Method Man’s music, both solo and with Wu-Tang Clan, has garnered him icon status in Hip-Hop, while his acting career introduced him to mainstream audiences.

It may seem like yesterday to some, but Method Man actually appeared in two movies (187 with Samuel L. Jackson and Cop Land with Sylvester Stallone and Robert DeNiro) and an episode of Martin in 1997, the same year that Wu-Tang Forever was released. Since that time the multi-talented rapper has appeared in numerous TV shows – even his own with the short-lived 2004 series Method & Red – and has landed roles in several movies.

Despite insisting that he does not care what people think of him or his career decisions, reacting to critics has never been Method Man’s forté. With more aliases than a religious cult leader on the lam, Johnny Blaze has always been brutally honest about his feelings. While someone with less moxie may be put off by that, true fans continue to appreciate his in-your-face honesty with the media.

Method Man’s latest acting gig has him flexing a unique accent in the new film The Wackness, a current critic’s favorite at the box office. We grabbed a few minutes of his time to discuss his Hollywood career, how life with Def Jam has changed, his new comic book and what comes next as he approaches 20 years in entertainment.

AllHipHop.com: In the past few years people have really seen you evolve in Hollywood whether it was on television or in movies. You’ve taken on a lot more roles. Was this a conscious thing for you in the beginning, to really focus on acting, or did it just happen?

Method Man: It just happened. It’s hard for me to watch myself after the scene is said and done and I watch myself on screen. But it just fell in my lap, I did one thing which led to another thing, got a call for another thing and I said, “Why not get an agent and keep going?”

AllHipHop.com: You’ve expressed a lot of frustration about the way the series [Method & Red] was promoted. Have you ever looked into doing another television series where you might be a central character?

Method Man: I’m not messing with TV. [laughs] No way, no sitcoms at all. I don’t know, Hollywood doesn’t get it or maybe we don’t, because I got flak from both sides. Black people thought it was misrepresenting Black folks, I wasn’t trying to represent Black folks with that show. Don’t put that burden on me. As far as the network, they just didn’t listen. I thank them for that opportunity though.

AllHipHop.com: In your music career you’ve had a huge learning curve going from your group that you gained a lot of notoriety with, to your solo career, where it’s been a bumpy ride. What would you say is the most important lesson you’ve learned?

Method Man: Don’t read your own press, stay out of trouble and save your money.

AllHipHop.com: We interviewed Shakir Stewart recently, and we’ve heard a lot of rumblings from various artists [at Def Jam]. We asked him about whether the company was speaking to artists about why they were unhappy, he assured us that they were [speaking to people]. Have you had a chance to sit down with him yet, or are you looking forward to it?

Method Man: No, I haven’t spoken with Shakir. I don’t know the dude – if you put him in a lineup I couldn’t pick him out. I’m not saying that to be disrespectful, I’m just saying I don’t know the dude. If they’re addressing whatever with artists at Def Jam, I ain’t got a phone call.

AllHipHop.com: But if there was an opportunity for a meeting you would have things to discuss…

“I regret this s**t to this day, but in that meeting I’m swallowing my pride and everything, trying to explain to them where I’m at with it right now, and why I’m even saying the things that I’m saying to them.”

Method Man: I done sat down and had meetings already. All I can do is do albums, hand them in and do my best to promote my album. I’m not asking for anybody to do nothing for me I can’t do for myself. That’s pretty much it, but no one’s spoken to me. I sat in Def Jam with L.A. [Reid], Steve Bartels, Jay Brown and Jay-Z, and at [that] point in time I was going through so much in my life that I was ready to explode. I regret this s**t to this day, but in that meeting I’m swallowing my pride and everything, trying to explain to them where I’m at with it right now, and why I’m even saying the things that I’m saying to them.

I’ll do you one better. It’s hard when you got a lot of people thinking you said something and you didn’t actually say it, but you got everybody against you thinking you did say so it so it’s like, “F**k you.” So anything you say at that point in time is all [game], there’s nobody you can convince of the truth at that point in time and it’s frustrating. So me sitting there in that office and looking at these dudes faces, knowing that I didn’t do anything f**king wrong. But to sit there and swallow my pride in front of grown a** men to the point where I’m so f**king angry tears is in my eyes, that’s when there’s a problem.

