NEW!!!! Banks & Steelz - Speedway Sonora [Official Audio]

Wu-Wednesday: The RZA Introduces Black Knights & Shaka Amazulu the 7th - The Chessmen!

Black Knights & Shaka Amazulu the 7th Presents The Chessmen Episode 1: 2 Knights & A King LP.
First single and album title of conceptual album themed around the ideas, strategies and theories of the chess game. Coming out end of the year.

Intro by The RZA where he officially initiates UK artist Shaka into the beehive via The Black Knights. Recorded 2010.

Wu-Wednesday: Shaolin Quest" ft. Shifu Shi Yan Ming and RZA

A short video made in 2004 featuring RZA of the Wu-Tang Clan with Shifu Shi Yan Ming of the USA Shaolin Temple and his students.

Happy Birthday To The Abbott

Wu-Wednesday: Wu-Tang Clan - Family Reunion

Brand new music from the Wu-Tang! This is a 2013 production from the RZA feat. Masta Killa, Method Man and Ghostface Killah. Looking forward to A Better Tomorrow...
released 05 June 2013

THE RZA AND ADRIAN YOUNGE ARE SUPREME MUTANT BEINGS

One of the high points in my career as a journalist happened back in January, when I had the honor of chewing the fat with my hero and Wu-Tang Clan mastermind, the RZA. We were supposed to talk about a new Ghostface Killah album, featuring production from his protégé Adrian Younge, that RZA had executive produced and was going to drop on his then newly launched Soul Temple label. However, I hadn't heard the album yet. And I had only found out I was slated to conduct the interview a few hours before I had to show up, which I did out of breath and a little bugged out. I was also woefully underprepared—I even forgot to bring a camera, so I couldn't get a picture with Mr. Bobby Digital, something my entire family is still pissed at me about months later. Luckily, I did have my recorder, which was good. And I'm pretty sure I didn't smell, despite having sprinted to the interview in what felt like a coat made of whale blubber on a peculiarly warm day for the dead of winter.



The album we talked about, which I finally got a chance to listen to and love a month ago, is called Twelve Reasons to Die. It hit the streets at the end of April and features Ghostface spitting a fictional narrative that falls somewhere between The Candy Man and The Crow. You should really listen to the record for yourself, but basically it details how a black gangster named Tony Starks, who works for the Italian mob, becomes the Ghostface Killah, a phantom assassin who avenges his death every time a mysterious vinyl record is played. As would be expected, Ghost's rhymes are flawless, pulling you into a world where wronged gangsters can come back from the grave. But what's most surprising about the record is the production, which Adrian Younge laced with live instrumentation and throwback techniques. The beats sound like Sergio Leone scores and Delfonics ballads—the latter makes plenty of sense considering the standout track "Enemies All Around Me" features William Hart of the famed Philly soul group.

I would've dropped this impromtu interview with RZA and Adrian a lot sooner, but I was hoping to get another chance to connect with RZA and possibly Ghost after I had time to digest the album and add a perspective with some hindsight. I'm still waiting on that one, if only so I can snag a picture of myself with RZA or Ghost throwing up the W and make my father proud. (Wu-Tang, for retired dads living in the suburbs of Cleveland, Ohio, really is forever.)

So here is an old interview with a rap legend and a rising hip-hop star that is still definitely worth reading a few months after it was conducted, especially if you're like me and you eat, sleep, and breath all things Shaolin. We talked about the collaborative process for Twelve Reasons to Die, what it's like working with Ghost, and how the Wu-Tang Clan are actually mutants.

VICE: So, Adrian, just to start off, how did you come up with the concept of Twelve Reasons to Die?

Adrian Younge: Initially, Bob Perry, co-owner of Soul Temple with RZA, hit me up to ask me if I’d like to do a Wu-Tang project. I’ve always composed from the RZA perspective. My concept was always, what would RZA do if he was a producer in the late 60s? So, when he hit me up about doing that project, I was like, OK, this is too good to be true. Then he hit me up a few weeks later and I was like, “Yo, you’re serious? All right. Then we have to figure out a concept to make this important to people.”

Why make a concept record?

