This, That, and the 'Other': The RZA on the Miscegenation of Hip-Hopby Chi Tung (
http://www.asiaarts.ucla.edu/article.asp?parentid=30240)
One can't help but wonder: what is The RZA, hip-hop visionary and all-around badass doing on the cover of an Asian arts magazine? Why, to tell us, of course, that rap music rings loudest and clearest when it springs from the unlikeliest of sources.
Here’s something you might not hear every day: Hip-hop could learn a thing or two from Asian culture. Yes, Asian culture. If that’s a tough pill to swallow, consider this next statement: hip-hop, contrary to what those with sociocultural degrees would have you believe, isn’t changing the way this generation expresses itself. It’s how this generation sees itself --ballsy, self-congratulatory, articulate in inarticulation -- as refracted through nearsighted lenses. Squint a little harder and you’re left asking inane questions like: Is 50 Cent’s name supposed to be ironic? How deep does Mobb Deep roll? (In case you were wondering: No, and two.) Still, you can’t knock the hustle -- with the twitch of an eyelash, hip-hop has turned into the greatest story ever sold, bar none. Except what’s not told, at least not without a lot of hemming and hawing, are words that still cause us to collectively shudder: the “R” word (race), the “C” word (class), the “M” words (misogyny, masochism, materialism.) Let's broach the topic anyways: how do we reconcile the seedy underbelly of hip-hop culture with its Mr. Brightside: this burgeoning sense of solidarity, of authenticity, of unbridled huzzah that the huddled masses -- tired, poor and everything else in between -- can finally call their own?
Short answer: We can’t. At least not yet. At least not completely. Long answer: Because as the long-suffering folks in New Orleans can attest to, there are the have-nots and then the rest of us—armchair critics, politicians, people who mean well but haven’t got a clue. Therein lies part of the problem: most of us still treat hip-hop like some charity project -- give us some slithering basslines and some zero-to-hero swagger and we’ll shake our tailfeathers, no questions asked. Ask the same of our hearts -- or our minds -- and the conversation immediately turns to U2. Hubris, violence, vulgarity: pick your poison. But think carefully before you decide where to cast stones, for reasons that are twofold. Number one: Asian culture. Number two: the RZA.
“Shaolin is like the well all martial arts films spring from, and Wu Tang is an offshoot of that,” he explains. Explicitly, of course, he means the legendary warrior clan, not the rap supergroup he heads. Then again, the differences may not be as great as you think.
“First thing that drew me to martial arts films was the action,” he admits. “American action films at the time were all about sucker punches and stuff that wasn’t so tough. But then when Bruce Lee appeared, you had a chance to see something smoother, with more catlike agility. So I was more hooked on the look.” In other words, it was lust at first sight. True love, however, awaited him.
“It wasn’t until I saw 36 Chambers [Hong Kong chopsocky great Lau Kar Leung’s piece de resistance; read about it here] that I understood Shaolin Temple to be this real, live place. And it just sparked my heart; it hit me somewhere I understood. I wasn’t watching it for the moves anymore; I was listening to the philosophy, listening to what was being talked about.”
What was being talked about within the film were themes commonplace in kung fu lore: brotherhood, patience-as-paramount-virtue, the transferral of inner woe onto your unsuspecting foes. Outside of this metaphysical vacuum, however, a subtler conversation took place between the RZA and ... well, the RZA. The spark had ignited a flame that could not be fanned by mere urban triumphalism and dog-eat-dog street smarts.
Which leads us to a rather peculiar sense of ethos, not to mention identity. Because yes, there’s no getting around it: the RZA is Black. He’s also quite a few other things, all of which are no less noteworthy: rapper (pseudonyms include Prince Rakeem and Bobby Digital), producer (Wu-Tang albums as well as soundtracks, such as Kill Bill), actor (small, but scene-stealing roles in Ghost Dog: Way of the Samurai and Coffee and Cigarettes, a starring turn in the upcoming Derailed), director (his own contribution to the martial arts canon, Man with the Iron Fist, is slated to be filmed in Taiwan later this year). Then, there’s arguably his greatest achievement, the one that, interestingly enough, nobody talks about: planting Asia smack-dab in the middle of a discussion that has perennially been the proverbial stomping grounds for, yes, Black people.
