RZA: Wu-Tang Clan, Kung Fu, Chess, God, Life, and Death | Lex Fridman Podcast #228

The following is a conversation with rza, the rapper, record producer, filmmaker, actor, writer, philosopher, kung fu scholar, and the mastermind of the legendary hip hop group Wu Tang Clan. This is the Lex Friedman podcast to support it. Please check out our sponsors in the description. And now, here's my conversation with rza. In the Tao of Wu, you write, when my mother left the physical world, I lost one of my main links to the universe. They say that you have an umbilical cord and an etheric cord, which is the invisible cord that attaches you to your soul, your mother's soul, and all other souls. When one passes away, you really lose something. It's physical and mental. It's real. Part of you dies. What have you learned about life from your mother?

I mean, I learned life itself from my mother. You know, being one of 11 children and seeing the sacrifice that she gave to us, therefore given to life, it's really the greatest lesson of life. The thing that shook me as I wrote those words was coming up young with arrogance, confidence, knowledge of myself. They called me the scientists. We was taught, you're the supreme Being. In order to be the supreme Being, you got to be supreme amongst other beings. I understand that more now than I did then, because then it was so literal. You know, the word God derived basically from the Greek language, as they say, and it meant wisdom, strength, and beauty. Yeah, we could have that. But the power to control life and death is something that you would assume is a God trait. So now here you are saying that you're a God, right? And you'll read in the Bible how Jesus brought back Lazarus and, you know, now here's your turn to do something. And when my mother was laying there in the hospital bed and air was no longer coming out of her lungs and going into her lungs, where's my power to bring her back to life?

So you can't truly be God. You're powerless?

Yeah. Or God is not the definition that we need to use to describe it, because it's a translation of wisdom, strength, and beauty. So you could be that. But. So I'm asking you a question. What did my mother teach me about life? I learned that day of physical passing. Okay. And, I mean, there's a physical me.

Do you think about her? Do you miss her?

Of course. I keep my mother in my prayer every day. And the thing I pray the most, beyond giving thanks, is I pray that her name is honored and remembered by my family. I don't know if the world's gonna remember it. Right. Even though if you watch My movie, Love Beats Rhymes. I named the school in that movie after my mother just to leave it somewhere else.

Yeah. In physical space.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. But, yeah, painful. The pain of my mother's passing is indescribable only until it happens to a person they know and then they won't describe it either. Only the people that lost their mother, they could look at each other and they got this nod, you know what I mean? But one other thing happened to me was the joy of life hit me differently. And I think it was the realization of my own mortality versus my immortality. It's a big, big thing. And I don't know if we'll get to expound on that, but there was a joy that overcame me because I was kind of free of a certain illusion about the immortality of my physical being versus the mortality of my physical being. And I was like, okay, wow, I understand.

So that was the first or the hardest realization you've experienced that you're mortal.

Yeah, that, yeah. And I'll say mortal. And the. What you're looking at here, physically, I won't say my soul is mortal, right. I'll say it's immortal. Because at the end of the day, it's just like I could sit here and I could just hum Please, Please, Please by James Brown, but James Brown is not going to come. Come in here and do that.

So in some sense, James Brown is still here. In another sense.

The soul is here.

Well, it lives through you by you singing it. It lives through you by you listening to it, celebrating it. And the hope is that the human species continues to celebrate the. The great minds and the great creations of the past.

I would add this to that equation when I say it's immortal. I don't think not. It's only because somebody sings it, right? It's like, where's the fire at right now? It's in the air. You just gotta spark the spark.

Yeah.

So it's always there.

Are you afraid of death?

No, I'm not afraid of death. I'm not trying to see it. I'm not rushing that. Nowhere near me, right? Because all I know is life, right? My life is living. You know, I read a lot of ancient texts, people probably know about me. And I love one of the great teachers named Bodhidharma. And there was a thing written in one of the books of his or one of the teachings of his. And the question, somebody asked him similar question, you know, you're scared of death or what are you going to be after you die? And his answer Was. I don't know. He had answers to everything, but he's like, I don't know. They said, oh, he doesn't know that. So. Yeah. Because I haven't died yet.