Adrian: Whenever I’m creating, I ask myself why anyone should care. I figured if we came together and did something that was based on a story, it could turn into something more massive. I thought about it every day for a couple weeks and the story hit me. I planted the seed and the people around me helped to nurture the concept.

RZA: The concept is what attracted me to the project. I like to think conceptually when I make my music. When I see somebody producing in that same vein, I invest in that. You see a guy like Adrian, and you know that he has a future ahead of him.

Was there a moment in the process when you said, “Whoa, Ghostface is really putting his all into this?”

Adrian: I’m a hip-hop dude, but I generally say that I left hip-hop in '97. To me, at that time, it was making a shift I didn’t feel. I’m somebody who’s been trying to find a hip-hop album that gives me the same feeling the music did in '97. To finally hear it and to have been the one to produce it is incredible. Ghost exceeded my expectations, and I always expected him to come with it. That, in turn, inspired me to do more and make it even better.

Adrian records a lot on analog equipment. What do you think about that in terms of not sampling, but using organic instruments to create sounds that are reminiscent of samples?

RZA:  Hip-hop started off from sampling certain parts of old records. The musicians who were making those old records weren’t coming from the hip-hop perspective. Now you have a new generation of people who’ve grown up on hip-hop, whether it was Wu-Tang or G-Funk or whatever. And they’re musicians, but they’re able to think in a hip-hop way. It’s great to see.

Has working with traditional musicians like Adrian showed you anything about yourself?

RZA: I noticed the stuff I sample on every album has an A-minor progression. That’s just what my ear is attracted to. I didn’t know it was an A-minor when I did it. But now now that we’ve got a producer like Adrian who is a musician, we can really attain the spirit that we want. And having all that old equipment is great. This guy is sitting on a lot of old toys. The only other people I’ve seen with that many old toys in the studio are the Black Keys. He’s able to create a sound that made those old records. I think it’s great for hip-hop.

Some might argue that what Adrian does isn’t hip-hop at all.

RZA: People think if we take the rappers off of a record, it won't be hip-hop anymore. But I disagree with that. Say this was just an instrumental. You’re going to hear that soul you’re looking for. If we come back to a generation of people who don’t become musicians because they’re using their Logics and their Abletons and they don’t get that musician part in life, they’ll use this record as their sample base. It will come full circle.

That’s an exciting thought.

RZA: Yeah, as a musician myself, it’s fun to see a someone who can execute those ideas so I don’t have to. It’s a big relief to me. It’s like being a great dancer and wanting to see someone do the most incredible spin that you were always working on, just because you want the world to see it too. You get to a point in life when you aren’t break-dancing anymore, you’re choreographing dancers in movies. But you see a young guy come and he does that fucking Triple Lindy that you dreamed about. That’s how I feel right now.

Adrian, as a hip-hop fan, why not sample?

Adrian: Hip-hop was started on the break. It’s about finding those breaks and those chords. I stopped sampling because my brain was going further than the chords. When RZA was doing his thing, he was finding all the ill breaks and creating weird changes that were syncopated and made sense. Now, I can make the entire sample myself and evolve it.

RZA: Right. And not just on the drum, but the music on top of the drum.

Adrian: Quincy Jones said that hip-hop mastered the drums. When I’m recording these drums, I record them as if they were made from the SP using different snares and different mics and different setups on the same songs. But it’s still all live. This process is pushing the musical and compositional component of a subculture and style of music that is dear to me.

Can you really go any further than where hip-hop has already been?

Adrian: Every generation declines. Hip-hop got to a point where it was getting better and better and it hit a pinnacle. Then it started to drop because it was getting into pop and becoming more of a dance thing. This record is something that takes it back to that passionate core.

You guys come from different generations of hip-hop. Was there something you learned from this experience that you didn’t know before the process?

Adrian: One of things I’ve done with music is study why musicians are the best. When I got a chance to meet RZA, I’d ask him some of those questions. But I already had the answers for what I thought he did. Sometimes I was right, sometimes I was wrong and my mind was blown. It’s like he was helping me to sculpt my future and mold my thought process when it came to finalizing shit. He’s had 20 years of experience with this. I have not. I’ve learned a lot just by upping my game.

