"RZA"

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All right, so guys, this is the start and we need a good solid cold open.

Anybody have any interesting or funny something to say?

Get our listener excited to

surprise them?

Like, yeah, well, it was surprising that it rained a lot yesterday.

But no, Will, anything?

Can you help me?

No, we're still going to be digging ourselves out of a rain yesterday hole that Sean put us in.

But anyway, welcome to Smartlist.

Smart

Less.

Smart

List.

Smart

List.

Oh, hi.

Oh, hi.

That's OJ.

I'm wearing a hat that says, oh, hi.

I told you guys last time I was in Ohio yesterday.

I just got back last night for Kevin's birthday, Mark.

Our friend Kevin's birthday.

Oh, man, what a story.

You were in Ohio.

Oh.

Do you like it there?

For whose birthday?

Kevin Harts?

Kevin.

Kevin Neustadt.

It's a friend of ours.

He doesn't pay attention.

He doesn't remember.

You've mentioned Kevin and Carrie a million times.

He has still still no idea who they are.

That's right, you've met them.

Well, why would I know who they are?

Because you sat and talked with Kevin for a few hours, you talked to him for a few hours, but he's not working at Netflix at all.

Do you know how many people you guys have sat and talked to for hours that you have no idea who they are?

You can't remember them.

I remember there used to be somebody years ago.

I won't say the gender, but because I don't want to give it away, but there was somebody who you kept introducing yourself to over years, and finally they got mad at you and you were like, Hey, F you.

Really?

You think I fucking remember?

Do you remember that?

No.

And eventually you're like, I don't don't fucking know you.

Well, I can't, I mean,

I'm certainly not unique to being, you know, bad at remembering names.

No, no, no, no, no, you're not unique at names.

No, no, no, no, no.

But same.

Right?

But you're great at dates.

You're incredible at dates.

I'm good at dates, but the names and stuff, no,

yeah, dates is weird.

I don't know what that is.

And also, you know, and I have particular trouble, like, you know, guys don't typically change their look often, right?

Present company excluded.

Right.

But so it's not difficult for me to remember a dude's face over the course of a few years.

Yeah, they're like, I've had like two hairdos my whole life.

Right.

But, you know, women get to change the color of their hair all the time and the cut of their hair.

And they accessorize.

I've got a few hair dones, too.

I mean, let's be honest.

Oh, yeah.

They're all online.

Enjoy.

It is one of the worst things I ever did was

years and years and years ago, we remodeled house and I walk out the front door and there's this girl running.

I may have said this already.

There's this girl running down the sidewalk right towards me, jogging.

And she goes, hey, Sean.

And I'm like, hey.

And she goes, you finished?

Meaning to the house?

And I'm like,

yeah, yeah.

How would you, how would they even know I was remodeling?

And she goes, I'd love to see it sometime.

And I'm like, wait a minute.

What?

That's just girl jogging randomly.

And I'm like, do i know you and she goes it's julia your neighbor for the past 20 years

how bad did you feel and i said i said jay i go the worst thing you could ever come back with i said which was did you change your hair it was just terrible it was horrible

last week i was when i was in new york and i was riding a bike through the village I'm riding along and this girl goes, Will.

Are you shooting additional photography for Flake?

No.

And

I'm riding

at you, bro.

And I'm riding my bike through the village and this girl goes will i look over and she goes hey and so i turn over i like i steer the bike over to her and i go hey what's going on i'm like who and then she goes i get right up closer she goes you don't know me and i go yeah love love the show yeah and so i go okay see you later so then i go by right so then i go and i and it's a city bike and i park it in the thing and i'm walking down a block later I'm walking by and there's this girl and guy sitting outside this place and she's wearing a baseball cap and she looks up at me and she goes, kind of waves like, hi.

And I go, hey.

And I keep going.

I get home, there's a text, and it's this friend of mine, Emily, and she goes, Did you not know that was me?

So I thought I recognized the person who was a stranger, and the person I knew, I blew off.

So is it just

the worst?

It's face blindness.

It's face blindness.

I swear to have it.

Or are we just rude dicks?

Or are we just getting old and we're losing our minds?

I think I've always been.

I think it's all of it.

Yeah, I think it's all of it too.

It's a stupid, wicked combination of all of it.

Yeah, but

I'm terrible.

Yo, you're the worst at what's the subject?

Can we fill in the blank?

Yeah, can we?

Let me go first.

Can I go blanket on that?