Well, the uncertainty to some people is terrifying. Not knowing what's on the other side of the door.

Yeah. I mean, especially when you're young. You know, as a kid, fear permeated my life. You know what I mean? You know, I was actually watching horror movies and I believed in all type of supernatural things that could or can happen. I thought I saw things as well. And, you know, whether it was being projected from my own mind or whether it was there visible to me, I don't know. Right. But life is beautiful. And if we have it and we should use it all the way to.

The last drop, realizing the mortality, the. The gift your mother gave to you is realizing the immortal and in so doing help you realize that life is beautiful.

Yeah.

On this topic, Quincy Jones, I read, said to odb and you, when it rains, get wet. What do these words mean to you?

Well, I think what Quincy was saying at that time was, you know, I think I was more conservative, like, as a person and like, you know, had money, women wanted me. Anything I kind of wanted, I probably could have had. You know what I mean? And he was just saying, when it rains, get wet. Enjoy this, man. It's raining on you. You know, I mean, only don't put up the umbrella. Don't go back in the house.

Yeah.

Get wet.

Experience the moment.

Yeah. And enjoy it. And I didn't take total heed to him at that time. A couple of years later, I took some heat, but at that time I didn't take heed. And. And when I took heed, I think that I may have misinterpreted by looking at his example of getting wet versus my example of getting wet. And I could tell you right now, I'm getting wet right now, in my.

Way, in part thanks to your mother. But overall, you just learned how to appreciate the rain. Just like the experience of every moment.

Yeah. And I'll share this with you because this seemed to be a very open conversation. And I haven't had this conversation. So definitely in part to my mother, then in part to my wife. I meet my wife, it's my second wife, but I met her after my mother passed and she was just a friend, you know, some girl I met, thought she was beautiful and actually built a friendship with her. But a few years later when the relationship became like, you know, this is. This is Going to be my woman. It was actually doing, when I was doing the middle of my, of my divorce and I was like, you know, do I run wild? And hey, hey, hey, you know, me and my wife, already five, we were separated and do I run wild? And I didn't run wild a little bit, but not too wild, right. And you know, I'm still a man, I'm a hip hop guy. So I read.

You know how to party.

Yeah, exactly, somewhere. But the funny thing is that my wife, now her name is Talani, my uncle said she reminds me of your mother. He knew my mother when, before I knew my mother. And he saw that and we ended up dating, got engaged, and then her mother passes and so now there's a total understanding of everything and we actually help build each other back up. So of course I have to thank my mother for the awareness. Then I thank my wife for bringing that awareness to actualization, like to actually feel. I don't think I'd be talking to you right now and talking as much as I do these days if it wasn't for the security and peace and harmony that I was able to gain in home, you know, so.

And like you said, you now share that look of having both lost here. Yeah, your mom. What have you learned from Quincy about music, about business, about life?

Quincy Jones is a great mind, a great artist, you know, a treasure in all reality. He seen it from when it was. He couldn't walk in the, he couldn't eat in the same places he played his music at to owning places bigger than the hose. So what a beautiful life, you know, um, he's the type of guy, if you spend one hour with him, you get, you got a lifetime of information. And I was blessed to spend multiple hours with him and days with him and you know, just a certain period of time where we came across each other and he was always there to share the knowledge. Like that's another thing about him that I think is special and hopefully I picked that up, is that he's always willing to share, share with his experience, his knowledge. I mean, I think he'll even share his home to the right person if he feels that that's what they need to get back on their feet. He's a very beautiful man.

So just the kindness, the goodness of the man is like the thing that really rubbed off on you.

Yeah, I mean, minimal. I mean, Quincy Jones, Also in his 50s as a producer, produced one of the greatest albums of all time. And one of the greatest selling albums of all time. Not just Great, critically, economically, great. And I mean, he may. I think he's. He did it at the age I am right now. So I might have a great year coming up.

Timing well, yeah. So now you got a taste of what greatness is. You get to see what greatness is. So you know what exactly.

