"RZA"
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All right, so guys, this is the start and we need a good solid cold open. Anybody have any interesting or funny something to say? Get our listener excited to surprise them? Like, yeah, well, it was surprising that it rained a lot yesterday. No, Will, anything? Can you help? No, we're still going to be digging ourselves out of a rain yesterday hole that Sean put us in. But anyway, welcome to Smart List. Smart List.

Oh, hi.

Oh, hi. That's OJ. I'm wearing a hat that says, oh, hi. I told you guys last time, I was in Ohio yesterday. I just got back last night for Kevin's birthday, my friend Kevin's birthday. Oh, man, what a story. You were in Ohio. Do you like it there? For whose birthday? Kevin Hart's? Kevin...

Kevin Neustadt, it's a friend of ours. He doesn't pay attention. He doesn't remember. You mentioned Kevin and Kerry a million times. He has still no idea who they are. That's right. You've met them. Well, why would I know who they are?

Because you sat and talked with Kevin for a few hours. You talked to him for a few hours, but he's not working at Netflix. Do you know how many people you guys have sat and talked to for hours that you have no idea who they are? You can't remember them. JB, I remember there used to be somebody years ago. I won't say the gender because I don't want to give it away, but there was somebody who you kept introducing yourself to over years and finally they got mad at you and you were like, hey, F you. Really? You think I fucking remember it? Do you remember that?

No. And eventually you're like, I don't fucking know you. Well, I can't, I mean, I'm certainly not unique to being, you know, bad at remembering names.

No, no, no, no. You're not unique. No, no, no. Same. Right? Yeah. You're great at dates. You're incredible at dates. I'm good at dates, but the names and stuff, no. Yeah, dates is weird. I don't know what that is. And also, you know, and I have particular trouble, like, you know, guys don't typically change their look often.

present company excluded. Right. But so it's not difficult for me to remember a dude's face over the course of a few years. Yeah. I've had like two hairdos my whole life. Right. But, you know, women get to change the color of their hair all the time and the cut of their hair and they accessorize. You've got a few hair don'ts too. I mean, let's be honest. Oh, they're all online. You can enjoy. It is one of the worst things I ever did was...

Years and years and years ago, we remodeled our house. And I walk out the front door and there's this girl running. I may have said this already. There's this girl running down the sidewalk right towards me, jogging. And she goes, hey, Sean. And I'm like, hey. And she goes, you finished? Meaning to the house? And I'm like, yeah.

Yeah, how did they even know I was remodeling? And she goes, I'd love to see it sometime. And I'm like, wait a minute. What? This just girl jogging randomly. And I'm like...

"Do I know you?" And she goes, "It's Julia, your neighbor for the past 20 years." - How bad did you feel? - And I said, I said, Jay, I go, "The worst thing you could ever come back with," I said, which was, "Did you change your hair?" It was just terrible. It was horrible. - Last week when I was in New York and I was riding a bike through the village,

I'm riding along and this girl goes, Will! Are you shooting additional photography for Flight? No. And I go, and I'm riding, F you, bro. And I'm riding my bike through the village and this girl goes, Will! And I look over and she goes, Hey! And so I turn over, like I steer the bike over and I go, Hey, what's going on? And I'm like, who? And then she goes, I get right up closer and she goes, You don't know me.

And I go, okay, see you later. So then I go by, right? So then I go and it's a city bike and I park it in the thing and I'm walking down a block later. I'm walking by and there's this girl and guy sitting outside this place and she's wearing a baseball cap. She looks up at me and she goes, kind of waves like, hi. And I go, hey. And I keep going.

I get home, there's a text and it says, "Friend of mine, Emily," and she goes, "Did you not know that was me?" So I thought I recognized the person who was a stranger, and the person I knew, I blew off.

So is it just... Yeah, I have the worst. It's face blindness. It's face blindness. I swear I have it. Or are we just rude dicks? Or are we just getting old and we're losing our minds? I think I've always been like that. I think it's all of it. Yeah, I think it's all of it too. It's a little wicked combination of all of it. Yeah, but I'm terrible. Yo, you're the worst. What's the subject?

Can we fill in the blank? Yeah, can we? Let me go first. Can I go blanket on that? You're just the worst. I kind of think everybody looks the same. I swear, I think I have a little bit of it, like face blindness. I really do. No, but that's a real thing. I know one person that's like that. Right. I think we know the same person. Yeah. Oh, okay.

And I said to this- Yeah, I'm blanking on their face. Wonderful, Will. Okay, listen. Listen, listen. Wait, wait, but I asked that guy really quick. I asked that guy, I was like, so if I walk out of the room and come back, because he-

he has like been diagnosed with space blindness. I go, if I walk out of the room and come back in, you won't know it's me? He's like, no. I'm like, really? And this guy's making six figures a year. I know. By the way, again, not to go too far, there is a documentary that came out in the 80s about this guy in England who had a memory of seven seconds.

Poor fellow. He had an injury, head injury. And it's crazy. And his wife would like, he eventually lived on his own, had to be taken care of. But she would go out of the room. He'd come in. She'd come in. She'd go, hi. Oh, my God. He'd hug her, hug her, hug her. She'd go to make a cup of tea. She comes back and be like, hello.

Oh, the most annoying man to ever live with. She was the only person that he remembered. It's on YouTube. It's fucking crazy. Could you imagine having face blindness and the seven-second memory? Dude, it's the craziest, craziest thing ever. Anyway. That's such a great character. Speaking about crazy, we have a crazy talented guest on the show today. I've been looking forward to having this guest for so long. This person is...

He's a true, he's a visionary. He's done everything in music and film. He's ventured into horrorcore. He's produced solo albums. He's made a mark in film and TV. He's scored a lot of great films. He's scored Ghost Dog, The Way of the Samurai. He scored the Both Kill Bill movies. He starred last year in an award-winning comedy, Probomista. He's just wrapped his own film, One Spoon of Chocolate. He's a published author.