“It’s kinda funny, when I first started the Wu-Tang Clan, there were some guys in the neighborhood that wouldn’t get down with it. They said, “You’re on some Chinese shit.”
The RZA furrows his brow a bit when he says this; it’s a silent acknowledgment that the blurring of color lines, even on a municipal scale, is more convoluted than you think. But the implications are impossible to ignore: the Wu -Tang Clan, rap’s poster boys for interdependence and thicker-than-water synchronicity are, as it turns out, fronted by a Black man who’s “on some Chinese shit.”
Which means ... well, what exactly? There’s a thin line between fetish and fandom, neither of which accurately describes the RZA’s allegiance to Asian culture. You see, I failed to mention earlier that on top of everything else, the RZA writes. Books. (Well, technically, a book—so far only Volume One of the Wu Tang Manual is sitting on shelves.) On Asian philosophy. East-Asian spirituality. On how a bunch of young, angry black men reppin' the East coast (Staten Island, in particular), through his coaxing (and presumably coaching) found themselves aligned with the far East, not just aesthetically and semantically -- the first few Wu albums are littered with sampled bits of dialogue from classic kung-fu flicks -- but ideologically too. The physical themes -- guns, drugs, institutional oppression -- enmeshed in a metaphysical framework that upon first listen might be indecipherable, but with renewed persistence, lodges itself right in the marrow.
Only someone with an unobstructed cross-cultural vantage point would dare to cobble together the grimiest, most unscrupulous aspects of street culture with the élan of Asian cinema (meaning kung-fu, samurai flicks, and their accompanying credos) and attempt to pass it off to the unsuspecting consumer as just another typical East coast rap production of its time -- raw, uncensored, chocked full of attitude. But the RZA didn’t stop there. Beyond its trenchant insights into what makes the Wu tick, Volume One of the Wu Tang Manual is a blueprint for a lifestyle that has nothing at all to do with glocks and gangs and everything to do with living. And with that, bursting right through another one of rap’s taboos: proudly emblazoning the “S” word -- spirituality.
Here’s what’s interesting though: when the RZA talks about his spiritual roots, he’s not standoffish about it. (Um, Tom Cruise?) Nor does he get into the habit of building castles in the sand. Forthcoming immediately comes to mind, though it’s more than that -- he’s always attuned to the rhythm of the conversation, so he knows when to say just as much as what and how to say it. To borrow a Wu-ism, he kicks some knowledge. The kind that permeates thoughts without overwhelming them. The kind that's content with leaving loose ends untied.
“It’s a very humble, passive life,” he declares haltingly when I ask him about the Buddhist tenets that color his worldview. Then there’s no holding him back: “But we live in a very turbulent world. So with that humble, passive existence, what happens when it meets that turbulence? I see it as staying at peace but preparing for war. Same way as when a man says ‘amitofu,' the Buddhist mantra. It’s a greeting, but also a block. So I was able to use all that and apply it to myself. Like if it’s not my brother, I can go as wild as I want. But among your brothers and classmates, you should always humble yourself and turn the other cheek.”
In hip-hop, turning the other cheek is a laughable concept, not to mention a highfalutin one. Even your Commons and Talib Kwelis -- contemporary rap at its most milquetoast -- aren’t above verbal brawls and petty name-calling once in awhile. The Wu Tang Clan, meanwhile, helped legitimize anarchic gestures in rhyme, constantly boasting about their exploits and threatening to exact street justice.
“It’s funny that the Wu Tang are considered bad guys,” he says with a noticeable snort. “Because they still had that foundation in Shaolin. We can’t deny that in the beginning, we broke a lot of clubs, a lot of rules, but to me, it fit in right where we were supposed to be.”