How to strive for yourself. Yeah.

You have a few people you've worked with who are fascinating like yourself. Quentin Tarantino, you worked with him. When somebody asked you to describe him with one word, you said encyclopedia. What have you learned from the guy about filmmaking, about life?

Again, a very generous man with his knowledge. And for me, he shared it, I think, in a way that was unique in the sense of at a point in time, you know, we just was super duper tight. Like, you know, like I'm going to his crib and watching movies and just having long conversations about art and about life, you know what I mean? So I learned a lot. I consider him, you know, especially when it comes to anything cinematic in my life. I consider him the godfather of that for me, I think, you know, I humbly asked him to mentor me, which is a very humbling thing to do. Coming from my neighborhood, coming from who I am coming from. I was already a multi platinum artist, you know, I mean, it was the year. It was past the year 2000 already. So it was like 2001, 2002, that I asked him to mentor me. So I was the rizza already, you know what I mean? But I humbled myself because I saw in him a craft of brain power that to me resonated with me. But I was just a patamon at it. I was a novice at it because I was trying to make movies in my music, you know, trying to make videos. And here was a man who was a master of it and an encyclopedia of it as well.

And like film history.

Film history from whether it's the actor, the director, the cinematographer.

Yeah.

Maybe even the costume designer. He may know 50, 60. He made all the 50 greatest costume designers in his memory. Yeah, I mean, his guy's brain.

Both of you have pretty good memory. I'd love to be a fly on the wall. That conversation. And kung fu movies, mostly you guys.

We actually started, I think we started our relationship trying to outdo each other.

Knowledge wise or what?

Yeah, movie knowledge wise, actually, kung fu movie knowledge wise. And I think that category, if it was another category, I wouldn't have had a chance. But at least in that category, I was pretty holding my weight.

Who won?

You know what? I'll be Honest. And say that I may have said a few he didn't see.

Yeah.

But Quinn is older than me.

Yeah.

So he could go back farther. Yeah. He could go back to 72 when I didn't see one yet. You know what I mean?

Yeah.

Yeah. Well, we.

He said Master of the Flying Guillotine, that I got a chance to. That you commentated over today, and I got a chance to see the screening of. He said that's one of his favorites for you. The 36 Chamber of Shaolin. How the Master Killer is your favorite, best, best ever. Would you say that's the greatest kung fu, I mean, movie ever?

It's hard to say the greatest ever. Right. Because somebody may make another one, and it depends on your own phase of life. But I will put that first if I want to introduce somebody to kung fu movies. That's. That's a beautiful entry.

You talk about knowledge, you talk about wisdom. What. What kind of wisdom do you draw from kung fu movies? The. You know what, the martial art itself and the movies.

It's endless wisdom to be drawn. And I draw it, you know, I draw it in a way, you know, that I could decipher it in my own life. So, for instance, in the movie Master Killer, he basically, when he does kung fu, he does a really. A style called the Hungar technique. And the director of the movie is actually a hungar expert who has a lineage that traces all the way back to Shaolin Temple. And this director always wanted to keep his movies pure and to bring Hangar to the world. It's like he wanted to show the world this lineage. In fact, you just said Master of the Flying Guillotine is Quentin's favorite movie. And we mentioned in 36 chambers, it's my favorite movie. But the action director of Master of Flying Guillotine is the director of 36 chambers of Shaolin.

Yeah.