After that meeting, I don’t think anybody reached out to me with the exception of Jay Brown, nobody reached out to me to exactly see what I was going through. I wrote Jay-Z a letter, I don’t know if he still got it, hopefully he burned the s**t, but I wrote him a letter trying to explain exactly where I was coming from and why things were the way that they were as far as I go.

“I was used to Lyor [Cohen] and Kevin [Liles] who spoiled us, having such a hands-on approach, that I got things a little misconstrued myself.”

We’re here now, and Def Jam will tell you, “We got a good relationship with Method Man” and I’ll say the same thing, I got a good relationship with Def Jam. But I was used to Lyor [Cohen] and Kevin [Liles] who spoiled us, having such a hands-on approach, that I got things a little misconstrued myself. Instead of being vocal about things, I should have sat back, watched and did the knowledge to how things worked [at the time] instead of trying to force it into my favor. I know that now.

There’s nobody to blame for an album not selling at all. It just didn’t sell. It’s time to just move on to the next thing. I told them dudes in that meeting that day, tears and all, that I started my career in Def Jam and that’s where I wanted to end my career at, and I still mean that s**t.

AllHipHop.com: You come from an era in Hip-Hop that was so heavy with street teaming, now the digital age has taken over. Are you doing anything right now to actively transition yourself with your music into the digital age?

“I love music and I’m gonna keep doing it for as long as I possibly can, whether it’s for money or not.”

Method Man: No, I just go in the studio and make the records. To me now, it’s to the point where I don’t care if it makes money or not, I’m doing it for me. This is how I used to do it before there was a record deal, I used to sit at my mom’s table, bang on the table, write rhymes and think to myself, “Wait ‘til n***as here this in the staircase.” I wasn’t thinking, “Wait ‘til the world hears this.” So that’s what I’m doing now and I’m gonna always be like that. I love music and I’m gonna keep doing it for as long as I possibly can, whether it’s for money or not.

AllHipHop.com: With a career spanning well over a decade, kids still actually respect you. Are there ever times where you’ve felt distanced from the kids with the way that they see [the music scene] now?

Method Man: Yeah a whole hell of a lot, and it’s good you asked that. I can’t wear tight T-shirts or tight jeans. My body ain’t built like that, I’m thin so I can’t wear a lot of that stuff. As far as the dances, I’m too grown to be doing that s**t. Braids in my hair, forget about it, I’m too grown for that. What did Jay say? “I could buy the Bentley but I’m grown enough not to put rims on it.” But I’m still connected with them on a level as far as knowing what gets them going, what they like and what they like to see, I know that type of swagger they like. People like real s**t, they like genuine articles, so as long as I can be me that’s the easiest job in the world.

AllHipHop.com: In this movie The Wackness, they put a lot of emphasis on the soundtrack and capturing that era [1994] through Hip-Hop particularly. How did you feel about the way that it was represented in the film?

Method Man: I feel [director Jonathan Levine] did an excellent job, I swear on everything I love. I hadn’t seen the movie until Sundance, and there were times where I was sitting in there watching the movie and some music would come on and my feet would start tapping like, “Yeah he got that off, wow.” So like after five or six songs I’m sitting there waiting and then a Wu-Tang song came on and I’m like, “Aight there we go, nice.” [smiles]

AllHipHop.com: You have a comic book coming out too, what exactly inspired you to do that? We know you like comic books…

Method Man: That’s exactly what it is. When the opportunity presented itself I jumped at it. They said, “What do you wanna do?” I said, “I don’t know, I got ideas all over the place” and this guy David Atchison took all of my s**t, put them in a pot and made a nice stew. Then Sanford Greene pieced it together well enough for them to see a great story and make a nice art.

AllHipHop.com: As far as transitioning into different forms of merchandising and marketing yourself, have you looked into fashion?Method Man: No. I will never do fashion because as soon as your clothing line goes down, so do you.

AllHipHop.com: Are you touring overseas nowdays?

Method Man: I go overseas, I do shows here but they’re not promoted to the urban areas anymore. Us dudes, we get promoted more to the suburban areas and most of my shows is white kids.

AllHipHop.com: Do you feel like in certain ways that you’ve made yourself a mainstream name?

Method Man: Yeah, but when it’s involuntary it feels better, it doesn’t feel like you sold a piece of a** to get where you got.