He released a classical album last year, A Ballet Through the Mud, which is unbelievable. Guys, he's a titan of everything, not just the industry. He's a founding member of the Wu-Tang Clan, who not only shaped the genre with their groundbreaking debut album, Enter the Wu-Tang, but he's also crafted a sound that's booming beats and chilling samples and influenced countless musicians. It's the one and only RZA, you guys.

Oh, my God. Whoa. Yeah. Whoa. I guess I'm going to take off my camera here. There it is. Oh, boy. John Lyleman's going to be thrilled. This is so cool. Hello. Good morning. Good morning. Good afternoon. I'm actually on the East Coast, so it's good afternoon. Happy lunch. Oh, yeah. Good afternoon. Oh, man. Thank you for joining us today. What an absolute fantastic.

Thrilled to have you on the show today, man. My pleasure. And I will start off by saying I have a great memory. Yeah? We're the same age. Exactly. Will you remember for me right now what it was like to score both Kill Bills? I mean, that's like, was that the only film that you, the films that you've scored? No, I went on to score maybe a dozen after that and some TV shows, etc.,

Do you love that? Yes. It's incredible. Scoring is the ultimate, one of the ultimate expressions of art, right? You're trying to tell a story and complement a story with your music. Yes, I love it. Yeah, but sometimes the cues have to only be 10, 20, 30 seconds, or do you feel you're boxed in with that? No, I think, to be quite frank, you may have a cue that's just a cymbal, tss,

That's your cue, right? Yeah, yeah. But you may have one that's like, you know, that's a whole nutcracker suite, you know what I mean? A whole big sequence. So, I mean, that's the beauty of music. You think about, I mean, one of our great composers,

John Williams, he was... And it's just a few notes. Yeah, yeah. That's so awesome. So was Ghost Dog Way of the Samurai, was that your first one that you did? Yeah, so John John Woods brought me in to score that film. I never scored a film before. I was pretty... I didn't know what it was, to be honest with you. I didn't know how to... When you make a movie, you got to edit, you got to do all these things, right? And Jim used to want the music...

And he'd be like, you know, come to the editing room, which is basically editing is a nine to five job, maybe a nine to eight. Yeah. I'd be coming like midnight. You know what I mean? Everybody be gone. But at those days we had the music on the dat. So I would just have it on the dat player, pull up to the place and give him the dats. And he'd be like...

Like, you know, it's midnight. I'm like, well, you know, here it is. Yeah, why is that? Why is it historically, you know, music studio sessions late in the night? What is that? I don't understand. Yeah, musicians. Yeah, you guys have like a different clock. Yeah, I mean, my musician clock was ridiculous. I mean, it was embarrassing to be quite frank.

I remember as I'm scoring movies, I started sampling some music from one of John Woo's movie, The Killer. It was one of my favorite, The Killer, hard boil, great- - Yeah, great movies. - Great titles by the great director John Woo. And we became friends and he came to New York and he's like, "I wanna have, let's have dinner." And I said, "Cool, let's have dinner." So I meet you at the restaurant, 6:30 in Manhattan. And at the time I was in a studio that was like an hour away.

And I just got caught up in the studio. And then it's like 9 o'clock. They're like, wait, you're supposed to be at dinner with John. I'm like, okay. Yeah, you kind of get sucked into it. And it's like this, like, yeah, my husband, Scotty, he also composes scores and stuff for stuff. And he'll be back there in like eight hours fly by. You don't even know if he's there. But John was such a gentleman, Sean, that I got there around 11.

And he held the restaurant open and he sat down and had a great meal. Oh, that's amazing. And he gave me some wisdom about time. Oh.

Well, I was going to say, some wisdom about time. I like that expression. About time, which is so funny because all music is in time. Is all time. And we're all late. So it's funny, you know, when I think about it, because I was asking about the first film that you scored, which was Ghost Dog. And I was going to say, how did you get into it? But it makes sense because you mentioned like John Woo's films being a huge influence.

I mean, there is a cinematic influence in the Wu-Tang music, right? I mean, that's part of your origin story. Can you talk a little bit about that? Yeah, I mean, my aspirations at the time of making music was trying to make a movie, trying to make my album play like a movie. Oh, wow. You know, in New York, a lot of people,

A lot of us kind of would drive to like D.C. to the Howard Homecoming or to Morgan State College, you know what I mean? Or go up to Connecticut. It was like, that's the weekend thing to do, right? That's where the chicks are at. And my idea was to

make people who are driving that journey to listen to my music and to get a movie in their head and pick up some game, pick up some slang, pick up some visions. So I was always trying to make movies. And my first five albums, if you listen to them, they always start with a beginning, there's a theme. There's an album we did called Cuban Lynx.

which is really a mafia movie. It starts off with three guys, one for you, one for me, one guy cheating them. He's like, you know the old thing, one for you, one for me. Two for you, one, two for me. Three for you. And it goes on. And the way the album plays out, it's like these guys are going to pull a heist

Somebody's going to die, like Once Upon a Time in America. The other two guys are going to go grab the rest of the crew, the Wu Gambinos, bring them back, and then pull a bigger heist for two million, and everybody's going to ride off into the sunset.

And that album was so influential that hip-hop began to change their names. Like, we was the first ones to change their names, like from Wu-Tang to the Wu Gambinos, and every artist started following that trend. Wow. Wow. Wow, that's so cool. I mean, so you guys, so I mentioned in the intro that in 93, you guys released Enter the Wu-Tang, and that kind of changed everything.