And some of the things that's happening in Master of the Flying Guillotine is really the infant stage of what this action director is going to learn and then use later on in his movies. So that's the beauty of it. It's almost like, you know, Quentin is seeing him in his generation. So Quentin might have been the same age. I was watching that movie. And then when he becomes a director, I'm at Quentin's age and now I'm seeing his work, so some symbiont's relationship there. And I'll end this question by saying Hungar deals with the five animal technique. The tiger, the crane. Right. The leopard, the snake, and the Dragon. Those are the five. That's the five pattern. Some people go seven, some go 12. But let's just stick to the five pattern fist. How do a man immolate a tiger? And you see a tiger's fist, he curls before he spawns on you. How does a man immolate a snake? It doesn't have to be only in the kung fu move. It's in the ideology of the snake. It's in the agility of the crane. At any moment. Sometimes punching a person is not going to work, as they would say in leopard fist or tiger paw. So sometimes you might have to poke them in the eye with the crane's beak. So having your mind able to adapt the instinct of the animal when you are being attacked or when you are being the aggressor, that's something that you don't need a form for. That's the mentality. So kung fu, like I said, it informs me endlessly. Because at first I was trying to learn all the. Like, I can't really hit you with that and really hurt you unless I've been banging my hand a thousand times on some bricks. Yeah. And made it so callous or muscles are so strong. But the idea that if me and you was to get into a fight, then I'm going to tiger up on you and take that instinct and prance when I'm a prance or fly away like the stalk, you know what I mean? Like, yo, it's this. That's the mentality.

It's much more than the technical moves. It's. It's much deeper. Yeah, yeah. It's interesting. I mean, when I see the kung fu movies, because I'm. I love martial arts, all martial arts and competitive ones too, like the actual competitions and so on. It just seems like kung fu movies go much deeper than just like the techniques.

Yeah. They strive. I mean, if you see it right, even I watched a great MMA fight recently and just interesting because he was on top of the guy, you know, and the way he got from under him, you know, it had to be, you know, his spirit got from under him.

It's some, like, mixture of crane and whatever snake.

Ew. He did slippery eel technique. Yeah.

No, I love that when people become artists in the cage or they. That's much bigger than just like winning. Much bigger than particular techniques. It's just art. Especially at the highest level competition when.

Millions of people are watching, which is pressure within itself.

Yes, yes, that's art. Under pressure is even more beautiful art.

You know, you look at Some of these fights and you wonder, like, why somebody wins and lose. And sometimes the less talent guy could win because he could deal with the pressure, but the other guy, he could have beat him. There was somewhere else, but not in this arena.

So you're a scholar of history, including hip hop history. You've. I've listened to so many of your interviews. You've spoken brilliantly about some of the big figures in hip hop history. Tupac, Biggie, Nas, many others. Maybe. Let's look at Tupac and Biggie. What made them special in the history of music?

That's a good question. So I don't know if I'm the authority to answer it, but I'll just speak my piece on it and maybe I could just add on, because I'm sure it's a lot of people that spend a lot of time with them that could speak on it. But just as a fellow artist, I think not only was Big a dope lyricist, I think he had a voice that was really immaculate in the sense that some rappers get on top of music and you got to get used to them or you got to, you know, you got to vibe with them. But he make a record sounds like a record. Immediately. If you go back and listen to his music, you could take his voice and put it on anything and for some reason it sounds like a record. You know what I mean?

You mean just like the raw voice of the man. You could just listen to it raw, and it sounds like a record.

Yeah. But if you put a beat, take his voice and put it on any beat, it's. He just has a voice. It's immaculate, you know, so his lyrical skills and all that was great. And you got to think, once again, he's doing all this. He's not even 25 years old.

Yeah, yeah.

Then you go to Pac. Once again, immaculate voice. But what Pac had, I think, was a way of touching us on all of our emotions and especially on like, Pac had the power to infuse your emotional thought, like, Brenda has a baby, dear mama. But then he had the power to arouse. You're the rebel in you. You know.

Yeah.

And those two things. Actually, he was probably more dangerous than Big Notorious B, I G. Like Notorious B. We could party with him to this day. We are still. But Pac was probably going to a point, you know, he was more going into the Malcolm X of things and.

Yeah.

And. And society fears that. Yeah.

So he was really good at communicating love and. And at starting revolutions.

Yeah.

And that's dangerous.

Very dangerous. And Big communicated love. But he wasn't starting revolutions.

Well, it's. It's interesting to think about what the world would be like if they were still with us. But it's the way the world. Hendrix, a lot of those guys just go too. Too soon.