AllHipHop.com: Is there anything else you want fans to know about what you have coming up?

Method Man: Just be on the lookout for How High II the movie, me and Redman’s album, my comic book is called Method Man and also a television show called Burn Notice. I did an episode on there, July 10th it debuts [on the USA Network].

An era is defined as a significant period in history.  But what signifies an era?  War?  Prosperity? A change in the old ways?  For Toronto, and Hip-Hop in Canada in general, JD Era may represent all of those things.  Battle tested veteran, self produced artist and occasional ghostwriter, JD Era is one of the hardest working young artists in the game.  Is he the dawn of a new era, or a false alarm? Read what he has to say, and figure it out for yourselves.

AllHipHop.com Why should people care? What makes JD Era the next dude?

JD Era: I mean it’s one of those things.  If you’re a fan of music, if you’re a fan of Hip-Hop and you’re open minded to hearing new stuff [you will care].  If you’re like, “I’m really not trying to f**k with no one from Canada,” then it’s probably not for you, you know what I mean?

My music is for people that want to hear something new; want something special. With my stuff, I just think lyrically I’m just better than 90 percent of people. That’s around the world, you know what I mean? I think I’m better than everyone, I think my production game is being stepped up a lot now, my concepts are getting better, and there’s just a whole new sound coming from Toronto that I’m kinda at the forefront of. People are starting to recognize. 

I’m one of the few artists out here that is starting to get a little bit of recognition, you know what I mean? And I’m trying to take it a little bit further where I’m putting the whole country on my back, as opposed to [being] just about me. I’m a face for Hip-Hop in the country. I’m trying to put the country on my back right now.

AllHipHop.com: Now in other countries like the UK, Hip-Hop didn’t really take off until some of the locals developed their own flavor. They got the Grime, which is Hip-Hop inspired, but it’s the British interpretation of it. It’s their version of street, whereas Hip-Hop is American. Does Canada have their own take on it that would allow them to push forth with something new?

JD Era: Um, I think the most diverse thing that we have is that whole reggae, patois flow. You know the type of thing that Kardinal and those guys are doing? But in my case where I don’t have a West Indian background, it’s kinda like I look up to people that  just do rap. So I’ve gotten an opportunity to soak in all of that and I’m influenced heavily by West Indian culture just being in Toronto because everywhere you go, there’s Jamaicans, there’s Trinis, you know what I mean?

There’s a large African presence but it’s just with us, we don’t really have a specific sound and I think that’s what’s hurt us a little bit. Where as in the South they have that bounce and that crunk feel, and in London like you’re saying, they have that Grime thing, That’s been one of the things that’s kinda held us back. We drift towards a more East Coast sound, but you can hear the difference in it just in our accents and how we speak. It sounds a little bit more proper, you know what I mean?

“Handled a bunch of people man, won my prize money, got a bunch of free s**t from Ecko so that was a good look but I mean more importantly, it was my last battle.”

AllHipHop.com: Tell us a little bit about yourself. I heard you went through 25 MC’s in a Nike contest? What’s good with that?

JD Era: Oh that was actually Ecko-fest. Marc Ecko had done a big concert series where they brought down Mos Def and a bunch of artists…Nas, Kanye; a bunch of people.

Little X was one of the judges actually at the finals of that battle. And yea, I tore it.

Handled a bunch of people man, won my prize money, got a bunch of free s**t from Ecko so that was a good look but I mean more importantly, it was my last battle. You know what I mean?

It was my way out, it was how I got out of the battle scene and I wanted to make sure I left on top so like I got my check, got my free sh*t and got out, you know what I mean?

AllHipHop.com: So it’s important to you to be a well-rounded artist and not be pigeon-holed?

JD Era: Yea definitely. Like even to this day, like I ghost-write for R&B artists, I do some stuff with electro artists, you know what I mean? Like it’s not just…it’s bigger than just rapping for me. You know what I mean? Like I want to be an artist at the end of the day, not just some rapper from Toronto.

AllHipHop.com: So tell me, what does the music mean to you?