RZA: For me, making music has been a lot about searching—searching for the right sample to get that bell, searching for a digital keyboard that can play certain sounds. But to go back to his studio and to see all the analog equipment that made those sounds, I learned that if you want a bell then buy a damn bell. You’ve got a fucking mic. I work with a digital orchestra and I enjoy it. It has its benefits. But if you want organic sounds, 90 percent of the time a computer isn’t going to generate that. Trying to make all this music with the older equipment showed me you can stick to the organic way. You don’t have to change because the equipment changed. You can still use that same old shit. You can still go down and get the same musicians. I knew that, but I forgot it, and Adrian reminded me.

You’ve been working with Ghostface for a long time. In terms of this project, did you see anything different come out in him as an MC?

RZA: Ghost is a dope MC—one of the dopest to ever touch the mic. But on this particular record, he reminded us that Ghost can get into any water and swim well. He killed it on the Kanye record. He killed it on the Wu-Block record. But on this one here, he kept a cohesive narrative. I don’t think he’s done that since Supreme Clientele. Even Supreme Clientele somewhere in the middle doesn’t hold the narrative. Cuban Linx was the first time a story was really kept all the way. It was Tony Starks and Lou Diamond and they were there all the way through. This is a return for him to a complete narrative from front to back... I’m going to give a quote about Ghostface that Quentin  [Tarantino] said to me, “Two of the greatest writers in American music history are Bob Dylan and Ghostface Killah.”  

Growing up listening to Wu-Tang as a young kid, I always looked at the different members of Wu-Tang as almost like comic-book characters. You all had such larger than life personas. Do you ever intend to tell the origin stories of other Wu characters you've helped create inside this universe?
RZA: As far as Wu and comic ideas, I’ve written something called Black Shampoo. In it, everybody’s a superhero and it touches on their own personalities. For example, everyone knows Meth is a weed smoker. In this story, some guys come and confront him at a table. They’re going to kill him. They’ve got guns pointed under the table. And he’s sitting there smoking this big blunt. The blunt flies across the table and knocks the guys back. That’s my imagination on how super he could be. Wu has always been something that’s real, but we always had this superhero idea about ourselves. That comes from when you you feel that you have the proper position in the world to be a supreme being. Or, instead of the supreme being, because there’s only one, the ability to be supreme amongst other beings. There’s a small part of me that says, “You know what, motherfuckers? We are mutants.” Think about it, Meth has smoked for 30 years straight and never been to the doctor for anything. Iron lungs, right? He must have iron lungs. Ghostface really has a ghost face. It’s hard to find him. It's like he disappears.

What was it like actually turning this album into a comic book?
RZA: The trick that a writer needs to understand is, when you’re dealing with hip-hop, you’re dealing with concentrated language. It’s like concentrated orange juice. You have to add cups of water to it. If I say, “Camouflage chameleon / ninja scaling your building / no time to grab the gun / they’ve already got your wife and children” within two lines, all this shit has happened already. To make this a story, they have to stretch that out to a ten-minute scene. That’s one of the secrets of writing from listening to hip-hop and hearing the story and being able to extract it out. But the writers were good. I like what they did. They took the story and instead of making it from just one point of view, they did something cinematic with it. They made it a parallel story.

Your music’s always been described as cinematic. Has the process of working on The Man with the Iron Fists changed your process in general?
RZA: It has impacted everything. That was like the final education. It was definitely a college-graduation thing for me. I have my PhD in art right now, thanks to that experience. But the final, ultimate test is, can you beat death? So far, nobody has beaten the ultimate test. That’s a test for your ass. But doing a movie definitely comes close.

RZA, any advice you want to give to MCs and producers out there who want to be the next RZA or Adrian Younge?
RZA: There’s no limit to artistic expression. You just have to find that wavelength and ride that wave all the way to the shore.

Thanks, Adrian Younge and Ruler Zig-Zag-Zig Allah!

Buy Twelve Reasons to Die the album and the comic.