That kind of changed the game. Certainly it must have changed your life in a big way. You had already been making music for years, right, with those guys? Yeah. But that was the first big release that went kind of crazy. What was that experience like? Yeah, it was, I tried to enter the industry before, just as a solo artist. Prince Rakim, you know, sold about 10,000 records, got a couple of, you know, a couple of shows and stuff.

couple of groupies, right? At that age, 19 years old, that's not a bad start. Couldn't pay my rent, though. But I went back to my crew, and I was just like, you know, we had this thing in the neighborhood called the Wu-Tang Sling. And we was all big kung fu movie lovers. And I just caught an inspiration that we should take with our childhood love.

take the concept of Asian cinema from Hong Kong or from Japan. And since our lyrics are, you know, from your mouth and your mouth is like a sword, right? It says that in the book of Revelations, it says out of the mouth comes a double edged sword. So I was like, if we take our tongue and make it our sword,

and the best sword style ever filmed was the Wu-Tang style and we become the Wu-Tang clan, we could go into the industry and chop everybody's heads off. My brothers was like, sounds good to me. Well, that was my question because I'm a dumb, soft white guy from Los Angeles and I not know about... Well, you know, I'm not... No, that's very true. That's a really apt description of you.

I'm not, as the kids say, I'm not down. I'm not hip to it all. And so I'm not clear on Asian cinema, on Kung Fu, on the genesis of the title of the band and stuff. So I was going to ask you about that. So how did your love of...

Kung Fu and Asian films? And how does that start? Because you wouldn't necessarily put hip hop with Asian cinema in the same group, right? Typically? I mean, you kind of have to if you think about it, right? If you go back into hip hop, according to hip hop history, it says it started in 1973 in that summer. But in that same summer, Bruce Lee entered the dragon, his 42nd Street.

And that same summer, Fred Williams' Black Caesar hits. And also The Godfather is in the theaters. Mean Streets, right? So the art of the cinema is still cohesive with the art of the music. There's actually a thread because most of us are in those theaters, right?

And then when we go back to our neighborhoods, the things that we are gaining from cinema is finding its way into our art. If you look at some of the early breakdance moves, you'll see that some of those moves were seen in a martial art film and then, of course, took it to another level.

Yeah, that's amazing. I didn't even think of that. That's so true. Of course you didn't think of it. But you're dumb. You don't think about a lot. What the fuck do you know, dude? You don't know anything. Just listen to it and learn, okay? That is true. Breakdancing is, yeah, you could duck a lot of punches. Yeah.

down there on the floor. So then, so then, so that makes sense. And so then you guys do, you produce and you form Wu-Tang and you release some records and just a huge, like massively influential. But also, what's interesting to me is, and tell these guys and educate all of us a little bit about

Not only were you guys doing Wu-Tang, but then as you're doing... I mean, you're doing all sorts of solo projects under a bunch of different names, right? And you mentioned Prince Rakeem, which was your... that you released before, but also some stuff after, right, as well? And also...

But also other guys from Wu-Tang, you produce their stuff. Like oftentimes people leave a band and go and do something on their own, on their own, on their own. But you were still producing everybody's music. Is that true? Yeah. I was with, so since the martial art world or the Shaolin philosophy was so embedded in us, we took it and applied it to our lives. So for instance, Staten Island, my hometown, Staten Island,

We renamed it Shaolin. You know what I mean? That's why you see Pete Davidson has a Shaolin tattoo, of course. Oh, wow. He's from Staten Island, but we renamed it Shaolin.

So Shaolin is considered the temple, the well, they would say, from which all martial arts springs from. It's the strongest philosophy place that even before Zen made it to Japan, it was developed in Shaolin. And so in Shaolin, they had the monks, but the leader of the monks was called the abbot. And so my Wu-Tang brothers called me the abbot.

So as the abbot, it's my job to make the best decisions, the best direction of which way we go. And as the producer, I went on to produce, of course, the first album, 36 Chambers. It went platinum. So going platinum, of course, is a bong bong, right? So then after that, of course, I became a sought-after producer. But what I did was...

keep my energy contained within my crew. So I went on to produce Method Man's first album, Double Platinum, Bae Kwan Platinum, Old Dirty Bastard Platinum, GZA Platinum, Ghostface Platinum. That's unbelievable. Yeah, so I might have did about seven platinum albums back to back. I don't think too many people probably did that, so that's a blessing. But it was a contained energy

You know what I mean? Yeah. I remember talking to Seth Rogen when they had their breakout. You know, he made a joke because him and his crew who were listeners of the Wu-Tang Clan, they called themselves the Jew-Tang Clan, he said. Right? And he said they all lived together and him and Evan and everybody. That's really funny. They...

actually took that concept and did the same thing and continued hit after hit. And I think that's the great thing for any group of artists is if you could combine that art together and then direct it as a brand, you will increase your fan base, of course, but also give each one of you a chance to go through the same tunnel. That's so cool. I love that. There's a sort of like a...

you harness the power of the collective a little bit and you don't let it dissipate. You kind of keep it and you all kind of move and then all boats rise, right? You know what I mean? And what would we call our little clan here? Like the Chin Chin clan? I don't know. By the way, you mentioned... I really like Chin Chin. Well, Chin Chin went out of business. Did you see that?

Well, no, they just shut down the sunset. They did? They shut down the one in Beverly Hills? Sorry, Sean. Get through the interview. You'll get your sodium somewhere else. Don't worry about it, man. And we will be right back.

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So I'm in New York right now. And every single time I'm in New York, that means I'm going to be walking a lot. And I mean a lot outside. So when I leave my apartment, I have to make sure I have a backpack or something on me with something that's going to hydrate me.

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So you talk about Shaolin. I didn't know any of that. That is such a cool concept, dude. I'm so blown away by it. I'm like riveted. And you guys recorded your seventh album was Once Upon a Time in Shaolin, right? And you made one copy.

Do you guys know about this story, Sean and Jason? No, no, no. Can you tell these guys a little bit about it? Because it's one of the coolest stories in art history. Forget music. It's so rad. And then that guy did a controversial purchase of it, correct? I don't know this. A very controversial purchase. Please tell me. Will you tell these guys what happened, what that album was about, and why you did it all? Okay, first, once streaming took over music,

Music went from being worth two cent a record spend on your radio to being worth zero, zero, zero, zero point four. Okay? Sure. So it was totally devalued. And a lot of artists were suffering because of that devaluation at this time. Napster.

