Intro
[Music]
tetron when I finish man with the iron fist mhm my next film is supposed to be one
The Story of 'One Spoon of Chocolate’
spoon of chocolate and I remember going to the universal and pitching some ideas
and the one that uh Adam fuson thought was cool was one spoon of chocolate and
so I was like okay I'll start writing it and got stuck and it wasn't
until I was on a tour with the New York Cate of mind with nas that um I started
writing it again then I was like I’m going to do it did something trigger it
what do you think allowed it to happen then where it didn't happen before I think it was you know you go
Challenges and Inspirations
back through your old lyrics and your old things I think it was like cuz I don't know if it's a timе because it's
actually pretty dark film it sounds simplе but it it has some strong racial connotations in it as well and I don't
really feel that type of I don't feel that personally I'm kind of more naive to it than sensitive to it but my in my
writing and in my ideas of my characters is very very prevalent it’s like why do
you think I think I think as an artist I’ve always been uh able
to put descriptions of life in art whether I agreed or disagreed with it I
think that's been one of my abilities as a as an artist like not knowing that at first you know you never know what you
are in beginning but as As Time kept going it’s like you know what I'm a transmitter I'm a instrument
I'm the conduit you know what I mean and the funny thing is some of the stuff that’s
in my film there's articles about the subject matter just appearing like yeah
it was like oh okay so maybe there was something to that like sometime we're just like you getting messages just from
around you that related to the film yeah and how long had the film been dormant at that time film was sitting there
sitting for almost 13 years until last year on the tour bus I always planned
the right on the tour bus though like that's my plan I'm going to get a bus I'm going to write something and it was
this and me and my wife s son sitting right beside me and know blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah and
she said I'm going to help you produce it because you know I had to go to her to make sure that uh I could use some of
our own finances and she agreed okay so so tell
me what's the story the basis of the story is a man who you know there's some
Plot and Characters
military service for the country but he's in you know we meet him coming out of jail and he has no family nowhere to go
it's only family is his cousin who lives in Ohio but in that town there's so much
corruption and such an undertone of Insidious behavior and he ends up stumbling into
it and he this is a guy that you know the line they tell him is
uh here's the trans for I pour some strengths to get you there Ramy so I
believe you got potential Soldier stay out of trouble he's like trouble is the
last thing on my mind and all and all he finds is trouble you know after some
good times it just goes bad bad bad bad bad and was he participating in the
troubles or was he just seeing it he's the he become him his family and friends you know the girl the girl they become
victims of the trouble wow you know and when you become victim of trouble you
know you either got to accept being a victim yeah or maybe you got to be the
hero you know there's a line you know you got three years for assault and battery he said yeah for beating up my
neighbor's drunk husband who was always beating up on her he's like yeah but you put that man
in the coma so you got another extra year here for breaking an inmates jaw yeah he was
a a bully yeah Al so what are you some hero no I'm not a hero you know I S my
time I you know but so it's like he's not a hero but he is a hero he's put in
these positions where he has to defend himself or the people around him and
he's vilified for that right but it sounds like we'll be on his side when we're watching it yeah yeah yeah we
going yeah exactly exactly how did you find the people to be in it oh when I
Casting and Production
was writing it I knew when when I picked the pin back up yeah I knew who I wanted to be uh the lead and you got that
person yes who was it it was a young man named shamik Moore mhm so shamik uh this
is the second film with me third project he played rayquan in my TV series his
first movie was a movie called dope where he was you know just a young comedic type kid he's the voice of
Spider-Man in the spiderverse but to me he's a very strong actually
conduit chameleon type type of actor like right now you got a comedies out some type of romantic comedy where he's
just a silly crazy guy but this is a serious total opposite total opposite
and I know he has that ability CU When I did I did another film with him called cutw City we made it to number one on
Netflix so great I knew that okay well our energy works yeah people responded
to it but in when we was doing that movie you know he broke some stereotypes
for me because in in this movie cut through City I was like okay you're going to come home from after doing the robbery him
and his friends you're going to come in shirt off you going to have the gun you're going to walk in you know to your
bedroom your wife going to wake up and blah blah you're going to put the gun down you're going to tell her what happen he was like well how do I hold
the gun he never held a gun before W you see what I mean yeah and I was like well
you know my day okay so I was like well look you hold it like this and you load it like I said your gun is like a
fallace in all reality you got to treat it as such it's a symbol of power it's
like Two Nuts in a dick at the end of the day it has it has that and you load it up but seeing his innocence yeah and
then seeing his performance I said this kid is this kid is great and so you know
when I did The wuang Saga I called him I said yo he's the only one who didn't audition yeah I said I got I'm doing
this TV show want to know if you're valuable it's take us some years of your life but I got something I would love
for you to join he was like yeah just let me know OG they call me OG and [ __ ] I don't know if I like
OG but you've earned it you've earned it but anyway so then uh yeah so now
he's in this one and the last thing I'll say about it is so we shot it and now we in post production I showed my first cut
to the ca team this weekend and a few other people and getting great responses
you know I still got to you know sandpaper it down and shape it up but uh
Independent Filmmaking
why did you decide to produce it yourself instead of raise money and then make it that way uh I just wanted to do
it yeah you know even the ballet right just wanted to do it man it's like so
much of my life has been paid to do [ __ ] or hired to do something and I just
first of all blessed that I can make a decision to do it yeah to do stuff you know but yeah it's like yo I love that
you did it's just rare that people do that yeah it's just I'm in that phase
yeah I'm in that phase of life it's just like just do it yeah what you going to do because at the end of the
day you know we've definitely had success in our lives we've definitely been blessed we
know that we can never stop counting that but then we also know that we vessels of art so what I'm supposed to
do just sit back and wait for someone and say hey come paint me something or do I go out there and paint it you know
man go already cut is z off for some [ __ ] like that pay for some whatever to
keep going right I remember Robert Rodriguez one him one of the early
mentors for me in film far as you know reading this book and spending some time with him in the early 2000s he sold his
skin to build up money to make his first he was there was buying skin for some
college thing he go in and get get his money and wow yeah and then he become
one of these guys who create all these movies that inspires the whole gen you don't you don't get you don't get so
many things if you don't get Robert Ras you know what I mean you don't even get Spy Kids right which brings back a lot
of our actors and Latin actors that was out of the business we re resurged them
right you don't get Antonio his stuff completely outside of the system totally
with his own studio in Austin so beautiful yeah and that's and even though I'm starting a little late yeah
yeah that's my vision the VIS cool it's a good model yeah it's a good
model and it worked we saw it work yeah you know so you keep it tight in terms of
crew and stuff I imagine well you still got to deal with the system so the
Union Challenges and Filming Abroad
system is the system right I'm a union man and so I got to play by the union rules and I do and so because of the
system it's always going to be tough tough to do it here in in in in America but being a union man and being
how different is it to do it in other places than America a no Union you could go to London and and and and cut your
price down by 20% 25% is that why a lot of people also filming like
Vancouver yeah well Vancouver you might still get caught with the Union where Vancouver has a strong tax incentive and
then the dollar is a little stronger so that's that but you can't duck you won't be able to duck the unions in the whole
North America I think see because I just did a film you know the studio system is a studio
system yeah which is like I'm a union man so I don't have no problem with the Union
but it does you know just to answer your question it does force us to you can't
have a small crew you need a guy that's operating the camera a
guy that's pulling the focus a guy that's controlling the light like you need the four people when
independently that could be two people you know what I mean and for every camera that you
got you need that amount of people so three cameras mean 12 12 to 16 people
now 12 to 16 people man you got to deal with Union fringes because they got to
get their Medicaid and all that other stuff and that's your course for your portion of time that you're buying the
is so the fringes are the things that really kill us in America and the studios they've always been fighting
against it I don't think Studios should fight against it in the sense that because their profit margin and their
business model and what they've gained over the course of the commodity that they created this is the only way they
can give back is by making sure somebody could get their teeth fix and go to the doctor but on an independent level it
stops independent films you know my other buddy did this film your first film you
made independently or no no my first one I did was made with a Studio but they
did it as a I did it in China so only people had Union was the team of people
I brought over so I have 400 people working for us only 20 of us were Union
men I see yeah so which was another way of doing it was it difficult hiring the
team in China the China I had a DP who had the I
hired him right after he had the number one movie in the country country wow and now he's M right wow
and he was dissatisfied with some [ __ ] you know cuz they you know everybody got
their things right and they was putting some pressure on him I was like why you taking it yeah like you got the number
one movie so man a thousand guys waiting to take my job so that's the difference there see
in our world in the Director's Guild you're not going to find even 5,000 people
right yeah it's a much shorter list yeah and his thing it might be 150,000 people
and nobody's in the union yeah you know what I mean so he was like he he took
everything he had he was eating like I said yo come eat the lunch with us we I you know I kind of had a whole kitchen
built yeah we had caded food you sit down had the guy holding the napkin for lunch wow you know CU you know the money
was it went far out there yeah but most of my crew
their lunch comes in a truck and you don't know what it is it's like a school lunch like open it oh okay you eat and
you go to work but so for my actors who were some Legends too I had legendary actors in my book Gordon L chinwan Thai
or Kong these guys for me these are the guys that I sampled or watched their movies that's so now here in my movie
and I had them all come to eat lunch with the director yeah and they was like
it was the best lunch they ever had on the set we had steak fish uh veggie burgers I
had vegan food amazing had to lay it out so that sounds great that was that was
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[Music] nicotine.in warning this product
contains nicotine nicotine is an addictive chemical who is Prince
Prince Rakim and Knowledge of Self
Rakin yeah Prince Rakin well now he's my son right he's the my son is the
physical embodiment of that because he's born with it but it was something that I discovered
my name became Prince raim at the age of 11 and um and you gave yourself the name
gave myself the name you know if I could try to explain it to myself I know the
inspiration then you know my cousin n jiz had knowledge of self he gave me knowledge of self and had me study
mathematics and and it opened my mind made everything else around me even more
comprehensible you know I never forget the day he gave me the mathematics right I'm walking home from Park Hill Staten
Island to stabon you can give it to you in a day uh the first 10 10 Concepts
which is knowledge wisdom understanding so he had that all in the in the zerox paper back then right and you get that
as like this is your first lesson and you study that you you got to memorize
these and I'mma memorize a guy like my brain is like that yeah but I'm walking
home in the first lesson says knowledge knowledge is to know look listen observe
also respect knowledge is to know the ledge so you don't fall off the edge
it's the basic Foundation of everything in creation like the sun is the foundation of the solar system that's
knowledge and wisdom is the manifestation of
knowledge it's knowledge and activation it's the experience it's wise words
spoken by a wise man to wise the Dome it's also symbolic to the
woman right so these things are my first lessons right and then I'm walking home
and I live in Stapleton but I live on the same street as this big church right I'm staying with my
grandmother at this time and I walk by the church and the lady is handing out pamphlets and she hands me a Jesus
