RZA on the Final Season of Wu-Tang: An American Saga: “We Pioneered the Hip-Hop Series”
Source: https://consequence.net/2023/04/rza-...erican-saga/6/RZA on the Final Season of Wu-Tang: An American Saga: “We Pioneered the Hip-Hop Series”
"It’s almost otherworldly, all the joy that seems to be happening," the Wu-Tang mastermind says about touring today
RZA Wu-Tang: An American Saga " data-image-caption="RZA (photo by Vanessa Clifton/Hulu) and Wu-Tang: An American Saga (Hulu)
" data-medium-file="https://consequence.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/rza-wu-tang-featured-image-new-2.jpg?quality=80&w=300" data-large-file="https://consequence.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/rza-wu-tang-featured-image-new-2.jpg?quality=80&w=1024" data-lazy-loaded="1"> RZA (photo by Vanessa Clifton/Hulu) and Wu-Tang: An American Saga (Hulu)
Eddie Fu Follow
April 5, 2023 | 1:15pm ET
- In the history of music, the story of Wu-Tang Clan is one of one, as the success of their groundbreaking debut album, Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers), allowed the group’s mastermind RZA to negotiate a deal in which the group’s individual members could release albums on different labels. This meticulous five-year plan also became the unique blueprint RZA and co-creator Alex Tse used for the Hulu series Wu-Tang: An American Saga.
Telling the story of the New York group as a series, RZA tells Consequence, is just another way of showing “what Wu-Tang really represents, which is always moving something forward. This is why you see 30 hours of TV from us, instead of two hours of a movie. We got a great movie from N.W.A., Straight Outta Compton. That was a beautiful movie. They pioneered the hip-hop biopic, and we got to thank them for that, but we pioneered the hip-hop series, a new chapter — the same way, when Wu-Tang came in 1993 into the industry, we pioneered a new wave, a new sound, and a new part of the culture that was unseen.”
Over Zoom, RZA explains that while Wu-Tang was able to chronicle their early years straight “from the horse’s mouth” with the 2019 Showtime documentary Of Mics and Men, he wanted to also approach their history from a different angle: An American Saga was an opportunity to dive deeper, the serialized drama drawing inspiration from the imagery of lyrics on songs like “Method Man” and “Can It Be All So Simple” and going even further in utilizing the cinematic storytelling of Ol’ Dirty Bastard, Raekwon, and GZA’s solo albums.
Season 3 of Wu-Tang: An American Saga highlights how RZA viewed certain albums — ODB’s Return to the 36 Chambers: The Dirty Version, Raekwon’s Only Built 4 Cuban Linx, and GZA’s Liquid Swords — as his way of making “mini-movies.” Three different episodes (“Dirty Dancin’,” “Criminology,” and “Liquid Swords”) provide context for those albums through standalone allegorical movies that still function within the framework of the show.
“We identified the albums that we wanted to focus on as standalone movies, but we also made sure that we never lost the throughline of the story,” he says. “For any smart viewer, you could watch it and then go to the following episode or the previous episode, and know what happened.”
One example is the story of Masta Killa becoming a bigger contributor to the group after only appearing on 36 Chambers once. After being encouraged by his uncle in Episode 5 to play a greater part in the group, Masta Killa’s real-life actions play out in the Cuban Linx allegory “Criminology” as a new member of Raekwon’s crew.
“What’d he do? He did something helpful to the team,” RZA says. “He told them, ‘Yo, you’re gonna get a bigger kitchen. Let me go talk to some people.’ He held his weight and he became part of that family.” In real life, Masta Killa established a stronger foothold by first contributing to two tracks on Cuban Linx and then regularly appearing on Wu-Tang Forever.
Available to watch now on Hulu, the series finale definitively closes out the first chapter of Wu-Tang Clan’s existence. Beginning with the initial pushback against RZA’s instrumental-based production techniques for Wu-Tang Forever, it continues with the dizzying highs that the group experienced by delivering a No. 1 album and the lows of an ill-fated tour with Rage Against the Machine that coincided with the end of the five-year plan.