You're just kind of think everybody looks the same.

I swear, I think I have a little bit of it, like face blindness.

I really do.

No, but that's a real thing.

I know one person that's like that.

Right.

I think we're talking about the people.

We never know the same person.

Yeah.

Oh.

And I said to them.

I'm blanking on their face.

That I have that wonderful will.

Okay, listen.

Listen, listen.

But I asked that guy really quick.

I asked that guy.

I was like, so if I walk out of the room and come back, because

he has

been diagnosed with space blindness.

I go, if I walk out of the room and come back in, you won't know it's me?

He's like, no.

I'm like, really?

And this guy's making

six figures a year.

I know that's a good idea.

By the way, again, not to go too far, there is a documentary that came out in the 80s about this guy in England who had a memory of seven seconds.

Poor fellow,

he had an injury, head injury.

And it's crazy.

And his wife would like, she eventually lived on his own, had to be taken care of.

But she would go out of the room.

He'd come in, she'd come in, she'd go, he'd go, hi.

Oh, my God.

He'd hug her, hug her, hugger.

She'd go to make a cup of tea.

She comes back and he'd go, hello.

Oh, the most annoying man to ever live with.

She was the only person that he remembered.

So it's,

it's on YouTube.

It's fucking crazy.

Can you imagine having face blindness and the seven-second match?

Dude, it's the craziest, craziest thing ever.

Anyway, that's such a good idea.

All right, so speaking about crazy, we have a crazy talented guest on the show today.

I've been looking forward to having this guest for so long.

This person is

a true, he's a visionary.

He's done everything in music and film.

He's ventured into horror core.

He's produced solo albums.

He's made a mark in film and TV.

He's scored a lot of great films.

He's scored Ghost Dog, The Way of the Samurai.

He scored the Both Kill Bill movies.

He starred last year in a award-winning comedy, Prabolmista.

He's just wrapped his own film, One Spoon of Chocolate.

He's a published author.

He released a classical album last year, A Ballet Through the Mud, which is unbelievable.

Guys, he's a titan of everything, not just the industry.

He's a founding member of the Wu-Tang clan, who not only shaped the genre with their groundbreaking debut album, Enter the Wu-Tang, but he's also crafted a sound that's

booming beats and chilling samples and influenced countless musicians.

It's the one and only rizza you guys

wow

whoa yeah whoa i guess i have to take off my camera here

it is

oh boy john hellman's gonna be thrilled this is so cool hello good morning good morning good afternoon i'm actually in uh on the east coast so it's good afternoon have a good lunch oh yeah good afternoon oh man thank you for joining us today what an absolute thrill to have you on the show today, man.

My pleasure.

And I will start off by saying I have a great memory.

We're the same age.

Exactly.

Will you remember for me right now what it was like to score both Kill Bills?

I mean, that's like,

is that the only film that you, the films that you've scored?

No.

Did you do this?

I went on to score

maybe a dozen after that in some TV shows, et cetera.

Do you love that?

Yeah, scoring is.

Scoring is

one of the ultimate expressions of art right you're trying to tell a story and complement a story with your music yes i love it yeah but i are but they sometimes the cues have to only like be 10 20 30 seconds or like do you feel like you're like boxed in with that no i think to be quite frank it is you know you may have a cue that's just a symbol

That's your cue, right?

Yeah, yeah.

But you may have one that's like, you know, that's a whole nutcracker sweet, you know what I mean?

Uh-huh.

big sequence so i mean that's the beauty of music you think about uh i mean one of our great composers uh john williams he was

and it's just a few notes yeah yeah yeah

so was it was ghost dog uh way of the same way was that your first one that you did yeah so jung brought me in to score that film i never scored a film before i was pretty

i didn't know what it was to be honest with you i still

i didn't know the when you make a movie you got to edit, you got to do all these things, right?

And Jim used to want the music, and he'd be like, you know, come to the editing room, which is basically the editing is a nine to five job, maybe a nine to eight.

Yeah, yeah, I'd be coming like midnight.

You know what I mean?

Everybody be gone, but at those days, we had the music on the dat.

So I was just having on the dat player pull up to the place and give him the dats.

And he'd be like, like, like, you know, it's midnight.

I'm like, well, you know, here here it is

um

yeah why is that why why is it historically you know music studio sessions late late in the night uh what is that i don't understand yeah musicians yeah yeah you guys have like a different clock

yeah i mean my musician clock was ridiculous i mean it was embarrassing to be quite frank i remember uh as i'm scoring movies i started sampling some music from one of John Wu's movie uh the killer which one of my favorite the killer hardboil great uh yeah great movies.