Christ pamphlet where it says Jesus Christ the bread of Christ it says eat
the bread of Christ to nourish your soul now just by having knowledge no
look and observe and respect I respect what it was so I memorize that as well
and so these different principles of knowledge and spirituality all start to
start flooding me at the same time I just seen 36 Chambers of sh in that yeah so it's like all this is was going
through me so becoming Prince Rock King you know my father wasn't
present I think the prince came from me saying that naturally I should be the son of a king and when I grew up I'll be
a king and my son will be a prince so this is like the natural mind that my mind had so maybe a spoonful of it as
imagination right but it's like this is what I wanted and rim there was no Rakim
like there was a ra Kim right there was a ra king with a k i n g but there was
no rck King that had that name and actually it was like it's not a proper
name because there's actually not a Rakim in Arabic or in the Quran or nowhere according to what was told to me
at that time I say this it's it's original and therefore Rakim means to be
original and I'm a prince you know what I mean and that and that became me this
is from AG of 11 by the time you know I shareed with the public I become Prince raim the MC how old are you then when
you're the MC I mean I think I've let it be my MC name around the age of 16
before then even though I had knowledge of self I had various MC names that was different than my righteous name would
you say when the names change the Rhymes change yes I think that the art finds
this I call it attribute so at the end of the day between
11 to my physical age now I definitely had over 16 different
attributes I had made a joke I I don't know if I could keep saying this wasn't a joke but I can say it to you one I say
it this the last time I said it I was saying I had created this maybe two years ago that I am autistically
schizophrenia uh my friend Sophia Chang said don't say that anymore you are very curious and you
seek out you always yearning for more expression so I would use the word curiosity versus schizophrenia cuz
schizophrenia has such a big negative sound like you mean it in a
negative way I don't mean it in a negative way but um I thought it was a a great description of the artistic
multiple personalities yeah that I've been able to embody and still embody
given on any given day right I don't want to be offensive so I take a heed to her Y and this is probably the last time
I'll say [Music] that if the lyrics change depending on
the personality which comes first is it Rakim exists and then the Rhymes come or
do the Rhymes come and then you realize that's not Rakim talking that's someone
else that's a good question and it becomes blurred but I think at one
point it was the art
made it separate like on protect your neck when we put out our first
The Evolution of RZA
video it says in the video exit Prince Rim enter the rer and it's it's Scrolls
across the screen and I meant that I was like I'm not Prince Rakim anymore you
meeting the rer now and this is a well Advanced enlightened version of prince
ra King the Z wasn't in my name yeah I was my name was divine Prince Rakim yeah
right first it was Rakim Prince raim Divine Prince you know you keep adding Title by the time I was 19 of 20 I'll
give it 20 my attribute was divine Prince Master
Rakim Allah that was my name Allah is the name
of of the father so all our last names have to be Allah like whoever your father is you take his last name so so
then from just two years later from and going through rain House La earthquakes
and all personal and also just improving and deep into like deep into
my art deep into my music my study my con everything I was deep into it you know what I mean science of bre like we
was on it you know what I mean yeah it was like nah my name is and also I went to I went the wrong way at one point you
know you know the story known but I pr for you know just scrambling in the street selling drugs and getting called
in violence and getting C in [ __ ] and getting locked up for [ __ ] it's like
that wasn't a way of a righteous man yeah wasn't even a way of an intelligent man and I had righteousness and
intelligence yeah all in my system was it just youth that allowed that to happen would you say or something else I
think Youth and circumstances yeah like it was no other way to get money yeah you know what I mean it's like I could I
could grab it could throw a rock through a window and get it but I mean especially at the mindset and
measurement of how he wanted it right yeah you know just to be honest I did work many jobs you know I I was a
messenger worked at uh a restaurant uh you know worked as a guy who um I always
say that put screws in the box that was my job take the screw put it in the Box
moving on take the screw put it in the Box moving on and and since I was one screw per box no no depending yeah yeah
sometime it was one big nut boom sometime it's 50 little pellets in fact
the pellets that we would use became the ones that was the exact same
size as the New York City token so now I S those I could sell a box of those for
$50 because we figured out we got the [ __ ] bung it works like a tokening so go a little joke n used to
do so we'll go to the train station right yeah and just stick it in and somebody com and go I'm not catching
this train you just give me talking go go make about 20 bucks go get some weed
some liquor that's that's that's a good day right yeah but anyway going negative
though selling drugs getting involved with Street crime was totally not natural for me being a smart man and a
man that's not scared to do [ __ ] yeah of course I was able to excel in that until
I couldn't Excel until it caught up and now I'm in the behind the bars you know what I mean how long were you wait for
her I I was facing 8 years MH fortunately I was able to bail out took
me 30 days to bail I only did two 30day stretches in my life one 30day stretch at about 171 18 and one right before 21
around that right before rout B out won the
trial right you know a lot of black guys don't win trial I went to trial and won and uh and while I was going through
all this my mother was so disappointed her face of disappointment was more crushing than than this this 11 of us 11
brothers and sisters where are you in the 11 I'm in the middle but I was also the one that
uh you know that kind of came when when life was just getting strong for our
family and by the time I get three 4 years old it goes bad for our family you
know what I mean but anyway point I was trying to get to is that I zigzag
Zig right and in the mathematics zigzag Zig means knowledge wisdom understanding
right and it gives a symbolism of the zigg which could be the man or your
thought goes into the zag like the sperm cell goes into the womb and comes back
out as of a greater form of the Z like a word can go into somebody's mind or into
your own mind into the womb of your mind and come out as a better idea it's a better interpretation it's a higher
understanding so I became Rakim zig zag zigal the r you know what I mean that's
what Riz stands for yeah yeah did you ever say that on a record or no yeah I
say I say it in different ways Ru of zigzag Zig a law Jam is fatal quick to stick my wo tank SW right through your
Naval suspenseful th that's on uh seventh chamber suspense one thing let me talk about my lyrics for a quick
moment cuz it's fun to say right one thing about my lyrics right they are
compressed concentrated ideas and most people lyrics are I would say yeah but I
think out of a lot of the MC's I don't think no one has really compressed their lyrics as much as me and my woo brothers
and I think because if you go back to the very first lyric of
chill with the feedback black we don't need that it's 10 o'clock ho where the [ __ ] just see that chill with the
feedback so the feedback also from the feedback of the mic feedback with the beef feedback somebody gives you we
don't need that right 10 o'cl ho where the [ __ ] you see that remember the commercial in New York come on TV yeah
so now I'm saying feeling Mt host ween L apostel flowing like Christ when I speak
the gospel so now flowing like Christ when I speak the gospel that goes back to me getting that first
pamphlet the bread of Christ right yeah but having my mathematics in it then the very next line is a Buddhist line it
says flowing like Christ when I speak the gospel I stro with the Holy robe so
the Abbot of shin or the Abbott of w where that Holy robe and the holy robe represents their position so I stro with
the Holy robe then attack the globe with the bucket style the Ruckus now we got
Rus 10 time 10 men committing mad sin wait I thought we was righteous but
we're committing mad sin because you turn the other cheek and I'll break your [ __ ] chin and that was the idea of
the idea that when when Malcolm and Martin was teaching Martin was saying turn the
other cheek but no he was still getting beaten down with sticks right so no we got we G
to have to break a chin we can't offer your cheek up right turn that your break a [ __ ] chin then I went to the just
regular hip-hop uh slang boom bangs like afcan drums he'll be coming around the
mountain when I come that's that's just the fun of it then then we go into the political line crazy flamboyant for the
rap enjoyment my clan increase like black unemployment that's stupid but it's like
wait a minute you increase them like black unemployment yeah another one there because another one pops up right
in the middle of the lyric then I passed Mike the J genius take us the [ __ ] out of here then of course he goes into a
very descriptive very detailed way of our industry
clear without it's still M and still multiple meanings but one thing about the jza is
that he also provides you the surface View and the beneath the surface view
whereas for me I hide a lot of the surface view you got to go beneath the
surface yeah to figure out the Habit yeah your lyrics are more oblique yeah I'd say yeah yeah I'll take that one
yeah yeah but the beauty of that is
it feels like your lyrics are for the initiated right do you know what I'm saying yeah you got to know you got to
got know yeah you got to know yeah yeah you know we um do you guys ever talk about lyrics like each other's lyrics or
you just did your verse and then next rapper does their verse yeah not well as
a producer yeah I was definitely able to shape even sensor and direct lyrics and that's
especially in first five albums I would interject You Know But as time went on
it was no need for interjection everybody had mastered their craft and mastered who they were yeah so now in so
in the process of it being competition do you feel like there was competition within the group yeah so
Wu-Tang Clan Dynamics
everybody wanted to outra everybody else yeah this is MC's is that part of what makes wuang so strong yeah it's very
interesting I never thought of it that way yeah the J said the jiz had a ly said I forgot to line in front of it but
the the punchline was the Clan makes me Ryme like de Banner Under Pressure so we know who de Banner is
right right so he so he's saying he's about to turn to the Hulk because the clan is making him like yeah why I'm
like when when Dr Banner gets pressure you got to go into the Hulk to [ __ ] with these dudes you know what I mean and
you'll hear it throughout our lyrics you'll hear us say something like this
one made me do that yeah you know what I me it's almost like a battle in a way
yeah it is though it's very interesting I never thought of it that way yeah and and and at different time different one
of us wins yeah and the thing that was crazy for us is that so so when they
when they say that jiz is the head it's because he is the foundation of our lyrical skills and approach MH right
and and for many years it was his determination like I'm the Abbott so
even even if somebody come for me for the determination measure I didn't go to him you know what I mean because of my
respect and reverence of him he's the one that had me pick up my pen he's the one that had me study my knowledge right
so he's my enlightener and so I always go back to my enlightener and during the period of
years you know and sometime it just be me and him like who's the best in the clan right now and it be different ones
yeah you know I mean left was the best and either way the listener wins because
they get yeah they get the best of you both yes and at one point killer priest
was the best yeah at one point from the W family yeah it was a year when
everybody was like Killa priest is the lsmc yeah I was pissed off you know what
I mean and I came to beat Killer priest in 97 you know I mean if you go back and
check my lyrics in 97 so even though ghost got the best lyric of the year on that song Impossible because he was like
call the ambulance Jamie been shot he put you right there yeah and it was such a dramatic Ghost lyrics are incredible
such a dramatic incredible but Jesus came to me now you has you got the best lyric because of the content Fusion of
the five elements right that's dealing with the dosm Alchemy the search for the
higher intelligence women walking around celibate living life irrelevant the most
benevent King can communicate through a dream a mental picture is formed a law
is heard and seen everywhere through your surrounding atmosphere thermosphere Stratosphere trapos spere can you
imagine from one single idea everything appeared here so understanding makes the
truth crystal clear but still we got innocent black immigrants 85 dependants
Ware recipients locked in housing tenaments and my neighborhood has been stamped right as a concentration camp
but night time I walk through my third eyes bright as a Street Lamp and there's electric probes right I mean electric
strobes robotic probes they taking telescopic pictures of the globe while baby being born with microchip stuff
inside the ear loes and then vaccinated lies fabricated and
exaggerated you know what I mean yeah Food and Drug Administration testing poison and prison populations it's like
it's a lot of [ __ ] going on in there but call the ambulance Jamie been shot where the chimmy don't go [ __ ] you my
[ __ ] heart that was something else yeah it's incredible
