Author Topic: Interview: Wu-Tang Clan's RZA Talks Black Eyed Peas, the Beatles (Read 142 times)

Elano · « **on:** August 23, 2007, 10:26:37 AM »

Although Wu-Tang Clan's essential debut album, Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers), came out nearly 14 years ago, nobody has been able to replicate the group's unique combination of out-there rhymes and dark-alley production. So anticipation is still high for their forthcoming 8 Diagram LP, due in November. Look out for an upcoming interview with RZA about the album in the next issue Blender but, in the meantime, here are some bonus bits we couldn't fit into the magazine. The rapper/actor/producer talked about inter-crew tensions, the death of ODB and sampling the Beatles.

Blender: Was there ever a time when you had to tell someone their verse needed work in the studio while working on 8 Diagram?
RZA: On this album, Raekwon took on the personal duty of being the bad guy. He was shooting down a lot of verses. The motherfucker who got shot down would come in the next day and say, "What happened to my verse?" I be like, "Yo..." and he'd say, "Oh, you let fat boy tell you about it, huh? Fuck that shit!" Rae did that to me on one song too, he said, "That song ain't for you right there, that's for the guerrillas."

B: Does that kind of thing still get to you at this point?
R: It still gets to you as an MC. The reason why it gets to you is because over time you come to find your own crew don't know why your fans like you. Who knows why all the girls wanna fuck Meth? You never see what make a nigga so popular and powerful. So since everybody's comfortable in themselves it's hard for a person to hear "that verse ain't no good." It's like, "You don't know what you're talking about because my fans love my shit." There was one song we was doing ... I made this beat in California, I was in the studio with a whole bunch of people from Dre's camp and they were like, "That shit is phat, yo." So I presented it to the Wu. Boom: U-God jumps right on it, he can't resist it. Then Meth jumps on but while Meth is on it Rae enters the studio. Meth's doing his verse, mind you. Rae's like, "What's that shit, that's some Black Eyed Peas shit!" And I'm like, "Yo, this nigga's on some funny shit." I was like, "Black Eyes Peas sold three million, son! You better hope you on some Black Eyed Peas shit if you trying to get it crackin'!"

B: Is that song going to be on the album?
R: I don't know. I played it for some label people the other day and they was loving it. It's called "Strength in Numbers."

B: Did you get any unexpected visitors while recording the album?
R: My man Clive Owen popped up in the studio just to have a drink — he left Paul McCartney's party to do that.

B: Tell us about the track you guys made based on the Beatles' "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" with John Frusciante and George Harrison's son Dhani on guitar.
R: A lot of rock and roll guitarists over the years got caught in dope and heroin and dope has been a very popular and powerful in the black community since the '60s and '70s. It's making a strong comeback in many communities in new forms like ecstasy. So instead of "my guitar gently weeps" I wanted to take the idea of something weeping — your vein or your soul — and apply it to this song. On it, Raekwon gives you the perspective of the thug in the street watching all these people destroy themselves on dope. He's weeping at the destruction he sees around him. Ghostface is the dope dealer — he sold somebody some bad dope and they died from the shit and his family wants to kill him. But he's still got drugs to sell. Meth is the lover of the victim, in a way. It's a totally different take on the Beatles song.

B: Are there any memorable lyrics from the album you can spit right now?
R: There's this one song called "Half A Billion" where my shit is kinda funny and racist: "Blitz like the Green Bay Packers/ Sack like the linebackers/ Then hang with niggas like redneck crackers/ And strangle cold bottles of Becks like a vexed German/ Duck low behind my car with my tech burnin'." It's hardcore.

B: We heard there was a chance Ghostface wasn't going to be on 8 Diagram, is that true?
R: Yeah. I heard 20 rumors from his manager, from his lawyers, all kind of bullshit but the bottom line was I didn't see him. After one face to face meeting he was in the studio the next day. I was like, "Yo, let's get it crackin', it's that time." And he was like, "Yeah." Ghost is a super major part of Wu-Tang, it was just me and him talking in the beginning. I couldn't really imagine doing it without him in real life but that's something I had to face. I couldn't imagine doing it without ODB but I have no choice. This is the first album since 36 Chambers that nobody got no money put in their hand to do it, they just did it.
B: Do you think 8 Diagram would have come about if ODB was still alive?
R: Yeah, that night before he passed we talked about getting together and putting everything else on the side. He's not here but his son's here to give us some of the energy. We're working on his son's album. We're not trying to take him back to our chamber. He didn't grow up in that chamber — he doesn't understand that chamber. He's got his father's personality and performance ability but he lives in Atlanta so he's rocking dirty south songs. Right now we call him Young DB but I think I'm gonna choose a different name from his father because I don't want him to go that route.