DailyRapFacts

Tag: RZA

  • Bun B Reflects on Powerful Conversation with RZA After Pimp C’s Passing

    Bun B Reflects on Powerful Conversation with RZA After Pimp C’s Passing

    UGK rapper shares how RZA helped him process grief and loss in an emotional exchange

    Bun B has opened up about the meaningful conversation he had with RZA following the tragic death of his UGK partner, Pimp C, in December 2007. Speaking with Raekwon in a new episode of Hip-Hop Wired’s I Got Questions, Bun shared how the interaction helped him cope with the overwhelming grief of losing his longtime collaborator.

    “When I lost Pimp, a lot of people called and offered their condolences. One of the people that called me was RZA,” Bun recalled. “Y’all had just lost [Ol’ Dirty Bastard]. He reached out to me and he was like, ‘I just wanted to call you and offer my condolences and just talk with you because we recently went through something like that.’ And we just talked about grief and loss.”

    Bun reflected on how their conversation, focused on processing grief, left a lasting impact on him. “My first conversation ever with this brother was about that. And it was such a blessing… it gave me a strength in the moment to know like okay, maybe not today, but eventually I’m gonna find a way to deal with this and move forward but still honor him.”

    More recently, Bun B has paid tribute to fellow Houston rapper and producer BeatKing, who tragically passed away at 39, showing his continued commitment to supporting his peers through loss.

  • RZA explains why it was a mistake for Drake to battle Kendrick Lamar

    RZA explains why it was a mistake for Drake to battle Kendrick Lamar

    RZA thinks Drizzy should have prepared better

    RZA explains why he thinks Drake made a wrong turn by engaging Kendrick Lamar in head to head lyrical confrontation. The legendary Wu-Tang Clan member expressed his views on the well-publicized feud in an interview with Complex during which he appeared baffled by Drake’s reasoning.

    “First of all, Kendrick is the natural lyricist, and Drake is a trained lyricist. You could train a fighter and he could be good, then you got those natural fighters who also then go through training,” RZA explained. “So that’s a different chamber there. And while Drake got bars forever, Kendrick’s bars’ potency was stronger.

    “So the battle bar-for-bar was something that was just not good advising on Drake’s camp in the sense of just getting in that fight without really taking some more training for that. When Kendrick wrote the letter to his son or his daughter and to his [mother], Kendrick is going to come like that. Nas, Kendrick, Eminem, Raekwon, certain people are going to break your shit down to the element.”


    He added: “But in doing so, I do think that a lot was said, and Drake is a powerful artist in our culture. He helped the culture when the culture needed it. He expanded it with his melodies and he raised a generation too, and you can’t take that away from him.”

  • RZA revisits Ol’ Dirty Bustard jumping on stage during 1998 Grammys

    RZA revisits Ol’ Dirty Bustard jumping on stage during 1998 Grammys

    RZA explains why Ol’ Dirty was frustrated by Grammys snub

    RZA sheds more light about what went down when Ol’ Dirty Bustard jumped on and crashed the stage during the 40th annual Grammy Awards at Radio City Music Hall in New York. Ol’ Dirty grew angry after Wu-Tang’s Wu-Tang Forever lost the Best Rap Album Award to Diddy’s No Way Out.

    “I actually said to him, I said, ‘Listen, they’re not gonna give us no award, G,’” RZA recalled in an interview with GQ. “It’s like, I was very pessimistic in that, at my younger age. I was like, we lack validation. Like, they ain’t gonna give it to us. ‘Look at us. We the real shit. Look at where we at’ And so he misinterpreted that when I said, ‘Look at us.’ So he was like, we lost because we wasn’t dressed for the occasion.”

    He added, “So for the Grammys, he went like, ‘Fuck that. I’m gettin’ right.’ Cause he knew and felt that arguably—and they say self praise don’t mean nothin’, and I’m gonna praise myself. But if I was to put it on a scale of measurement of hip hop lyrics and rawness and what hip hop is? Yeah, we was the best. Okay? And so when you’re the best, you think the best wins. But that’s not the case in many fields. You know I mean? And he was just unaware of that, I think. He didn’t realize that the vote was already casted before you got there that night, brother. You know I mean?”


  • RZA reveals Wu-Tang Clan does record together but it’s ‘rare’

    RZA reveals Wu-Tang Clan does record together but it’s ‘rare’

    RZA says it’s becoming ‘rarer’ for Wu-Tang to get in the studio together

    RZA recently sat down with host Torae for a chit-chat on The Tor Guide of Hip Hop Nation where he explained that Wu-Tang Clan does still drop rhymes together as a group, by it’s becoming less frequent.