@WilbertLCooper
Source

RZA and Ong Bak fight director present martial arts thriller Formless

The filmmakers behind the upcoming martial arts thriller Formless have revealed a sneak peek action concept reel for the film. RZA will present the Thai-produced film, which features Panna Rittakai handling the action choreographer, who’s known for his work on Ong Bak. Formless stars Martial Artist and Actor Marrese Crump, along with UFC Champion Anderson ‘The Spider’ Silva, K-1 Champion Buakaw and Filipino Martial Artist Ray Dionaldo.

Check out the Formless action concept reel below, featuring Marrese Crump taking on a group of attackers.

Wu-Tang Clan Announce Title Of 20th Anniversary Album "A Better Tomorrow"

Wu Tang Clan are set to release their brand new album, 'A Better Tomorrow', in July.

They will support the release of the record with shows at Manchester O2 Apollo on July 25 and London's O2 Academy Brixton on July 26.

Last month Method Man said that the band were working on a new release to celebrate the 20th anniversary of their classic debut LP 'Enter The Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)' - and then, in an interview with Radio.com, Cappadonna confirmed that "recording has begun" on a new LP.

"I already spoke to the RZA," he said. "We've been texting each other. We're definitely concentrating on more positivity and teachings and trying to put that back into the original recipe for this next Wu-Tang album."

He went on to add: "The recording has begun... It's all being done in the secret Wu-Tang Bat chamber. RZA has all the tracks lined up. There are recordings taking place in New York, LA and perhaps at the Wu mansion in New Jersey."

Wu-Tang Clan released 'Enter The Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)' in 1993. Their last studio album, '8 Diagrams', was released in 2007 following a six-year gap after their 2001 LP 'Iron Flag'.

The hip-hop group are set to play this weekend’s Coachella Festival in California as well as this summer's Primavera Sound festival in Barcelona.
Read more at http://www.nme.com/news/wu-tang-clan/69693#qLqatxgRcyl1muCO.99

Wu-Wednesday: First Listen: Ghostface Killah And Adrian Younge, 'Twelve Reasons To Die'

Twelve Reasons to Die is a rap album that begins with an overture and ends with an instrumental coda. The songs were composed by Adrian Younge, a producer and musician who's fairly new to the scene, recorded live and authored by a rapper with 20 years in the business, the Ghostface Killah, a member of the Wu-Tang Clan. The result is unusual — a vivid and intricate melodrama both backward-looking and forward-thinking.


"It's the first time in my life I tried something like this," says Ghostface before his second-ever performance of this new material with Younge and his band, Venice Dawn. It's a surprising thing to hear from an artist of his longevity — and he has attempted many of the gambits on Twelve Reasons to Die before. He's done concept albums, made filmic songs, invented characters, performed with a band, played supporting and featured roles. But he's never had this type of working relationship with the tracks he's rhyming over — the music was wholly composed for this project, which was conceived as a story before anything else. It works like Tommy, if Ghostface is Roger Daltrey and Younge is Pete Townshend. "I'm a film composer," says Younge. "But I'm a hip-hop guy."


The Record
The Wu-Tang Clan's 20-Year Plan
As those involved tell it, the story came first, the music second and the lyrics last. Twelve Reasons to Die is the creation myth of a black superhero set in 1960s Italy, which looks a lot like 1990s Scorsese. The curtain opens on a young man born into a life of crime. But anyone familiar with Robert De Niro's characters in Goodfellas and Casino knows what's coming next when Ghostface's character rhymes, "I was a boss among white boys, rocking a 'fro." He hits the ceiling, leaves to start a black syndicate, falls in love with a boss's daughter and makes a ton of money importing cocaine. For these crimes, the criminal organization he came up in murders him and dumps his body in a vat of acetate. His former friends press 12 records from his remains, but when those records play, his vengeful spirit arises. Though he was rebuffed and disrespected in life, in legend the Ghostface Killah becomes immortal.

