NEW! - GZA/The Genius - The Spark (2016)

Lead single "The Spark", from the upcoming GZA/Genius album: "Dark Matter."

Purchase the single on iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/the...

GZA - The Mexican Feat. Tom Morello

It's been seven years since Wu-Tang Clan's GZA dropped a solo album, 2008's Pro Tools. His upcoming album, Dark Matter, has been in the works for years. Now, it's set to come out in the fall.

For a new, non-album single "The Mexican", GZA has teamed up with Rage Against the Machine's Tom Morello. It's a new version of Babe Ruth's 1972 song of the same name that that has been sampled numerous times.

Hanni El Khatib and Unknown Mortal Orchestra's Ruban Nielson also contributed to the track, which was produced by GZA and arranged by Jose "Choco" Reynoso.

[via Pitchfork]

GZA/Genius Raps & Rhyme With Neil Degrasse Tyson

First, RZA writes and directs a blockbuster Kung-Fu film, now GZA is getting into the astrophysics game. Watch below as Gary Grice discusses with the world's coolest nerd, Neil deGrasse Tyson, how certain scientific terms are more accessible in hip-hop than others.

It's a full episode, so you might have to skip around a bit.

GZA/Genius Teaching Science Today

Wu-Wednesday Video: GZA Speaks On Upcoming Album & Graphic Novel Project

Interview with GZA in Philadelphia for the Step Into The Black Music Series presented by The FADER and Captain Morgan Black Spiced Rum. He speaks briefly on his upcoming album Dark Matter, but more about his new graphic novel, Chlorine.

GZA/Genius Finds His Muse in the Stars

n an early May afternoon in the offices of Neil deGrasse Tyson, the director of the Hayden Planetarium, a model of Saturn caught the eye of a 45-year-old high-school dropout, and a lyric was born.

"I thought, this is probably the longest spinning record in the world," said GZA, the hip-hop artist and founding member of the Wu-Tang Clan, referring to the ring system surrounding the planet. About a week later, the words crystallized and he offered them over a vegetarian lunch on the Upper West Side.

"God put the needle on the disc of Saturn / The record he played revealed blueprints and patterns," he rapped in his signature rhythmic baritone, offering a taste from his forthcoming album, "Dark Matter," an exploration of the cosmos filtered through the mind of a rapper known among his peers as "the Genius."

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Daniella Zalcman for The Wall Street Journal
GZA, with Neil deGrasse Tyson, the director of the Hayden Planetarium, in Mr. Tyson's office at the Museum of Natural History.

Informed by meetings with top physicists and cosmologists at MIT and Cornell University, "Dark Matter" is intended to be the first in a series of albums that GZA—born Gary Grice in Brooklyn in 1966—will put out in the next few years, several of which are designed to get a wide audience hooked on science.

"Dark Matter" is scheduled for a fall release. Another album will focus on the life aquatic, a subject he's fleshing out with visits to the labs of marine biologists and researchers, as well as meetings with the likes of Philippe Cousteau.

"After 'Dark Matter,' he said, "we'll be back on earth, but in the ocean."

In between will come "Liquid Swords 1.5," for which GZA will re-record the lyrics to his beloved 1995 album "Liquid Swords," backed by live bands.

Composer and producer Marco Vitali, a Juilliard-trained violinist, is helping to score "Dark Matter." He recalled a recent meeting in which GZA explained the images that the music should convey.

"We talked about frenetic energy, outer space, molecules crashing into each other, organized chaos," Mr. Vitali said. "The grandeur of the fact that the universe was born in a millionth of a second, in this explosion that created billions of stars, these overpowering ideas that are bigger than we can conceive. How do we make the record feel like that?"

In other words, how does one score the majesty of the entire universe?

"We don't have the answers yet," conceded Mr. Vitali. One thing he does know is that the score will utilize "the power of an entire orchestra," likely one from a smaller European country, to keep costs down.

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Scott Gries/ImageDirect/Getty Images
The rapper performs with the Wu-Tang Clan in 2001.

For GZA, a major challenge is convincing skeptics for whom hip-hop and an academic subject like physics seem incompatible.

"It's gonna sound so boring to most people," the rapper said. "There have been times when I've been told, 'Oh, you're doing an album about physics? I hope it's not boring.' They don't get the idea. Because rappers are so one-dimensional, so narrow-minded, it comes off corny."

Still, he believes that "Dark Matter" will tap into the innate curiosity of listeners—even those with no outward interest in science.

"I don't think people have ever really been in touch with science," he said. "They're drawn to it, but they don't know why they're drawn to it. For example, you may be blown away by the structure of something, like a soccer ball or a geodesic dome, with its hexagonal shapes. Or how you can take a strand of hair and can get someone's whole drug history. They're different forms of science, but it's still science."

