he had a hook-up as well, but you know I consolidated the hook-up.

OKP: I understand that Busta Rhymes was involved at some point.

RZA: Yeah Busta was involved, but now Rae’s handling business himself, he has his own company. And just as an example, I came out of pocket big time to contribute to Rae’s project before we got the deal. But at the end of the day I gave it to him. So when it goes down in March, it aint like he can say he paid me X amount of dollars. Rza actually invested in major elements of his project. So I’m like don’t have people thinking some other shit, because I’m a nuh’ that invested in you, and after I invested, I still let you walk with it. I want to see the best for you [Rae] and your family.

We never really need to argue, you know people always take sides.

Just a warning—Raekwon’s pen is on fire!

[RETURN OF THE OVERFIEND!]

good read. props for posting.

[MediumL]

great read, sounds like OB4CL II is stilll set for march

[Jaydc555]

Good stuff.rza definitely was on point with everything he said

[stillinrehab]

Good stuff.rza definitely was on point with everything he said

Hell yes... I have read two or three articles now and his story doesnt change one bit and so you know he is the truth!

Cant wait for OBCL II !

[RETURN OF THE OVERFIEND!]

^word. the man obviously works hard.

[jeromechickenbone]

Dope read.  I'm glad RZA clarified all the money issues...I literally listened to 8 diagrams once, and I don't even remember if I made it the whole way through.  Just wasn't feeling the vibe of the album. 

[Jaydc555]

I enjoyed 8 diagrams it was good.method man and raekwon sounded the best they've come in years