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today did you think of yourself primarily as an MC or something else
well I think my first form of art was MCN before producing yeah I wrote my
first rhyme at the age of nine I recited my first rhyme at the age of eight but that was what jiz wrote so I first
started by reciting copying his lyrics and another MC who never really made it out of the Hood named Scotty Wy so him
and jiza they had their tapes early and I would copy them and then at nine I
wrote my own lyric you know I mean similar to this of course right yeah and then I think by the time I was 13 14 I
think I was good you know some of the lyrics that ODB says yeah are the ones that I wrote when I was 14 because I
used to make him right and then he wouldn't then I give him mind yeah yeah and you know so that's why sometime on
some of his Cadence or some of his lyrics may have seemed not as deeply
potent as some of the woo brothers because he would just take what was already there because he realized that
end of the day it's a song yeah it's a performance he said y'all want to get on the mic and
R and RAM and R and R [ __ ] that [ __ ] [ __ ] I make is a head he says that right
on his song like you know what I mean I want to see him up in the air come on do it everybody come along Come Along come
along Come Along come along bit like he says he's performing
and we didn't and we didn't catch that we learned that from him yeah you know what I mean we learned that wait a
minute you have to Pi the performance and and the animation the personality
like his personality would come through where it wasn't necessarily about the words right but it might be your
favorite verse exactly regardless that's the point I'm making his because he realized the performance was even
stronger than trying to Bogle somebody head right whereas you know some of us
are trying to Boggle your head words words yeah some of us is trying to show
you how dangerous they are for the rayquan first you know listen to
the first wo album and listen to his his early features he always got 16 shots
you know what I mean he busting shots in his rap and he's and he and he got a and he's talking about his cars his sneakers
and his guns you know what I mean cuz he's a street dude you know what I mean and ghost you know you know ghost is a
street dude you can feel the danger in this [ __ ] you know I mean he be like you hear the shank sleeping on the
wall like he be but then deck thing not go but inspect the deck though yeah he's
looking at it through a magnifying class so if if Ghost Face saw the license
plate and he wrote that in the lyric Dex saw the tag was
inspired you know what I mean and that's why his lyrics are abom atomically Socrates philosophies and hypotheses
can't Define a why be dropping these mockeries lyrically performed on robbery fleed with the lottery possibly they
spot me yeah it's like damn that's a lot and for line what was the experience of
making those records and those guys bringing in those verses it was just
like exuberating fun young energy and to be quite honest with
you when you're young like that I think each and every last one of
us thought that we were the best one yeah nobody didn't think that he did he
beat me yeah it's like yeah if you did think he beat you on that one you you beat him on that one yeah so you
couldn't tell yugard that he don't got the best lyrics he's not going to what brother you stupid [ __ ] I eat
your [ __ ] up like you you're not you're not he's not going for that you know what I mean he thinks that how he think
yeah is the think had there ever been a group before with the internal competition
like that I don't know I'm not aware of it yeah I don't know like that's something that we should maybe open up
the floor for and have us thing cuz it seemed like most groups are complimenting each other and we do
compliment each other yeah but it's different what you're describing is different than that yeah because we we
have we approach hip hop there's also never been a group with that many rappers before so that's another big piece of yeah but we approach it as
swordsman that's why it's called the wuang clan yeah yeah these these are all Warriors and they're tongue as their
sword and they're pointed at whatever they got to pointed at even at each other how would you describe your
production it's hard for me to describe it right you know I can add on to the description MH I actually
believe two things about me one I believe
that there was no other way to define my production other than hip-hop that's
what I believe I believe that other producers you could Define it as jazz funk soul this especially 36 chamber I
don't think you could what is this [ __ ] it's hip-hop it's like that's what it is it's not it's nothing else yeah yeah so
I think it's not even a variation on anything else it's pure hip hop yeah that's what that's that's I think I was
that's something that you could you could look at me and see yeah then the second thing I think that that's so awkward but weird and but potentially
very true and and I felt true about this for a long time you know especially for
the first 10 years of my career I felt like I make beats for people to MC to not to
dance to I make beats that's made to challenge the
MC okay and if the MC could catch it and could catch my vibe listen to Method Man
you don't even hear people take my Beats and freestyle over them maybe cream CU there very there's a couple but you
don't hear other rappers take my beat because it ain't easy but you got to be a MC to do it you
can't even be a that's because you were in MC first yeah yeah I made beats I rhy to have beat first anyway yeah I if I
could rhyme to it yeah you could rhyme to it if you can't rhyme to it you're not a good MC yeah and at one point we
MC vs. Rapper
thought rapping and mcing was two different things we really felt that way you know what I mean we felt that how
would you describe the difference well a rap is
like it's like anybody could rap almost not any almost you know what I mean a
MC is I guess I could try to describe it in a lyric the MC you say h Aang on the SL
that I be using the MC means to master confusion right a MC is always like Tom
moving constantly okay it ain't just move the crowd which he has to move the crowd you
know what I mean but I had a whole lyric would I wrote down all the different things that a MC must do I mean he must
Mash competition and I think that a MC is almost like the difference between a
Jedi Knight and a samurai because a Jedi
Knight has a lightsaber right and not only is this lightsaber
powerful his force is powerful you know what I mean so I know this is all using
you know I'm trying to explain something that the best way I can it's hard to explain so but it's a difference and you
can hear it you can feel it you know what I mean you can feel it
does it have anything to do with the music because it feels like when you first said it what I heard was that a
rapper writes words that you could probably say on anything whereas an MC
you could only say it over the particular beat because it's connected to the
beat that's a piece of it that's a good that's a good digestion of it look n is
the MC it's a fact even you took away all the
music it's still potent absolutely that's another way of looking at it too
what happens if you take away all the music right is it potent what happens if
you write it down you know is it stronger yeah yeah right so an MC is
more like a poet we may say he definitely has to be part poet right whereas a rapper is more like somebody
doing songs that's a good argument because a poet you have to be a poet and
deeper than a poet right because you know I grew up on the crime
side the New York Times side that's a lot right there m that's
the New York Times that's a lot in that one phrase Staying Alive was no job okay
that's simple I had second hand my mom's bounced on old man so then we move to sh
land in four lines right and Mell m a child is born with no State of Mind blind to the ways
of mankind God smiling on you but he's frown in two because only God knows what
you've been through even in those four lines a lot of information lot of information and MC's tend to do that
yeah and they do it in a way that even if you hear it 20 years later it has the same thing now no
disrespect because it's deep you're saying the MC's lyrics have a depth that
make it Timeless yeah yeah that's a fact tell me from a technical standpoint how
you would go about production from the beginning okay on a technical standpoint how I went about production first thing
Early Production Techniques
is us whatever you got right so of course I started with the turntable and the for track we see the for track
cassette at that time for track Yamaha for track and this is like maybe 16 17
so the first thing is just a square tape recorder remember those tape recorders
yep hit play and record and put the tape in cassette recorder cassette recorders yeah my cousin Ramsey had one Ramsay is
old dir bastard's big brother so he's a few years older than us we actually he's going to be ahead of us on everything
record collection rock and roll he's a guitar player keyboard player he got the turntables first everything right OD
Do's mother and father work for Transit and for 911 they're like The Jeffersons
to my family my family is the welfare 11 kids welfare family but the first thing
was this tapy quarter and comic books and a shoe box and that's where the drums were and we just rra into the tapy
quarter and play that back then of course the cyan comes out and now you
got the two tape recorders and then you're doing pause tapes would it be pause tapes from stuff you'd record off
the radio or yeah forever yep or turntable y yep yep whatever you could get a track from or beast from but
before that though I heard the song flashes on the beatbox and so I said what is a beatbox
so I already had a pair of turntables straight arms sadly but went down did you have a mixer
The Early Days of DJ Equipment
as well had a mixer M we sold newspapers to get this that's to give you a little backdrop what was the mixer you had no
at no brand wasn't even a Gemini uhhuh eventually I got a Gemini eventually I got it's more like I got the $60 [ __ ]
yeah yeah you know what I mean I didn't have you know you get like Radio Shack do you remember where you got it I got it from 14 Street in Manhattan yeah
remember they had all that they had like and all the boom boxes and everything and they had the Rhythm box where you
just get Waltz slow rock bosanova yeah but if you push two buttons together what happen it'll change to something
different and if you hit the FI button so that was my first technology
demo and it wasn't even a roll I know Roland kind of maybe invented it but by the time we got it it was some generic
brand that come in business get out of business all right so then all of a sudden 14 years old high school I see a
Discovering the 606 and 707 Drum Machines
606 that was like a small white drum machine silver y small silver 606 we borrow it
from a guy he had the basically pull a gun to get it back from us cuz I was like this is this is the Grail from a
606 707 comes out DJ Dr Rock from the force MC's had a
707 we went to his house and made demos with DJ Dr Rock from the Ford you know I
mean 14 years I was 14 15 years old so we got Dr Rock on the 707 rard just ODB
doing songs and this is before the rest of the wo I start making their demos you still have those recordings I don't have
them somebody does somebody does somebody does oh cool yeah I'm glad they exist yeah somebody does so from the
707 the 909 comes and then my DJ gets one of those DJ Scotty Rock not like
Scott L Rock uh he had his name was Scotty Rock then when Scott L Rock came out everybody thought it was him but it
wasn't but anyway 909 so now I got a 909 yep four track two
turntables and then the CIO rz1 comes out with the four pass for post
sampling that's my original setup and that's demos from the age of 16 to maybe
The Evolution to the SP 1200 and EPS
two years cuz then the sp1 1200 come out right and so did the ins Sonic EPS I had
a sp1200 so the sp1200 you had the take the time know it was very limited time
so you used to speed the records up to 78 and then slow it down in the machine
which gave all of our sound that other ring that we didn't even know was part of that sound know that that's how you
get this I didn't know that that was why the ring was there yeah but that's why I was always had this ring yeah and you
listen to a lot of dope tracks you know and it was easy Moe B who had the 12200
I to go to his house cuz uh my manager was looking for tracks for me mm and I
saw that [ __ ] I was I get one of those and then when I got it my other
colleague SL rival you know I mean he was another DJ in my projects and you know he used to
make songs with ghost I'll make songs with ghost but I learned that he he was kind of colleague Rivals but he had the
EPS but the sp1200 was considered the cool and he's like yo I'm going to
Virginia for the summer and I can't take the eps I w't fit in my family car when I let you hold the EPs and you let me
hold the s1200 I was all right cool that was
like because the sp1200 is a drum percussion samp the EPS is a keyboard
yeah and I didn't know that I'm more of a keyboard player and now I know so only
because you were being cool yeah and now I'm like I'm a keyboard play that's
that's what I like and I remember my cousin had the cash show and I to play with the keyboard yeah so now I realize
I'm a keyboardist I can play my sample I could
sample one note and [ __ ] go up and down the key with
[Music] it with the drones playing yeah what the
[ __ ] and then I mastered that keyboard uhuh you listen to the early woo cuz it
Mastering the Keyboard and ASR 10
of course the EPS then went to be the EPS 16 plus then eventually to the asr1
that's his thing and when woo comes out those same disc Fe you know you can take
your old disc stick to the sr10 the first 100 tracks that I released besides bringing the pain and maybe there's 10
sp200 tracks in my catalog but most of those songs are ASR and Sonic tracks and
that became my technology all the way through and then I would take the PC
immediate y with the asr1 and that's how you get triumph right cuz now I mean the