Yes. It's a peculiar thing, you know. So now, you asked me earlier, am I scared of death? And I answered you, no, not scared of death. I mean, I'm not trying to see it though, you know, I mean, it's like that was the block of death. It's like, I'm not really going right there right now. I'm making a left or right turn, you know what I mean? Unless it was mandatory for some greatness, greater good. It's like, okay, I gotta drive through that. You know what I mean?

Yeah, but it can still happen. That's the meditation on death part, where you could die at the end of today.

Yeah, you could die. Well, dying and death, I think is two different things. Personally, the process.

You mean of death or just.

Yeah, I mean, you could die, like I said, you could die every day. You could die and not be yourself, you know what I mean? Which is crazy. But to get to a point of no return, you know, that's a whole nother chamber.

I mean, there's some sense in which Reza the producer becomes somebody else completely when you're making a film becomes somebody else completely when you're, I don't know, playing chess becomes completely something different when you do kung fu or watch kung fu or when you're a family man. All of those are little deaths when you transition from one place to another. So it's not like you're one being. You're. You're many things.

Yeah, I would describe. Now, I would describe that as all life, though.

Yeah, it's fun. Outside of you and anybody on Wu Tang, who's the greatest rapper from a lyrics like a Word Smith perspective in hip hop history? Or some of the greatest. Maybe some candidates, just name a few.

I mean, you're going to have to start with Rakim, you know, you're gonna have to pick Coogee Rap in there, you know what I mean?

So going back.

Yeah, you're gonna. You're gonna have to pick up with those brothers first. You might have to. If you want to get technical, you might have to start with Grandmaster Cass, you know, I mean, who you might not. You might not even heard of.

Nope.

You know what I mean? But you may have sung his lyrics every time you sang Sugar Hill Rapper's Delight. Because that's his. That was. Yeah, they copied his. They copied his and they made it theirs. But point being made. But I'll name a couple more. I gotta put Nas in that category. You know, we got a chessboard in front of us and one of the greatest chess players, the youngest Grandmaster, you know. You know, before, I think Carlsen was Bobby Fischer. Right. So this used Bobby Fisher as American. One of the greatest American chess players. Of course, Susan Polgar may have tied his record as the youngest grandmaster, and she's the youngest female Grandmaster, I think, to date. But he was a master at what, 14?

Yeah, something like that.

Right. So now, to me, I met Nas when he was 15. He was already a master lyricist. It takes about 10 years to become a master lyricist. So by the time the world heard Wu Tang, most of us had 10 years of rapping in us already. So that's why you met us at mastery level. The. Juzza was already a master when Nas was a master. But Juzza was 21. Nas was 15.

Nas is like the Mozart of rap. Yeah.

Or Bobby Fischer.

Bobby Fischer just born. Something in him, maybe those early years. Just because he's. He's not just good at the lyrics. He's also. He goes deep with it. Yeah. Just like you. So he's like, there's. There's depth. It's not just like mastery of the. The word smithing. It's just the message you actually send across information. Yeah.

Into a small phrase.

Right.

That's the whole thing of energy. How do we condense all that energy into this so that it could fuel that? And he's definitely one of those artists MCs that does that. And he was doing it at 15. You know, like I said, I'm thinking I'm five years or four or five years older than Nas. So I was always feeling, you know, my confidence of what I was doing. But I was like, this kid is only 15.

I gotta step up my game.

When he turned 19, then we got illmatic.

Yeah. From you. Oh. What are the best and most memorable lyrics you've ever written?

Well, that's a hard question.

For me, the stuff stand out. Like, stuff you're really proud of that was, like, important in your career.

Yeah, I mean, I think I did a song called Sunshower. I don't know if we put it on the Wu Tang Forever double cd, but only on the international version. But if anybody could go get those lyrics and write those lyrics down, you could just put that in your pocket. And I'm sure that it'll answer at least about 25% of your life's problems.

Well, there's a good one, Sunshine, where you talk about religion and God. That's. That's good.

Tomo. I think it's on a diagram.

I'm not a record guy. Yeah. I'm a song.

Might have been a diagram. Well, do you have a lyric from it? Yeah.

The answer to all questions. You're talking about God.

Yeah.