Nearly 30 years later, however, Wu-Tang Clan are finally “doing it properly the way we should have did it then” on their ongoing “NY State of Mind” tour with longtime collaborator Nas. With the realization that the music is “actually more important than the people that make the music,” the group’s “on-stage energy has only gotten better over the years” — so much so that “nobody wanted to go home” when the first run ended last year.
RZA adds, “Nowadays when we’re on that stage, it’s almost otherworldly all the joy that seems to be happening.” Thankfully for fans, Wu-Tang and Nas are back for another round beginning in May. Grab your tickets here, and read on for more insight into how An American Saga captures Wu-Tang’s journey.
Was there a three-season plan for the show, like there was a five-year plan that you had for Wu-Tang?
When the third season came, we all had questions, “Do we do it again?” And we said, “Yes, we will.” When they announced it, “Okay, we’ll do the third and final,” we just decided to accelerate the story to still get to the point that we always planned on getting to, what you’re seeing the next few weeks.
The entire movement, though, was a five-year plan, and the movement was started basically around the end of 2017. I sat down and thought about life and thought about Wu-Tang Clan and thought about the legacy. I pitched it to the gentlemen, to my Wu brothers. I asked them for a course of action that I wanted to take and we did it, which was to do a full documentary that was definitive [so] that we could have that part of the story from the horse’s mouth. That became [the 2019 Showtime documentary] Of Mics and Men.
Then the plan at the same time, I wanted to tell a TV serial version of it, that can actually dramatize the situation and tell the story in the way that our art has told our stories which is you listening to a song like, “M-E-T-H-O-D Man/ Hey, you/ Get off my cloud/ You don’t know me, and you don’t know my style.” And hear the lyrics and all the imagery that you get from his lyrics or the imagery you get from Ghostface [Killah] on “Can It Be All So Simple” like, “I’m tired of bustin’ off shots… The God left lessons on my dresser.” All those different imageries can make themselves dramatized. Thus, Wu-Tang: An American Saga became that and was planned on being that. Everything is on course for me, in all reality.
You had to cover a lot of ground for Season 3. You were going from 36 Chambers and Method Man’s album to the release of Wu-Tang Forever. How did that make the approach different from the previous two same seasons?
We had to do some acceleration, but I will honestly say on the first season, we have to give you what you didn’t know. Right? Even in the first season, we had to concentrate the information. In the first season, we meet Bobby, trying to get the SP-1200. His name is Bobby, he doesn’t get the name of Prince Rakeem until deep in, maybe Episode 6 or 7. Then, in Episode 8, he goes for the record deal.
But in reality, my name was Prince Rakeem since I was 11 years old. The GZA’s name was Justice since he was 12 years old. So, we had to accelerate that as well and condense the emotional journey of the characters. Basically, condense the time. That was a challenge, like, how do we tell the story of the friendship?
Then in the second season, we got to the 36 Chambers. We started getting into what we consider known history. People know about Stretch & Bobbito playing the record and [us performing in masks at the] Jack the Rapper [convention in Atlanta]. You could find some of those stories online, but we gave you more of a wider view of that, and the process of it, like the process of making the record, the process of making a track, and going into the mind of it.
In Season 3, we’re still dealing with known history, but we don’t believe that it was ever shown from this perspective. So, since we had the confidence as artists and writers in the writers’ room in the way of storytelling, we actually were not challenged about how to tell the story. We just accelerated or condensed.
Wu-Tang: An American Saga (Hulu)
Let’s talk about the fantasy episodes for the solo albums in Season 3. Where did the ideas come from, to translate the album’s themes to almost standalone movies? With ODB we had the blaxploitation flick, Rae and Ghost is more obvious with the gangster movie, and GZA with the kung fu movie. How did all of that come together?