NPC is the most powerful is you got to admit like but it wasn't what I started with once again NPC takes me back to the
drum I mix that with the [ __ ] ASR 10 and that's that's the Wu tank forever
album along with now now you know people getting the sound modules the 1080s or
the 2020s from Rolling you get the N lead come out and the the digital
synthesizers are there now in in the late '90s and all that becomes my
Arsenal and that became how I did it and then now you know I was G One More Level and then I became a keyboard Lord right
meaning if they made it I bought it you know 50 60 70 maybe 80 keyboards in my life you know what I mean if they make
one I buy it just to [ __ ] Master it make some 10 20 tracks with it that you
may never hear and then I go I cheat I guess those became my girls you know what I mean and so I was collecting
keyboards for years and I've ran through many of them when I became Bobby Digital
I had all my keyboards in my studio you know like how you have here and I called it the uh my digital
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nature tell me about becoming Bobby Digital V of becoming Bobby Digital was
The Digital Revolution and Bobby Digital
a step backwards being the rer for so for those years from 1993 up until 1999
9899 I didn't realize my success right meaning
economically I was pretty monotonous with my relationship you know I think I
did my was almost like three years just with one woman which was which is weird for artist
okay but you know I wasn't into it like after Wu tank
forever you know being rich and being loose and seeing the world and also
having some internal problems in my household yeah I just cut loose you know
what I mean and then when I cut loose I just became uh hedonistic to be quite
Frank and then also I became more consumption of of substances you know
what I mean and then also I just had this I had like a vision a foresight
vision I've been blessed you know every few years with a vision and this time it was the
everything is going digital you got to lead the
way that's the sound of you know I I made a joke on myself I'm GNA share this
joke with you so my mother named me Robert fix Jerald digs after the Robert
Kennedy and John to put those two names together and name me Robert fix your digs and when you name Robert sometime
they'll call you Bobby mhm or they call you Robbie mhm I started thinking well am I a
robot like I actually question myself yeah like is there something in me that's like is there something I don't
know like am I physical am I digital am I a robot am I a man you know am I a god
like all these questions was just zoning through me and especially at this period And I think it was a few things
happening in my life I think the trauma of what happened in my personal life the trauma of
wuang it's almost like rck you know this is called shamea where we at here and that's
considered almost a heaven on Earth you know I was fortunate to be
free in 1997 I was fortunate to be given the
gift of mental freedom and it all happened from watching the flower grow and die in one day wow so I was blessed
with that but then a few days later something very traumatic in my
personal life happened but I was free yeah and so it didn't affect me like that and then the woo Brothers around
the same time decided that we're not going to finish the Rage Against the Machine tour and everybody just started
scattering into their own way tell me about that moment in time tell me about the tour and then tell me about how that
The Wu-Tang Clan and Rage Against the Machine Tour
happened yeah well we we on the biggest tour of our career W tang and rage 30,000 kids T
night good show what a show what a show especially at that time it's it's it's
new as I mean you know you of course you know you live through Death Jam so you know beasties and wi Fest what was it
called the fresh Fest you know you know the things that you guys had did yeah but but it was hip-hop wasn't getting
these moments like this yeah right PE and Anthrax maybe but not this was huge
and then my guys don't want to do it you know didn't understand the cultural
relevancy of it and I did yeah I understood at that time and it happened
at one of our concerts when I saw all our families there black white red Brown
yellow it was on the rage tour that I invented this Like These Wings the woo symbol
yeah the woo symbol I saw it I saw the people my mom was like we got to record give them something and
here you got the five families on this side is let's put it all together that's the Wu but the crew didn't get
it they rather do the college shows and and they thought that we was kind of
selling out to be quite Frank because the audiences were big or why do you think tell me what you think it was more
whites than ever I see okay not not shorty with the big ass right there that mean it's like it was different you know
what I mean and we from the hood all of them felt that way no except you
who no no no no enough of us that you looking on stage there four guys yeah
you know what I mean yeah yeah yeah it's just like it wasn't toen serious and not to go back like that or to you know
Point any fingers but I remember telling them that we going to do this first yeah
and then do that and then do that yeah it's all good yeah and the way the way way it was planned was like we're going
to hit the colleges in September yeah and go through the home comings yeah it's going to be crazy yes and then we
come first of all they put me and Zach on the cover of Rolling Stone it's
on and one thing about woo it's all Alpha you don't got no non- alphas and
The Five-Year Plan and Wu-Tang's Legacy
they gave me five years in 1992 so in 1997 what that mean five
years is up yeah and was it from the beginning was it discussed us a 5year plan yes 5 years without interruption
yeah five straight years yeah and that's that's a lot of work yeah but now we had
a year whereas it's not your word we get to say what we want to say yeah yeah so
now it's different yeah so for five years they agreed that you would lead
yeah but after the five years to be discussed to be discussed right and and
even though the contract I think one my my lawyer contract amended it like so it
no I was like the contract don't mean [ __ ] it doesn't mean anything yeah if everybody's not into it it's not going
to be any good anyway and I haven't said that to myself my time is up my time is up I'm
cool with it but it's but it hurts yeah yeah yeah just CU he'd worked for five years to get to that point yeah for that
opportunity yeah to see people yeah and so it hurt so that was part of the hurt
and then the personal thing was part of the hurt and then the exploration ENT
me exploration women fun I'm rich yeah
would that not have happened had the woo stayed on course I don't think it would
have happened cuz you you probably would have been too busy yeah I wasn't out yeah I wasn't outside yet like that yeah
cuz in yeah to be quite Frank rck I wasn't outside you didn't see me outside
I wasn't Myster I wasn't RZ was mysterious yeah [ __ ] who the no
the abbit was but also you were working oh definitely I stayed all work you
could smell me from the front door yeah you know what I mean that's how I was yeah and I'm not I love it I love that
I'm grateful for it but the question was how do I become Bobby Digital yeah well
now it's on me everybody's doing them now what I'm
going to do so I thought all I'll do a Riz album but but I just had a vision that
things was different the world was going to change and you got to go
digital and then you know it was in my studio and I had had some other MC's
with me the young MC's like killer Army and Sons of men and those type of dudes
and I just said yo you got to go digital it's like what
the [ __ ] you talking about I said no I'm telling you you got to go digital digal everything is going to go digital what
the [ __ ] you talking about the [ __ ] you talking about you tripping God you smoking that [ __ ] you tripping said nah
digital and and my studio looked different to me it didn't look like that it looked like almost like a future wow
you know what I mean yeah even though nothing had changed you saw it in a new way yeah yeah maybe hallucinated that
too a little bit I don't know but it definitely wasn't the same and then and I it wasn't the same and then did the
name come before the material or did the material come before the name the idea
changed and then I named it I see yeah I was like Bobby
Digital but now all of a sudden because you know what it is too I got to
honestly say and I don't know no right you don't know you know we never know we don't know anything
exactly but I can say that I wouldn't be able to
do what I did as the Risa because that entity doesn't allow that understod yeah
you know I mean the Abbott can't do that and Bobby can and I think it became
almost it that the Rizza functioned within the woo I don't know I think I think the
Rizza even functioned within like if you think about let's just say my lyrics let's use
that as an example if we yeah and you hear
me you know I got I recorded a song called Sun shower where if you listen to it it
should guide you on the path to knowledge of self and some Enlightenment Trouble Follows behind a wicked mind you
got 2020 vision of the prism of light but you're still blind if you lack the inner so every sinner will end up in the
Everlasting winter of Hellfire with thorns and splinters prick your third
eye out your words fly out but your sound die out and you be remain unheard and you will
suffer eternally internal and externally along with Wicked fraternal who let off
thermal nuclear heat weapons that could burn you firmly and permanently as you travel through the Journal of the book
of life but those who took a life without Justice will become just ice it's been taught Buddha taught
that your worst enemy couldn't harm you as much as your own Wicked thoughts but
people ought be wrought and they listen not but they will be persecuted inside a
universal Court as I inhale a strong blend of Jasmine and rose pedals and
Sandalwood as men be chanting Witchcraft and using incense to reach higher Dimensions I'm
convinced anyway it's just like you know great lyrics yeah RZ could say that yeah
right yeah Bobby what y'all [ __ ] talking about get the [ __ ] out my house before I grab you by your hand and slap
my dick in your mouth like what the [ __ ] is that that's not Bob DIY yeah tell me
who is he [ __ ] our slave trade you like KY K wait [ __ ] you [ __ ] [ __ ] you
wish you could [ __ ] all you could do his dick something so Bobby Digital was more the more raw character yeah he
hedonistic lose the anger the things that RZ already worked out and so what
happened was I realized I had to go back because I was stuck in that cave let's
call it the studio for those years yeah and I said hold on I have to go back before I go to
Rizza and I needed to go back I didn't I didn't intentionally go back though yeah
yeah it was just like that's what was coming out of me that was coming I was like damn that's this this all just kept
coming out of me you know what I mean and then it then I liked it too take that for right and they get and
I did a $5 million deal with uh with John Baker for the album so now I'm like
[ __ ] it who's John Baker John Baker was running G Street records so John Baker
known for PM Dawn uh I think he had Ziggy Marley grav
diggers and then he came and did the Riz out so Chris Blackwell funded John gave him
G Street records yeah and what you call him book brok of the deal rageous manager the female Bridget oh Bridget
yeah yeah yeah yeah so Bridget that did the deal so you don't know what you don't know right and so
hip-hop you know my biggest record deal was the wuang second album which is the $4
million deal most artists would getting three 300,000
maybe 600,000 a million was LL yeah you know what I
mean so we was able to broke a $4 million deal for wuang I thought I was
the man and then I met Bridget and you said you know people were talking about you should do your own album this is
after the tour like people like you fans like you and the industry likes you like
I'm reliable you know what I mean and I was like well you know I'm doing good by
myself I want to do album I got so many allies I'm with Le I got Steve I got
Wendy she said well how much you think you know a r album can can you get I said I don't know I go get two million
at least I know I could do that said what if I could get you five what you five million that's more
than that's more than rotang yeah she said no said see you getting hip-hop numbers I could get you rock and roll
numbers so I didn't know that yeah that rock and roll I didn't know that even
but why Wen there some artist in in the Rock I mean this a I don't know I really
have no idea well that's what she exposed to me whether it was a myth or magic but but it happened yeah and I
actually gave a lot of the money back because when I signed the
deal I did sign his rizer you know what that means no it meant that I didn't own
the Riz name anymore right you know you sign a record deal you become the rizer becomes part of that
company it's like anytime I want to do the rizer they got the right to I see
and I was like nobody G own the RZ philosophically yeah and it was like
no what do you mean you signed the deal like it's like like Wu chain like that you know if you want to record you got
to here put your five you run you go through your five album sequence I said no Noah it doesn't feel right for
somebody to own the RZ I don't even own the r and I said what you mean and I
told I told my lawyer I was like we got to get the rizer out of this Bobby could stay yeah and Bobby's the one who's
delivering the record yeah and it was like well you want what I said I'll buy
it back I want to buy R back and they said Okay a couple of million dollars you can buy it back I said I'll buy it
back they didn't believe it I I did it right before Christmas to like give my
name back give me well not give my name back yeah yeah let the r be the yeah cuz I know this we having a pretty
interesting conversation here and I'm so comfortable with you because your your travel the D about life right you've
traveled bro you know what I mean yeah and your travel is the roads you passed and the