Twelve Reasons to Die has all the makings of a cult classic. Jangly, tumbleweed guitar that warms the cold-hearted comic book-style violence. Snyth stabs that evoke Bernard Herrmann's violin screeches in Psycho. William Hart's age-spotted tone reminding us of our own mortality and the planes where soul music and hip-hop meet. The drums are loud and high in the mix, driving when our hero readies for a fight, as on "Blood on the Cobblestones," uncomfortably tight just as he's betrayed during "An Unexpected Call (The Set Up)" and charged like a car chase while he tastes revenge on "Sure Snot (Parts One & Two)," the only song that could be a single.

The atmospherics and plot development fit right in with Wu-Tang albums of the past, most closely another Ghostface collaboration, Only Built 4 Cuban Linx. And Wu-Tang associates appear here: the RZA most prominently, Cappadonna most memorably, Inspectah Deck most ably and Killah Priest carrying the most weight. From beyond the grave Ol' Dirty Bastard makes his presence felt — his introduction of Ghostface on 1993's "Da Mystery of Chessboxin'" reverberates on "The Rise of the Ghostface Killah." Ghostface says he went back to his Wu brothers because he needed veterans who know how to tell a story.

And Ghostface would know — he is a true writer. He's painterly and agile. His style is emphatic, and he takes every verse seriously. He bobs and weaves with the track, but he maintains a forthright and basically conversational sentence structure, which, when he's describing the ways he might murder your children, really twists the knife.

The mood of the album is fragile, and the whole project is a definite risk. Both Ghostface and Younge are making fictional music here, but the knife's edge they're walking — between theater and theatrics, between noir and B-movie — feels very real. That they make it across without falling is a relief and an eye-opener.

In the grand tradition of the Wu-Tang Clan, Twelve Reasons to Die is brash and Technicolor and heartfelt. It is not what you would expect from a rap album, or a Ghostface album, or a film score. As Ghostface says, on "Rise of the Black Suits," "Rules are for fools."

RZA to Star in Fox Cop Show "Gang Related"

Though RZA has been featured on a few TV shows in the recent past-- "Californication", "Afro Samurai", the extremely short-lived "Outlaw"-- he's never been cast in a starring role. That'll change soon, as FACT reports. He'll star as a San Francisco cop in the upcoming Fox TV series "Gang Related".
He'll play the lead character's partner, Cassius. Here's his very specific character motive via The Hollywood Reporter: "He decided to become a cop after the object of his affection was gunned down. The community's ambivalence toward her death drives him to seek justice in a world that seems to have stopped caring."
The pilot will be written by Chris Morgan, aka the dude who wrote some of the Fast & Furious movies.

Watch a recent Pitchfork.tv interview with RZA:

Wu-Wednesday: The RZA x Stax Sampler

Wu-Wednesday! On March 19th, Soul Temple is releasing a compilation of Classic Soul from the vaults of Stax Records selected by The RZA.

Check out this link to stream or download a free sampler of the album [mixed by DJ 7L]

The RZA Presents Shaolin Soul Selection

Coming soon

Wu-Wednesday: RZA Ft. Sly Stone, Stone Mecca & Reverend William Burke aka Lil Chuuuch

2013....Wu Wednesday, take it back to Afro Samurai..." "Family Affair".....Bong.

- The RZA

Wu-Wednesday: RZA - 12 Jewels. Gravediggaz - The Pick, the Sickle and the Shovel [1997]

RZA - 12 Twelve Jewels.
Gravediggaz - The Pick, the Sickle and the Shovel [1997] 

Produced by Darkim Be Allah

Wu-Wednesday: A good day for a flashback, a pick from my assistant Tam.... GRAVEDIGGAZ, "Twelve Jewels" 
- The RZA

RZA Talks Kanye West Collabo, Co-Signs Joey Bada$$, Kendrick Lamar

When Robert " RZA" Diggs was pillaging old kung-fu flicks as a New York teen, he never imagined he'd one day be directing one. Since producing the landmark "Enter the Wu-Tang: 36 Chambers" (Loud) in 1993 and spawning the lengthy, fruitful career of the Wu-Tang Clan, the Grammy Award-winning beatsmith has tapped into nearly all sides of the entertainment industry: collaborating with everyone from the Black Keys to Kanye West, penning two books and landing roles in films including "Funny People" and "American Gangster."