When we first decided that this would be a TV show and we decided to pitch it to, first to Imagine [Television] and then to Hulu, we always had the idea that we would make mini-movies of some of these albums because, in reality, those albums were mini-movies. As a producer, the albums were my way of making a movie. That was like my creative process, like my dream.
We did up-to-date, enhanced versions of those movies because Cuban Linx is a movie. Three guys started off on that song “Knuckleheadz” and they’re about to pull a sting. One guy is trying to cheat his two buddies out of money. They ain’t going for it, they go pull the sting off. One guy gets killed in the opening song, he never appears. Then the two guys traveled through it until they get to a point where they need more help. They go get the rest of the crew, and that’s when “Wu-Gambinos” come in.
Same thing with Liquid Swords, those were movies to me. So as we were thinking about the guidelines of what this season should be, we identified the albums that we wanted to focus on as standalone movies, but we also made sure that we never lost the throughline of the story. For any smart viewer, you could watch it and then go to the following episode or the previous episode, and know what happened.
A good example is the Cuban Linx episode. In Episode 5, Masta Killa first goes back home and he’s talking to his family and they’re telling him maybe he could be a cab driver or be something else. He tells his uncle he’s part of Wu-Tang Clan. His uncle says “Yo man, you good man. Keep it up, be a part of it.” At the end of the day, Masta Killa wasn’t a part of it. He was how you saw him in Episode 4 when Raekwon and everybody’s like, “Yo, like, is he hanging out with us? What is it?” He took it serious and he became part of us.
Then in the next episode, which is allegorical to Cuban Linx, they said, “Yeah, he’s new to the team right here.” What’d he do? He did something helpful to the team. He told them, “Yo, you’re gonna get a bigger kitchen. Let me go talk to some people.” He held his weight and he became part of that family. You already saw the finale. He’s right there at that table with the rest of them, bringing his jerk tofu and ackee to the dinner table, which also plays on his Jamaican roots with his family as well. Everything was thought out well.
We had a great team of writers, like a dream team of writers and a dream team and a partnership between me and Alex. We mapped these seasons out ahead of time and we brought in the right people that we felt. We actually assigned our writers almost like rappers’ names. Like Gabe [Fonseca], who wrote Episode 6, he was the GZA of the room. We thought he was that sharp as a writer. So we named him GZA. So, we was doing shit like that like, “Yo, you’re the Rae of the room. You’re the Method Man of the room.”
The Method Man or the room actually, he didn’t make it to Season 2. He did so well in Season 3, he got a big job. A few of our people in Season 2 did so well and got such good responses that some of them have created shows or went on to get even better writing jobs. So it’s great.
Wu-Tang: An American Saga (Hulu)
One of the main things covered in the finale was the difficulty of getting the rest of Wu to buy into your sonic vision, which was more instrumental-based production. How were you able to eventually get everyone on board?
It’s kind of like seeing is believing. When there’s something you don’t know or something you haven’t experienced, sometimes you’re scared to dive in. Sometimes you need somebody else to dive in first. That’s how Columbus was able to get to America. People thought he was gonna fall off the world, it was flat. He’s going to fall off, but somebody had to keep pushing through. Then once he pushed through, then you could get Henry Hudson and the rest of the boys to come hang out.
It’s the same in music and art. It’s like once one MC, once Method Man, as we showed, jumped on the track it’s like, “Yo. Oh, now you hear it?” Now you hear the flow, now you hear the possibilities of it. That’s happened multiple times throughout Wu-Tang’s career, me as a producer as well. Even listening to Cuban Linx, there are some very unorthodox styles of beats on there. Right?
When you look at “Verbal Intercourse” with Nas, Rae, and Ghost, that’s a very unorthodox loop. That loop existed since I was working on [Method Man’s solo album] Tical two years earlier. But when we were working on Cuban Linx, I just added a weird intro to it [that] goes into the loop. It actually clicked in the mind of the artist. That was the second track we did with Nas that night, it wasn’t the first track. We did another track at first. Then I was like, “Yo, let’s try this one.” It just sounded bugged out. When they switched to that loop, everybody tends to start flowing.
