Rzarecting The Career Of Bobby Digital

“And the RZA, he the sharpest motherfucker in the whole clan, he always on point. Razor sharp—with the beats, with the rhymes, whatever…”

There is no better description of the man, the myth, the legend of the RZA, then this excerpt from an interview with Method Man, on “Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers),” the Clan’s debut LP.

Hip-hop’s original dynasty, the Wu-Tang clan—which includes the RZA, Ol’ Dirty Bastard, Method Man, GZA and others—brought a new sound and philosophy to late ’80s/early ’90s hip-hop

“The Wu-Tang Manual,” written by the RZA, reveals the diverse inspirations for his philosophy and art—the nine chapters are called spirituality, martial arts, capitalism, comics, chess, organized crime, cinema, chemistry (read: drugs), and Wu-Slang Lexicon. There is no one like this man working in entertainment today.

The Crimson interviewed the self-described “organizer, producer, and mastermind of the Wu-Tang Clan,” because he is promoting “Derailed,” the trashy new Clive Owen-Jennifer Aniston flick, in which he plays Winston, the philosophical gun-toting sidekick of Owen’s cheatin’ man.



PRINCE RAKEEM

Many rappers, from Ice-T to 50 Cent to Snoop Dogg have tried to make the jump to the silver screen, but RZA is trying to build his acting career slowly with character roles. He quoted his agent as saying, “I don’t want you to be the black guy in the movie, I want you to be the guy in the movie who happens to be black.”

Unsurprisingly enough for a man who has already accomplished so much, RZA hopes to challenge the limitation imposed by Samuel L. Jackson’s recent comment that rappers shouldn’t act—Jackson was justifying refusing to appear in 50 Cent’s debut “Get Rich or Die Tryin’” in favor of a movie called (seriously) “Snakes on a Plane.”

“I read, I study, I practice,” RZA says. “The Godfather [Jackson] says rappers shouldn’t act and that really bothers me. I respect him so much he might even convince me, but I want to show him that there are some people who are good at it and some people who aren’t.”

In his first big-budget on-set experience—his movie-stealing interlude in “Coffee and Cigarettes” was more a cameo role—the East Coast legend has found the world of Hollywood fairly welcoming. Even though during filming Jennifer Aniston was in the trying process of separating from Brad Pitt, the RZA remembers that she “showed mad respect and mad love for my homeboys when they visited.”

It is not a desire for fame or money that motivates RZA to move in to film, but rather that he’s looking to conquer a new realm that fascinates him, he says. Nor does he want to be seen as leaving his roots behind. “I didn’t make a transition from the music world to the movie world; I made a bridge, bringing the two worlds together,” RZA says.

Although RZA is appropriately dubious about actors wanting to break into the music world, he does give respect to another unique performer, saying, “Steven Segal might not make a good album, but, damn, that man can play a guitar.”



BOBBY DIGITAL

RZA does want to expand his repertoire, particularly in terms of the movies for which he composes. “I look forward to scoring romantic movies. I had my heart broken so many times,” he says. “I fuck 200 pussies, but my heart’s still lonely.”

He is on the shortlist for composing score to “Miami Vice,” he revealed and is about to starts working on “The Man with the Iron Fist,” but he would not say more about the latter.

Most of the RZA’s time is still spent working in the music world, however. Currently, he is producing the sequel to Raekwon’s album “Only Built 4 Cuban Linx,” which he promises will make all the fans happy. He does ponder the future of hip-hop, but says “I think hip hop is now a full grown man that can make a lot of choices for itself.”

On the other hand, RZA seems worried about the future of hip-hop. “No one’s coming at me with some brand new ideas,” he says. “We haven’t heard anything in a while where it was like ‘what the fuck was that?’”



RULER ZIG-ZAG-ZIG ALLAH

RZA resounds fellow rapper-producer Kanye West’s comment about George Bush’s lack of care for African-Americans. “I don’t think George Bush give a fuck about nobody but George Bush,” RZA says. “On the real, real, Mr. Bush is a cowboy and he drives a hard bargain and you should know that by now.”

The fact that he seems impressed by the President’s intransigence, while simultaneously being frustrated by the man’s sentiment seems to best represent the two sides of RZA himself—his business, capitalist side and his more philosophical, humanist side.

Within his own politics RZA expresses a more libertarian streak, particularly in regard to marijuana, which he definitely thinks should be legalized. “Give a street peddler a peddler’s license and make it so you can only smoke in certain areas, ‘cause I mean if you’re smoking on the streets you can get run over by a car or something,” he says. “I’m not pretending it won’t bug you out and stuff.”

“Marijuana should only be legal in your private home,” he continues. “Watching a good movie in the privacy of your home, there’s nothing like a good joint. You should be able to enjoy whatever you want to do in your house. Whether its smoking drinking, or having three women, it’s private baby!”

The only aspect of RZA’s life for public consumption is success. The “most fulfilling part [of the “Derailed” experience] was last Sunday at the premiere seeing the audience jump at the part that the director needed me to make every jump at,” he says.

On the one hand, his was the most interesting performance in a bad movie. On the other hand, flops do not a successful acting career make. But however well RZA does as an actor, the Wu-Tang Abbott’s future will be worth catching whether you are a crab, a chef, a cherry head or a plain old college student.

--Staff writer Scoop A. Wasserstein can be reached at wasserst@fas.harvard.edu.