JD Era: Man, music is my life at this point in time. Like I’m in school now, you know what I mean? But just about to wrap that up so I’m doing this music thing full-time. So music is going to be what pays my bills and I mean for me it’s not just about the business, like there’s passion…I grew up on this. This is my heart at the end of the day, so writing for me is my release and I use it as a way for me to just kind of get through stuff. If something’s stressing me, just kind of you know, roll up something and then write something and bang it out in the studio, you know what I mean? So it’s kind of your way to get through things every day.

“This is my heart at the end of the day, so writing for me is my release and I use it as a way for me to just kind of get through stuff.”

AllHipHop.com: Now as someone who’s raised in Hip-Hop, how do you reconcile the business of it versus the art of it?

JD Era: Right now it seems like everything is single-driven. People are forgetting about crafting whole albums it seems. Right now it’s, “Let me make the best two or three singles for an album, put out whatever product, and just make my money off of ringtones and all that stuff.”

I came up from the battle scene where you’re doing it for the love. From day one you’re doing it for the love so I still approach it like that, but now that we own our own label, you have to be conscious of what you’re putting out and who you’re trying to reach and all that and it sucks, you know what I mean?

 So you have to be a little bit more conscious nowadays. But they’ve raped Hip-Hop already. That’s the good thing. The industry has raped Hip-Hop already. Like when Nas says Hip-Hop is dead, it’s true, because they raped it already. So it’s like, now how do we re-work it to kind of bring it back to the art form?

AllHipHop.com: What is the weirdest thing you’ve ever rapped about?

JD Era: The weirdest thing? Probably fat girls. I got love for big women too. Or I had a song with my homie Beaver. He’s in Brooklyn right now, and the track was called “Tattoo”. You got to find it it’s in the archives somewhere far, far, far away. But yea, there’s a track about tattoos and women and their tattoos and s**t.

AllHipHop.com: If your mother was strapped to a chair with a bomb on her chest and you had to rhyme for her life, what beat would you rap over?

JD Era: Let’s see. Probably something by Dr.Dre. The best beat of all time is “Tell Her What’s Good” produced by Spin. I really don’t know. I’d probably go with something by Dre. I can’t think of something off the top though. I like…you know what. Phone Tap…I like Phone Tap by Dre. That beat’s stupid.

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AllHipHop.com: I heard you dropped a tape recently with Superstar Jay. Tell us a little bit about that.

JD ERA: Yea, the first tape we did was the Cold War mixtape. I did that with Superstar Jay. And I mean he won a bunch of awards, he was in Essence magazine…Top 20 Influential People. He did the tape with Remy Ma, had a recent tape with Busta Rhymes. So I mean, he’s working and the good thing with that was I did that…I got the link through my cousin, Face. We had sent him the stuff and he was just kind of feeling it and for a New York DJ that kind of does a lot of street s**t to be like, “Yo, I f**ks with you,” you know what I mean, that’s a good look.

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AllHipHop.com: So you got an album coming out in October…

JD ERA: Yea, yea I’m excited. Got an album coming out in October, in Canada at least. Canadian distribution…it’ll come out here. The album is crazy. I can’t say anything about the features or anything like that yet just because I want to make sure everything is set in stone but in terms of what I put into it and the production that I have from in-house…it’s crazy.  We have done a crazy amount of work on this thing so we’re excited about it man.

AllHipHop.com In 30 words or less, who is JD Era?

JD ERA: JD Era is the hardest working rapper in this country. JD Era is trying to be a mogul, but understands that he has to take steps to do that so he’s being a very good rapper first. I’m a very humble person so, just looking to do work.

Robert Diggs is a visionary. Ten years ago the MC/Producer and founding member of the Wu-Tang Clan known as The RZA reinvented himself as a binary masked superhero called Bobby Digital. Almost a decade later the world couldn’t be more to Bobby’s style. Cars drive around with digital ports to plug in encoded music and people talk to each other through blinking earpieces. How’s that for forecasting the future?

With his acting turn in American Gangster and film scoring projects keeping him busy, RZA just can’t seem to leave rap alone. So now he’s back with the next installment in the Bobby Digital saga, Digi Snacks. In a candid conversation he shares his inspirations for making music, the drama within The Wutang Clan and whether Dr. Dre’s Detox will come out before The Cure.

AllHipHop.com: It’s been 10 years since the debut of the Bobby Digital in Stereo album and the world has become increasingly digital since then. How does that make you feel?