This month, RZA makes his directorial debut with "The Man With the Iron Fists," a kung-fu film starring Lucy Liu and Russell Crowe that's "presented by" Quentin Tarantino. The film's soundtrack, which bowed at No. 31 on the Billboard 200, was his label's (Soul Temple Records) first release, and the film opened with $7.9 million, according to Box Office Mojo.

1. What was the biggest difference between producing an album and directing a film? The amassment of work and people. It's hard work to make an album, but there's maybe 12 people that help. For a film, you're talking about a cast and crew of 400-600 people. Doing music videos is one thing-maybe two days to prepare. This is more like 100 days of preparation, 60 days of filming, another 100 days of editing. This thing took a lot of time.

2. What were you able to do with special effects and fight scenes in this film that wasn't possible during the golden era of kung-fu films? Well, take a movie like "Five Deadly Venoms." You've got the Toad, where you couldn't penetrate his skin, and you had to find his weak spot. In today's technology, we could take an idea like that and make brass bodies. A guy who's able to channel his chi and turn his whole body to solid metal. We got the actor to act it all out, and then took a CGI copy of his body and made it brass.
3. One of the more notable songs on the soundtrack is Kanye West's "White Dress." How did that come together?
Kanye is a great artist. I had a chance to work with him on [his 'My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy'] and [West and Jay-Z's] 'Watch the Throne.' When I got back from [filming in] China, I was in my editing room and I reached out to him to come look at a scene and potentially give me a song for the score and soundtrack. He came through, dug what he saw and wrote this song for us. He killed it.

4. Also on the soundtrack are Brooklyn upstarts the Flatbush Zombies. Are there other new MCs you have an eye out for?
Joey Bada$$ is representing good. A$AP and them, I love that crew. Meek Mill and Wale. Kendrick Lamar and his folks. It took time, but now my generation can say, "OK, we've got some talent in the driver's seat. Hip-hop will go on." The only thing they need is consciousness. We all like to party. But at the same time you want some imagery out there representing social consciousness and awareness. My generation had that balance. Now we could use some of that.

5. Do you plan to write more books? Yeah, I'm already working on it, putting down some beautiful ideas. Sometimes a man is shy to expose his life. But I realize my life sometimes helps other brothers escape hell. Reading about Jesus -- not comparing myself to Jesus -- but reading the Good Book and of men of history, we see them make it through challenging times. It helps us when we face these odds. The master always leaves clear footprints, and I'm trying to leave some footprints for these kids so they can say, "Hold on, man, I know which way to go."

6. Several artists have taken executive positions at major labels recently. Have you been approached by anyone, and would you be interested?
I haven't been approached by anyone. I'm really comfortable with filmmaking. A director's an executive: He's got to have his hands on music, he has to know how to control talent-all these things that I did as a producer I can do as a director and more. I don't just do things for myself, honestly. I want brothers who come from my hood and any urban area to realize, it's many paths we can take. And I'm proving that as one man-imagine what they could do.


Source:

RZA Speaks On “The Man With The Iron Fists” w/ Rolling Stone

RZA REVEALS Wu-Tang Clan's GROUPIE SEX SECRETS In GQ & how group's references run deep in 'Iron Fists'

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Power Friday: RZA To Direct "Genghis Khan" Biopic & Action Thriller "No Man's Land"

Following his directorial debut with "The Man With the Iron Fists," RZA plans to lens two other films.

Though his directorial debut The Man With the Iron Fists arrives in theaters this weekend, RZA has already lined up two more films as director.

According to THR, the Wu-Tang Clan member will helm John Milius’ biopic Genghis Khan and the action thriller No Man’s Land.

Genghis Khan has been in the works for years, with Milius originally slated to direct. The story will be told from the point of view of Khan's son and grandson, and will be shot in China next year.