Believe it or not, that foundation found its way into the Wu’s familiar gangster posturing. Through thick and thicker, a palpable sense of respect lingered --the clumsily endearing fashion in which they called on each other to lend a hand, whether it be musically (dropping a guest verse or two) or otherwise (stashin the dope; running from the cops). This sweet, but never saccharine bond extended to the Wu’s friends, allies and other figures of import, real and imaginary. Context and connections meant everything to the Wu -- their shout-outs and oblique references added heft to their personal experiences, a sense of greater belonging. Not to mention a few “H” words.
“I start writing Volume Two in January,” announces the RZA excitedly. “This one will be similar to Volume One, except there’s even more history, even more about people paying homage to each other.”
“Homage” and “history” are concepts that inevitably weave their way into the hip-hop landscape, especially as discursive fodder. And rightfully so -- hip-hop, like any other art form still struggling to find its footing amidst all that pop-culture-cacophany, has one foot in the distant past and the other, well, in the past a little less distant. Unsurprisingly, all configurations traverse through a sprawling, well-traveled road of Black homogeneity -- African folk and soul music serving as the sonic backdrops; slavery, the Civil Rights Movement and the Nation of Islam the driving lyrical and thematic forces. In the late ‘80s, early ‘90s, acts like Ice Cube, KRS-One and Public Enemy jumpstarted the Black power movement; resulting in contemporary hip-hop’s raison d’etre (if there is, in fact, such a thing) -- bringin da funk to the fan. Since then, its visceral impact has been slowed by social, cultural, economic complacency, leaving hip-hop in a curious state of limbo: certainly not worse off -- creative advancements grow more and more startling by the day -- but less forceful and ensnared in self-denial.
Self-denial because as much as we’d all like to think snapshot commercialization and one-off virtuosity -- it’s no coincidence that a hip-hop artist’s first album is always his or her finest -- is the exception rather than the rule, let’s face it: cash rules everything around us, and rappers are no different from the rest of us in that they want to capitalize. Which goes back to rap and society: there’s no doubt that the subcultural divide is being bridged by artists and groups who never could’ve existed ten, 20 years ago. But at the forefront, there’s what? Kanye West, maybe Outkast, and everyone else. This doesn’t constitute a movement, just scattershot brilliance.
Connecting the dots, then, becomes quite a daunting task: where does one begin? Strangely enough, with mythology. And, of course, the RZA and his infinite wisdom.
“I’m gonna say this straight up,” he booms, nearly ominously, and you know that playtime is effectively over. “Wu Tang stuff is considered mythology. But a myth is something that’s not true. We spoke the truth on a lot of stuff, but it’s just so out of place in the world today that it seems like a myth. There’s always gonna be a spot for the truth because it’s the dominant force in the universe, whether man accepts it or not. Man fights it every day but what he doesn’t realize is when he breathes in, he’s gotta breathe out -- he can’t overtake the truth and what’s real.”
He pauses, ever so briefly, perhaps to catch his breath, though it’s probably of greater importance that I catch mine.
“For example, someone can watch the TV all day and not realize he’s watching different colors and a piece of glass. If you really want to, you can pick up a bottle and break it and you can envision what you want in the bottle. I play with glass and it becomes camera lenses.”
He finishes with the crème de la creme: “Just know that society distorts things. The truth is considered a myth and the myth can be considered the truth.”
Essentially, what he’s saying is this: realness, the perpetual measuring stick for hip-hop, is totally arbitrary: getting shot nine times in the mouth and then selling a shitload of records may be loosely based on history and homage (think 2pac, Biggie, and the L.A. riots), but who cares when that understanding is so fractious and frivolous? Can an art form which inflates its past fully come to terms with its present? And more importantly -- what is the truth anyways?