destination that you've achieved right mentally physically spiritually emotionally economically socially all
these ways of of achieving puts you at a certain seat
right and so and I'll travel so far as well so then when two people meet at that certain seat you know what I mean
it's just like it's a different type of conversation it's like I don't even be around people that that that none of
this even begins to fluctuate out of me so know that and it's a pleasure to to
build with you on it I appreciate that but yeah the rer going back to the beginning of our
conversation you know the whole different artistic curiosity or the way that I said different personalities it's
definitely a entity of energy which is interesting Rihanna
names her son R right her son is named R and it say I was like it's very
interesting because because I don't use the name as much you know what I mean I use
it but not as much as I used it when I was using it and maybe imagine 20 years
from now and let's say cuz I don't think the wizard is just a name I think it's a title I think it's an entity I think
it's something not not being superstitious here or nothing like that no I understand but imagine if he does
embody that because the the Wizard job is to resurrect to bring something back you
know what I mean to help us see what we missed you know what I mean and in a
hip-hop way hip-hop was was everything but hip-hop for a moment not disrespect
to all our greats who are adding on to it and it can be considered part of hip-hop culture but it wasn't hip hop it
was what it was but the it had to go into the category of hip-hop the same thing happened with rock at the moment
it's like that's not rock but that's all that rock is given and that's Rock but it wasn't right and it's just like
somebody always comes into come whether it's in any form or Jazz guy or somebody
will come there to be like yo oh that's the perform
that's what we forgot and then then we rebuild again how do you describe your relationship to Hip Hop
now I think my relationship to Hip Hop
now is one foot in one foot out right one foot in because I'm
founded in it and I'm always striving to
somehow find A New Path for it and that's because there's so
many people in hiop especially from young people and I even Point even more
hip-hop is seem to be it's been kind of classified because of the majority of
hip-hop AR practitioners are black right so it seems like let's say 80% at least
75% is black and you have so many of these youths striving to be in it but
all striving like crabs in the barrel for that one path of it mhm and so my
foot that's in it is always trying to show another path my foot that's out it yeah making
movies and [ __ ] you know what I mean yeah and classical music classical music you know just expressing and even about
me doing the classical I would hope that somebody from Hip Hop understand
that when you're making a beat you're making a beat but when you composing something you're composing something and
start composing you know your Beats you know Dre said it on one of his little
interviews he said um he pointed out how a beat maker is different from a producer because a beat maker makes the
beat but then he has to produce the record you know what I mean yeah and you
know that one of the greatest producers from the culture in mul multiple genres yourself and so that's how I see myself
one foot in one foot out do you feel like everything you
make films classical music
books somehow still are tangentially related
to hip-hop I do think that I hope it's not my ego saying no I think that's true too okay I hope it's not my ego say when
you're established in Hip Hop it's a way of looking at the world that you don't let go of it doesn't
disappear when you're working on another genre yeah I think well they say hip-hop is is a culture it's a way of life and
you know even as we chill as we chilling we still got a swag that's going to be
way different than our PE when they see it so even when I show up to the to the
Symphony Hall I'm you know I'm I'm I'm a little swag a little different you know what I
mean and and the cool thing about it like even if you look at um I think
Eminem is another good example for just use him as a cuz he's a great artist it's the same it's like he'll
show if Eminem shows up he's hip hop even though he could be with it could be a thousand white guys there a thousand
artists there a thousand musicians he's hipop Eminem is hip-hop [ __ ] Okay Y and that's that's what hip-hop is
it's it's something else and so but yeah so I I like the one foot in one foot out
because I'm never going to take both feet out I can't yeah I don't think I could get away with it yeah I get away
with it meaning it's already in my blood it's in you yeah tell me about you made an album
that there's only one copy in existence of it yeah that's a whole another chamber tell me the story man that's a
The Once Upon a Time in Shaolin Album
how the idea happened it was it was really like so my
student right my student silver rings I let him in to the temple the r
world and and let him in you know you know and let him sit by the
door give him a lot of trust maybe too much
and it was almost like it was almost like my student
challenged me right
and was doing things that was not pure
in the sense of our relationship and the sense of the conduct that I would expect
from him but yet doing something in the
cause of what he believe was the right cause of Wu time and in that
process right we are accumulating songs Vibes moments
and after the accumulation of so
much it was two ideas we was tangling with
right one idea was I wanted to make a better tomorrow in theory practice music
everything I just felt that that's what the world needed and in the process of doing that
I also wanted to centralize the idea of a wuang
item the centralization of it became a physical form where I first thought
this that I'll make an album that will be a piece of
jewelry that would be either Bluetooth or USB
to you but you have to have this and it's the only way you could have
it at that point were you thinking they would be one of them or no you were thinking they the delivery system for
the album would be the bracelet let's say but you would buy it like you would buy an album in the old days but very
very high priced I see very high price and very very well made limited luxury
item yeah yeah that you could physically wear yep but that you could also play it
yep and if you didn't have that you could not play it yeah you you wasn't part of you know what I mean and you
wore it with honor and a badge of honor and
then talking with silver rings somehow he had got like it was
almost like he got wind of what I was doing with all these peers right
and then he sent me a image that was close
to my image and I was like okay we got to
meet and then when we met he was like I didn't get it from your image it's some inspiration I had as
well I said well we what should we do with that right it's like like he said well we should just make it
singular I like make it sing sing okay let me meditate on that and I meditated
on it but I didn't decide to do it it wasn't until and this is not I
haven't Shar this story here it wasn't until we the wo did a a quick European
run and while we was working on it better tomorrow we had maybe four or five songs and while we was doing it we
all got into an argument about my direction you know what I mean you
it's chewing me up so we rather might as well we should put that one out that the
silver rings one that sh sound like a real woo album
like all the old beats and old sounds and all that [ __ ] that sound like a w
album first of all how do you hear it it supposed to be
secret I just listen to them then I call me y you [ __ ] said no no no no no no
this he only heard that piece I said okay we got to figure this [ __ ] out you
know what I mean so it became almost like a challenge
to make the most of something right and what's the best way
and I went with his idea more than my idea which was make it Singler and then I said well if we make
it Singler we got to wait then
I said so we're going to just hold it and I'll put out a better tomorrow
first and see what the world wants to do and if the world don't
respond then we hit them with that I think one of the fascinating things is where I probably want to to limit it to
select maybe you know a select amount yeah and have have like the people that
really build the wool have this emblem first at a high level and then
maybe let's just say hypothetically yeah maybe first that this thing cost you
$10,000 and it's yours and it's it's made of of fine metals and it's not
cheap it's a it's wearable right as if you would have bought it from Tiffany's and you can pass it to your child value
will increase then have a version of course that you could pay $100 for it and all
that and eventually have the catalog on your wrist right that's so and then the
idea of abandoning that to centralizing into one in that box in that
case and I rolled with that but I put a Time on it and then once the time once
the time came and it seemed like yo you know what and the woo the woo did it as well you know better
tomorrow what you work on yourself right thank you we did a song here shanga A
Better Tomorrow why wasn't the 90s sound of the woo boom bap it definitely was
the woo in a mature form as men and I think it has its Merit as
something if you're a woo fan and a music fan it's something that you should give it a shot but at the
time the wo also wasn't into it you know what I mean I'm I'mma diverge from the story
and give you another substory to this thing which is so funny about my life so
the woo was not into this album when you were making it they weren't into it kind yeah I mean through
the whole process making it it's weird cuz we made it it's like we [ __ ] made it but just you know and I understand
the wo the woo wants want to be as threatening as the woo always is the woo
music is pretty threaten and pretty [ __ ] bring the [ __ ] rugus you know what I mean but I was like
that's how we felt as kids how do you feel as a man it's impossible to feel the same way or is it possible maybe I
was wrong maybe no but it would likely feel disingenuous if that's not the way
you're living yeah or maybe I'm the one that's out here went from the first album goat
meat yeah to by the time we got the Liquid Swords I'm only eating turkey
burgers yeah uh by the time we get the we Tak forever I'm only eating fish by the time we finish that album I'm
vegan so maybe it's me and I accept that yeah but I thought
we all was growing at a certain rate and maybe we were but musically we didn't need to and they disagreed on me and I
and I respect that the scientists always agree and disagree but what happened was rolling stone offer us the cover a
rolling stone this time us all of us but the last time we was on the car rolling stone it was just Rizza and Zach MH and
then the time after that was maybe me and five other Rock and rolls bands for
that big summer tour cover they do maybe I think I don't know if me was
with me on that day but it never been an entire wuang clan on the cover of Rolling Stone and they was like we're
going to do it and I get to New York and the only one at the shoot is me
and I'm like oh [ __ ] and rolling stone is there so it's me the writer the
photographers and no woo and no warning cuz I flew in from La
yeah so I'm like okay that's crazy so I immediately two days later
turn around fly back and while I'm flying back I get a I had this script that my agent have
gave had gave me and um I start reading on the plane it's
a story about a female MC
who wants to increase her lyrical ability by studying poetry and put more
meaning into the songs but the other MC's and her crew or guys they don't want to they want to stay hood and they
they want to live in gangster fantasies and she wants to expand and
they don't want her to and she ends up getting kicked out of the group leaving
the group and finding a whole new thing for herself and I was like that sounds like me [ __ ] and so I land in LA and
soon like I called my agent like yo did they find a director for that movie yet he's like they still looking you know
you know a couple of names I said give me a meeting and they got me a meeting and I got the job and I did it it was my
second film called love beat rymes you know what I mean which is good experience great experience yeah and the
producer from that movie is actually a producer on my new movie great it was a great experience for me beyond my lead
actress but great experience I'm sh out to say that it's crazy how things go
yeah and it's crazy how the rebound to it I rebounded well yeah so now I'm going to do this movie I also want to
just ask you was the wo not showing up and not telling you they weren't showing up unusual or is that something that
might have happened in the past that was heaviest I think I think
like I think nobody's showing up as deep yeah maybe half wouldn't show half is
always an equation yeah it's always somebody missing yeah yeah yeah okay too many people yeah yeah you know and you
could you you know you look at our early photos you'll see everybody's not in that photo yeah and I can respect that
yeah but nobody's showing up yeah I just got to accept this of and I do accept it
I'm totally wrong right because if nobody shows up and I show up then I'm
wrong that means I'm making the mistake here mean by that is that it's been
agreed that what I'm doing is not right yeah the product is not right the vibe
is not right yeah and how do I know it's been agreed unanimously yeah so I'm will
and do you believe they discussed it I don't know no I don't know I don't know how they that I never I I didn't even
inquire yeah you know I mean I just accepted okay all right I [ __ ] that one
up have the woo done anything since then together as an album or music anything
yeah we do concerts and tours and how does that work well the funny thing is I
I jump ahead then yeah if I was going to hit you with the what happens now is that the next move though is Once Upon a
Time and shall in right so because what what better tomorrow comes out y it does
maybe 340,000 units the first week which is not that great for wuang and S his way on out of the world
and I so I'm looking at the woo and I'm looking at the fans I'm looking at the
