“Live a life full of humility, gratitude, intellectual curiosity, and never stop learning.”
― Gza
“Why is the sky blue? Why is the grass green? Why is metal a conductor of electricity, and wood is not, but you’re more likely to be struck by lightning when standing under a tree? These are questions that require science to answer.”
― Gza
“I’m always touching plants and vibing with them.”
― Gza
“I think I’m okay; I got a pretty good shot when I concentrate. I like pool.”
― Gza
“I’m a late-night person who likes to eat a lot of breakfast stuff at night.”
― Gza
“Learn all you can learn. Never stop learning.”
― Gza
“I remember the first 45 record I bought. It was called ‘A Dog a Donut’; it was a breakbeat. Actually, I think I bought two at one time, and the other one was ‘Dance to the Drummer’s Beat.’ Those are breakbeats. I paid a dollar for it, for each one. Your average producer or DJ would know who came out with those.”
― Gza
“I was always interested in skateboarding, BMX bike riding, flipping, gymnastics. Anything with tumbling, turning, twisting, and extreme sports.”
― Gza
“Snowboarding is skateboarding without the wheels, just on snow. It’s the same thing, just that one is on hard ground with the wheels, the other is on snow. You just have to know how to maneuver your board and do things you want to do.”
― Gza
“I like broccoli. I like rice. I like carrots. I like vegetable juices. Y’know? I mean, I’m with all that.”
― Gza
“A song is composed of music and lyrics: 50 percent is the producer, 50 percent is the artist. So, I’m responsible for 50 percent. All I know is that I have to do my job, and I have to do it well. And he has to do the same.”
― Gza
“I like snowboarding, and I like to watch it.”
― Gza
“’Liquid Swords’ just represents a sharp tongue, sharp words.”
― Gza
“In chess, you have to bring all the pieces into the game. It is about development. In writing, you have to develop the story.”
― Gza
“Chess is a game of stimulation.”
― Gza
“Some of us don’t respect water. We waste it and pour it out. But a lot of disastrous stuff involves water. Tsunamis. Hurricanes.”
― Gza
“Hip-hop became the voice of rebellion and the youth, as rock music did in the ’60s.”
― Gza
“Since early childhood, I’ve been trying to learn all I can. Science is everything; it’s not just physics. It’s the way of understanding your environment, the world around you.”
― Gza
“I drink a lot of juice.”
― Gza
“I don’t knock material rappers, but let me hear it in a different way. How many songs do I have to hear about rims on a car? It’s ridiculous. There’s no substance. It’s a hollow shell.”
― Gza
“I had a few DJs in my neighbourhood that would play music in the streets. There was no hip-hop yet; there were just DJs that were playing disco, funk, and pop music, and we would gather round, go to the parks, and dance and enjoy ourselves.”
― Gza
“I usually do about five drafts per rhyme for each song.”
― Gza
“Most people associate Wu Tang with Staten Island or Shaolin, but actually, I’m a native of Brooklyn. I was born in Crown Heights, raised in Bedford Stuyvesant, Brownsville, and Bushwick.”
― Gza
“When I was growing up, to be an emcee meant to write the most clever, intellectual, and wittiest rap. And that’s what we did.”
― Gza
“I love nature, and I love information.”
― Gza
“Wu-Tang has only done, like, three rehearsals throughout our whole career.”
― Gza
“As you grow and get older, you evolve.”
― Gza
“I love Indian food and Thai food; those are, like, my favorites. I also like Japanese and some Italian.”
― Gza
“Like MCs, each chess player has his own style: how he likes to open, when he likes to attack. Just like we face off with each other lyrically, we challenge each other’s minds on the chessboard. Sharpen each other’s swords.”
― Gza
“As far as being a vegetarian, it’s a moral thing, a health thing, a conscious thing – a combination of all. I think it’s better to be that way.”
― Gza
“I’m just really, really laid-back-slash-lazy. Last minute with everything.”
― Gza
“Normally when I do an album, I have a concept behind it.”
― Gza
“Rappers should sit down and construct quality lines.”
― Gza
“Rap has always had a braggadocios flavour to it. That goes all the way back to ‘Rapper’s Delight.’”
― Gza
“Music is forever changing.”
― Gza
“Hip-hop started with street poets with great lyrical skills, and that’s what hip-hop has always been about for me.”
― Gza
“If you hear people talking about the Golden Era of rap, they’re usually talking about the early Wu Tang Clan era and then Nas and Biggie and so on. But for me, it goes back to the ’80s – 1986 to 1989.”