Another thing covered in the finale is the ill-fated tour with Rage Against the Machine. Your character in the show, he really felt like the group was going to splinter after the five-year contracts expired. Was that true to life?
Yes. That was one of the biggest hurdles and one of the biggest left turns of our career. I think to be 200% honest with you, we’re only now this many years later doing it properly the way we should have did it then. We just did the “NY State of Mind” tour where we sold out the Hollywood Bowl.
That’s what the Rage tour was doing, but I think it happened too fast for us. At the same time, the mixing of cultures wasn’t normal yet. The only evidence you had of it from the past would be Public Enemy with Anthrax or Run DMC with Aerosmith or the Beastie Boys. But not a lot of history between the two cultures, melding from both sides of the coin.
So here it is with Wu-Tang, here’s the chance to do it and we failed. We actually failed, we actually gave up on it. The guy says the joke in the show, “I’m not seeing nine guys on stage yet.” We did a show on that tour, and only four of us went out that day on stage. Eventually, that became the lore of Wu-Tang. The myth is that you never know what you’re gonna get.
Wu-Tang: An American Saga (Hulu)
At that prime time, it was a mistake. Something happened to me that I could say now that I don’t mind sharing, and I disagree with it now. I couldn’t go no further like that. I was like, “If we’re not doing it, we’re not doing it. I’m not going to halfway do it. So we’re going to have to walk off this.” I never forget being in New York and Zack [de la Rocha] had broken his leg at the New Jersey show and he still wanted to continue. I saw that strength in him and was like, “Yo, what’s wrong with us? We don’t even have a reason not to be here. This dude injured himself and he’s still going on stage.” I ended up going on stage with him and walking with him because that’s how much I believed in it.
But when I looked around and realized my team wasn’t rolling, we abandoned the tour. We pulled ourselves off and I talked to everyone. We didn’t get kicked off the tour, so that was a fictionalization of it. I made an executive decision like we can’t continue like this.
How has the onstage dynamic with your brothers changed over the years?
Now, I realize it’s the music that’s actually more important than the people that make the music. This is why we can go to Vegas and watch The Beatles LOVE show and enjoy it. Because all that great music that Lennon, Paul, and Harrison wrote in those days is timeless and set to that new form of art, you enjoy yourself. The music is the power and it lives on longer than the people that created the music.
For the last few years, when they invite Wu-Tang Clan to do a festival or show a concert, I’m making my best [effort] to try to show up regardless of who else is going to be there. If somebody is there to represent it on the real, then that just makes it more powerful. If everybody is there, that makes it historical. “NY State of Mind” is an example of historics because when you went to the Hollywood Bowl that night, you see the entire Wu-Tang Clan with the absence of ODB but we had his son do his verses. You see Nas and you also see other celebrities come out and join us on stage. That’s the power of the music.
The on-stage energy has only gotten better over the years. We are now masters of the craft. There’s something automatic about it. It’s almost like a muscle memory kicks in. I think the “NY State of Mind” tour is a great example. Everybody at the end of that tour, nobody wanted to go home. I’m serious, like that last show in San Diego. Nobody wanted to go home and everybody went to the after-party. Not just us, Wu-Tang. We had Busta Rhymes with us, we had Nas with us. Everybody felt the comradery with this hip-hop music and hip-hop culture has done for all of us and what it means to the fans who were out there singing along with our songs. Also, what it means in the energy that we give each other. So nowadays when we’re on that stage, it’s almost otherworldly, all the joy that seems to be happening.
The series finale of Wu-Tang: An American Saga is streaming now on Hulu.
So what is the rest of the Clan thinking about this?
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Originally Posted by Goldenchild
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