    “It’s rare. It’s getting rarer because of schedules, because of life, because of being fathers and movie stars and business men,” he said. “But it happens. And the good thing is that whether it happens with me, it still happens. Mathematics – his production skill is razor sharp so we could just pop up and he’ll hit us with a joint. DJ Scratch just dropped a couple of joints off.”


  • Logic breaks down how he crafted his new album ‘College Park’

    Logic breaks down how he crafted his new album ‘College Park’

    Logic says his new album started out as a Rock project

    Logic explains how he created his new album, College Park, revealing he drew some inspiration from Andre 3000. The Maryland native shared a video on YouTube on Thursday (March 23) revealing that the album was initially a Rock effort, and was in part influenced by Andre’s “weird” voice. He also spoke about RZA’s feature on the album.

    “This is back when the fucking album was half rock and roll,” Logic expounded. “I was like, ‘Alright, let’s start it out with some weird shit. So the album starts really weird and different, but it’s cool, though, and then it’s like some weird vocally [André 3000], OutKast vibe. I’m rapping, then out of nowhere the RZA comes in and starts rapping about COVID.”

    He added, “so he’s rapping and I’m like, ‘Okay, what the fuck is this song?’ Then I’m like, ‘Oh my God, what if this song is a dream sequence in a day in the life of me and my homies in Compton … driving in 2011 to an open mic night? Then I get to get away with this really weird intro that’s dope as fuck and make it a dream about how Logic is waking up?

  • RZA’s first rap name was Prince Rakeem

    RZA’s first rap name was Prince Rakeem

    RZA originally went by the moniker Prince Rakeem and was also known as The Scientist.

    Before Robert Fitzgerald Diggs was famously known as RZA, he originally went by the moniker Prince Rakeem.

    On July 1, 1991, RZA released an EP titled Ooh I Love You Rakeem under his first moniker Prince Rakeem. The extended play was released under Tommy Boy/Warner Bros. Records and the following year RZA would go on on to be a founding member of the Wu-Tang Clan with his cousins GZA and Ol’ Dirty Bastard.

    With the formation of the Wu-Tang Clan, RZA would change his name from Prince Rakeem to RZA (pronounced “Rizza”), and his cousin The Genius would change his name to GZA. RZA was also a founding member of the horrorcore group Gravediggaz, in which he went by the moniker The RZArector.

    Read: GZA’s first rap name was The Genius

    Read: RZA, GZA, and ODB were in a group called All in Together Now before Wu-Tang Clan

    Read: 3 members of the Wu-Tang Clan were cousins

    Read: RZA and GZA were in a Jim Jarmusch Movie

  • RZA and GZA were in a Jim Jarmusch Movie

    RZA and GZA were in a Jim Jarmusch Movie

    Before Wu-Tang An American Saga hit the small screen, its creators Rza and Gza were in a movie together. The film’s called Coffee and Cigarettes and they co-star with none other than “Ghostbusting-ass” Bill Murray in 2003. The experimental film is a series of shorts about you guessed it, coffee and cigarettes.

    The movie was filmed in black and white and also featured Spike Lee, Steve Buscemi, Iggy Pop, and others. The two rappers play themselves, as does Murry so we don’t know if this counts as acting but it is good for a serious laugh.

  • RZA, GZA, and ODB were in a group called All in Together Now before Wu-Tang Clan

    RZA, GZA, and ODB were in a group called All in Together Now before Wu-Tang Clan

    In the mid-1980s, years before Wu–Tang Clan was founded, Cousins GZA (then known as the Genius), RZA (then known as Prince Rakeem), and ODB (Ol’ Dirty Bastard, then known as Ason Unique) were all making music under a trio originally named Force of the Imperial Master which later became known as All In Together Now Crew. The group ended up dissolving and in 1992 the nine-member Staten Island group Wu-Tang Clan was formed and the group consisted of RZA, GZA, Ol’ Dirty Bastard, Method Man, Raekwon, Ghostface Killah, Inspectah Deck, U-God, and Masta Killa.

    The following year Wu-Tang Clan released their debut album Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers). All in Together Now never released an album as a trio.

    Pre-order 100 Hip-Hop Facts (1973-2000) book

    Below you can watch a 1991 interview of GZA, RZA and ODB with Public Access/EgoTripLand.

    Read: Wu-Tang Clan’s ‘Wu-Tang Forever’ was the first hip hop album to go No. 1 in the U.K.

    Read: It Costed Wu-Tang Clan $300 to record “Protect Ya Neck”

Download the RHYMEBOOK App
on iOS & Android

Download AppLearn More

Add to Collection

No Collections

Here you'll find all collections you've created before.