Meanwhile, No Man's Land takes place on one night and will focus on "a man who steals a powerful criminal's diamond that soon proves to be far more valuable than initially thought. With the help of a dancer, he attempts to stay alive and cash in on the jewel."

source: http://www.hiphopdx.com/index/news/id.21691/title.rza-to-direct-genghis-khan-biopic-action-thriller-no-mans-land

Wu-Wednesday: RZA's 10-Step Guide to Becoming a Hip-Hop Hollywood Director

RZA never stops training for greatness. Almost 20 years after creating the game-changing, trademark sound on Wu-Tang Clan's 1993 debut album Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers), the producer-turned-director is on the brink of releasing his first full-length feature film, "The Man With the Iron Fists."

"If I was to compare this work I would compare this to me making 36 Chambers," he tells The BoomBox of the Kung Fu-inspired action flick. "That's how confident and pleased I am with the outcome of this film and I think it's the start of something beautiful."

Of course, sitting in the director's chair didn't happen overnight. RZA, who also has the leading role in the movie, has been preparing for this moment since he was a young kid, growing up in Staten Island, N.Y. He'd watch Kung Fu movies religiously, which eventually became a lifelong obsession.

The influence from those films first poured out into the fantasized identities of the Wu-Tang Clan, the music they created and eventually turned into a more concrete story idea RZA conceived for a film. He then honed his filmmaking skills under director Quentin Tarantino during the making of "Kill Bill: Vol. 1." After years of his mentorship, RZA began crafting the screenplay for "The Man With the Iron Fists," with the assistance of Eli Roth.

Bobby Digital, born Robert Fitzgerald Diggs, worked with an all-star cast that included Russell Crowe, Lucy Liu and Pam Grier. He also directed a crew of 300 to 400 people daily during the production of the film. RZA had his hands full, but he completed the effort with a girth of new knowledge. And he never hesitates to pass it on.

The BoomBox spoke with the 43-year-old director about the ups and downs of the film, due Nov. 2, trusting his actors and even feeling like President Obama at times. Take a look at RZA's directorial guide where he offers 10 tips on transitioning from hip-hop to Hollywood.

1. Be Prepared
"You must prepare yourself for anything, of course. Many people go along the path but they stumble because they're not prepared. But for this particular endeavor, preparation is the key element because they call "on the day." It's a film term meaning the time to shoot.

"There's no chance for error because it costs so much money per day to do what you're doing that if you lose a day, you basically losing twice the amount of money. So preparation is key."

2. Have a Vision
"The same way a lyricist should have vision in his lyrics to tell a story, you gotta have vision as a director, as well on how you want to tell a story through these characters or through a scene or through a moment.

"Vision is imperative because if you don't have vision you won't be able to translate yourself to your crew or your cast. Even if you have a script. It's useless if you don't have a vision."

3. Possess Presidential Qualities
"This is not a job for the weak. I felt like I understood what Obama was going through because you're controlling so many people, money. On an average we probably had 300 to 400 people a day. Somebody said they counted 700 one day.

"So it's a lot of people and you gotta feed 'em. And I remember having cold lunch or making lunch cold because I kept pushing the shot. But perseverance of the director is important. His health, his stamina, is very important."

4. Love Your Crew
"You must have compassion because you do have all these people working for you and if you're compassionate about what you're doing, then that compassion will resonate with them and then it could become synergized teamwork. You hear some stories of directors who yell. They get things done.

"And you know that we yell at somebody and chastise them they'll go do it. But they're not going to do it with that same compassion. I said I had took my crew passed lunchtime. Three days in a row they had cold lunch. Nobody didn't tell me though, because they didn't want to disturb my groove because the director is the captain.

"But on the fourth day somebody came over and was like, 'Yo, it's lunch break.' I said, 'We'll have our lunch break after the shot.' They were like, 'We had lunch three days in a row cold.' I said, 'Why ain't nobody tell me?' Then I said, 'Lunch break!' So yeah compassion is important."

5. Rely on Originality
"You have to bring something original to the table. The old cookie cutter formulas that work sometimes in Hollywood, it works more for established directors. But for somebody who's new tryna enter the business, you better have something original."

6. Do Homework
"How are you going to do something unless you know how it's done? How it continues to be done? There are six basic angles of filmmaking that you should know. If you know at least five of the major lenses they use -- meaning from the frame, from 17 up to 100 as they say -- at least know the five major lenses. So knowledge is the key to any craft.

