RZA: I Told Ghostface to Make The R&B Album, I Wrote Gravel Pit for Aaliyah.

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RZA gave an exhausting interview to the A.V. Club as part of his book tour for The Tao of Wu, his compendium of wild philosophical interconnections. If you skip all the mumbo jumbo, RZA actually talks about music and makes some surprising claims/revelations. It’s a daunting read, but c’mon, it’s The RZA.

On how he came up with the idea for Ghostface’s “R&B” album four years ago,

Ghost, I think, took my advice. I said, “Yo, we should do a love album.” I told him this four years ago, we should do a love album. I was going to produce it, he was going to rap on it, and we’d make it strictly about love. Just bring love. Everybody keeps bringing violence, let’s bring love. He wasn’t feeling it then, but now he has an R&B album where he’s bringing songs more sympathetic and shit.

On how “Gravel Pit” was originally meant for Aaliyah,

People thought that “Gravel Pit” was a bad decision. Now, I don’t think “Gravel Pit” was a bad decision, it was our first top 40 record as the Wu-Tang Clan. It was during the period where top 40 was important, and during the period that the European scene was really coming strong, and our sales were equal in Europe and America, and I wrote the song for Aaliyah, who we lost before she could do it. But it was written originally for Aaliyah, who was my favorite artist, and I felt every single she made was great.

On the possibility of an Ol’ Dirty Bastard biopic,

We have talked about it. His estate is pretty confused, like any estate is in our country. The estate is kind of confused on what to do, and all the rights and all that shit, but it’s definitely been talked about. There’s also been talk about a Wu-Tang Clan movie. So we’ll see what life brings. In my opinion, I’d rather see an ODB pic than a Wu-Tang Clan pic, because Wu-Tang is still alive, and may be active for a few more years. But an ODB pic, just to really describe his life, would be good. Right now, there is a documentary that’s done that’s pretty good. It ain’t a knock out of the park, but it’s pretty good, it gives a nice piece of him. Then you start with that, and we can build more awareness about his life, and build more interest in people seeing a movie about it.

What would be weirder, RZA x Aaliyah or Raekwon x Timbaland?

The A.V. Club via The Playlist

Bonus: RZA – You Can’t Stop Me Now (ft. Inspectah Deck)

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