Pardon? Napster. If you think about Napster, that was the foundation of taking everything. Till bark out moments of knowledge every once in a while. Yeah, you're like my grandmother in the other room. Napster! Wait, I know that. That was the first one, yeah. After everything got devalued, we tried to figure out a way to bring value back to music. And the idea was music is art and it should be treated as such. And it's not something that

it's not just a privilege, right? Because the creation of it is such a process. Like, for a Wu-Tang album to make it, you got to get nine to 20 people together, the engineers. And it's an endeavor, like a film, right? It costs a lot of money, right, to make it. And then the goal is to sell it so you can continue to make it again. You know what I mean? So anyway, it got so devalued that we was like, well, let's make an album that...

We'll make one single copy, treat it like it's a Mona Lisa or an Egyptian scepter, something like that. It belonged in a museum. And the only way that you can now get it, you have to go to it. You have to go see it. This is amazing. Oh, that's cool. And we auctioned it. The funny thing is when we auctioned it, we auctioned it to a guy named Mike Scarelli. Yeah. Now, Scarelli, at the time when he bought the album, I got to confess this because I don't talk about this a lot.

At the time I shook his hand, he wasn't known yet. Like, I met him, it was a few different billionaires that was going to buy this album from this Sotheby's powderweight auction type of thing. And he was probably the poorest amongst them. He only worth about $200 million at the time. But he was into it, right? And he told me, he said, I'm going to buy the last Enigma machine. I'm going to buy the turning papers.

and I'm going to buy your single album all in one week and I'm going to take this and I'm going to create something that's going to, for him, he's going to become like a new super villain or something. He didn't say villain though, but he was like, he's going to take these elements and he's going to create something crazy. And he went and formed this company, The Turning Company, et cetera, et cetera. And I shook hands with him. And that same company,

A few months later, before we announced the purchase and everything, because we had a scheduled date of closing, is that how we call it? A few months later, this guy shows up on the news as the evilest man in the world. He took the price of a medicine that was...

maybe $15 a pill. That guy, that guy. And he, and he, and he turned it to 2000, $4,000 a pill. And the saddest thing about it was that this pill was for, for, for our citizens who have HIV. Right. I remember that. It was a dire need for this pill for them. And so basically he was, uh,

you know burning down a village that I mean you could put it to that analogy that he's burning down villages by this price gouging but he had already purchased the album so now so now I have to you know he sells it and then I did say this to him though I said listen I'm sorry his name was Martin Scrutty I said listen Martin you doing a lot of bad things bro

The Wu-Tang is good, okay? If I was you, I would take this album and do something good with it, meaning he could give it to the people. It can't be sold because we made an 88-year non-commercialization law for it. So he can't sell it, right? He can't make mass production. I know, it's so cool. That is amazing. But he didn't decide to do nothing good.

He doubled down on his darkness and he got into a big fight with Ghostface Killer and all the other Wu-Tang Brothers. And then he took Hillary's hair and whatever. He just went all the way down until he went to jail. And then the government seized the album and they kept it.

What? And then, so he paid $2 million for the album. So at the time, it was the most expensive album in history. Yeah, for sure. But when he went to jail, the government now needed to pay all of his liens or default judgments, whatever he had on him.

And so the government now gets to auction this album as a personal asset of his. Okay, all right. And they auction it, and someone buys it for $4 million. Wow. No way. Okay, okay. Yeah. What? Do you know who? So who's got it, and where is it? It was a group of people called the Pleaser Dow. Okay. So they have it now, and they're just, you know, hopefully they will take the advice,

of showing it to the people, putting it in museums. Yeah, didn't they do an exhibit or something? They took it to somewhere like Tasmania or something? Yeah, they took it to Tasmania and exhibited it. You're right, yeah. And people flew in for that. So has the public been able to hear it? So far, maybe about 600 people have heard it.

Dude. That's amazing. Like, how do you, how do you, that's an incredible story. How do you, how do you protect the person who owns it from copying it and kind of, I don't know, it just got leaked or, you know, they, and then they act, you know. There's a contract. There's a, this particular album is on a macro level considered the first NFT, right?

Ah, very good. I understand. So you understand? Yeah. So that's the situation with it. And so it's like a smart contract built in. You know what I mean? And this was your idea. I mean, it's such an incredible forward-thinking idea. I know. I know. It's brilliant. Me and my student, Silver Rings, I won't take all the credit. It was a combination of ideas that led to it. Yeah. Would you ever do it again? No.

I don't know. What about, what about, what about, what about what Radiohead, didn't Radiohead, Radiohead did something where they made an album and they put it up on the internet for free, basically said, pay whatever you want. Um,

And that kind of freedom made me, I think I ended up paying like 50 bucks for it or something like that. Like, just like, if you tell me I don't have to do anything, then I'll do it. That was the perfect thing. You're the perfect sucker, man. Exactly. You know what I mean? That's why your nickname is DJ Sucker. Dingbat.

I mean, God, that is such a cool, you're right. Sean, like you said, it's so forward thinking and you've, I mean, you constantly have looked for different ways to express yourself as an artist and kind of do things outside the box. You've acted in, I was looking it up. I mean, I don't know, 50 things, 60 things as an actor. You just, tell us a little bit about your film that's coming out that you directed. Thank you. Um,

First, let me say this to y'all, gentlemen. First of all, Jason, I'm a big fan of yours. Come on. Yeah, there we go. Your timing, your style. Nice, man. I just love your style. I've seen almost everything you do, and so I just want to let you know that. You've got a fan on this side of the microphone. Thank you, pal. And for myself, you know, I got a chance to study underneath Quentin Tarantino for about six years.

And I caught the directing bug and understood what it could be. And I did my first film, of course, in 2011. It came out 2012, called The Man with the Iron Fist. And I realized that directing movies is actually the epitome of expression art because you have to be lyrical in the words, colorful in the production design and costume design,

Music is a part of it. The storytelling element, the energy of getting other people to portray an idea that's written and describe it. It's like the total use of my brain for me. And so I became in love with it. And now this is my fourth directorial film. It's called One Spoon of Chocolate. Wait, this is your fourth film? This is my fourth one, yeah. Wow.