system and I'm like okay launch the missile Once Upon a Time and s in nobody
get it not even the wool got it nobody gets it now yeah so it has a so it has a
you know what I mean so I got some rism in there some all this other [ __ ] and
then silver rings just a platform because he becomes his neb is
in the woo World in a way that he never would have been in the woo world yeah and good for him he probably got the
most out of it than all of us you know what I mean so that's that but going to the modern day you know the war our
brothers so what happened was there was a fiveyear plan in the beginning Rick uhuh and then in 20 18 2017 2018 I think
I made another fiveyear plan and I pitched it to everybody
when I said to them if you're not paying attention hip hop is forgetting us see
what you mean said bro I seen two documentaries on hip hop they jump right over us I seen them go from LL to
Biggie how you get the biggie without going through War you can't you know
what I mean yeah it's like we set that Wick that open that up if we don't go
platinum in 1993 he doesn't go platinum in 1994 now it's don't go platinum in
1995 the money dictates the energy of where the system is taking bets if we
don't show andove then the money ain't coming to New York it's going to stay right out
here in the west which was doing very well for everybody but they skipped us and
there's like nobody saw it and then they invited they invited me to to the to the show that was doing I think it's called
hip-hop Evolution or some [ __ ] like that season 3 now you're inviting the wo and I
declined but they still got Rand goost to do it and I told everybody declin but they still did it and so I said um we
got to tell our own story they skipping us right and so I said well we're going
to do is we're going to do a documentary then we're going to do a TV series and we're going to do a
tour it's GNA be a fiveyear plan two fiveyear plans I said that's
going to actually I'm going to do a relay race with these years it's going to go five years here and in the middle
of this plan the second fiveyear plan is start and So within seven
years right everybody will become should be millionaires
again should be able to ride off in the sunset and I myself who was actually
doing pretty well can also lay my head in my Mansion at night knowing that I
did all I can to make sure my brother's Legacy was protected and that their economics and
their families were protected unless they [ __ ] it up and then I like but this is the shot yeah
that I'm going to take yeah and everybody was like everybody agreed and even though I had bumps along
the road yeah once you agree with me yeah I'm cool with all the stuff you do just try to stop me because it's like
you already agreed my heart is inity and content of this is what we're doing yeah
and we ended up doing Mike and Men Emy nominated yep big big for hip
hop yep and big for the culture yep then we do the Hulu series 30 hours no
hip-hop not even music people have gotten that much time of introspective
creative art on their work and we do the tour and so the tour was the was the
part was the parallel thing because the tour was supposed to lead to the to a Vegas
residency and the tour New York state of mine one of the biggest tours in Hip Hop
right for the last five years yeah the V residency works first hip hop
group they have a in the see in Vegas which close to 90% sellout rate
W and we will announce I I guess I won't announce it right here but we got a big
announcement coming for yeah for 2025 yeah and so go back you say what are we
doing like and now you know the great art that all of my brothers
possess actually I'm seeing it even more now yeah everybody's individual works
are growing based on this right and no everybody individually are settling into this
manhood thing oh I see that's what's happening that's beautiful so it's like somebody coming in like for instance
nobody's coming in like move that move that move that move that they come in like
okay you can put a little yellow on that you see what I mean the create
Refining Creativity in Hip Hop Shows
creativity that's now presented to them Through My Lens first of all I I refined
it I think making movies and TV shows is put my brain at this level so if you
ever if you would have came to our Vegas show you would have seen uh you been proud for hip-hop because not with all
the great sets and all that which hip-hop has gotten to no you it's almost like you're watching a hip-hop play you
know what I mean even on the New York say to mine I don't know if you made it any of those but yeah when you see that
it wasn't usually when you got that many artists it's a battle M
no I was able to along with my partner Nas of course being in agreeance with me
we were able to meld it together you know I never forget when Buster came to the first day you know yeah cuz he
signed on late but when he got there I was like yeah this we this is this I had play and I did his whole logo had the
whole he's like he never came to no concert with somebody and other the
other Act is caring about him yeah when dayl came yeah they came kind of they
didn't hook up early yeah they saw their joint we was like well you know it's day so I love them so
I was just like let me just spend two or three days so look look at this now they
was like yeah said we're going to start with three that's a magic number that's going to
have to Crow like oh [ __ ] DEA and then you end with it yeah and on the three time it takes three it's a magic number
so for the whole show I'm giving them this but on the last song yeah I give him on that screen and I put Troy up
there yeah and he go out like that yeah beautiful put a classroom behind him you
Collaborations and Creative Respect
know what I mean so my so my creativity is where it's at as a filmmaker and all that and the
team have that extra respect you know and when they come to say something it's
not the challenge it's actually creatively to add on great and that's how we did our first album it was
competitive but it was always adding on a layer yeah meth came in was like I
said I need a hook he's not on the song guess what cash rule everything he he
wrote that and he glued it and he had no ego in doing that you know what I mean
that I was like yo the lyri he had on cream was from his own song where he had three rses I say nah just give me that
first verse of that song and take out you know took out like six or eight lines yeah yeah yeah no argument yeah
you know what I mean so hopefully I feel like we're back to that cuz we're men yeah you know what I mean it's hard to
be a man even if you 40 50 years old sometime you still have this this youth
boy in you that want to uh especially with your friends from when you were young exactly it's different when it's
someone that you meet as an adult yeah yeah it's like it's like your you revert back yeah it's like your parent exactly
you go home your parent mom you got any mom I know you got apple pie like she
like exactly and you feel yeah it's that [Music]
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lmnt what's your favorite uang
Proud Moments in Wu Tang's Music
song uuang Clan all right I don't know I tell you the one I
feel really proud of as a producer I feel really proud of bringing the
Ruckers I just feel like it's nobody did that before before me we're going to listen to bring the Ruckus
okay Shing Shadow Boxing and a wuang sword style if what you say is true The
Shaolin and the wuang could be dangerous do you think your wuang sword
can defeat me on guard I'll let you try my wuang
style bring the [ __ ] rockers bring the [ __ ] rockers bring the mother bring the
[ __ ] rockers bring the [ __ ] Ruckus Ghost Face catch
the blast of a Hy verse my clock burst leave even a HSE I did worse I come rough JP like an elephant T Your Head
Rush Fly Like Egyptian mus a [ __ ] Clans off the wixon however a master the trick
just like next caus and Terror quick damage your whole error hard rocks is lock the [ __ ] up I found shot PL style
hazardous cuz I wrecked this dangerous I blow spots like wo Texas I watch my back
like I'm locked down hardcore hit and sound watch me act b and t d a little
type [ __ ] songs going go no doubt and your watch your corny [ __ ] F yeah they
faking all that carrying G with your M roll like 40 max now you acting V I
guess it makes sense y represent I wait for one to act up now I got him backed
up G to his neck now weact what and that's One in the Chamber Bo J Banger 36
danger break the [ __ ] Ruckers the [ __ ] rockers bring the mothering the
[ __ ] rcking the [ __ ] rck the the [ __ ] rockers
thefucking rck the [ __ ] rockers
[ __ ] I rip it hardore like porn flick [ __ ] I roll with groups get
Bastard with biscuits check it my method on the microphone's banging wo Tang slang I leave your head piece hanging bu
this I'm kicking like a out for justice the roughness just the rudess Fus R I'm
with the T Murder One my sty shocks you're not like a St gun I'm hectic I reckon with the quickness set it on the
microphone and competition get blown by this nasty ass [ __ ] with my [ __ ] the r
charg like a bulling got pull like a trigger so bad stabing up the bad with the bo cap crabs I scream on your ass
like your dad bring it all bring the [ __ ] Ruckers the [ __ ]
rockers the mother the [ __ ] rockers the [ __ ]
rockers I'm more ruget than slave man boots new recruits I'm [ __ ] up MC
troops I break glutes and trample [ __ ] while I st a mud hole in that ass C them
straight out the swamp creeping up on sight now it's Frank Night My Wo tank slang is mad [ __ ] dangerous and more
deadly than the stroke of an axe chopping through your back giving B standers hard attack [ __ ] try to FL
tell me who is them I blow up this [ __ ] prism make it a vicious Act of terrorism you want to bring it so [ __ ]
it come on and bring the Rockets then I provoke [ __ ] to kick buckets I'm wetting cream I ain't wetting Fame who's
selling game I'm giving out a deadly game it's not the russing it's the rot tank crushing rette slip up you get
[ __ ] like bring the [ __ ] Rockets bring the [ __ ] rockers the
[ __ ] rockers
on guard I'll let you try my wuang style Bring it on Bring it on so Bring it on
Bring it on so bring it on so bring it on so bring it on [ __ ]
[Music]
what do you remember about recording it man so many so many memories on that one
Rick I mean during the course of making the album when did it happen I feel like
uh maybe in the middle MH far as the rendition of what it of what it ended up
being but I also think that the way we was recording that album
that pieces of it was was was happening during the process you know Carlos best
uh was the engineer then Ethan was the engineer and Carlos was like you put the
you know put the drums in the Elevator Shaft you know what I mean record that [ __ ] you know what I mean and so you
know that process of making the album and also experimenting what's happening
through the through the thing but one thing about it that I really love for me in memory is that
the willingness of unorthodox this
that as a Creator I was cool with like you all that
sound that's the CD skipping wow I sampled it and it became it plays in
that track about 10 times that's my horns it sounded like a horn sound like somebody it became my [ __ ] horns yeah
and it was just a CD skipping that you just happened to notice when it was skipping that sounds like horns I'm going to use it yeah so that type of
freedom of of grabbing and playing yeah I I love
it so much because if you if you take like it's a lot of frequencies in it but if you play that [ __ ]
loud it's ever changing yeah right you got the 4 MC's but none of them rhyme to
the same thing yeah you know what I mean some it's always yeah even the music under the hook changes yeah and so just
it was composing without knowing yeah you know what I mean that's what it was and how would you decide would go on
what tracks at that time I considered the MC's as as instruments as well I see
you know what I mean so so I kind of you know I mean I I knew certain voices and then also yeah I knew the my brothers
pretty well more than they knew each other cuz they all was my buddies yeah even if they wasn't buddies with each
other yet I see yeah what was the first scoring job you
did in Hollywood my first score was Jim jamu ghost dog
Scoring for Hollywood: From Ghost Dog to Kill Bill
it went well critically acclaimed and and what was the experience like it was great Jim was so Jim was a
cool guy I didn't know [ __ ] he's a great guy I didn't know [ __ ]
I was bringing music at one o'clock in the morning and [ __ ] dranking 40s and
ODB in the car with me Jim always like you know was like wizard was like like was like a spy movie like I'll be
needing the music and he'll be like yo what you going to be Wednesday uh at at one I'm uh like cuz editing in movies is
over at six o'clock okay it's a schedule here yeah but he he you know it was cool
yeah it was cool and we we we stayed Brothers I was just on on the phone with him last week know me yeah then there I
guess I guess I did a good enough job that I got some critical respect and then I met Quinton my next one is Kill
Bill great yeah and how's that experience changed my life yeah because I saw in another artist the epitome of
Art and found my direction in art so would you say you were inspired by the
way he worked yeah I was inspired by
the the brain capacity that he had to use to make his world come to life you
know I was doing that with 12 people in the studio he's doing it with 200 people on
the movie Set and at times The Good the good thing about it for me when I've met Quinton
and I kind of saw saw that his brain was a certain way I was humble enough to ask him can I
observe him and he said yeah he said you know I'll be in China but you want to come on
over help yourself you know we was already friends and I flew to
China you know what I mean stayed a couple of days before I made myself known cuz I like to be no broen or nobody then I was like um told uh
Lawrence Bender yeah I'm here said yeah yeah I've been here 3 days I'm I'm got I'll be here for like two weeks you
going to be here for two weeks yeah I'm just chilling you know what I mean oh uh you need I don't need nothing just uh