The spark of all suggestions of righteousness. The pathway to the road of perfection. Who gives you all and never asks more of you. The faithful companion that fights every war with you before the mortal view of the prehistorical historical. He's the all in all you searching for the oracle. This is such a good. This is so good. A mission impossible. It's purely philosophical. But you can call on your deathbed. When you're laying in the hospital, you.

Will call him on your deathbed. I had a big. I have a scientist friend. Well, my wife's best friend, Rebecca, she married a scientist. They both scientists. They both were scientists. And she married Dr. Neal. I ain't gonna say their last names, but Neil and Rebecca, you know, it's my wife's best friend. So they come over and me and Neil, we go through the longest debates of science and religion. We just go. We'll break. We could go break day with it. And, you know, before he had a child, he was more adamant and, you know, there's, you know, don't believe in God. You know what I mean? After a child, he still kept his thing. But I just hit him with the question if you was about to die. Cause now you got a child to think about, right. When you thinking about yourself. I asked him if you was about to die. You don't think you're gonna make that call? He's like, I'll make that call. And it kind of inspired my lyric because it was like, yeah, who you gonna.

Yeah.

And I just want to say, as far as. So you mentioned lyric. That is one of my favorite lyrics. But that's part two to Sunshower was the prequel to Sunshine. Yeah. So if you ever get a chance to check out Sunshower, it starts off with trouble, follows a wicked mind, 2020 vision of the prism of life, but still blind because you lack the inner. So every sinner could end up in the everlasting winter of hellfire with thorns and splinters, prick your eye out, you cry out, your words fly out, you remain unheard, suffering internal and external, along with the wicked fraternal of generals and colonels letting off thermonuclear heat that burns you firmly and permanently upon the journey through the journal of the book of life. For those who took a life without justice will become just ice. It's been taught your worst enemy couldn't harm you as much as your own wicked thoughts. But people ought be naught unless in wrought. So they find themselves persecuted inside their own universal court. So that is a long one. It's like a three pager.

Wow. That is about life. That's like character, integrity, how to be.

Yeah.

How to be in this world. And that ultimately connects to God.

Yeah.

Who's God to you?

I'm glad you just asked that question because I actually. I'm gonna have to make a distinguishable separation here.

All right?

And it's funny because I heard recently, I heard a rabbi was debating with this historian, Dr. Ben. I can't pronounce Dr. Ben name. But they was debating and in the debate, they started going back through the etymology. They went way back beyond antiquity because they was debating. So there was, you know, some things. They was going deep and they really went far, far back to kind of the first word of.

Of God.

And it was when they pronounced it on this particular debate, it was Allah. And they said for now, they got Elohim. I've already agreed in my heart, in my life that the father of this universe proper name is Allah. And of course, in Allah I get all, you know. And I don't think that God is the same as that. I think Allah gives birth to God. In fact, if you take the word Allah A L, L, A H, and you take it through numerology or numbers, the number A being letter, a being 1, l being 12, and you add it all up to its lowest, to the last denominator, you're going to get the number seven. And the number seven is going to bring you right back to that letter G. So Allah borns God, but God don't born Allah.

How does that God, how does Allah connect to the oracle that you're going to be calling for when you're laying in the hospital?

Well, what I was saying in that particular verse was that we're looking for the oracle. We're looking for somebody else or something to help us that nobody could really help you at the end of the day, you know, and we're speaking on. So now that we. I don't want to say we're speaking on religion, but we're speaking on a way of life and a way of thinking. And I've read many Books, of course. And I could say there's no book that. The book that is the most strongest book I ever read is actually the Holy Quran. It's stronger to me than the Bible, which I read is stronger than quantum physics, which I read is stronger than the Bhagavad Gitas. It's just. And, and I read once a British scholar said it's the most stupidest book ever written and it doesn't make sense. And I. So I said, oh, I see why he says that, though. I can understand exactly why he said that as well.

Why is that?

Because the, the structure of the words are just. It's peculiar. You know what I mean? But it's almost like how some people's songs, you don't really know exactly what they say until years later.