And this one, probably my boldest one. Pretty bold to kind of take a chance like this. And it took 13 years to get to this point. Once I finished Man with an Iron Fist,

So, you know, Universal gave me the money to make the movie. And it was like, you know, when it came out the first week, I think Hurricane Sandy hit. And so to me, so the East Coast was kind of fucked up for me. And so I didn't hit the numbers we wanted to hit. I think we probably ended up around $30 million total in box office on, sorry to talk numbers. That's when it kind of came in. No, that's okay. We ended up about $30 million total in box office on a movie that cost about $17 million, right? Yeah.

Pretty good. Well, not for Universal. For Universal, I paid the lights that day. Yeah, yeah. But I waited till it recouped before I went back and sat down with the executive who was in charge of giving me the green light, which is Mr. Adam Fogerson. And I sat down and he said, you know, bro, give me the cool. Okay.

Nobody's over here, you know, we're not jumping up and down, nor are we sad, right? I said, "Okay, I got it now. I'd like to try another one." And he said, "Okay, let me hear some ideas." And I pitched the ideas, and one of them was one spoon of chocolate. The other ones didn't really gravitate, but he said, "That one seems like something you could chase."

And then I started writing it, and I got writer's block at page 40. And it took almost, you know, this will be 13 years from the day of me starting it to it now being available. And it just kept taking time and time and time. And it didn't fully materialize until...

Two summers ago, I'm on a tour bus with Nas and we're doing the New York State of Mind. We're traveling across America and my pen just started flowing. And so I wrote the whole movie. My wife was right beside me, just sitting right there. And we got home and I said, "Okay, I got a movie written.

We had a chance to, you know, we had some good economics blessings in our lives. And so I said, well, she was looking at another house. She likes to get nice houses and shit. That's kind of her thing. And so I said, well, I wrote the movie. You want to get another house or you want to make a movie? Yeah. And she said, well, what do you want to do? I said, to be honest, I really want to

Make a movie, like, with no interruptions. Like, just go ahead and do it. And she said, okay. She gave me the green light. She's the producer of the film. Wow. She's self-financed. Yeah. So she's, yeah, self-financed from, you know, leveraging some assets. And we did it. And we shot in Atlanta. We finished it. And it's going to premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival on June 8th.

I'm super excited about it. That's awesome. And so are you going to be looking for distribution at that festival or have you already sold it? Yeah, it's going to be like the first time we show it and we're looking for distribution. So, you know, I hate to use the word hopefully, but hopefully. What was it about? What was the pitch you gave to Adam? And did it remain the same once you got past the page 40 or did it morph into something else? You know what? It actually, I guess without giving a spoiler,

It morphed into 200 pages. Oh, wow. Exactly. For the listener, usually a movie script is about 110. Yeah, it morphed into about 200 pages, and I think...

I got about 110 pages that we'll see when we look at this thing. Yeah. That's amazing. And now Kill Bill was famously, what, 200 and something, and so he had to split it up into two parts. Yeah. Right? Yeah, I actually read the 220-page Kill Bill. Yeah. Which, like I said, so Tarantino is my...

My professor. I call him my godfather of film. He's incredible. We'd love to have you on the show, Quentin, if you're listening. Yeah, he's amazing. He's got to come to us. He's got to. But now, I'm always amazed when people like us, meaning that artists are in the entertainment business or whatever, that create the stuff like your films and music and everything else, and us, TV shows, films, whatever we do,

And that at some point in your life, you became aware of the business side of it. And what was that point and who or who was that person where you're like, because when I was on the set of Will and Grace, it's a TV show I did a long time ago. Hey, a masterpiece, a masterpiece.

We, after, it took about five, six seasons for me to kind of look around. For me to look around. And I was kind of like, wait a minute. I was really young. I was like, how did this all happen? Because I was just an actor who memorized my lines and showed up and went home. And then I was like, wait, how did this come together? Like, whose idea? And then the phone call. Then I got really interested. I was really young. I got interested in...

in the business side of how to produce something and make something. So what was that moment for you? Or was there a person you were like, wait a minute, how did they do that? And then it kind of snowballed from there. Yeah, I think it was a couple of points for me. You know, first in music, of course, right? As a producer, you know, you could control, let's just say, like I said, making an album, maybe it's 20 people, right? But when I was composing films, the thing that killed Bill is that

I wasn't going to be the compulsion. Let me just be clear. Me and Quentin just used to watch movies together, and he gave me that script. And when I read the script of Kill Bill, it was just such an amazing script. I just said, yo, anything you may need from me, I'm here. I said, also, I would love to see how you're going to bring this to life.

At the time, we were just buddies, film buddies. And he was like, yeah, sure. If you show up on set, you're going to be the eyes and ears behind me. And now they were shooting in China, in Beijing, but I showed up. And then I'm watching him, I'm watching Robert do the DP, and I'm the guy who's there with no job.

Yeah, right. So I got to study every job. I'm just chilling, hanging, watching and studying. And I realized that this was... And how old were you then? Oh, no, I'm a man, yeah. This is, to kill Bill, I'm 32 at least, right? Yeah. So I'm a man. Yeah, yeah. But I mean, I'm not a kid, meaning, you know, I was evolved as a...

I guess you're going to say this too, Sean, right? You said after five or six years, right? Right. You're not economically thinking about those problems no more. That's right. Okay? Love is good in life most likely, right? Right. And the art is starting to really feel fulfilling, like a different type of fulfillment, almost a calling, right? And so that's what's happening to me. My love life is good. My economics is good. And my art is insatiable though.