let me know where you guys going to be at I'll be I'll show the set I'll come every day after lunch and then stay for
the rest of the day yeah cool and I was up there with the same book composition notebook that I would write lyrics in
now I'm writing ideas and and Camera [ __ ] and all this [ __ ] you know that's what helped me find
my new path and I wasn't there as a composer I was there as an observer
because I I saw a like-minded man who have elevated his art
to the highest level of art a film considerably is the highest most
expensive form of art it takes sound
music it takes color paintings
wardrobes Tempo lyrics I mean acting acting a lot everything almost every a
good movie has every piece of art in it right even a name of weird art painting
let's say it's in it your art director painted the whole [ __ ] set M give me
one more Dancing Yeah that's why you love the whole pop fiction when John Chaba dance
with um Thurman you're like yo exactly yeah it's in it and he he opened my brain to that and it wasn't until then
it went to Japan I didn't go to Japan then they went to Mexico and I showed up in Mexico two weeks in Mexico
but it was in Mexico you know we spent a lot of nice and time together especially on the days off and all that I remember some of the
producers was like what is this gu going and that will give you a quick story so you really a student you went
as a student I went as a student and I will get your te if if you would say yo get the tea I'll get the tea yeah yeah
and one thing that was funny I just share this with you right so one so normally let's say that there's three
tables and this table is Quinton The Producers you know this is the the lead
actress maybe Ethan hwk came to town that's that table this table could be
people from the crew and all that and all that and all that and all that you know I was at that table the third table
Yeah and then after some nights you know I think Larry mccuan one of the greatest
steady cam did all the steady cam for squ sey and Good Fellas in fact his
family invented the study cam wow okay they call him Larry Vision the other
but I became cool with him you know I didn't have the same schedule as everybody so I could end up drinking
anybody right but anyway now I'm at that table
but I did over here some big like what is this guy doing
here you know what I mean somebody asked Quint what is you know qu I don't know I
haven't figured out what what I haven't figured out exactly what Bobby's going to be doing as part of the film right
here he's here observing but I haven't figured out what role he's going to play and then maybe it's two more days
before the end of it Quint invites me to this table and he makes the announcement
of Bobby's going to be my first composer he's never used a composer
before so he's gonna be my first composer for my film and he's gonna help produce my soundtrack amazing I was like
D and the funny thing there there was a guy there I think who flew in because he
wanted to be it he had his good time everything know but anyways and that L
that continue to lead lead me down the path of Hollywood how many have you done since wow a lot yeah yeah I know the TV
series I got I've been got two Emy nominations for music uh B how it
different working on a score versus working on tracks I mean a score you have to
service the film and remove your personal
what you want personally it has to service the film it's not about you
right at first I thought it was about servicing the director I thought that but it wasn't
that on killo I thought it was serving the director and I never worked for nobody
before since I was and neither did he so that that also is interesting that yeah he never worked with nobody he never
work with somebody to do score so in some ways you found your way together yeah I'm the rizer right now yeah I'm
the producer yeah I call the shots yeah I'm in a situation to where I play
something and they're like no that don't work Bobby it was I went through a situation
where it didn't work all week yeah yeah yeah and I was like [ __ ] this [ __ ] my
mind and Sh you know what me and then I just let myself be free and one day B and the scene that I would that didn't
work he burst in the womb one day that's it whatever you was doing right there
that's what we need for the scene where she fights the Crazy
88 yeah and then it was like a moment where that scene was out of the movie
but they didn't tell me and I'm working on it and then I'm like you know was Friday you know Friday is my day to show
[ __ ] and mind you I'm in editing for you know editing is there 20
weeks so I don't get there as you know my time is still hip-hop time I will
so I'm not getting there like everybody else yeah 9:00 a.m. and I'm after lunch
but I'm hanging till dinner yeah I even hang till midnight but I'm not getting there before but he uh the scene um was out of
the film but I didn't know and Friday I said check this out and listen and I I
took a old sample that we had used a xand Feld sample and chopped it up to the
scene and it was like you just saved the seene I was like what so it was going to
be out but because you liked the music it made it in the movie that not only that the music was such a good crate dig
yeah it was the music in the trailer wow it was a great it was a great dig yeah
so cool have you ever studied martial arts philosophy of course yes of course yeah
Martial Arts Philosophy and Its Influence
that's I studied martial art philosophy like even today you know I was actually studying
there's a filmmaker named La carong who made the movie 36 Chambers he's a director of it he did he directed
about 18 films and I just been studying him for like the last two weeks he's passed away in
2013 I think he's one of the greatest directors I ever Liv and uh he's a real Kung Fu Master
from the fourth generation of the hungar form I actually learned the hungar form myself I was trained by his classmate
and when I was on man with the iron fist they gave me this class I I I read it from a book when I was a kid so as a kid
one of the first books that I bought was the hung off form I'm like 14 years old and I was just use the book and try to
figure it out then in real life I get a hungar master to come teach me who's the
brother of my favorite director and Gordon Lewis's brother as well and Gordon Lewis in my movie like
the universe is crazy right yeah yes I martial art philosophy and I will prescribe it that it should actually be
added to a curriculum in school because discipline
spirituality physical training of yourself mental training of
yourself understanding yourself martial art is actually the art of understanding yourself it's so
important and and the philosophy whether you're Shin or wuang
or her you know or even if you want to just take it to Japan and do karate it's all
to build the individual and the community you know if you build yourself
first you become valuable to your community and you could either be the one that oppose the community or Aspire
the community or even defend the community so when you study it you learn the physical forms but the philosophy is
always taught along with the physical forms yes should be yeah so I can't speak for the for for every
teacher and for me the philosophy in fact wuang itself if you
go through the history of what wuang was or is the story is that this monk leaves
Shaolin and he goes to the wuang mountain and here he becomes enlightened
and he's not sitting there doing punches all day he's sitting still and he's
running it through his mind you know what I mean and so he's taking
the DST approach versus the Buddhist approach and he actually ends up melding
the two and you meditate a lot and you
sit it's actually if you have some physical training and then you could sit
there and in small spaces move your muscles and have your mind move
everything you're supposed to move in small spaces you'll be just as strong as a [ __ ] lifting weights you know what I mean that's the
rotang way yeah you know the shalling way of course go a thousand
punches tell me about writing in which capacity for some type of content to
Writing and Inspiration: From Lyrics to Ballet
come out of you what happens I think three levels come out of me as an artist one is my personal
experiences one is my observation M and one of the strongest one is my
imagination and then if you're blessed it's inspiration has nothing to do with you but you don't aim for the
inspiration that comes yeah I don't aim for neither none of them but if I'm forced to write like you say right now
you go oh this let write a song I will rely upon myself in my experiences a lot
of my Bobby Digital lyrics are more experienced than some of my
rizle lyrics the rizle lyrics are more philosophical yeah yeah so Bobby Digital
like I had a verse I'll give you a few lines that says uh you know it's gangster [ __ ] a little bit for Shell's Whi through his belly
they shot him right outside of Mike's Deli dip to the Telly call my [ __ ] up on a s Bobby what I'm probably nuts I
walk strange I talk strange a long range sniper aim will swiss cheese your brain
I don't sleep I don't eat meat I rest twice a week I can speak speak without moving my lips I got 50 pairs of
sneakers fingerprint proof rubber grips Hollow tip Clips 8 oz button nips I Sip
and I love barbecue chips that's just me I clock a bird from
the Block straight away from a flock to just cross near the bus stop I had a Snapple I twist the top off you know she
kept a hair process no panties underneath her dress a small link ankle bracelet she had Polo frames my shades
had no name the Poo came I slowed my game my th gold chain made their eyes
flame so I stood up against the bodega gate and stay straight she had a perfect figure eight shape I couldn't wait to
bust her grape with my apple head so that's so that's easy to write
because I could just go through myself like y I saw that girl I could write but then you
writing the pre-existence of the mathematical biochemical equation is the manifestation of rock plant air fire and
water which are on the basic formation solid liquid and gases that form the land mes and the space Catalyst and all
matter that exists must first be observed through a physical comprehension but it takes your nerves to be
struck that's a Isle you know what I mean big difference yeah yeah really different it's cool that you gave them
different characters essentially yeah then when WR in the
movie well I learned from the Tarantino School in in a way I think I definitely
would use my imagination but also hip-hop Quinton is a hip-hop
director right he's a music because he have a catalog of thousands of movies
in his head so he's like sampling ideas from things he's seen yeah and I found
myself doing the same yeah yeah me saying inspiration you know we don't
have nothing to do with with that right that's that's even deeper than Rizza in
a way a philosophical
because you know McCartney said a lot of great artists said you it shows up in your dream you wake up with it you know
and for me the wake up has been actually that's why we have this album of ballet through
mud I woke up without words woke up with music and
yeah so tell me about your relationship to piano when did you learn to play
Journey with the Piano
piano I mean I always liked the piano always had one never took formal
training just always just fiddled with it right by fiddling with it I just got
better and better loved it since I got the as once I got the EPS that was the keyboard and I realized that I'm more of
that type of musical Creator when it comes to producing or
songwriting and so uh yeah I love the piano for years once you got into it how
much time would you sit at the piano typically I've spent the most time at the piano during the pandemic I think
maybe a year before that but I'm the guy that you will you know when we do tours
or whatever you know even even in a mediocre way if they had a piano in the lobby I'm there and the chicks with me
are there and if I only know two c I'm playing those two cords for an hour yeah
that's just I just got addicted to it I remember wuang had our first album out
or coming out whatever and we was all in the Bay Area they put us in the oak woods and we stayed there and it was
this great piano store it's in San Francisco there's a great piano store that was somewhere downtown San Fran and
I just remember going in it and couldn't afford a piano yet didn't even know a
piano would be 20,000 $30,000 you know I mean thought maybe you know the at that
time the biggest most expensive keyboard would be two grand yeah you know I mean so and the guy tell me the price and
then there was some gentleman buying one you know he looked a little bit like it could have been a business Wall Street
guy but we we in the Bay area so I don't know his profession but he was testing the posan and I didn't know nothing and [ __ ]
and and I actually I but I wasn't shout say yo can you show me something how long you been playing
right he said I've been playing for uh 10 years I said how long is it take you get good he said I'm still ain't
good I said what could you show somebody like me he said actually
nothing okay and I was cool with that you know what I mean but I was like I'mma get one one day and uh yeah but I
just start reading music theory that year that year that year yeah 1996 I
started reading least music theory so I could you know play on keyboards and that's why in wuang Forever you do hear
cord progressions and turnarounds because what's the first piano you bought the first one was a Yamaha
upright had a disavia on it as well yeah bought three of those in my life and
would you sit at it and play a lot yeah yep until my uh my ex-wife she [ __ ]
that piano up there's a great story in my old neighborhood you go to the piano
store they got a great story about the piano piano like she [ __ ] it up in
what way oh she beat the [ __ ] out of that piano like ham she knew I loved it so oh I see yeah she destroyed that
[ __ ] and then took then took it back to them because she had to get me a new one you know and then tell them what
the [ __ ] happened and she just told them you know the wuang they had a crazy party and it's that that story lived in
the in in the piano place for a long time until I uh I actually never corrected the story I didn't want to on
