'When you got an estate, it's so much paperwork and red tape and legal stuff you gotta deal with,' Wu-Tang mastermind says of late friend's music.
By Rob Markman, with reporting by Adam Murphy
RZA
Photo: MTV News
Wu-Tang Clan ain't nothin' ta eff wit, and neither are the RZA's beats. While in Berlin promoting his new headphone line, Chambers by RZA, the Wu producer told MTV News that he has given beats to a number of hip-hop artists, including Nas, Busta Rhymes and Ludacris, as well as his cousin and Wu-partner GZA for his Liquid Swords 2 album.
"Me and GZA talked about doing Liquid Swords part 2, a sequel. We talked about it for a while," RZA said about the follow-up to GZA's 1995 album. "We actually started a little bit and then we pulled back based on scheduling, based on my movie."
RZA's love affair with Hollywood is no secret. As an actor, Bobby Digital has appeared in "American Gangster" alongside Russell Crowe and has recently been cast in "G.I. Joe: Cobra Strikes." RZA has also been hard at work directing "The Man With the Iron Fists," a movie set in feudal China that will star Russell Crowe, Pam Grier and Lucy Liu.
"The movie has taken me out of the loop of music. But what I have been doing, I've been going to studios and inviting people to my studio. So I went to the studio with Luda and I emptied beats from my beat machine for him. Whether he use it or not is up to him, but I just been emptying out my beat machines," RZA said before revealing more of his collaborative hopefuls. "I emptied out some beats on Busta, I emptied out some beats on Nas, emptied out some beats for [Ghostface Killah] and for Wu-Tang Clan — just sent them 20 beats a few weeks ago."
Though he is very passionate about making movies at the moment, RZA knows music is what got him where he is today. "I really want to put a lot of my energy into film, but I know that I got here because of music and I know people dig my music. And I'm like, 'Why not put the music out there too?' "
Judging from his activity, it is a safe bet that fans can hear a lot of new RZA music in the near future, but anyone expecting to hear collaborations between the producer and his cousin, the late Ol' Dirty Bastard, shouldn't get their hopes up. While the Abbot does confirm that he has plenty of unreleased Ol' Dirty material, releasing those tunes would be quite difficult.
"That's a very tricky situation, because ODB has passed and he has an estate," he said. "When you got an estate, it's so much paperwork and red tape and legal stuff you gotta deal with. I tried to put out a song last year called 'Dirt's the Boogie,' and they threatened me with an injunction and I wrote the lyrics to the song. Made the beat, wrote the lyrics and Dirty just performed it."
Instead of holding onto the work, though, RZA is contemplating leaving the unheard recordings to Dirty's son when the time is right. "I will tell the fans, I do have a few 2-inch reels of material nobody has but me. I don't know what I'll do with it," he said. "Maybe in time I'll just give it to his son, I don't know."
Do you want to hear RZA's ODB tapes? Let us know in the comments!
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