He plans to package "Dark Matter" with a short illustrated book that may also include the album's lyrics and a glossary, "like an epic textbook," he said.

Penny Chisholm, a professor of environmental science at MIT, said she'd welcome the chance to use a GZA album as a teaching tool. She met with him last December when he came to visit her lab, where she researches the ocean phytoplankton Prochlorococcus, the most abundant photosynthetic cell on the planet.

"He'd been doing his homework on the oceans," Ms. Chisholm said. "I was struck by his appreciation of the complexity of ecology and physics, and his views on life. I think he's now on a new mission, and he could play an important role in getting various messages out through his art form—about the earth, and science. That's why I've become a fan."

It's that kind of academic inspiration that a young Gary Grice could have used growing up in Brooklyn in the 1970s. He was always smart: Before he was the GZA, he could recite nursery rhymes backward and forward.

"He was the Genius, and we called him genius because we knew that he was a genius," said Raekwon, another founding member of the Wu-Tang Clan, the legendary Staten Island hip-hop crew formed in the early '90s.

But as he came of age, the city's blossoming hip-hop scene exerted its own gravitational pull, drawing him away from the classroom. He cut class most days, staying home to write lyrics or hang out with friends and make demos.

"I thought I knew more than what they were teaching in school," he said. "When you look back on it now, it's foolish to be cutting because we had so much more opportunity than now. When I look back at high school, or even junior high, we had all the things that kids don't have now: woodshop, ceramics, metal class, electric class, graphic arts, graphic design."

Instead he poured his efforts into music. A first album, "Words From the Genius," failed to make a splash in 1991. Two years later, he and eight friends—including two cousins, who would become the RZA and Ol' Dirty Bastard—released "Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)," a critical entry in the hip-hop canon. His solo follow-up, "Liquid Swords," went gold, winning acclaim for its sophisticated lyrics.

Despite have left school in the 10th grade, GZA nurtured his affection for science as he developed his skills as a lyricist.

"There were certain things that grabbed my interest, such as photosynthesis, such as us living off plants and plants living off us," he said. "You look at everything in that light—so if I'm looking at ice cubes, I might start thinking about absolute zero, or Fahrenheit and Celsius. There's so much that can make me think about science."

In 1995, when he released "Liquid Swords," GZA solidified his stature as the Wu-Tang Clan's most recognizable lyricist with lines like "I be the body dropper, the heartbeat stopper / child educator plus head amputator." Nearly two decades later, "Dark Matter," with its rejection of the braggadocio and violence often found in hip-hop and its embrace of poetry and natural imagery, could finally enable this father of two to seize that mantle of "child educator."

"There's no parental advisory, no profanity, no nudity," he said. "The only thing that's going to be stripped bare is the planets."

GZA Talks Wu-Tang, Lectures, Science and 'Dark Matter'

Wu-Tang Clan rapper GZA has been known as the Genius since the early days of his career – but in recent months, the name has been particularly apt, as he has spent much of his free time chatting with scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and giving lectures at Harvard and New York University. The emcee also recently completed work on Dark Matter, a new album inspired in part by his interest in quantum physics, which will hit stores later this year.

Rolling Stone caught up with the rapper to discuss the new record, his university visits, his interest in writing for television and the low chances of hearing a new Wu-Tang Clan album any time in the foreseeable future.

You've been pretty busy on the lecture circuit recently. What have you been talking about?

It's just about music, Wu-Tang, whatever they ask. Lately, they had a little outline about what they wanted to hear me speak about: the globalization of hip-hop, lyrics, Wu-Tang's early years, my affiliation with Wu. Everything is hip-hop, it's all about hip-hop, but there are some specific things they wanted me to touch on.

So how did you start doing these?

It all started with Harvard several months ago. I don't know exactly how it unfolded. Y'know, the schools have been calling, and I have been going.

So when you say "the globalization of hip-hop," what do you mean by that?

Y'know, how hip-hop has gone mainstream all over the world. The globalization. Japan, Europe, Africa. It started here in New York, but it's all over the place right now.

You have a new album, Dark Matter, that is coming out. I understand that you put another record on hold to start on this. What made this record more urgent?

I didn't make it urgent. I just pick and choose. I mean, it would probably be urgent in the sense that I decided to do this before. Plus, the other needed more of a setup and different type of approach. I mean I had several different ideas and concepts in my head. It's just a journey of the universe. Dark matter, dark energy.

So this is about astronomy and physics?

Yes. And not necessarily so in that sense. It's just a beautiful story – planets, black holes, comets.