It wants more. It wants more. And so that's what led me down that path. And then, of course, as a businessman, I think, you know, if you go back and look at Wu-Tang, you know, from the beginning, we was entrepreneurs, you know, from opening up our clothing stores to video games, like all those things was just part of it. And then the last lesson for me, and I'll just share this with your audience,

why that, you would say, why the heck would you self-finance a film? Which is probably, everybody says don't do that. That's like in the book. There's a book on that. Right, right. It's the first chapter, yeah. Yeah, exactly, right? But I got the chance from the year of 2018 to 2023 to be the showrunner of my own TV show, right? Which one? It's Wu-Tang of the American Saga on Hulu. Okay. So doing that show,

It's just like, okay, the best way to do it is to do it. You know what I mean? The best way to do it is to do it. And so I'm in that philosophy. Because me spending a dollar may take somebody else $10 to spend that dollar because they don't know how to spend a dollar. Right. We'll be right back.

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You know, people who are as accomplished as you in as many different skill sets, it takes an enormous amount of not only ambition, but concentration and focus and discipline. Wow.

what would you say to the listeners who are, you know, trying to get their feet under themselves and really find that gear that it's going to take to hit the passing lane and get past the folks that they're competing with? What is that special sauce for you? And from whom did you learn it from or what happened that gave you that spark that you tap into that has, you know, fueled so much incredible success?

accomplished work? I will share with anybody, the first thing is mastery of something. If you master one thing and you mastered it, then you'll understand the relation of all things. Right? Because that makes sense. And for me, you know, of course, the first thing is going to be my lyrics, right? And I've been writing lyrics since the age of nine. So by the time, and you know, I'm the guy that finishes schoolwork first, so I can write another lyric.

So mastery of your passion, I guess, would to go together. Master your passion. That's great. And if you master your passion, I think that when it's time for other disciplines to come amongst you, you're going to have a foundation because you'll be able to apply it. And I think we all can agree, us here, all of us artists right here, that we can say that it is the artist's

I use this word, artistry is a wavelength. So let's take a trumpet, and let's call the trumpet the artist. Whatever plays through that trumpet, though, it could be jazz, soul, rock, pop, doesn't matter. It's going to come through that trumpet to turn into music. But when the artist knows the wavelength, he knows what to pass through his vessel. Right?

You know what I mean? Can we have... Jeez, man. That's really cool. I know. That's kind of amazing. Yeah. That's really cool. What if it's a piano? Just kidding. Sean's an accomplished pianist. I don't know if you knew that. He is. He really is. Who cares? My favorite instrument is Sean. Okay, there you go. We'll jam. How many can you play? How many different instruments? Yeah. I mean...

I'm a producer, so producer is a lot technology, but I play guitar, drums, of course guitar, bass, there's no problem. I can blow some notes on my trumpet, and I spend a lot of time on the piano too. But I'm very shy on the piano, meaning...

mostly my wife gets to hear me. Yeah. I've got to be nice to play in front of an audience. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Sean's very coy on a piano. He's very coy. You know, it's funny. You mentioned different instruments and stuff. You've done so many different... And you've done a lot of collabs and different genres. I remember you did that. I love that record you put out with...

Paul Banks from Interpol, Banks and Steele. I love Paul, yeah. Dude, that was so rad, that record. Talk a little bit about that experience and how you guys got together. Let's shout out Paul Banks first and the whole Interpol family. I put an Interpol song in Black Rabbit coming out. Well, congrats, man. That's dope. Thank you, thank you, thank you. And Paul's getting married this summer. Oh, is he? Yeah, I mean, one of the coolest bachelors ever.

I was mad while we was making that album. He wasn't, you know what I mean? And all the girls always scream for him. He's a cool dude, man. Oh, I mean, I don't know him, but I'm such a fan. Yeah, talk a little bit about that experience. Well, we met because he... I guess he had... He listened to some of my music and he was making it... I guess one of his articles, he used me as a reference to something he was striving to do as an artist. And I think...

My manager read it and was like, oh, my manager's a fan of Paul. He's like, oh, Paul is a fan of yours. And he kind of quoted something about you. You guys are both New Yorkers. Would you hook up? I mean, he's not a native New Yorker, but he was living in New York at the time. He said, maybe you guys could hook up and chop it up. And we hooked up and we both were chess players.

And so we would just play chess at the time. He did drink tequila. We met at a tequila bar. Tequila and chess. And that built a friendship. And maybe a couple of years later,

I think Warner Brothers approached us and was like, would you guys be interested in kind of collaborating on something together? We just think you guys are just too cool motherfuckers, just to be quite frank, was the slang they used. And we was like, yeah, whatever, yo, we hang anyway. Like, you want us to do music too? Cool. You want to pay us to hang out? All right. I used that single actually as a temp track in my show. Jason, you mentioned quite drolly flake the other day, but we couldn't afford it.

But we used it as an attempt in the show. So I was a big fan. Hold on. Anytime you can't afford something of mine, hit me up. I'm going to hit you from now on. I discount so many things. Really? One dollar gratis. If it gets to my desk, it gets easy. If it don't get to my desk, yeah. I'm going to take you up on that. I'm coming. Did you score your four films that you directed?

No, I scored two. I scored the first one with my buddy Howard Johnson.

The second one, Richard Gibbs, me and him collaborated on the second one. The third one, I passed it over to Danny Harrison, a good friend, George Harrison's son. Him and his crew did it. On the fourth one, I actually combined with Tyler Bates, which is, I think Tyler is an incredible composer, just very bold and brave in his sound selection. So the fourth film is me and Tyler together.

Wow. I want to see that. I know, me too. Yeah, go ahead, Jason. You had a follow-up? Well, it was unrelated, but one thing I keep forgetting to ask. Sorry, this is our new segment we're doing called Unrelated. Go ahead. Yeah. I like it. What about martial arts for you? Are you an accomplished martial artist, or is there any crossover there? That's a big word, accomplished. Yeah.

Look, no, I wouldn't say that. I don't know. Of course, I practice martial art. You do? Okay. Yeah, but my philosophy is mental martial art, cultural, artistic martial arts. You know what I mean? Just to give you a little bit about the Wu-Tang philosophy in the martial world. So the Shaolin philosophy is known to be external. You train your body to be hard as iron.