RZA: Makes me feel like I was 10 years ahead, baby. [laughs] On the real though.It was foreseen with the character, if you think about it. When I first made Bobby Digital,  I was just telling…everything is going digital, the digital state is going to be the stronger state, we gotta become digitally in our own minds, think digitally. One thing I was also saying as the character, and partly as the artist, on a business level, I was telling people in the industry, you know, like Lyor Cohen, Steve Rifkin and ‘em, that things are going digital. That we should find other ways for us to sell our music and s**t. Instead of just making videos, why don’t we just make a whole movie so that the artist can have an [album] and a DVD together. At the show, all the cars goin’ to have TVs in their cars. It’s going to be like American standard, I was telling them all that s**t. They still ain’t listen to that. So it’s like foresight was there. And now that it’s there, it’s like, haha, like I said.

AllHipHop.com: How does Digi Snacks differ from your previous Bobby Digital albums?

RZA: The main difference…the first Bobby Digital album, I was having fun with the alter ego and I was really sporadic with my talent. I just spit my lyrics any way I wanted, whether it was on beat or not, just had a lot to say, a lot of energy. On the second album, I kinda got a balance going. To where some songs were sporadic and some songs were focused, like “La Rhumba,” “Brooklyn Babies,” some songs like that.

On this new Digi Snacks album, I feel like the whole album is focused. At least 90% of it,  maybe one or two songs on there where I’m just wigging out, nahmean? But mostly every song on there is a song, a song you can take and create any context. And that’s why I think I’ve become more of a musician, and more of a focused artist now, not dependent so much on uncontrolled substances for everything I do. S**t like that.

Just really being more focused, I think I was able to give a focused album. And I’m just going to say this: for every recorded album, I’ve recorded it closely on uncontrolled substance, I recorded it like that. I recorded it like that first.

“I was high! [laughs] S**t. When I first recorded it. That was recorded and I listened to ‘em, learned some, learned that spirit of the high.”

AllHipHop.com: What do you mean when you say you recorded on uncontrolled substance?

RZA: I was high! [laughs] S**t. When I first recorded it. That was recorded and I listened to ‘em, learned some, learned that spirit of the high. Because when you high, you act different. When you drunk you act different. So I took all that, recorded all that and we recorded it sober. And then! Then we went back again and re-recorded everything like half high, half sober. But like a little bit of weed and s**t. Instead of doing 4 o’clock in the morning sessions, I was going in the afternoon and doing it. More like a job, focused. Like okay, now, it’s getting that twenty days, I wanna go in and really make this a record, like an R&B artist would do it. I’ve seen a lot of artists do it over the years and do it real professional. And not just do it like how I was in Hip-Hop, which was just doing it f**king spontaneously.

AllHipHop.com: I read a quote where you said, “Long time ago, I realized that music isn’t only a note and a melody and a harmony, it’s also a pulse.” Can you elaborate on that?

RZA: Every note has a pulse to it. So it’s the pulse sound of philosophy that applies to sampling more than anything. Because I was sampling s**t like…take a song on Raekwon’s album called “Icewater”. Where it comes in, [imitates vocal sample from “Icewater”] “Ahhhhhhhh.”  That’s just an “Ahhhh”, you can’t really sample. When the drum comes in, and the horn that’s on top of it, then I make it have a rhythm now. That’s the pulse. The pulse is there, forced out of it.

AllHipHop.com: On this album and a lot of your work recently, you sample less than you used to. So how do you still capture that sound, that feeling of the sample, but you’re still…you’re playing piano now, you’re putting in live instruments.

RZA: One thing I do, I keep the drums sampled in my s**t. And so by having sampled drums and s**t, that kinda adds up for not having to sample instruments. But also, with a good band, which is what I got, Soul Method, Soul Method is a band that plays samples over. They specialize in playing over your samples. They’ve been doing that s**t since Ice Cube, they did Ice Cube’s s**t, Mac Dre’s s**t. They been doing s**t for years. Unknowingly. They wasn’t known for what they was doing. So they specialize in that. So they would come in, and play something that would make it sound close to a sample anyway.

So to me, on Digi Snacks, the music sounds like it could have been a sample. But it ain’t a sample. Also, it’s still a pulse there, no matter what. ‘Cause it’s still a pulse when the drums kick in, it’s still going to push it to that Hip-Hop pulse.