Great titles by the great director, John Wu.

And

we became friends, and he came to New York, and he's like, you know, I want to have, let's have dinner.

And I said, cool, let's have dinner.

I said, I, you know, meet you at the restaurant, you know, 6:30 in Manhattan.

And at the time, I was in a studio that was like an hour away, and I just got caught up in the studio.

And then it's like nine o'clock.

They're like, wait, you're supposed to be at dinner with John.

Like, okay.

Yeah, you kind of get sucked into it.

And it's like this, like, you, it, yeah, my husband, Scotty, he, he also composes scores and stuff for stuff.

And he'll be back there in like eight hours fly by.

You don't even know if John came in.

I didn't know it.

But John was such a gentleman, Sean, that I got there around 11, and he held the restaurant open.

And

we sat down and had a great meal.

Oh, that's amazing.

And he gave me some wisdom about time.

Well,

I was going to say some wisdom about time.

I like that.

About time, which is so funny because all music is in time.

It is all time.

And

late.

So, so it's funny, you know, Richard, when I think about it, because I was asking about the first film that you scored,

which was Ghost Dog.

And I was going to say, how did you get into it?

But it makes sense because you mentioned like John Wu's films being a huge influence.

I mean, there is a cinematic influence in the Wu-Tang music, right?

I mean, that's part of your origin story.

Can you talk a little bit about that?

Yeah, I mean,

my aspirations at the time of making music was trying to make a movie,

trying to make my album album play like a movie.

Oh, wow.

You know, in New York, a lot of us kind of would drive to like DC, to the Howard homecoming and or to Morgan State College, you know what I mean?

Or go up to Connecticut.

It was like, that's the weekend thing to do, right?

That's where the chicks are at.

And my idea was to make people who are driving that journey to listen to my music and to get a movie in their head and pick up some game, pick up some slang, pick up some visions.

So I was always trying to make movies.

And my first five albums, if you listen to them, they always start with a beginning, there's a theme.

Like there's an album we did called Cuban Links, which is really a mafia movie.

It starts off with three guys, one for you, one for me, one guy's cheating them, right?

He's like, you know, the old thing, one for you, one for me, two for you, one, two for me.

Three guys.

Yeah, yeah, right, right, right, right.

And it goes on.

And the way the album plays out, it's like these guys are going to pull a heist, somebody's going to die, like Once Upon a Time in America.

The other two guys are going to go grab the rest of the crew, the Wu Gambinos, bring them back, and then pull a bigger heist with 2 million, and everybody's going to ride off into the sunset.

And that album was so influential that hip-hop began to change their names.

Like every, like we was the first ones to change their names, like the from Wu-Tang to the Wu Gambinos.

And every artist started following that trend.

Wow.

Wow.

Wow.

That's so cool.

I mean, so you guys, so I mentioned in the intro that in 93, you guys released Enter the Wu-Tang, and that kind of changed, that kind of changed the game.

Certainly, it must have changed your life in a big way.

You had already been making music for years, right, with those guys.

Yeah.

But that was the first big release that went kind of crazy.

What was that experience like?

Yeah, it was, I tried to enter the industry before, just as a solo artist,

Prince Roaqueam, you know, know, sold about 10,000 records, got a couple of,

you know, a couple of shows and a couple of groupies, right?

That was, yeah, at that age, 19 years old, that was a bad start, but

I couldn't pay my rent, though, right?

But I went back to my crew and I was just like, you know, we had this thing that in the neighborhood called the Wu-Tang sling, and we was all big kung fu movie lovers.

And I just caught an inspiration that

we should take with our childhood love,

take the concept of Asian cinema from Hong Kong or from Japan.

And since our lyrics are from your mouth and your mouth is like a sword, right?

It says that in the book of Revelations.

It says, out of the mouth comes the double-edged sword.

So I was like, if we take our tongue and make it our sword, and the best sword style ever filmed was the Wu-Tang style, and we become the Wu-Tang clan, we could go into the industry and chop everybody's heads off.

Wow.

You know, my brothers was like, sounds good to me.

Yeah.

Well,

that was my question because

I'm a

dumb soft white guy from Los Angeles.

And

I not know about, well, you know,

that's very true.

That's a really apt description of you.

