The RZA - The Wus Warrior - Famed for developing and fronting the once ten man group The Wu Tang Clan, The RZA has been heavily involved in a score and soundtrack for an anime series, Afro Samurai which features the voices of Samuel Jackson and Ron Pearlman. Famed for his ability as a producer, this transition from producing tracks for his brethren to scoring soundtracks has been a no brainer for Bobby Digital. Here he gives us a little insight into how easy it was to jump on board the Afro Samurai project and just how he is able to mulit task.
How was the idea pitched to you
They actually came to me when they had just the story board and a script. That was at the end of 2005 when they first approached me; then they approached me again maybe in Feb of 2006 and the job started at the end of March 2006.How long did it take for you to complete the soundtrack
I was doing this for nine months. From like March until November.When you are involved with a project, does that project become you main focus or are you still doing other work as well
It is my main personal focus, but last year I actually did a couple of things, I did The Protector last year and I was working on Raekwons Cuban Linx, but eighty percent of my time in music went to Afro Samurai. Even when I was doing that movie, American Gangster, when I was in my trailer I was writing music for Afro Samurai.When you are on set like that, do you take a studio with you so you can work on that while taking breaks on set
I brought my laptop, my keyboard and I brought my guitar and I was making a lot of the sketches, you know when you are doing a movie you are only working maybe two hours out of eight hours on set, so I had a lot of down time and I was just writing and writing and all my buddies would come over, all the actors and would be like RZA got a studio in there, and just bugging off me.Was there anyone you wanted to get on the Soundtrack that you couldnt get due to scheduling conflicts etc
Oh man the soundtrack, the score and the soundtrack are two different things. The score was completed before the soundtrack, and that, the soundtrack only took me about forty days to knock out. But yeah I wanted Slick Rick and he was down with it but we just kept ping ponging, I wanted Posdnuos and De La on it, but they were on tour in Europe and the only way to do it was to do Protools and there was no way I was compromising this album by using Protools. I need the person to be in the studio, I dont care what studio, even a bus studio as I wanted to be in the studio with the individuals. Thats how I work and that is why there hasnt been a Wu Tang album because I am not using Protools on an album.You have scored multiple movies, how different an experience is that as opposed to working with an artist/group or whatever
When you are scoring a movie, in a way it is a solitary world, but you are also dealing with a lot of empathy. When you are working with an artist you have to have empathy, but that is physical; whereas with this, this is more like mental empathy and you have to look at a character no the screen and you have got to be the sound in his mind as if you are to do a horror movie and there is a killer, you have to interpret what the killer is feeling. The music in the movie is the imagination and perspective of the mind of the people. I try to zone in, like with Afro Samurai, I tried to zone in and be his mind, you know he dont even talk that much if you watch the show. I was basically trying to translate his thoughts and words through music.
Was that an easy transition for you going to scoring movies
I wouldnt say it was easy, it was natural. You know sometimes things are natural but they are still not easy.
Is that because you are considered a true musician
Yeah I mean I think I am a true musician and also a true film buff. How many movies have I watched? You know I still watch three to five movies a day and I still go asleep to movies.
So when you watch other peoples movies, and you are listening to the soundtracks are you always thinking how you would have done it
? Now more than ever, as a youth no, I didnt care but now that I am composing it is worse than ever and it isnt a good thing as you dont want to be distracted in your own imagination, so it kind of hinders me every once in a while and I will be like to my girl, You hear that? and she is like Man I dont hear that, as she has no idea what I am talking about [laughs.]
If you had to choose between scoring movies and producing for artists, would you be able to pick one over the other
? No I think it is one world yo. If you check out some of the best movie scores or the best movies, you know take Grease for example, that is a great movie, great songs, great albums, that is the epitome of it and that is where I want to be; you know West Side Story, that was rock and West Side Story was kind of not Hip-Hop but I want to be able to reach that plateau, you know Dream Girls is a great example. It has songs, it is a musical and that is the epitome of a music writer; to be able to write the music and the lyrics and the whole song that drives a movie that is memorable.FemaleFirst Melanie J Cornish
Tagged in RZA