― Gza
“One of the basic principles when you dealing with mathematics and Islam: Seek knowledge.”
― Gza
“Rap – it’s a childhood passion. Writing rhymes, it’s something that I was doing before rap records even existed. And I will continue to write until I can’t write anymore.”
― Gza
“We were always scientifical in our raps.”
― Gza
“Oh, hip hop is always changing.”
― Gza
“I just listen to a lot of stuff. Sometimes I play music; a lot of times, it will be stuff from back in the day. Sometimes I scan through the radio. Not the average stations that play the everyday thing.”
― Gza
“If you take a song like ‘We Will, We Will Rock You,’ ‘You got blood on your face… ‘ – he’s rhyming on that! And if you take the lyrics out of that song, you get a hip-hop beat. It’s a rock song, though. So it’s not out of my element for me to get with Black Lips.”
― Gza
“I think artists sometimes go back to something when we never should, for many different reasons. You hear a lot of stories that make you feel good about the work and the project; sometimes you try to relive that, like, ‘I want to make a part two.’”
― Gza
“Wu-Tang has opened many doors for hip hop.”
― Gza
“Education is the tool. Even if we haven’t directly instructed a session, I think Wu-Tang has been an instructor of education to anyone who has been a fan, anyone who has supported our movement, whether its been from buying a Wu-Tang CD or coming to see a show.”
― Gza
“I’ve studied rap in every borough.”
― Gza
“I used to make demo tapes with cats that rocked with Russell Simmons and people like that. The history goes so far back; I’ve always been really focused on writing dope rhymes.”
― Gza
“I don’t like to just be simple. Even though some of my stuff can seem simple at times, I like to write in a way that, when you listen to it over and over again, you hear something new, and it requires you to think.”
― Gza
“When we did ‘Back In The Game’ on the Wu-Tang ‘Iron Flag’ album, I did a verse about gambling. I didn’t want to be ‘back in the game’ or ‘back on the block’ – that’s typical. I made it all metaphorical.”
― Gza
“We’ve done a lot of shows and a few albums without Dirty. He was a wild and crazy dude.”
― Gza
“Even if we didn’t make records, we would have done it on the side for fun. Like, some painters sell their work; others just keep it – they love to do it whether they get paid or not.”
― Gza
“Before hip-hop existed, we were listening to soul songs from the ’70s. I grew up with Motown, Elton John, and the Beatles. To me, that’s good music.”
― Gza
“Our love of kung fu goes back to the Bruce Lee days in the 1970s. Outside the action, we loved the interesting, heartfelt stories and the dialogue. It was RZA’s idea to draw all that in there as samples.”
― Gza
“Writing is sort of like chess for me. You have to think carefully before you move, thinking, planning.”
― Gza
“You are like a sponge when you are young.”
― Gza
“A lot of artists think that to be current, you have to follow what’s out there and do something that’s so unlike what you normally do. It can work, but it doesn’t if you chase it.”
― Gza
“There’s no set way to do anything. Sometimes you have to go outside the box; sometimes you can do things the standard way. Like, you don’t have to have a beat to write a song: sometimes you can write lyrics without the music.”
― Gza
“When the Black Lips sent a track over to me, I thought it sounded like a Beastie Boys track, the way the singer was singing and flowing on it. He was right in the pocket.”
― Gza
“I played on a 10’x10′ chessboard at a hotel in Miami. The pieces were heavy, and I got tired just making a move. Not cool with that.”
― Gza
“I probably take about a month to write a song, depending on how much time I can dedicate to it, and it depends on how many hours a day there are and how many days in a week and weeks in a month.”
― Gza
“My favorite subjects was science and math. But as I got older, I was hanging out cutting class, going to hooky parties.”
― Gza
“I don’t eat meat – chicken, fish, none of that. I eat a lot of vegetable sandwiches, like lettuce, tomatoes, sprouts, cucumbers, whatever I can put on bread with mayo and eat, y’know.”
― Gza
“People say Wu-Tang makes you think too much. What’s wrong with thinking?”
― Gza
“I think artists should really write more.”
― Gza
“Documentaries sometimes can be shot over 10 years. You plan to stop in two, but you still gotta catch more.”
― Gza
“It’s gonna sound so boring to most people. There have been times when I’ve been told, ‘Oh, you’re doing an album about physics? I hope it’s not boring.’ They don’t get the idea. Because rappers are so one-dimensional, so narrow-minded, it comes off corny.”