7. Understand Time Is Money
"Execution leads to efficiency. And execution is an efficiency. The one thing that the man told me and he challenged me because he knew me from the past and shit and he was like, 'RZA, do you know how movies are made?' I said, 'Yeah, determination, focus, good crew, imagination.' He said, 'No, on schedule.' Basically, time is money, kid."

8. Gain an Actor's Trust
"I'll never forget, Russell did an interview on Charlie Rose where he said out of his mouth, 'I'm about to do something crazy.' And Rose said, 'What?' [Russell] then said, 'Well, my buddy has a Kung Fu movie. His name is RZA from the Wu-Tang Clan. He has a Kung Fu movie he wants me to do.

"'And a lot of my peers say it's something I shouldn't do because it doesn't match to my serious side of acting.' And Charlie Rose asked him, 'Well, why do you want to do it?' And he said, 'Well, I trust him.' And when he came there I knew he put his trust in my hand and so I had to deliver on that trust.

"And at the same time, when it got to a problem... I also had to trust him back. There was one scene where I was like, 'Yo, I want you to put these kids to bed.' And he's like, 'Well, my character wouldn't put the kids to bed.'

"I said, 'Wait a minute! Everybody got love for children, even in this movie, even the most evilest man will have love for a child.' And it was other scenes we did, one of the characters who's like the most vicious guy, he walks in and plays with the kids. I asked him to do the same thing and he says, 'Alright, Bobby, if you say so.' So it's a big trust that must be shared."

9. Listen to the Talent's Opinion
"[Lucy Liu] knows what she wants and she knows the kinds of things she wants to do. But at the same time she trusted me. I'll tell you a little story about her. When she first arrived in China, she came in when we were already about five weeks in. So everybody was already up to speed and here comes the new talent coming in.

"And she got there and she didn't want to see the producers or nobody and I told her, 'You need to have dinner with me.' And so we had dinner just to reconnect our energy and she was just like, 'What are we doing here?'

"So we went upstairs to the room that I had five weeks of footage, and we had edited down to about two minutes to show the crew and I hit play on it and when she saw the two minutes she was like, 'Oh my God, you're fucking making an epic here,' and it kind of let loose some of her phobias because she seen what we shot already.

"She was adamant that her character herself represented a woman of strength and she had a few books and she said, 'You can keep this.' And I had just got into an argument with my ex woman who said that God was a woman and I said, 'Whelp maybe it was [laughs].' But it's important for yin and yang to be balanced and I think she helped me with that."

10. Collect Wisdom
"[Pam Grier] was like a jewel for me. Somebody that was experienced in movies for many years. I watched and admired her and she was so nice and so sharing of her wisdom and experience. Actually, for her, I would just sit there and listen. After lunch I'd just sit there and listen to all the stories.

"She told me one funny story though that really made feel really proud. Warrington Hudlin is Reginald Hudlin's brother. These guys did movies like 'House Party,' 'Boomerang.' Well, Warrington thrives himself on being a martial artist. Me and Warrington met before and when we met, he said his seafood could beat my seafood.

"After a scene was over, we looked at the monitor and Pam Grier saw it, and she said, 'RZA, Warrington is going to be so jealous. I'm going to text him right now.' And that kind of felt cool because we had this little thing and shit, she kind of put me up in that one. I won that battle."

BONUS: Become a Student & Master
"When I first became [Quentin Tarantino's] student, I went to China to Beijing. And I sat up in the corner for a month, writing, studying. I even took some of the things he said and I wrote it into a lyric so I wouldn't forget. And now when I'm doing 'The Man With the Iron Fists,' he flies himself to China.

"He wouldn't take money from the budget. He wouldn't take money from per diems. He just came and he sat there for some days with us. I never forget the day he sat at dinner with me. He said, 'Bobby, remember this, full circle. I remember you sitting in China... watching me studying, and now the student has become a master.'

"And that actually was one of the moments on the set. A lot of weight fell off me. Like wow, he's right. I'm actually living out the dream and... he's right beside me."


source: http://www.theboombox.com/2012/10/29/rza-the-man-with-the-iron-fists/

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