I'm not, as the kids say, I'm not down.

I'm not hip to it all.

And so I'm not clear on Asian cinema, on kung fu, on, on the genesis of the title of the band and stuff.

So I was going to ask you about that.

So how did your love of kung fu and Asian films, and

how does that start?

Because you wouldn't necessarily put hip-hop with Asian cinema in the same group, right?

Typically?

I mean, you kind of have to, if you think about it, right?

If you go back into hip-hop, according to hip-hop history, it says it started in 1973

in that summer but in that same summer bruce lee into the dragon hits 42nd street and that same summer um

fred williers and uh black caesar hits okay and also the godfather is in the theaters um

uh mean streets right so

the move the cinema the art of the cinema is still cohesive with the art of the music.

There's actually a threat because most of us are in those theaters.

Wow.

And then when we go back to our neighborhoods, the things that we are gaining from cinema is finding its way into our art.

If you look at some of the early breakdance moves, you'll see that some of those moves were seen in a martial art film and then, of course, took it to another level.

Yeah, that's amazing.

I didn't think of that.

That's so true.

Of course not.

You didn't think of it.

You're going to think about it a lot.

You know, dude.

You don't know anything.

Listen to rhythm and learn, okay?

That is true.

break dancing is yeah you could you could you could duck a lot of uh a lot of a lot of uh a lot of punches yeah and dicks down there on the floor so then so then so so that makes sense and so then you guys do you you produce and you form wu-tang and you and you release some records and just a huge like massively influential

but also what's interesting to me is and and tell these guys and educate all of us a little bit about not only were you guys doing wu-tang but then is you're doing i mean you're doing all sorts of solo projects under a bunch of different names, right?

And you mentioned Prince Rakim, which was your, that you released before, but also some stuff after, right, as well.

And also,

but also other guys from Wu-Tang, you produce their stuff.

Like, oftentimes people leave a band and go and do something on their own, on their own, on their own, but you were still producing everybody's music.

Is that true?

Yeah.

I was with, so since the martial art world or the Shaolin philosophy was so embedded in us, we took it and applied it to our lives.

So, for instance, Staten Island, my hometown, we renamed it Shaolin.

You know, I mean, that's why you see Pete Davidson has a Shaolin tattoo across this

piece on Staten Island, but we renamed it Shaolin.

So, Shaolin is considered the temple of

the well, they would say, from which all martial art springs from.

It's the strongest philosophy place that even before Zen

made it to Japan, it was developed in Shaolin.

And so in Shaolin, they had the monks, but the leader of the monks was called the Abbot.

And so my Wu-Tang brothers called me the Abbot.

You know what I mean?

So now as the Abbot, it's my job to make the best decisions, the best direction of which way we go.

And as the producer, I went on to produce, of course, the first album, 36 Shamas, it went platinum.

So going platinum, of course,

is a bong-bong, right?

So then after that, of course, I became uh a sought-after producer.

But what I did was keep my energy contained within my crew.

So, I went on to produce Method Man first album, Double Platinum, Bayquon, Platinum, Old Doddy Bastard, Platinum, Jizza, Platinum, Ghost Face, Platinum.

So, exactly.

That's unbelievable.

Yeah, so I might have done about seven platinum albums back to back.

I don't think too many people probably did that, so that's a blessing.

But

it was us, it was a contained energy, you know what I mean?

Yeah, I remember talking to Seth Rogan

when

they had their breakout.

He made a joke because him and his crew who were listeners of the Wu-Tang clan, they called themselves the Jutang clan, he said.

He said they all lived together, and him and Evan and everybody,

they

actually

took that concept and did the same thing and continue hit after hit.

And I think

that's a great thing for any group of artists is if you could combine that art together and then direct it as a brand,

you will increase your fan base, of course, but also give each one of you a chance to go through the same tunnel.

That's so cool.

I love that.

There's a sort of like sort of like a

you harness the power of the collective a little bit and you don't let it dissipate.

You kind of keep it and you all kind of move and then all boats rise, right?

You know what I mean?

What would we call our little clan here, like the Chin Ching clan?

I don't know.

By the way, you mentioned I really like Chinchen.

Well, Chinchen went out of business.

Did you see that?

Well, no, they just shut down the

one in Beverly Hills.

Take your EC, get through the interview, and

you'll get your sodium somewhere else.

Don't worry about it, man.

And we will be right back.

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And now back to the show.

So you talk about Shaolin.

I didn't know any of that.