Yeah, yeah. You have actually, with Joe Rogan, I think you talked about how a joke of Dave Chappelle's hit you like a long time after this. So this is kind of like the Quran. I tend to believe that we. Oh, just. I don't know. Do you think that, like, are you humble?

Humble in the face of the. You can say the word again. I pronounce words funny. The omnipotence, the omniscience, the magnitude. I'm humbled in the face of. In the face of Allah. The problem that we. I may have had was that I wasn't humbled in the face of God because it's just a definable thing. And that's why I think a lot of us. And I saying that, you know, I know when we say God, we're trying to say a lot like people was saying that. But you're actually not saying the same thing because you're actually putting something beside him. And, and that's the reason why you can have all as many gods. You can find a whole bunch of them. You know what I mean? But you're not going to find many. There's nobody beside Allah. I mean, Allah is one. So I know it's the whole thing, but that's my heart is there. I'm humbled by it. I'm at peace with it. And it doesn't take nothing or demerit anything from myself. That's the beauty of it. It doesn't take nothing from me. From being who with her. So if I say if, if somebody walk up, yo, peace, God, I could take that because they're telling me that, yo, I'm a man of wisdom, I'm a man of strength, I'm a man of beauty or some attribute of that, you know what I mean? So Wuang, they the gods of rap. There's wisdom there, there's strength there, there's beauty that we'll take that.

Yeah.

So.

So Wuang is one of the greatest musical, artistic, philosophical groups ever. Let's look, hundreds of years from now when humans or robots or aliens or whatever that's left here, they look back. What do you hope they remember about Wu Tang? What do you hope the legacy is?

Well, I. Well, even if it's thousands of years, I hope we don't get rid of the humans. But you know, look, whatever happens, going to happen. But I think that my philosophy on it is that we're going to continue to advance and continue to advance things around us, but I don't see us becoming extinct.

Well, I mean, the reason I bring up sort of Wu Tang in that context, and this is a special moment in human history. It's like 100 years and we've created all of this music. Just if you think of all the richness of music that's been created over 100 years, it's like it's not obvious to me that that's not going to stop, right? Like there's a flourishing here. So it's funny because I could see where the book of human history is written, there's a chapter on this period of time, right? And one of the things we did well is like all the technological innovation with like, with rockets and with the Internet. But then there's also the musical innovation and film innovation, right? Just so much art that's being created. And Wu Tang is a huge part of that. So I just wonder what, like if there's a few sentences written about Wu Tang.

It just.

It makes me wonder how they remember.

I would hope that people will, no matter, you know, how many years, are inspired by us. But I will say if I could just use Wu Tang as itself. So we first started off the witty, unpredictable talent and natural game, natural gaming, natural word play. And then we went to the wisdom of the universe, the truth of Allah for a nation of God. Wisdom, universal truth, Allah, nation, God. It's just like. So this is. Go back to a nation of God. Let's just take the last two letters. A nation of wisdom, strength and beauty. Right? You know, and I'm gonna go a little political here, but not going political. As we're saying, we're the greatest country in the world. What makes us the greatest? That should be a question we ask. Is it our wisdom? Is it our strength? Is it our beauty? Now let's just say off the easiest answer, you know, it's our strength. We got the nukes. Nobody can really, you know, between America and Russia. That's why they said we just, you know, that's the argument who could beat them? But where's the wisdom? Then they can argue, well, we got the technology. Right. But then where's the beauty when there's so much suffering in the people?

The hope is that the wisdom is in the founding documents and the imperfect but wise founding documents of that celebrated freedom, that celebrated all the ideas. Sort of having a lot of nukes, having a lot of airplanes and tanks. It's not. That's not. That's not important. And the hope is whatever we're doing here with this quote, greatest country on earth, that we preserve the ideas and help them flourish.

Yeah, you said, well, that's what I mean. So we could get. So if you go back to the Wu Tang, I'm saying that's what we're striving for. We're striving for that, you know, but.