How did you get interested in this subject?

I've been interested in it for years. I mean, if you think about it, if you go back to Legend of the Liquid Sword – I put that out in 2002. I had a song on there, a verse where I say:

Why U-N-I-verse run like clock works forever?

Words pulled together, sudden change in the weather

The nature and the scale of events don't make sense

A story with no warnin' you're drawn in, environments

Gravity that's gone mad, clouds of dust and debris

Moving at colossal speeds, they crush an emcee

Since this rap region is heavily packed with stars

Internal mirror in the telescope, noticed the Czar

From far away, they blink as the lightnin' strolled

Great distance of space between precise globes

So I've been rhyming about this stuff – it's not anything new to me.

Did your visit to MIT have much impact on your writing for this record?

The thing at MIT didn't really have anything to do with it. This was just something that added to it. I mean, I never went to a university and linked up with, you know, quantum and astrophysicists and things of that nature. But it's not like this is what sparked the idea for me to want to do this album.

It was an interesting experience. I went to MIT and met with Penny Chisholm, a marine biologist. She was looking at viruses, bacteria, all kind of stuff. It was actually new for me to be up in there. It was a great experience. I went over to Harvard and spoke to David Kaiser, who is a quantum physicist. I met with him today and a few other quantum physicists. We sat down, we had lunch. I just had a chance to meet several professors, students. You know, scientists.

What else do you have coming up on the horizon, aside from Dark Matter?

I'm just working. I'm constantly writing. I'm always out. I have been running several months now. I've been on the road. I was just in Europe for a month. I did 31 shows in 29 days in 14 countries. I spent New Year's in Australia. I toured out there for about two weeks alone. Then I came back and linked back up with Wu-Tang. I was on the road with them for a month or so. I'm writing, doing pilots. Working on a script or two, and some ideas.

What was the pilot thing?

It was an idea by an actor/writer/friend that I know from L.A.. He had this idea going on he wanted to do this pilot for, this television series. But that fell through and they wanted to attach me to it and be a part of that. But I've been working on stuff aside from that.

What kind of stuff do you want to do for TV?

I'll do anything. Just like I can write anything lyrically. I don't really want to throw ideas out, because once stuff is in the air, people subconsciously take your idea and run with it.

You said you were touring with the Wu-Tang Clan, is there anything coming up with them, as far as another Wu-Tang record?

I have no idea. There's been talk. But I don't know what going on, you know? I can't say.

Is it too hard to get you all on the same page?

I mean, we haven't been on the same page in years.

Do you feel bad about that?

Nah. It is what it is. Sometimes that match burns out. So, no, I don't feel bad about it. It's good. I'm grateful for everything we have done throughout our careers and if there's nothing else to put out, then there's nothing to put out. I'm constantly writing and working. It doesn't stop there.

Source: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/gza-talks-lectures-science-and-dark-matter-20120403

GZA on Lecturing at Harvard, New Album Dark Matter - SXSW

GZA talks college science lectures and a new album 'Dark Matter'

Later this week GZA is set to perform with Latin super band Grupo Fantasma at a headlining Babygrande Records SxSW showcase this Saturday March 17 at the Haven Club.

GZA's new album Dark Matter is set to drop later this year on Babygrande Records. It's inspired by his fascination with astronomy, quantum physics and science fiction-turned-reality. To quote:

"I've been interested in many branches of science for years. RZA and I constantly exchange books and ideas. I recently met with quantum physicists who deepened my interest in the cosmos and gave me further inspiration for this next album. I want to take my listeners on a journey through deep space and deconstruct the idea of science fiction. If you think about it, 'science fiction' is an oxymoron but it makes sense because a lot of what was once fiction is now science and a lot of science is fiction until proven beyond hypothesis. For instance, when I was a kid there was a book called "A Wrinkle In Time" and some physicists at Cornell, whom I'm going to meet when I lecture there in April, actually created a wrinkle in time. That's incredible."

Expect the Genius to return to MIT March 21 to lecture in part with the Civic Media Lab. GZA will also be hitting the college circuit and lecturing at NYU, USC and Cornell later this spring.

Lecture Dates:

3/21 - MIT Civic Media Lab lecture

3/25 - NYU EMP Pop Conference/Clive Davis Institute

4/07 - Cornell University lecture T

Tour Dates:

3/17 - Austin - Babygrande Records' showcase at The Haven Club

4/18 - Brooklyn - Williamsburg Music Hall w/ Bad Brains

4/19 - Philadelphia - Trocadero w/ Bad Brains

4/20 - Washington D.C. - Howard Theater w/ Bad Brains

Source