Check out the above video featuring RZA's recent conversation with Tim Westwood on UK Radio. The interview proves very insightful into the Abbot's current mindstate in regards to the impending 8 Diagrams, & he directly responds to Raekwon's recent negative comments. The quotables from the RZA are too numerous & he becomes quite animated a few minutes in, finishing with a flourish in which he forcefully insists that he neither owes nor has owed money to anyone. Interesting bits are all over the video, one of the most interesting being the fact that it took GZA a few weeks to really appreciate the album, but he now loves it. RZA's comment about how his Wu-Tang presence differs from his Bobby Digital persona (vis a vis his original Thug World verse) is noteworthy as well. When RZA begins naming himself "a master producer" (especially now that the album has leaked) you can't help but want to agree, perhaps begrudgingly for some. The production on the album is, if nothing else, extravagant & forceful.
Meanwhile, an overall look at the Wu's discord heading into the release of the album can be found on MTV's website. The article is pretty thorough & has some good insights into all aspects of the construction of the album, from the tension within the Clan to RZA's production techniques to some reviews of tracks. Pretty much the best overall article on the state of all things 8 Diagrams that can be found in a single friendly dose. The following section is particularly interesting:
"When you read on the Internet that Ghostface is upset that his album is coming out the same day as the Wu-Tang's album, that's because after the tour, Ghost was gone for two or three months into his own world [and] we went back into our own world," RZA added. "So nobody was in synergy of what's really happening and that's what makes the problem. You've got to build every day. ... I can honestly say, though, we did come together to do this record, and it was recorded without money. Nobody got any money in the beginning to do this record — we worked the deal out later — but to sit down and do it, we were still negotiating, but every MC came to the table. Method Man came to that studio, his lawyer called him up [and said], 'Meth, don't go to the studio.' But he came. I think Method Man gave one of his most vicious, most hungriest performances in years on this album. U-God was the first one to come to the studio and said to me, 'You know brothers are trying to say that your production is on left. Let me hear what you got, brother.' I start playing the music and he was like, 'Man, we're going to be on fire. This is beautiful.' When he said that he loved the music I was producing, I knew I was on the right track, because he's the one that that really will say, 'Fuck you.' I took it on face value that we all came because this is what we believe in. Now I think it's a little different, because all this flak is popping up, and it's like, 'Wow, I thought we were all on the same page.' "
Also, if you listened closely to 16th Chamber, the last track from the album leak, perhaps you picked up on the detail RZA reveals about the former Wu names.
That unified sentiment was the inspiration for the album's title, 8 Diagrams. RZA was watching a kung-fu movie almost 15 years ago, and the light bulb turned on. "There was a movie called 'Eight Diagram Pole Fighter,' which features a group of brothers all fighting for their country," he explained. "Their loyalty to their country and their loyalty to each other really struck a nerve to me, and when we first formed Wu-Tang Clan, we actually was called Brother Number One, Two ... Brother Number Five — that's originally how we did it. As time went on, we just took different names and abandoned that idea. For me, it's time to bring that idea back in effect, and that's what the 8 Diagrams is helping to do."
But perhaps the biggest thing to question from this video/article update is do you believe RZA when he says the differences between he & Rae have been resolved?
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