You started unpredictable and just like. Yeah, just. Yeah, but like, got deep pretty quick. I gotta talk to you about Bruce Lee. Who's Bruce Lee to you? Who is he to the world? What ideas of his were interesting to you? Like what? You know, you talk about, like Hendrix and music, Bruce Lee's that and martial arts. He just seems to have changed the game.

Yeah. You know, I went as. I guess. I don't know if the word bold is the right word to say, but I went as bold as to say that he was a minor prophet. And I got that concept from the Holy Quran where it says that we send prophets to every nation, every village. We don't let nobody not hear the word in some form because it won't be fair. And so if Allah is merciful, even a man who's deaf has to somehow get a sign. I don't know. If Moses saw a burning bush, was nobody else to talk to, so he had to talk to the bush. I don't know. It could have been the Bush. This way too.

Bush. Yeah.

But point being made, it says that there are minor prophets, and I see Bruce Lee as one of them. Because what he brought to the world through it, through martial art, was a whole shift in the dynamic of thinking, you know, and that happens when certain. Certain entities are born. But he didn't do it only in. In a physical sense. He was also philosophying in the same process. And he was also striving to be the best of himself. So you got three things going on. I studied Bruce Lee multiple times. First, of course, when I saw my first kung fu movie, it was the fake. It was. Wasn't really Bruce Lee. It was a few Green Hornet clips cut together. And then I saw Black Samurai. Then my following kung fu movies was like Fearless Fighters, the Ghostly Face, you know, the Fist of Double K. But basically, in Fearless Fighters, the lady put the little kid on her back and flew across the ocean, across the lake. Right. So Bruce wasn't doing that. And then I went on to five deadly venoms and Spearman and 36 chambers. And these movies are beautiful, and yet they're all heightened. Bruce. They're heightened beyond doable. You're not gonna.

Yeah, it's, like, surreal. They play with the world that's not of this world.

Yeah, Bruce played with this world. So when I. Somebody. So when I first saw Bruce, I actually didn't think he was as good as these guys. He can't fly. He's not flying in the movies. Right. But then when I saw. Because the first one I saw was the Big Boss, which they retitled Fish the Fury. But then when I saw Chinese Connection, which is the real Fist of Fury. Right. I saw something different there, and I got enamored. And then, of course, into the Dragon. Right. Just really complete. That's why my first album is Enter the Wu Tang 36 chambers of Shaolin. So it's enter the dragon and 36 put together. Because those are the two epitomes. So what happened is, you know, that's young me. Then teenage me studies him again. And I realized, wow, look at. Look at his physicality. Look how he's really. He's moving for real. And then I studied him again. Wow, look at what he's saying. Then I studied him again. Wow, look at what he stands for.

Which do you like in the realm of martial arts? The real or the surreal or the dance between the two?

Yeah, I like the dance between the two. Because, I mean, a movie to me, is to entertain you. So I'm cool with Obi Wan Kenobi disappearing out of the cloak when Vader strikes him down. And then I'm like, yo, what happened? And he's like, run, Luke, run. I'm cool with that. Right. Because that's the imagination. And the imagination gets stimulated to the point to. Whereas things that we saw, imagined by our artists, we strive to create in our real world. Thus, Star Trek, to me, is just a precursor to our cell phones.

Yeah.

So for me, I like to mix the two.

Yeah, it's funny how like science fiction, like pushing into the impossible actually makes it realize eventually. Yeah, yeah. We humans, like, once we see idea on screen, no matter how wild it.

Is, we're trying to make it.

Yeah, we're trying to make it. Some young kid that gets inspired when watch that be like, I'm going to build that.

Exactly. So I don't know who's going to come with the Back to the Future time machine, but do you have any classmates that you think time machine?

I thought you were going to back to the future, like the, what is it the, the, the hoverboard or like.

Yeah, we're there. At least somebody. They got. Yo, they seen the one on the water. No, no, you know, the, the surf hover is dope.

Nice.

It's dope. It actually, it actually. If you are Back to a Future fan, you feel like you made it to, to, to. You made it there. Yeah.

All right.

All right.

Well, now we just gotta work on the, on the time travel and it was cool to hear you talking.