In the Wu-Tang, you train your body to be soft as cotton. The Shaolin martial artist would throw a thousand punches a day. The Wu-Tang martial artist would sit still and contemplate the thousand punches in his mind. So exercising the mind is known as, because it's kind of Taoist, so it's known as that's the Wu-Tang way. But exercising the body is Zen or Buddhist way.

So being a Wu-Tang Abbott, I'm going here. And so that's why my lyrics or my art is always formulating. Now, somebody was a step to me now.

It's a mistake. Yeah, so Shaolin's going to jump up out of you. Dude, I am so, I'm entranced. This is like unbelievable. I'm going into a Wu-Tang cave when this interview is over. I've been into Wu-Tang. We were supposed to record a little while ago. I've been in a Wu-Tang just absolute cave for months now. Hey, when

Speaking of Wu-Tang, and just your music in general, do you see... You guys have been so, like I said, you're so influential on other musicians for the last over 30 years. Can you see, can you catch glimpses of your influence in music now when you listen to hip-hop? Yeah, definitely. I mean, it's a blessing, right, to be able to inspire anything or anybody, right, after getting inspiration from life yourself. But yeah, it's, you know...

constantly. Some of our greatest artists, they are not shy to give us a name, drop. Drake named the song Wu-Tang Forever. One of Kendrick Lamar's first samples was a RZA sample, which I cleared for free.

You're welcome, man. You guys did so much sampling over the years. I mean, you guys were like the masters of it. Was there ever a sample that you couldn't clear that you wished you could have gotten and you were not able to get? I wouldn't say that I... Let me see. Let me see.

Yeah, there was a couple. Because some people would become born-again Christians and they wasn't letting hip-hop go. But one of my biggest glitches was this, and I don't mind sharing this with your audience, is that there's no floor or ceiling when it comes to sampling and interpolation rights. And I totally disagree with that. The reason why I disagree is because if you sample a song, say you sample a James Brown song, and you got...

Bootsy on bass. You got all these different people playing Macy. They're all playing. The publisher will come and could potentially take 100% of that song away from you. And say that because you're copyright infringing. And even though your song could be almost unrecognizable from their song,

Then the musicians who you're probably more into the musicians than the song itself. Like if I sampled a little bass part from here, a little horn from this guy, a little snare from this guy, and me, I'm a type of guy that had Peter Pan records, so I may get a string section from that, you know what I mean? Yeah. Make a track. So it's like, what about those musicians? They never get compensated. It's just the publishing company. Then I said this last, to me in my opinion,

that it should be a floor and a ceiling. The ceiling should be 50%. That should be the ceiling. You should never take more than half because you got the lyrics, you got the talent, you got everything else that the other person is building to make the song. And then the floor should be then prorated by how much you took

versus what the song is. But with a ceiling, so the floor could be, I'll put the floor at even 20% to be merciful. 20% floor, no matter what. If you put my record on, you take something, give me 20% for that inspiration. But most I could take from you, it's 50%. And we'll measure how to get to 50%. I got a situation where I did sample Marvin Gaye and Tammy Terrell's All I Need. And it was a double platinum selling song.

won the Grammy, met the man that married Jay Blige. It was the Coca-Cola commercial of the summer. And all we received is 10% of the song. Wow. Wow. Yeah. And I mean, that song made. Yeah. Every time I made a dollar, they only gave us a dime. No way. And look, I could argue back. They said it was ours. You took it.

But also, I could then argue back, but no, we didn't know. We didn't know that that was a law. Because hip-hop started from a guy with a turntable, and he's scratching beats back and forth. We rapping over it. Then they made a sampler. The sampler says, sample an instrument. Okay, that's my new instrument. And now I'm sampling sounds and records from my collection, and I'm making my own thing. We didn't know that.

it was going to be a law or some type of thing that was going to stop us. And eventually hip-hop got slowed down because of sampling and interpolation laws. Because of lawyers. Yeah. And then all those fees were assessed retroactively in all of those songs that were created with some samples and stuff. Once the law went into effect, then they reached back and charged. Oh, wow. You got some songs now. I got a song of mine that is totally wrong. Two or three of my songs...

Because they thought that it was it, and it wasn't it. Wow. And it's like, hold on, that's not Roger Troutman. I wasn't a Roger Troutman fan. I was a Thelonious Monk fan, but I wasn't a Roger Troutman fan. I love that. I love your floor and ceiling idea. I think that's something that should take root. Hopefully, I...

I think that that makes a lot of sense and seems really fair, really, really fair. So I hope that works out. All right, before I let you go, I want to talk a little bit about a ballet through mud because you released a classical album last year. I can't, I did not know this. I want to hear this. It's unbelievable. Like every time there's like something else that you did, talk a little bit about how that came about and your ambition with that. And where we can see it. Will it ever be done

done again or? Well, the ballet was performed a few times already and so we don't know if it's going to, if I'm going to, you know, do it again, like perform it again but we did perform it in LA. We did in Colorado which we, I wrote it for Colorado. I was part of this artist in residence where for three years I would

create something to take to the Colorado Symphony Orchestra and perform. So it was during the pandemic, of course, that I found this notebook of old lyrics. And inside these lyrics, these are like my high school lyrics. So this book is so old. My buddy Ray Kwan made a joke, said, that book is growing hair, man. It's that old, right? But in it is all of the ideas from ninth grade

up until graduation. So you could hear, you could see the first blunt, the first weed, you could hear the early sexual ideas and everything, and you could also hear the imagination growing. And so when I found the book, I said, I can't wrap these. What should I do? And then I eventually decided, talking to my wife about it, of course, that what if I kind of composed it into like a ballet or something?

And so she thought it was a great idea as well. And I kind of went into it. The funny thing is that, let me share one of the lyrics that led to it. So one of the lyrics was about these six teenagers who are exploring life. So Sue was this girl who was really quite fly. And Brad was real cool. He was her guy. Lisa was freaky. She loved to have sex.

Her brother name was Dexter, but they called him Dex. His girlfriend name was Monica. She was a verge. And Joe, he was their friend. And he was a nerd. Brad bought the beer, Sue 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.