AllHipHop.com: That Charmels’ Record you used for “Cash Rules.” Where did you find that?

RZA: I found that on a Stax Box set that they put out in 1990. A few producers had it. Large Professor had it, RNS from Staten Island had it. It was something that cost $100 or $200 but who had the money to get it back then? I did. I’m surprised that Large Professor didn’t find that beat first. But I know why they didn’t find it first, they were looking for Hip-Hop breaks, I was looking for musical inspiration breaks. That’s the difference.

AllHipHop.com: You produced records for the Notorious B.I.G. and Big Pun, how were they different and how were they alike to you?

RZA: They was alike as far as their love for Hip-Hop and their approach to content of you know, that Hip-Hop braggadocios, ‘I’m the man, I’ve got the most everything.’ They were definitely superheroes and s**t; they were definitely two different MCs. B.I.G. had the most immaculate voice ever on the mic, I don’t think you’ll find a voice like that. I think Biggie and Reakwon are two of the illest rhyming voices [laughs]. Those brothers have voices that just jump through with the s**t, know what I’m saying? Pun was able to fit a lot of words into one sentence because of that Spanish tongue he had, speaking English he was able to fit a whole lot of words into one f**king sentence and get it off. And he didn’t have that Kool G Rap lisp.

AllHipHop.com: So what do you think is coming out first, The Cure or Detox?

RZA: [laughs] Detox better come out first, I already got Digi Snacks out. That’d be deep. If The Cure come out before Detox, s**t, someone gotta give the great doctor a call. [laughs] I think Detox is followed by The Cure. Because first you detoxify yourself, then you get the cure. That would be great in life and s**t. I’ma watch for when he drop that, I’m going to make sure I try to make the universe line that up for us.

“I think Raekwon looked at 8 Diagrams to be what Cuban Linx is supposed to be.”

AllHipHop.com: So what happened to the Cuban Linx 2 tracks you released like “State Of Grace.” Where is that music?

RZA: I left all that at Raekwon’s after 8 Diagrams and s**t. And how he felt, he wanted to take control of what he was doing for his own destiny, Rae told me. And so he felt my decisions weren’t in line with his decisions. I let him go ahead, let him do what he wanted with it. And so why not keep that s**t and make it a little tighter and put those s**ts out. Because they had a classic album right there. I think Raekwon looked at 8 Diagrams to be what Cuban Linx is supposed to be. And that’s what I think is pretty much your calculation.

8 Diagrams is for the world, that’s where the hood is, that’s where the club is. And then what Cuban Linx would have been, the follow up with the f**king aggression, the meanness, the roughness, the Mafioso, and all that s**t. And the soul music is all on the album. You got that right there. The reason 8 Diagrams and Digi Snacks sound the way they sound is because there’s a lot of producers that got into my chamber that’s not part of my family. Then there’s a lot of producers within my family like Mathematics, True Master, 4th Disciple…so many of these producers who make RZA sounding beats. You could buy a Ghostface album, Pretty Toney, and there’s not one RZA beat on there because he made every beat on there. [Editor’s Note: actually RZA produced “Run” and “Kunta Fly S**t” on The Pretty Toney Album] I got tired of emulating…breaking the same sound that’s been emulated, and that people get from Mathematics. Mathematics put an album out called The Problem, and he put out an album called The Answer. Both of those sound like a bunch of Wu beats, and it’s got Wu n****s rapping on it, it sound like Wu s**t, nah mean?

I was like, “Yo, let’s change chambers. Let’s give them a couple of the soul s**t but let’s switch it up, bring it over here to this chamber.” Same thing on Digi Snacks. On Digi Snacks, I had the chance to do whatever I wanted musically, even as far as the arrangement, the wordplay. I made a lot of songs on Digi Snacks because [I could make] any songs I wanted to make. [Before] I had to ask somebody, yo, rap about this or do this or say that. I would make the songs and then I could do it myself. On Wu, I had to be like, “Yo, this song is about this, make it right. I don’t feel like writing about that.” [laughs] You know?

AllHipHop.com: It seems like every few months there’s some random report on the Internet about problems within Wu-Tang, and someone in Wu-Tang is upset. Is it just family stuff getting out in the public or are there real issues to be resolved with you guys?