That is such a cool concept, dude.

I'm so blown away by it.

I'm like riveted.

And you guys recorded your seventh album was Once Upon a Time in Shaolin, right?

And you made one copy.

Do you guys know about this story, Sean and Jason?

Do you guys know about this?

No, no, no, no, no.

Can you tell these guys a little bit about it?

Because it's one of the coolest stories in art history.

Forget music.

Yeah, yeah.

And then that

guy

was a controversial purchase of it.

I don't know this.

I don't know this.

A very controversial purchase.

Please, please tell me.

Will you tell these guys what happened, what that album was about, and why you did it all?

Okay, first, you know, once streaming took over music,

you know, music went from being worth two cents a record spend on your radio to being worth zero zero zero zero point four.

Okay, sure.

And so it was totally devalued.

And a lot of artists were suffering because of that devaluation at this time.

And for me, Napster.

Pardon?

Napster.

Yeah, Napster.

If you think about Napster, that was the foundation of Television.

People bark out moments of knowledge.

You're like my grandmother in the other room.

Napster, Napster.

Wait, I know that.

But anyway, first one, yeah.

After everything got devalued, we tried to figure out a way to bring value back to music.

And the idea was music is art and it should be treated as such.

And

it's not something that, it's not just a privilege, right?

Because the creation of it is such a process.

Like for a Wu-Tang album to make it, you got to get nine to 20 people together, together, the engineers.

And it's an endeavor, like a film, right?

It costs a lot of money, right, to make it.

And then the goal is to sell it so you could continue to make it again.

You know what I mean?

So anyway, it got so devalued that we was like, well, let's make an album that we'll make one single copy, treat it like it's a Mona Lisa or an Egyptian scepter, something like that.

Very good.

It belonged in a museum.

And the only way that you can now get it, you have to go to it.

You have to go see it.

This This is amazing.

Oh, that's cool.

And we auctioned it.

The funny thing is when we auctioned it,

we auctioned it to a guy named

Mike Scarelli.

Yeah.

Now, Skirelli, at the time when he bought the album, I got to confess this because I don't talk about this a lot.

At the time I shook his hand, he wasn't known yet.

Like, I met him.

It was a few different

billionaires that was going to buy this album from this Sotheby's Paddleweight auction type of thing.

And he was probably the poorest amongst them.

He only worth about 200 million at the time.

But he was into it, right?

And he told me, he said, I'm going to buy the Last Enigma machine.

I'm going to buy the Turning Papers.

And I'm going to buy your single album all in one week.

And I'm going to take this.

And I'm going to create something that's going to, for him, he's going to become like a new super villain or something.

He didn't say villain, though, but he was like, he's going to take these elements and he's going to create something crazy.

And he went and formed this company, the turning company, et cetera, et cetera.

And I shook hands on him.

And that same company, a few months later, before we announced the purchase and everything, because we had a scheduled date of closing, is how we call it.

A few months later, this guy shows up on the news as the evilest man in the world.

He took the price of a medicine that was maybe $15 a pill.

That guy, that guy,

and he turned it to $2,000, $4,000 a pill.

And the saddest thing about it was that this pill

was

for our citizens who have HIV.

Right.

I remember that.

It was a dire need for this pill for them.

And so

basically, he was

burning down a village.

I mean, you could put it to that analogy that he's burning down villages by this price gouging

but he had already purchased the album so now yeah so now so now I have to you know you know he sells it and then I did say this to him though I said listen so his name was Martin Scruggie I said listen Martin

you doing a lot of bad things bro the wu-tang is good okay

if I was you I would take this album and do something good with it, meaning he could give it to the people.

It can't be sold because we made an 88-year non-commercialization law for it.

So he can't sell it, right?

He can't

make mass producers.

I know it's so cool.

That is amazing.

But

he didn't decide to do nothing good.

He went, he doubled down on his darkness and he got into a big fight with Ghostface Killer and all the other Wu-Tang brothers.

And then he, you know, he took Hillary's hair and whatever.

He just went.

all the way down until he went to jail.

And then the government seized the album

and and they kept it.

What?

And then, so he paid $2 million for the album.

So at the time, it was the most expensive album in history.

Yeah, for sure.

But when he went to jail, the government now needed to pay all of his, you know, his liens or default judgments, whatever he had on him.

And so the government now gets to auction this album as a personal asset of his.

Okay, all right.

And they auction it, and someone buys it for $4 million.