to the bus but yeah but um but since then wow I mean you know I got a piano
in every home and just bought my first sway actually
not even six months ago I bought my first sway beautiful yeah well we're lucky that we have a piano here yes you
do I got a beautiful piano you feel like um see if I could bring some out of me yeah why not let's see what I could do
well you got a couple of Pian here like let's see what's going on here
[Music]
[Music]
this is basically the story of the the
ballet what's happening in the ballet is [Music]
that we start off in the key ofc which is Ionia and then
um the relative minor of C is a minor right and it
becomes aolan right so C
is major right and then the
next mode would be Dorian which would normally be minor right in this KC
but in my ballet it's actually major so it's it's more
[Music]
heroic and we follow throughout through these
modes and once the ionian with
minor has to make it back to that major and then I go through the whole thing and the thing that [ __ ] with the
ionian working the Mo's back is from the [Music]
ionian the low
crean like that that diminish and then from that diminish you
want to make it back and you could do it any way right you could do it other ways you could go
[Music]
let me take that same concept and don't think about the mes I mean think of the
mes but don't think about the key so now I'mma still do the same thing
starting ionian right but this here
that's not in the KC it's more of a jazz type
thing once
again now I going to do the key
[Music]
how did the idea for the ballet come [Music] from finding my old lyric
inside my uh Tommy Hill finger duffel
bag and then wan to put music to the lyrics but in a way like I didn't want
to rap or I rapped I didn't want to rap over hip-hop I just wanted to have a different
expression and it just kept evolving into different iterations
until I thought I was going to write like a hip hop Opera and then it was a guy named EV
Lamberg one of the presidents of universal I know Evan I love Evan yeah so Evan I played maybe a couple of
tracks of him when I was getting you know yeah I'm working on my my new Opera he's like
Opera said well operas are usually in Italian said but that sounds like a
ballet like a ballet is you know like the Nutcracker sweep or Peter and the
Wolf and he said that I was like that's crazy because Peter and wolf was the first thing I
studied when I was striving to be a composer when Jim j said you I want you
to compose my film and I never composed a film the first thing I did is went and
study Peter and the Wolf and by studying Peter and the Wolf it said that every
instrument represented a character the flute represented the bird
which makes sense because you blow a flute you can flutter the triones representing the
wolf the tube of the elephant okay that open my brain to the
you know F false composing come back now 20 years later and I'm doing my
ballet I identified what what Evan said and then I pursued it as
such right I said okay and I told my wife no I'm writing a
ballet and then I took the story that I had which was about these six one of my lyrics was about these six kids who I'll
give you the lyric you could chop it up but this is written between the age of 14 and 19 all these lyrics and one was
called Joe is a nerd and It Go Su was this girl was really quite fly Brad was
real cool and he was a guy Lisa was freaky they love to have sex her brother name was Dexter but they called him Dex
his sister name was Monica and she was a Verge Joel was just their friend but he was a nerd bought the beer s bought the
smoke Lisa had sheets Dexter had Coke Joe was the type who didn't get high nor
did Monica but she was willing to try Brad lit a blunt and passed it to Joe said come on man smoke it and Joe said
no what's wrong are you scared was asked by Sue are you were just a nerd Joe said that's not true Monica said Joe just
have a taste as he puffed on the blunt and blew the smoke in his face now on Monica Joe had a crush he didn't want to
smoke but felt that he must like many we know love made him a fool so he took a pull to prove he was cool Lisa was like
yo forget about Joe they say hey deck where the heck is the blow he pulled out two grams said it's all that I bought
they said it's more than enough they proceeded the snort now at this time Jo had finished three be and Brad was like
here have another you queer and Joe was like no as he held the stomach and while facing Monica he suddenly W she screamed
oh my God [ __ ] how absurd and everyone laughed and said Joe is a nerd Joe is a nerd Joe is a nerd Joe felt embarrassed
so he did the bird they chased him and ran and giggled and laughed through this abandoned house then it was a sound of
crashing glass it was dark in the room so Brad had to get a light and he checked to see if Joe was all right but
when they found them there was quartz of red blood spitting from his head sploded from his head and Monica said Joey is
dead and they all started to run and never mention this incident again to anyone so so that was a
story that I was like okay I'm on I'm going do this write this into this thing
along with another one I won't say to you okay it's like it's like a children's story but edgy children's
story I say yeah yeah yeah basically you you know the Slick Rick time where those stories was happening yeah yeah so then
I said okay I can't get away with that it don't sound right teenagers and so I
wrote a story into a higher level of college students and when I did that I
said okay now I got these six college students what can I how can I tell this story story and I decided that I'll tell it through the musical mode that's why I
just went through that to show you and it starts off with ionian who goes all the way through all the keys before she
gets back to herself and that's a ballet through mud because sometimes we got to
go through all these different things you know I mean to go through you got to go through the mud and what comes out of
the mud in Buddhism the Lotus it grows out of the mud and that's why the last
song on that album is the Lotus arrives yeah have you performed it live yeah we
performed it live first before we recorded it actually I performed it at the in Colorado with the Colorado syy
Orchestra we so two sold out nice which was great Standing Ovation which was amazing for my spirit uh then did you
play piano or did you just compose and watch it just watch it yeah yeah I I don't play piano in front of people MH
you know my wife kids maybe friends but I love sharing yeah yeah you know me and
my son and my phone I got so many recordings of like okay you go 3 minutes I go 3 minutes whatever happens yeah
don't worry about it and we and we go and and sometime we say something interesting sometime we don't and so taking the musical modes
and telling this story that's the side beautiful and then tell me about how you recorded it recorded it in Colorado in
the Symphony Hall mixed mics you know Newman's and how was it different
hearing it with an audience in the Symphony Hall
versus how you imagined it when you played it on the piano in the first place incredible and all reality well
first who goes piano then it goes to DAW and then it gets written for the
orchestra but incredible because on a piano you know that your tuers and your
grass is all here right that's might be the lowest brass you know your cello will start here
though [Music]
the end right you know your violin will [Music]
be no your flu sis but your flu could also get down
here but you can also have your elow and your other Woods down here right so
you'll know that you'll know that if you did a chord like
this right C7 you can look at that and look at the
range of that and what instruments fit here if I did the if or if I did the
actually I'll do a d here right but I'll do an inversion [Music]
right so now I got I got that flute [Music]
and then so anyway so thinking like that right but then when you hear hear it
played by the musicians it's 16 violins planted right it's four flute players
planted no it's amazing we had 60 pieces wow and so it felt
amazing and they knew me that's the other thing Chris dragon our
conductor you know we we had built the Friendship already from some previous things by the time we recorded it we had
performed it we have rehearsed it we have performed it to success uh multiple nights and now it
was maybe a few months later feel like it could have been about four months later said okay
now we're going to record it now the only difference that happened is that the original ballet was written with
choir but there's no choir on the album and so I in the live performance that
you of choir yes in the live performance choir as well is there a recording of the live yeah great and there's and
there might be one song that's on the bonus that has one song of the live you can hear the crowd and all that [ __ ]
yeah so you have to figure out what instruments but basically the human voice is here to here right I mean
naturally we could get way up here every want but yeah I wrote the notes down here and so we just emulated it with uh
brass some elbows yeah so there's a part in the that song of ballet through mud this track the title track well I
actually love that the instruments emulated what the voices was doing yeah and since the voices was only doing
single vows it actually sounds better on the instrument interesting which leads me to something else in the future like
okay you know if I'm going use a single foul I might as well use an instrument
yeah yeah did you make any changes once you heard
the orchestra playing it in rehearsal where you had only heard it before on the piano did you make any changes based
on the where the instruments overlapped yeah there was many changes that had to be made whether I whether I wanted to or
not I see because the digital you know if you using
Doro logic prot tools Ableton which all
played they all popped up on this [ __ ] uh also I have a keyboard called the um
Cog Oasis old key keyboard but really have nice Orchestra sounds in it mm and
actually have orchestras like maybe an atinado might be there so almost like I
could take a
atinado right and you know you get synthesized I got H one button to get that yeah right so I could hit that with
one button right while while my other hand is figuring out something else and then record that you know what I mean
and then take that midi file and put it into logic maybe right and say okay now how would that sound with this and then
maybe pull in Spitfire audio right and use one of their patches and they got
some [ __ ] patches and now it's like it sound close to something real yeah but now I give it to to the
orchestra it's like no it doesn't make sense because the flaton though won't be there
or the ritard won't be here or the the human is not going to do it that way
yeah right oh you sitting there holding a note on a [Music]
flute flute player only has so much air exactly he's out of that right okay so
what you want us to do you know you want us to um the Vissi yeah so the Vissi meaning I'm dividing the note between
two people I see yeah so now Theiss is so one starts it and then the other one
takes over exactly one comes back exactly the VY so that has to be written
on that chart yeah that means now the copyist got to know that and so and then
I had a great team you know I mean Scott O'Neil of course Mitch and tan who was
actually on my staff for the TV show right so that's that was another good
thing I had all these musicians AV valuable for me while I was doing the TV
show that I was able to I just had him on salary yeah it's great and I got some
advice recently from Alexi French he's a pretty established composer pianist
great virtuoso and I was like how do I become virtuoso and he said you should study um
the goldber variations of Bach I said I'm I haven't did it yet yeah but I'm
going to do that he just told me that [ __ ] like in August there's a lot of great versions of it too to listen to
It's Right inspiring to listen to you know I don't read music fast like I can't put the music in front of me and
bada B bada bada right I read like uh
maybe a sixth grader by now but it's still so maybe at 60 bpms I could read it you know at 90 no no no that's not
happening you know I could go do me Ray me Ray fa fa so la t see I could
do that now once I hear it now oh that's what he's doing so now I can see that oh
it's mostly the SE this doing that and then I could go ahead and try but that's
been my my biggest weakness is imitation it's my biggest weakness and
it's weirdest thing about me besides recently like I said once he told me this Goldberg thing I did listen to a
couple of them as well and I've been listening to a few other greats I actually realiz
realiz I wouldn't mind imitating him I'm a non- imitating dude right that's been
one of my potential flaws as well as blessing but I rather do what I'm doing
than do what you're doing you know what I mean y I remember when I got the guitar you know I started
late John was like what you going to you know V joh like what you know you starting the guitar at this age is
like but you know what I'll just do it pick up the instrument and make sounds
let me see see what I got here it might not be listen a b it don't matter what it is though guitar there the the third
one the furthest one no that one yeah right this just like I'm still going to
you know [Music]
I SI Buck it [Music]
mhm and you don't need to be able to read music to do that no it's just it's more like playing with the instrument
having fun [Music]
beautiful
yeah [ __ ] it you what I me yeah so much fun to make music isn't it yeah it's like let it out it's great so anyway you
mentioned the morning you pray tell me about your prayer life I hold some of that personal but I was just say pray
man you know we grew up people said don't pray
I tell you one thing a Old Gentleman tell me it was a I think he's a Jewish
brother he actually have no hands and he works in the in the store
but he always helped me carry out the boxes and I don't know one day you know
we being friends we start talking and talked about prayer he said what do you pray for
and I told him I don't pay for nothing I just give thanks he was like oh it's good but pray
for guidance I said okay I'll take that
[Music]
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