The answers have been blowin’ in the wind for quite some time -- rappers are better at diversion than anyone on the planet -- but the point is they don’t have to be. The key to hip-hop’s permanent stranglehold on cultural relevance may lie in its ability to unlock the interlocking past of others. It’s not always well-publicized, but more than any other ethnic group, African-Americans feast on martial-arts films; from the Bruce Lees of yesteryear to the Jet Lis of the present, kung-fu artists are lionized for their take-no-guff, anti-establishment chutzpah. Only instead of packing the rhetorical punch of Black martyrs like Malcolm and Martin, they let actions speak louder than their words—the flying dragon kick, for example. Conversely, Asian youth desperately seek ghettoization; it’s about refuting the reputation that they’re too straight-edged and hung up on bourgeois entitlement issues. The cynic might argue it’s a classic case of escapism -- neither group wishes to look their own squarely in the eye, so they find their jollies elsewhere. But that’s ignoring the undeniable benefits of multiculturalism -- the irrational fear that by letting in a greater variety of images and ideas, your own authenticity gets diluted in the process. It’s exactly this sort of tunnel-visioned cultural approach that, in the eyes of the RZA at least, goes a long way in explaining the vicious cycle that has plagued both hip-hop communities and global ones alike.
“A lot of the brothers in my neighborhood studied Mathematics, the study of Islam,” he says.” “And the first question in the 120 [120 Degrees, the teachings of Mohammed] asks: ‘Who is the original Black man?’ And the answer says, ‘The Asiatic Black Man.’ No disrespect to the white man, but he separated everybody; within Asia he made 50 countries, within those 50 countries he made 50 cities, within those 50 cities he made 50 neighborhoods. So why are some of these other artists into Black power? They’re also making themselves separate. It’s not about Black power; it’s about peace for all man.”
You don’t have to drink the kool-aid on everything the RZA says. A lot of open-minded, discerning folks will take one look at the words “Asiatic Black man” and decide that enough is enough. But the principle is an important one, even within the limited confines of hip-hop and race. Separatism is by no means the defining characteristic of today’s hip-hop (or even yesterday’s), but give it the tiniest bit of daylight and darkness descends over what is singular, and what is just plain stuck.
“Me being a man that appreciates culture -- if it wasn’t for Asian culture and civilization, I’d have no true reference of history,” he says candidly. Because everything in history for the Black man in America during the ‘70s and ‘80s didn’t go past slavery.”
We tend to think of history and spirituality as abstractions rather than living, breathing entities: the Emancipation Proclamation was a watershed event, not some dried-up, crusty manuscript; God/Buddha/Mohammed lives within us, even if we can’t always see his/her/its presence. But hip-hop was built for the quotidian; the size of a glock, the pain of the hustle finely and unflinchingly rendered. All of which is small potatoes when stacked next to something like, oh, say, the Shi Ji: a towering colossus of lurid details, melodramatic plots, government overthrows -- in a nutshell, a blow-by-blow account of dynastic China. Compiled by a man named Shi Ma Qian, it’s the world’s most comprehensive -- and dramatic -- history textbook, and a living, breathing one too -- one could argue that it -- along with Confucius’ Analects, Sun Tzu’s The Art of War and the Dao De Ching --shaped the very fabric of Chinese intellectual, political, psychological, economic thought, even to this day. What’s my point? Only that it’s not enough anymore to eulogize your own. Simply put, for hip-hop to thrive on its own terms -- not the terms of our congressmen, pop culture trendsetters, or, ahem, music critics -- it must not forget to breathe out once it breathes in. To face what is at first foreign and mysterious and exotic may not be comfortable or make for art that is knee-jerk compelling. Who knows: perhaps the Asiatic Black man is a myth. But myths are created for a reason: to spark our hearts in ways we never imagined. And to show us that what’s illusory one moment may become hard, incontrovertible fact the next.
“History writes itself sometimes,” the RZA says with a shrug. The question is, should we expect the same from hip-hop?
RZA is the man!
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