RZA: To be honest with you, it’s both, man. It’s like the family stuff is definitely getting out to the public, and the issues that got to be resolved…everybody got their own manager, everybody got their own lawyer, and they got these motherf**kers that are looking at me like a hamburger. I’m realizing that I don’t make money off of the Wu-Tang Clan. The money I’ve been making, I had to clear a whole new career for myself, a whole new input for myself. I was making mega millions at first! Now I’m making a couple million, I got to keep myself balanced, for my own worth.

It has nothing to do with Wu-Tang. And so for the people on the outside looking in, they looking at what RZA’s doing, he’s on that, he’s on this, he must be robbing y’all or something. He must be doing something against them. Not realizing that’s my own hardworking. Like I was telling Rae one day, “Yo n***a, I never got a Wu-Tang royalty check in my life.” I never got a royalty check for record sales in my life. But I got a royalty check for f**king Kill Bill, a big one came quick, motherf**ker! And why is that? That’s the question. I don’t know why that is. That’s why I’m letting brothers know that I’m not getting paid off the hard work we did together. 

When I did 8 Diagrams, I actually put a lot of money, I turned down my own future to get back with the Wu-Tang. And then I was the one to go full speed ahead, I did go full speed ahead, but then n****s shot the front. After that, I was like, damn. They sayin’ U-God suing the RZA for a $170,000. You know what? I could never owe you $170,000. But even if I did owe you [that], U-God, after all these years of millions you made, motherf**ka, you gonna come back and b***h about a hundred and seventy thousand dollars? If you want to be logical, know what I’m saying? I’m the one who gave you, when nobody would sign U-God, I gave him a million dollar f**king deal! And of that million dollars, I put seven hundred thousand that’s in his pocket. And the rest went to making the record [U-God’s debut, Golden Arms Redemption], and I still spent hundreds of thousands on videos for “That’s Gangsta” and “The Bizarre”, and all that. That was on my own label, yo. I could have spent that money on whatever I wanted to spend it on. But he didn’t secure a deal back then, so I’m like, you know what, I’ll give you a deal.

Same thing with Cappadonna, he couldn’t secure a deal. I’ll give him a deal with Razor Sharp. Put a record out, put out a gold album, n***a. If he listened to his manager, who was Mike Caruso at the time, he would have f**ked around, tried to go to Sony, sign to Sony without me. Put out a record out and sell 1000 units. Alright then. That same kind of problem goes on in our family, because all the people who are always around us saying…They did the same to me.

My boy in California, he hates Wu-Tang, man. And when I was doing 8 Diagrams, he would always tell me, leave the studio, don’t do this, don’t do this. I couldn’t pay him no f**king mind because he don’t understand the love. If I would have listened to him, we would have had nothing. But I don’t listen to nobody like that when it comes to Wu-Tang. But in that case, some of these brothers would listen to these n****s gas them up, get ‘em in a f**king courthouse and they’ll pay 500 to 1000 dollars a day in court fees. I’ll pay a 1000 dollars a day in court fees. At the end of the day, no matter who win or lose, the only one who’s a winner is the lawyers. Because these courts are nothing. At the end of the day, when they judged it, the judge is going to go my way anyway, because I got contracts for everything I’m dealing with.

But I ain’t trying to rely on a contract when it comes to my brother. But if we go to court, all we could do is rely on a contract. And there’s not a contract in this industry that’s going to be against the label. [laughs] I don’t make the contracts, that’s how they make ‘em when they give it to us. I tried to sue Sony for Razor Sharp, they took me for $12 million, yo. Probably $15 million, that’s what they got me for. Nothing I could do about it. I sued, I sued, I sent my lawyers in, nobody want to fight with Sony.  They got signed with a contract that says, Yo, it’s something else you didn’t know. That’s just how the game is, man.

“But even if I did owe you [that], U-God, after all these years of millions you made, motherf**ka, you gonna come back and b***h about a hundred and seventy thousand dollars?”

You asked about Wu-Tang, that’s the problem with it. There’s third energy, that’s sparking our own energy and making us look at somebody gotta be wrong here, somebody gotta be wrong. Maybe it’s brother divine, somebody gotta be doing something wrong here. Nobody is doing something wrong, this industry has been like this since the 60s, homey. It’s very rare that a Black artist even makes it 10 years in this business. It’s very rare that Hip-Hop artists make it this far. That we could still be worth money in the first place. And you can ask anybody. I’ve talked to n****s from before, I’ve talked to Redman and De La and all them n****s, when I was talking to them in the early days of Hip-Hop and s**t. I talked to everybody, man. I asked them how much they be getting. We was getting top dollar compared to what some of these n***s was getting.

