Wu Tang Albums:

Iron Flag (2001)

The W (2000)

Wu Tang Forever (1997)

Enter the Wu-Tang: 36 Chambers (1993)

Solo Albums:

Grandmasters w/ DJ Muggs (2005)

Legend Of The Liquid Sword (2002)

Beneath The Surface (1999)

Liquid Swords (1995)

Word’s From the Genius (1991)

MP3: GZA Audio
Podcast: Hip Hop Icons Podcast Series

It’s not a stretch to say GZA is the epitome of an emcee’s emcee. This man loves rhyming and takes his craft extremely seriously. As the ‘head’ of the Wu-Tang Clan he rose to prominence with sharp rhymes and layered lyrics that leave you discovering new meanings after almost every listen. We got up with the Genius to talk about his development as an MC, his feelings on ODB’s passing and of course rhyming, rhyming, and more rhyming. Oh did I mention his love for country?? Enjoy.

Halftime: I’ve always thought of you as the most serious dude in the clan, but then I seen the Dave Chappelle skit and it blew me cuz it was mad funny. How come that doesn’t normally come off in your music?

GZA: I don’t know. I’m serious when I write but I do have a sense of humor. I like to have fun and joke. I think the Dave Chappelle thing was cool to do because we were being ourselves although somewhat acting. We were being RZA and GZA and it wasn’t a reach for us. We weren’t going outside of our character and I thought it was a funny skit to have Wu-Tang trying to handle people’s finances. It was a good experience and it was funny. Also, Coffee & Cigarettes with myself, RZA & Bill Murray was just as funny as the Dave Chappelle thing. It was real cool. I like to laugh and have fun but I take emceeing seriously but I like to bug out every now and then.

Halftime: I want to talk about back in the days when you used to go around town just battling cats. There was a rumor that you and Jay-Z battled one time. Is there any truth to that and if so what was the outcome of that one?

GZA: Yea, that’s true. It wasn’t like a battle but we came across each other’s paths. Actually it was me and Dirty. We ran into Jay-Z in Bushwick. We used to go to Ansar Ru Allah community, it was this whole community of Muslims, to go buy the wheat pizza and they used to have this talent show every week. We weren’t performing against each other but we happened to run into him one time out there. We were like yea we emcee and he was like he emcee and we went back and forth with a couple of darts and that was that. He was very arrogant at the time….

Halftime: At the time? haha

GZA: Aiight, he still is. He was very cocky. We weren’t as cocky but we were just as confident. So we both had the vibe like yea you ain’t do nothing to me. We had the same type of attitude but it was all cool. He was rhyming much much faster, you remember how he used to rhyme. He was super fast back then. He’s a clever emcee, he’s always got it and he’s still nice. I’ll give it to him. He put his work in. But that was that it wasn’t no Kool Moe Dee vs. Busy Bee situation. We just went back and forth with a few verses and that was that. He was asked about it on MTV. Sway asked him like, ‘You battled GZA, you beat Genius?’ and Jay-Z was like c’mon man.

Halftime: Yea, that’s why I had to ask

GZA: It was that same cockiness. He didn’t answer the question but he made it seem like ‘c’mon man.’ Real hardcore lyrical cats know. I don’t play when it comes to writing.

Halftime: We did an interview with Inspectah Deck and he told us one thing you taught him was how to keep his freestyles in sentences. How you write your verses is almost like writing an essay. Have you always written in that complete structure or did you grow into that?

GZA: Yea, I always write like that. I’m even stronger now. As far as writing and lyrically I’m even up a notch or two. But yea I told Deck that a while ago. He’s flashing back on me saying I learned from GZA to just write strong sentences. What I grew up to know as freestyle didn’t mean off the head. So freestyle was never about that for myself, it was just rhyming about no particular subject. I’m not a great off the head rhymer. I really don’t do that. I don’t have skills. I’m spontaneous but I don’t really get down like that. I like to write and craft my work. I think a lot of freestyle stuff or off the head stuff is corny nowadays. It just be killing me sometimes like usually I’m doing a show and someone is screaming out ‘freestyle!’ cuz they want to hear me say something off the head. Not saying I don’t respect that because I heard one or two cats in the whole history of emceeing that was really nice off the head. Everything else was just bullshit to me. I watch BET freestyle Fridays and I’m like this is ridiculous man. They’d rather have two dudes come on and go off the head and not curse. Go off the head and not curse which is hard for a lot of emcees period. I don’t really respect that. I’d rather hear something well written unless you are really spitting something off the head that’s sounding alright. Especially the movie 8 Mile, it was a good flick but it brought more of that freestyle stuff out which really just messed it up. Now the majority of kids who battle are like ‘Look at your shoes kid’ and that shit is annoying. All these corny similes and fake metaphors are kinda weak. If you take the dart Jadakiss threw at 50, he wasn’t talking about his physical appearance, clothes or looks but he was spittin though. In my opinion he was really spittin some stuff, he kept his flow and didn’t get into anything personal. He kept it on some lyrical stuff and for battling that’s what it always was for us through the years. For me it’s just about writing strong lines and catchy stuff that’s witty-unpredictable. Stuff that just stands out, not just a whole bunch of similes like I’m tall like this, your bad like that, you’re a Volkswagen and I’m a Bentley. That’s corny. It’s about being brief with something but haven’t it just as powerful. I always say what the average emcee can say in ten lines I can say in four lines and still be more visual than the majority of emcees out there. That’s what emceeing is for me.

Halftime: I feel like I’ve noticed that more. I’ll be listening to some of your stuff and felt like it was too short. Even when me and Marcus were talking about Liquid Swords we were saying it felt like the album was too short. But then I started piecing it together and it’s like you said what you had to say and now it’s done.

GZA: That’s good thing when you put out and album and leaving people wanting more. Normally I always kick sixteen bars. I never go below sixteen. Some songs like Triumph I did eight because there were so many of us. If you take a song like Killah Hills or Queens Gambit that’s like fifty something bars straight through. All those songs like Labels straight through are like fifty something bars. What I mean is I don’t cut it short to say I’m just gonna do four bars. My point is if you are gonna do sixteen make your sixteen seem like thirty-two. I love talking about hip hop and rhyming. What a lot of emcees do is put too many unnecessary details trying to be visual.

‘He rang the bell / I walked to the door / opened it / he was looking at me up and down / I told him to come in and sit at the table / and I went and poured him a drink’

Come on man. You should be able to say what took you twelve lines in four lines.

Halftime: I noticed the way you had the song titles in the back of Liquid Swords that was really creative.

GZA: That was something we thought of after we finished the album. It’s just about being creative. It takes me a while to write sometimes because I’m always reconsidering words. I go line for line. Every time I write I try to go line for line. It’s a puzzle to me. That’s how I write this has to fit here and that has to fit there. If I look that to ‘Word’s from The Genius’ I could look at that now and say I could have polished that up better because I’m better as time goes on. But I was good for that time. I was probably advanced for that time. Nowadays I feel the same way when writing. There are certain things I’m not gonna do like using slang when it’s ran into the hole. You’ll never hear me refer to money as cheddar or cheese. When cheddar first came out they ran it so much it was provolone.

Halftime: What other words are on you’re do not rhyme list?

GZA: I use just about every word. If I’m using cheddar I’m talking about cheddar. I’m not referring to money. I’d rather use old slang like cash or dough. Just something simple. It’s a lot stronger depending on how you use it in the sentence. I may just say money.

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5

Posted by Jbutters on Saturday, April 15th, 2006 and is filed under HIP HOP ICON SERIES.