― Gza
“I don’t think people have ever really been in touch with science. They’re drawn to it, but they don’t know why they’re drawn to it. For example, you may be blown away by the structure of something, like a soccer ball or a geodesic dome, with its hexagonal shapes.”
― Gza
“There were certain things that grabbed my interest, such as photosynthesis, such as us living off plants and plants living off us. You look at everything in that light – so if I’m looking at ice cubes, I might start thinking about absolute zero, or Fahrenheit and Celsius. There’s so much that can make me think about science.”
― Gza
“To write a story is to create a world of your own.”
― Gza
“I think every being in the universe is connected somehow.”
― Gza
“I think all artists want that plaque, whether it’s Gold or Platinum or multi-platinum. I think we all look forward to getting a plaque and hanging it on your wall and having something to show for the music that you’ve created.”
― Gza
“I’ve directed all my videos throughout my whole career, ’cause that’s leeway. I was granted that opportunity to be able to do that.”
― Gza
“Writing, for me, really started in the ’70s as a young child. I used to read a lot of nursery rhymes, and I learned a lot of those rhymes word for word.”
― Gza
“I would go to an aunt’s house, and she would let me play music, and she had ‘The Last Poets’ album. At that time, albums didn’t have explicit stickers on them, so some of the songs had profanity on them, and I was moved by that. I would listen to those songs, to the flow, and I’d balance it back and forth with the nursery stuff I had.”
― Gza
“Everything is always coming from something else. Even if you create something, it has to be inspired by something else. If you think of Apple and Steve Jobs, he had to be inspired by something that launched the ideas in his head.”
― Gza
“I never really thought I had an extensive vocabulary like that, and I’m not an avid reader. I didn’t read a lot growing up – at all.”
― Gza
“I just have certain interests in different things, and they inspire me to write. I would encourage aspiring artists or MCs or rappers to be able to grab from many different sources to create your story.”
― Gza
“I could write about a pencil if I wanted to. You just take it back deep enough, all the way back to the tree it came from.”
― Gza
“I love physics.”
― Gza
“I’m constantly writing.”
― Gza
“I get inspired by many different things.”
― Gza
“Emceeing has always been about making the most intellectual, most creative, wittiest rhyme as possible regardless of any subject. It was always about bringing the best out of yourself.”
― Gza
“I think, as an artist, the overall goal is to teach and educate no matter what the song is about. Somewhere where a listener can get something out of it, something that can give them help to move forward, help them learn something, analyze something in a different way, or think about something.”
― Gza
“I’m not a sports person, but every now and then, I incorporate sports in my rhymes because I’m always grabbing from certain things and getting inspired by something whether I’m totally involved in it or not.”
― Gza
“I wasn’t raised a vegetarian. I wish I was, though. I mean, that’s really the best way to go. I just learned at a young age and stopped eating some things.”
― Gza
“When I was growing up, I never really ate vegetables. I was just a hot dog, hamburger, French fry person like most kids.”
― Gza
“I’m a scientist by nature and not by trade.”
― Gza
“Hip-hop is my vehicle for scientific enlightenment. It wasn’t until my music career matured where I was exposed to science as an intellectual pursuit.”
― Gza
“It’s always been about shelf life. Long-term parking, not short-term. That’s why I take the time that I do when I write.”
― Gza
“Some MCs don’t take the time to take a beat home or just vibe with it and just figure out, ‘How do I attack this track?’”
― Gza
“I am honored that ‘Liquid Swords,’ the song and album, have been so widely embraced for so long.”
― Gza
“I’ve seen a dude who had the Wu logo tatted on his face. I mean, his whole face was tatted, but the Wu was the biggest thing on his face. That is a statement, something that means a lot to us.”
― Gza
“New York is the hometown I represent.”
― Gza
“I like science and mathematics. When I say mathematics, I don’t mean algebra or math in that sense, but the mathematics of things.”
― Gza
“Moog has been incorporated in a lot of our music. I know RZA has several of those machines. So, it did play a major role in a lot of music we were doing.”
― Gza
“I think, for myself, as an artist, the progression is a lyrical progression and what I choose to target my lyrics at and how I construct the rhymes.”
― Gza
“Every family argues and goes through things.”
― Gza
“Wu-Tang is looked at like the Rolling Stones of hip-hop.”
― Gza
“Wu-Tang is a group that has a cult following.”
― Gza
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