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RZA entered the film world via the 1999 Jim Jarmusch movie Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai. ?My crew thought I was going crazy, getting too orchestral, moving on from the basic hip-hop sound. I was. Meeting Jim was a blessing. Here was a guy who needed that sound for his work.?
Photograph by: Justin Tang , The Gazette
MONTREAL ? I don?t know if I?m following RZA or he?s following me. I began writing about music more than a decade and a half back, inspired by a love of hip hop, and moved on to cover film two years ago, but it was just this week that I finally got to interview one of rap?s most influential and iconic producers for the first time.
Coincidence? I think not. Two decades after founding game-changing rap collective Wu-Tang Clan, RZA (n? Robert Fitzgerald Diggs in 1969) made his directorial debut in November with the ?Quentin Tarantino Presents? kung fu epic The Man with the Iron Fists, featuring RZA, Russell Crowe, Lucy Liu and a who?s who of Chinese film stars.
For RZA (pronounced ?Rizza?), it was a case of life coming full circle. In Montreal to work on the action flick Brick Mansions, co-produced by Luc Besson, in which he plays an evil drug lord opposite Paul Walker (of the Fast and the Furious series), he sat down this week for an interview at the PHI Centre, where he will present The Man with the Iron Fists at two special screenings on Sunday.
?I saw my first martial arts film at the age of 9 years old,? RZA said. ?Ever since, I was addicted to the genre. Every weekend, we would find ourselves in rundown theatres in New York City, watching triple features.
?When I came into high school, I would cut class. I got arrested by truant officers ? me and my cousin, Ol? Dirty Bastard, we would cut school and watch kung fu movies. I would daydream about being a martial arts star. To have a chance to live that dream out is a blessing, but there?s a lot of ambition behind it.?
RZA put his love of Asian cinema to good use, making it the conceptual, lyrical and sonic foundation of the Wu-Tang Clan. The group?s classic 1993 debut Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) was a stark, strident collage of kung fu film samples, old soul snippets, Asian philosophy and underground New York street style.
?I tried the industry early on,? RZA said. ?I got my first record deal (as Prince Rakeem) with (the label) Tommy Boy, at age 18. They were always sending producers to make music for me, great producers ? Prince Paul, D.R. Period, Easy Mo Bee. But the difference between them and me is they wasn?t MCs, breakdancers and graffiti writers, all these other parts of hip hop.
?I was. I did all these things already. Then I started to produce. I was thinking of A Tribe Called Quest, one of the greatest groups of all time, which sampled jazz records; and Public Enemy, which used James Brown samples. I was like, ?What about soul music? Or music that makes you want to rap?? Not dance ? Wu-Tang doesn?t really make you want to start dancing. It makes you want to jump or break(dance).
?I started making that kind of music, and having guys come to my house and do demos. Every time I threw on a beat, a new rap style would come out. ?Cause it wasn?t made to dance ? it was made to rap over. I knew, when we finished the album, that we had something unique.?
Named after one of RZA?s favourite films of all time, The 36th Chamber of Shaolin, the first Wu-Tang album sounded like nothing else out there. It launched the solo careers of Method Man, Raekwon, Ghostface Killah, RZA, Ol? Dirty Bastard and GZA.
It also established RZA as a musical visionary, whose esthetic could inhabit many disparate worlds at once.
?(People thought), ?These ghetto black guys have nothing to do with Asian culture,? ? RZA said. ?But when it comes to truth, it doesn?t matter where art comes from. It?s all one culture.?
Indie director Jim Jarmusch saw in RZA?s music the perfect complement to his 1999 film Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai, which starred Forest Whitaker as an eccentric Mafia hit man who lives by the ancient samurai code.
?Jim Jarmusch is the one who introduced me to the whole film world,? RZA said. ?He wanted to contact me to ask me to participate on the film, but he couldn?t find no way to contact me. There was one guy who knew me and knew him. I?ll say it out loud: the guy we both got weed from.
?(Jarmusch) said, ?I?m making a new film, and I want you to do the score.?
?I said, ?I?ve never done a score before, but the beats I?ve been making are longer than four bars. I?ve been writing 16-bar loops.? My crew thought I was going crazy, getting too orchestral, moving on from the basic hip-hop sound. I was. Meeting Jim was a blessing. Here was a guy who needed that sound for his work.?
RZA went on to compose scores for other movies, including Tarantino?s Kill Bill: Vol. 1. Tarantino became his friend and mentor, instructing him on the secrets of filmmaking over a six-year period. While the two may not seem like obvious pals, that?s precisely what makes them click.
?He has humble beginnings as a video store clerk and movie fan,? RZA said. ?But he learned to write and direct, and he changed the way movies are made.
?My story is also unlikely. I?m a high-school dropout, a guy who was supposed to be in jail for life, one of 11 children, (from a family) on welfare. What we have in common is a love for art, an artistic gene, a wavelength. When I met Quentin, it was like we knew each other without knowing each other.?
To have finally entered the film world as a writer-director, with Tarantino?s support, is a dream come true. RZA is also excited to have Gordon Liu, the star of The 36th Chamber of Shaolin, as a guru to his own character, the town blacksmith.
?I told Gordon, ?When I saw your movie as a kid, it inspired me, and it led to Wu-Tang?s first album, which inspired millions of kids around the world. Maybe with this film, another kid will get to see it, get inspired, and another one of me will come up.?
?It doesn?t have to be a young black guy from the ghetto. How about a young Serbian guy, struggling over there in his country, or a Russian guy, or somebody in South America? You never know who you?ll inspire with your art.?
RZA?s film The Man with the Iron Fists screens Sunday,?June 23?at 7:30 p.m. (sold out) and 9:30 p.m. at the PHI Centre, 407 St-Pierre St., in Old Montreal. RZA will be on hand to speak to the audiences for both screenings. For tickets and more information, call 514-225-0525 or visit phi-centre.com.
? Copyright (c) The Montreal Gazette
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