So Brad lit a blunt and passed it to Joe saying, "Come on man, smoke it." And Joe said, "No." "What's wrong? Are you scared?" was asked by Sue. "Aw, you are just a nerd." Joe said, "That's not true." Monica said, "Come on Joe, just have a taste." And she puffed on the joint and blew smoke in his face.

Now on Monica, Joe had a crush. He didn't want to do it, but felt that he must. Like many we know, love made him a fool, so he smoked a joint to prove he was cool. Then Lisa was like, "Yo, forget about Joe." Then said, "Hey Dex, where the heck is the blow?" He pulled out two grams, said, "It's all that I bought." "Well, it's more than enough," and they proceeded to snort. Now at this time, Joe had finished two beers, and Brad was like, "Here, have another, you queer." And Joe said no while holding his stomach, and while facing Monica, he suddenly vomited.

She screamed, oh my God, shit, 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. He chased him. He ran.

They screamed and they laughed into this abandoned house and with the sound of this crashing glass. And it was dark in there, so Brad had to get a light to check to see if Joe was all right. But when they found him, he was laying on his back with quarts of red blood spurting from his head. And Monica said, oh my God, Joey is dead. And they started to run and they never mentioned this incident again to anyone.

That's beautiful. That is amazing. And I turned that to a ballet. That's unbelievable. Oh, I've got to see that. Just riveted. How in the world do you remember? Not only remember that, but remember everything that you make. I mean, it's incredible. It's so good. God, man, we could talk for hours. We've taken up way too much of your time. What an absolute, like I said at the beginning,

- Yeah, this is really cool. - I'm absolutely honored to have you, man. I'm such a fan. - Yeah, it really has been. - You're such a creative juggernaut, dude, in every way. So just continued success. - Thank you. Yeah, thanks for coming. - And I say in all respect, and I just say now I'm a fan of all you guys' work as well. Thank you for what you contributed to my life. It's just, I've watched you, I've watched as a fan the things you guys create, whether in the theater or in front of my TV set.

and got my laughs, got my inspiration and probably took some from your tree here and there. Remember, I'm hip hop, so I sampled. Yeah, you sampled us. You sampled us. I sampled, yes, indeed. Right back at you. You've touched all of us and millions and millions around the world too. So thank you for what you do. You really inspired us today. Well, thank you, RZA, for your time. Thank you, guys. And yeah, Spoonful of Chocolate.

All the best of luck with it, man. Can't wait for it. We'll be watching. Respect. Peace. Thank you. Bye, pal. Well, Willie, that was... I didn't think you had it in you. You know? I know you always talk about them. You've talked about them forever. And I wanted to have them on for a long time. And I'm so...

I'm like, I knew the bar was high. I was like, oh, he's going to be inspirational. He's going to be cool. And I can't believe how he just exceeds expectations just as a creative, right? It's just unbelievable. It's like an endless well of creativity. Yeah. And also like just philosophies and like, I mean, spiritual, like I love the thing you said about the trumpet, like where the artist has to connect the energy to the vibrations that go through the thing that makes the sound, like whatever that was. But yeah,

That was really cool. Yeah, we're like Trump and Jay, you're more like a Waymo. You know what I mean? You're just like a automated car with nothing inside. Please rate me. Empty vehicle that goes from just destination to destination, but that's fine. That's fine. And we still love you. But honestly, yeah, you're right. He had so many cool philosophies. I mean, I could be. By the way, the whole Shaolin approach,

that he does and the way they created that community and kind of like there's just and he produced all those records for all those guys for you know for Ghostface and for all those dudes like Method Man it's insane

It is wild. I want to be in the music world a little bit. They all just seem like they kind of got it all together. They're super chill. Yeah, no one's running. They're just doing their thing. I'm really excited for him. I knew, Jay, you'd be excited that he's directing. I didn't know he'd done four films, but I saw the trailer for his new film and it looks really, really good. Yeah. So I'm excited for that and how cool. And it makes sense that he'd be a good director because he has been sort of...

the Abbott, as he says, of the Wu-Tang for so long and does so many, wears so many hats and Jays, you know, as a director, that's what you have to, that's what you have to do. Pulling on all those different levers. Yeah. And just a great leader. I've spent a lot of time on Abbott Kinney when there's a gay bar in Abbott Kinney. You know, funny story about that gay bar. It's called, uh, Roosterfish. The Roosterfish. How do you guys know that? Yeah. So when I, when I first, when I, uh,

There's a light bulb out in the back alley behind. Anyway, forget it. Oh, no. It doesn't matter. Wait, there you go. I used to live right around there. And when I first moved into my house, me and my buddy went down the street like, well, we got to find our local bar, right? If we're going to be living down here. And this place is, at the time, I don't know if it still is, it was painted this like this really cool like turquoise blue. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And we're like, well, this place looks kind of cool. Walked in there. Fuck it.

sat at the bar and ordered a couple of beers and just sort of started talking to each other and I get a little tap-tap on the shoulder. I don't think the guy had like a gag ball in his mouth, but it seemed, it was, something was, it was very clear that we were in the wrong spot almost immediately. Right, right. We finished the beer and we shook some hands. So we only had three more beers. I only had three more and then I was out.

By the way, I forgot to mention. Happy pride. I forgot to mention that for RZA that they're on tour this summer, right? The Wu-Tang final tour. So I also wanted to mention that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We should go. We should really go. I would love to go. Why didn't you mention that during the interview so we could lock up some tickies? I know, I forgot. We can still lock up. Please don't say tickies. Look, he picked it up from Roosterfish. That's the way I would have phrased it with him too. I'd say,

hey, any chance we get some tickies? You know, and we would have, it would have been uncomfortable, ambush him in the interview live, you know, he would have had to give us his tickies. That would have been uncomfortable for anybody, dude. The way you sort of infantilize everything is so gross. I want to, by the way, I feel like that rooster fish story isn't over, but well, it can be for now. I'll tell you the ending after we shut down. Is that the day, that was the day that you discovered that you weren't gay, but that maybe you were gay adjacent. Bye!

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