Halftime (Marcus): McFadden & Whitehead

GZA: Yea, come on ‘Ain’t No Stopping Us Now.’ ‘I Love Music’ by the Ojays.

Halftime (Marcus): ‘Love Train’

GZA: ‘Love Train,’ Teddy Pendergrass, Bad Luck, all that crazy shit. It was up tempo but it had lyrics and verses. That’s all I really listen too. I don’t really listen to hip hop nowadays. I listen to old school hip hop or better yet classical hip hop because I don’t want to say old school. I listen to the classical shit. I just came off the road driving from state to state out west and in some towns you can’t even get radio driving through the mountains. You not getting anything but country which is good. I listen to country music. I like country music.

Halftime (Jbutters): Word??

GZA: Of course. Lyrically, c’mon great stories man.

Halftime (Marcus): Yo, while you said that I might as well say I like Toby Keith.

GZA: Oh, Oh, ‘Tequila Make Her Clothes Fall Off’!!

Halftime: Hahaha

Halftime (Marcus): Hold up, you the only brother on the east coast that has said something about that. I usually can only talk to white boys about that.

GZA: Oh come on man. That song is banging!! And in some cases that’s probably true. And the clothes were probably a subtext to draws. So its Tequilla make her draws come off. Well written song though. I write man so I appreciate all kinds of music. I’m not crazy about the instrumental parts of country but lyrically there’s a lot of good shit out there man. When I heard that song I was like Oh shit he’s killing it. I can’t name the artists and all that but I check out country music man. Lyrically, there’s some really strong stuff. Stuff from the 70s and even 60s stuff I got put onto in the 70s like The Beatles, Otis Reddings and the Sam Cookes. That’s my favorite music. I love hip hop don’t get me wrong. I’ve been rhyming before hip hop was on wax. It started with Mother Goose nursery rhymes for me. When I was eight or nine I knew everyone of them and would change those around and put them in my own words. I was rhyming right around the time hip hop started. I didn’t officially start writing rhymes until like ’76 or ’77. But a good song with some lyrics there’s nothing greater than that. I just get sparked. I like a lot of jazz instrumentals. I like some blues. I like pop depending on what it is. I like country, R&B, very little R&B nowadays but I like soul from the 70s. R&B is watered down like hip hop is now. R&B artists are talking about the same bullshit or they trying to talk some thug shit and sing it. Even with the females, they trying to kick slang and sing it and its not coming off because no one is writing from the heart. Like we was saying it’s hard for a motherfucker to rhyme about school and make it interesting. It’s not hard for me to do that like Queen’s Gambit with all the NFL teams. Come on man. That’s a story about a female and even without the teams it’s an interesting story. It’s also not a stretch like how guys be saying we need to make songs for bitches cuz they buy songs. It wasn’t that for me. I just thought of an interesting story and a way to incorporate the teams. So I started with:

‘She dated Jolly green GIANTS that flew on JETS.’ And the way I weaved it ‘She loved stuffed animals especially BEARS / she was a role model like a CARDINAL to her peers / A PATRIOTic tomboy like Mary Ellen from the Waltons / former lifeguard had the skills of a DOLPHIN / when I met her she was in drama school and wore BENGALS / drove a BRONCO and she was far from star spangled. / Had basic skills worked part time in mills / she raised buffalos plus she was behind in BILLS. / Her man always roared like LIONS / a domestic violent cat who tackled the girl and kept her crying / He couldn’t care she was losing her hair from depression / she was in the air and there was room for interception. / I tried to stay strong not to be ashamed / you’re a ten hi-c you just need to tighten up your game.’

All through it but I’m not even a sports person. I don’t follow football or basketball. Maybe the Super Bowl, championship or World Series but I am able to incorporate that stuff into a story just from knowing just a little bit of it.

Halftime: Yea, you seem like a cat that can make a rhyme about anything if you around something long enough.