Inspectah Deck got his first album, Redman never got nothing for his albums, as far as dollar advances and s**t like that. To realize that we had that kind of advance, and we already selling 50,000 records. You can write that off, it’s not coming back. If I give you a million and you only get a dime a record after deduction and everything, all that s**t, from that dollar, you sell 50,000 you gonna owe me. That’s the system. That’s how it is.

AllHipHop.com: This November, it will have been 4 years since ODB passed. What do you remember most about him as an artist?

RZA: That he was the best Hip-Hop performer of all of us. Right now, I’m on tour with a live band. If  he would have ever had a f**king live band, he would have been the f**king new James Brown, yo. He had the freest Hip-Hop spirit ever. I actually used ODB a lot on the inspiration on this new album. Especially when I first recorded it. On the first recording of it, the demos of it, I was honed to his spirit, that I kinda cleaned it up when I re-recorded things. But he was one of my main influences on this album. That’s why at the end of the album, you hear me say it.

AllHipHop.com: You were in the American Gangster film, and the Shocklees worked on the score. Did you guys get to talk about music at all, while you were working on the film?

RZA: Yeah, we talked a lot about music. We had a couple of plans for songs he wanted to do that didn’t materialize. But he came by the studio a lot of times while I was working on 8 Diagrams, he was working on the music for Gangster. I love Hank Shocklee.

AllHipHop.com: Did you guys actually record songs or you just talked about doing songs?

RZA: Nah, we just talked about songs. He had beats, some songs he wanted to do. One song he wanted to do was a “Shut ‘Em Down” remake, they wanted to get me, Common and T.I. That’s who was in the movie, they wanted us to do the song but there was scheduling difficulties and all the plot was happening during the course of the campaign, so it didn’t come to fruition.

AllHipHop.com: Your influence on producers is obvious, as you mentioned earlier, a lot of people are in your chamber. But do you feel like you’ve influenced people as an MC? 

RZA: I think I influenced vocabulary as an MC. I think MCs hear me and their vocabulary improves. As far as my flow, I think I got a flow that can’t be imitated. [laughs] On the real though, one thing I can say: n****s cannot imitate my flow. Not yet, at least. No one has jumped up yet.

It was kinda surprising to hear a lot of brothers who really loved that first Bobby Digital album. Ludacris was like, yo, that song “Terrorist” on that first Bobby Digital album, that’s one of my favorite beats of all time.  And Andre 3000 was like, Yo, I love that Bobby Digital album, the project, the concept, “Domestic Violence” and s**t.  Musiq Soulchild told me that was one of his favorite songs of all time. He said there’s a realness of it, a spirit of it and the music of it, that was incredible for him. I was like, Wow, I didn’t know that a lot of artists that were out there… but hearing the Bobby Digital, I love anybody that say they love Bobby, because I feel how personal it is to myself.

AllHipHop.com: Now, you’ve done a lot of film scoring. Do you expect people to sample you the same way you sampled kung fu movies in the beginning?

RZA: Potentially, yeah. I mean, even my old music on Wu-Tang, a lot of my music has been sampled a lot over my life. But on every album, I try to make it at least 70-80%, no samples. Or non-recognizable samples. ‘Cause I want people to sample my music in the future. One good example, my favorite example is a movie that came out this spring, Street Kings. It had Common and Forrest Whitaker. The trailer of that movie was my music! I didn’t do it, I didn’t give it to them, I don’t know how they did it but I got a check in the mail. They took my s**t and made their own s**t out of it. It’s interesting cuz the song they chose was off the Blade soundtrack and that’s not even five years old.

ALLHIPHOP: Have you seen Kung Fu Panda?

Yeah, I seen it. I think it was fun. They had the Furious Five in that m###########. That s**t was funny. I love when he did that last finger clip on him, cuz that s**t didn’t exist. 

 Jerry L. Barrow is a Content Programmer for The UrbanDaily.com and Founder/Editor of Nodfactor.com.