Chat, pleased to welcome
the one and only RZA.
What up!
Welcome. How are you?
I'm pretty good just
doing what I do.
Happy to be talking to you though.
Thanks for inviting me.
I'm happy to be talking to you, too.
Thanks for coming on here.
You're someone who you're constantly
working on things, like I said,
across different mediums, whether
it's the American Saga series, all
your different musical projects
you're doing soundtracks, scoring,
did a recent spot with Cadillac.
But, you know, given how much the
world has changed in the last
year, especially since the start of
2020, how has the last
year changed the way you look at
creativity and creating?
I think creatively it's
actually opened up more doors.
You know, I have more time
personally to be home and
I have a lot of toys, beat machines
and all types of cameras.
So I have a chance to really play
with a lot of things that I don't
normally get a chance to play with
based on my scheduling.
So I feel that creatively,
a lot of artists are going to have a
lot of new material coming out
that's going to surprise the world
because they have more time to
digest and release it.
The dependency on
outside or external
things are kind of disappearing,
you know, and I think that we now
can rely on ourselves.
Necessity, they say, is the mother
of creation. Right.
So through necessity,
we all found a way to find a way to
express ourselves.
When I first started
as an artist, I was isolated.
I was in a basement just making
beats or going through records.
And quarantine pushed me back
to be isolated.
Very few people in my circle.
And so I had to dig into myself
to find creativity.
And I feel like I feel like it's
been a blessing in a weird way.
One thing that really stood out to
me was Guided Explorations.
I wanted to ask you how that came
together and how you feel like 2020
really affected your decision to do
that and also getting into
meditation and what that's been like
for you creatively and what you were
speaking about earlier.
As far as the project, it was just
done naturally it wasn't prompted by
nothing. I was working with a great
company, Tazo.
I drink a lot of their teas, but
all people can enjoy because, like
I said, meditation I prefer over
medication.
You talk a lot about exploration
and you talk about a lot of
exploration now, too.
So how have you been exploring
so far in 2021 and what have
you been gravitating towards
creatively?
I'm in the middle of doing the Wu
Tang series so I'm actually
1993 right now.
Time traveling to us from then.
I'm watching and reliving through
Ashton Sanders and Shameik Moore
watching these actors play us
and I'm kind of living it all over
again, so I'll be
back at 2021
in a couple of months when I wrap
production. It's two
things. One is surreal, right.
It's a chance to tell your story
and a chance to have
your story portrayed by other people
is probably a far fetched idea.
Like when you're a kid, you don't
even think you want to be in the TV
screen or on a movie screen.
But you do have a dream of it.
And you sometimes you don't think
dreams come to reality.
But in my case, dreams have
come to reality and therefore I tell
others to continue to dream.
And so it's like I'm seeing a dream
materialize, going from, as
we meditate, we meditate on vision,
meditate on imagery and meditate
on building ourselves to be better
and greater. Right.
And some people even meditate and
they transcend, transcends and
travel.
While to me,
being on set is a result of
those thoughts.
My life, a result of
the Wu Tang brothers and their art
and their creativity,
finding itself in strong groups
and now continue to grow and branch
out. I think the Wu Tang story is
important because it's the story
of the youth of America.
Of course, black youth, non black
young men.
A lot of us don't find ways out
of our community.
We end up dead or in jail by twenty
five.
But then also it's a story
of young Americans and
any gender or
race or creed, because it's
going through that coming of age
and finding your voice and finding
your brotherhood and overcoming
obstacles.
So I think it's a beautiful story to
be told and I'm very grateful
that we're telling it.
One theme just in
your life is the theme of
storytelling. What have you learned
while cultivating your ability to
tell stories?
Never forget with my freshman
English teacher told me, he told me
buy a journal and write every
day.
And that became prominent
for me because whether I'm writing
lyrics or songs
or now screenplays.
The exercise of writing
is so important.
So I would advise anybody
out there to write because everybody
has a story to tell.
And one thing I can say to you, you
asked me earlier about the creative
process.
I now approach hip hop
and music with
no holds barred,
no, like, I don't do it for money,
you know what I mean. It's almost
like I do it for the joy of it.
In the beginning, that's how I did
it. In the beginning, it was just me
and Wu Tang, my brothers respond.
Everybody come to my house.
It was no budgets.
And then it became a million dollar
budgets. And then it became I only
would do it for money.
And then it became stagnated.
And then I chased money.
You chasing money, you actually
are dropping something else because
you're reaching for something.
But now it's more like
I just create just just
for the joy of it.
And if it's the builds
economic, it does.
But if it doesn't, it doesn't.
Two things. One is
preparation.
Put more time into preparation
before you go into the project.
The preparation is probably free.
And then two, completion.
Don't start nothing you're not going
to finish.
You know what I mean? See
ahead. Map it out.
Through preparation, you've already mapped it
out.
Even though you mapped it out, you
know that OK, there's an end.
So you may have to run, walk,
do the turtle or do the rabbit.
But you got to get past the finish
line.
Thank you so, so much for sharing
all of your knowledge and wisdom and
just joining me on the stream.
This has been amazing,
Thanks for the invitation. Talk soon.