GZA: Yea, and not make it gimmicky. If that were the case I could have made fifty songs about that. I could have been like I’m gonna do a song about cars. You couldn’t really do it with cars. They way I was able to do it with Publicity with the magazines and Fame with the names is because I had use names that were like action words. Like ‘Larry’s bird flew out of Nicholas’ Cage,’ I don’t have to separate the name. I don’t have to say Larry was chillin out with his bird. That’s the real corny way. I met Tyra while she was walking to the bank. That’s how most artists would do. I just said Tyra banked him for the money Chaka khanned her for / Alicia keyed his car for giving Melba more.’ It’s about just taking the names and crafting them and putting them in the right form. Like take the line I said ‘I run on the track like Jesse Owens / I broke the record flowing without any knowing / that my wordplay won a 400 meter relay / it’s on once I grab the baton from my DJ.’ Simple but it’s in a visual way. I said a wireless nigga who spring off the gun sound.

Halftime: Do you get pleasure from cats coming up to you like yo I just caught something you said from a rhyme you dropped in ’96? Does that mean you accomplished what you wanted with the writing?

GZA: Of course. I hear that all the time. Sometimes it could be discouraging to some emcees. I always hear ‘Yo man its messed up you’re not getting what’s due to you.’ Then I have people come up to me all the time saying you inspired me. I was just on the road and I was getting gifts on the regular. A guy had a snowboard with my face painted on it. A beautiful portrait. Another show a guy had a portrait of me painted on a ‘No Parking’ sign. Then I went to another show and this girl baked a GZA cake with the G and all of that on some Liquid Swords anniversary. These people were like you inspired me. I hear it so much it makes me feel good and lets me know I’m doing the right thing when I take the time to sit down and do what I do. I’ve ran into well known comedians and they’ve told me Liquid Swords is in my top five. I ran into one brother and he asked me do you read astronomical books. I said nah not at all. He was like well you said from dark matter to the big crunch. That’s from all darkness to the big bang theory but it was just that one line. ‘From dark matter to the big crunch / the vocals came in a bunch without one punch.’ That’s a metaphor because I said the vocals came in a bunch without one punch because a lot of artists punch. The planets and stars came in a bunch also, but I said the vocals because I know some artists who punch in on every line. They say a line, they hold that and then they do the next one. I don’t do that. I go in and do the whole verse. So he asked about the astronomical level because it seemed like I was reading a lot of astronomical books. But I wasn’t. I don’t read a lot but I like to scan through a lot of information and I take certain things from here and there and I incorporate it.

Halftime: I kinda thought that you would read a lot also, especially since you seem to be so captivated by good writing. I could see you getting caught up in a good book.

GZA: No. I mean I am captivated by certain stories but I don’t read like that. I’d be more of an audio book person to get more into it. I do scan through information and I watch a lot of the History, Learning, Science, and Discovery channels and I get a lot from those channels. It helps me out but it may not help out the average person if they don’t know how to use information. If it’s not gun talk then he don’t know how to use that. I know how to use it and tell a vivid story.

Halftime: We know you’re not into sports but you’re really into chess. Do you incorporate the game of chess into your daily life and if so how do you do that?

GZA: I do all the time even in the decisions I make. Chess is the ultimate board game. Monopoly is not in its league and Checkers doesn’t compare at all. It’s civilized war. It’s a mathematical thing, its science, and it’s strategy. That’s life all the time. Just planning your day, being ten steps ahead and seeing the moves ahead. That’s what chess is about. I’m not the greatest player. I’m not a master or a grandmaster. I lose a lot but I learn. I’ve been defeated plenty times. I play online and I might have 900 wins and 850 losses but I play all the time. The game is fascinating and I am captivated by that. The album I just dropped is called Grandmasters. That’s the highest level you reach when playing chess and it’s also the highest level of emceeing, producing and deejaying. Most of the titles are chess slang ‘Queen’s Gambit,’ ‘Destruction of a Guard,’ ‘Unprotected Pieces,’ and ‘Illusionary Protection.’ I incorporate chess into certain rhymes. One of the rhymes on Gold off the Liquid Swords album was ‘he got swung on his lungs were torn / the kingpin just castled his rook and lost a pawn.’ I use chess all time. I have a line where I say ‘I stay on the sixty-four squares while controlling the center / I trade space for material the time zone I enter / is calculated by movement of pushed pieces.’ That’s what it is transferring the energy trading space for material. That’s the thing about chess is that you could trade space for material and vice versa. You have time, force and space. The force is your army, your pieces. Your space is the squares you control. Sometimes you may give up a piece to gain better position on the board because it’s about controlling the center. That’s why I said I stay on the sixty-four squares while controlling the center. The time zone I enter is calculated by movement because your time is the amount of moves you make. Chess is a big part of what I do.

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