Wow.

No way.

Okay, okay.

What?

Do you know who?

so who's got it and where is it it was a it was a group of people called the pleaser dow

okay um

um so they have it now and they're just you know hopefully they will take the advice of showing it to the people putting it in museums and that yeah didn't they do an exhibit or something they took it to somewhere like like tasmania or something is that yeah they took it to tasmania and exhibited you're right yeah and people flew in for that so has the public been able to hear it so far maybe about 600 people have heard it dude that's amazing like how do you how do you that's an incredible story how do you how do you protect um

the person who owns it from copying it and kind of i don't know it just got leaked or you know they and then they act you know in the contract there's a uh it's it's good this this particular album is

on a macro level considered the first nft

ah very good yeah i understand so you understand?

Yeah, so that's the situation with it.

And so, it's like

a smart contract built in.

You know what I mean?

And this is your idea.

I mean, it's such an incredible, forward-thinking idea.

I know.

It's brilliant.

Me and my and my student, Silver Rings, I want to take all the credit.

It was a combination of ideas that led to it.

Yeah.

Would you ever do it again?

I don't know.

What about, what about, what

What about what Radiohead?

Didn't Radio Radiohead did something where they made an album and they put it up on the internet for free, basically said, pay whatever you want.

And that kind of freedom made me,

I think I ended up paying like 50 bucks for it or something like that.

Like, just like, if you tell me I don't have to do anything, then

that was the perfect thing.

You're the perfect sucker, man.

Exactly.

That's why your nickname is

DJ Sucker.

I mean, God, that is such a, you're right.

Sean, like you said, it's so forward-thinking.

And you've, I mean, you constantly have looked for different ways to express yourself as an artist and kind of do things outside the box.

You've acted in, I was looking it up, I mean, I don't know, 50 things, 60 things as an actor.

You, you just, tell us a little bit about your film that's coming out that you directed.

Thank you.

First, let me say this to y'all, gentlemen.

First of all, Jason, I'm a big fan of yours.

Come on.

your timing,

your style.

I just love your style.

I watch

seen almost everything you do.

And so I just want to let you know that you got a fan on this side of the microphone.

Thank you, pal.

And for myself, you know,

I got a chance to study underneath Quentin Tarantino for about six years.

And I caught the directing bug and understood what it could be.

And I did my first film, of course, in 2011,

came out in 2012, called The Man with the Iron Fist.

And I realized that directing movies is actually the epitome of expression art because you have to be lyrical in the words,

colorful in the production design and costume design.

Music is a part of it.

The storytelling element,

the energy of getting other people to portray an idea that's written

and describe it.

It's like the total use of my brain for me.

And so I became in love with it.

And now this is

my fourth directorial film.

It's called Once More in the Chocolate.

Wait, oh, this is your fourth film?

This is my fourth one, yeah.

Wow.

And this one,

probably my boldest one.

Pretty bold to kind of take a chance like this.

And

it took 13 years to get to this point.

Like once I finished Man with the Iron Fist,

so

Universal gave me the money to make the movie.

And there was like, you know, when it came out the first week, I think Hurricane Sandy hit.

And so to me, so the East Coast was kind of fucked up for me.

And so

I didn't hit the numbers we wanted to hit.

I think we probably ended up around 30 million total in box office on a side talk numbers.

That's what's when it comes numbers.

We ended up about 30 million total in box office on a movie that cost about 17 million, right?

Pretty good.

Not, well, okay.

Not for Universal.

For Universal, that's break even.

I paid the lights that day.

We paid the lights.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, yeah.

But

I waited till it recouped before I went back and sat down with the executive who was in charge of gave me the green light, which is Mr.

Adam Fulgerson.

And

I sat down and he said, okay, you know, know like you broke you did you did cool okay nobody's over here you know

we're not jumping up and down no we sad right um i said okay i got it now i'd like to try another one and so he said okay well this let me hear some ideas and i pitched the ideas and one of them was one spoon of chocolate the other ones didn't really gravitate but he said that one seems like something you could chase

and then i started writing it and i got writer's block at page 40.

and it took almost you know this will be 13 years from the day of me starting it to it now being a valuable.

And it just kept taking time and time and time.

And it didn't fully materialize until

two summers ago.

I'm on a tour bus with Nas and we were doing a New York state of mind.

We're traveling across America.

And I'm just, and my pen just started flowing.

And so I wrote the whole movie.

My wife was right beside me, just sitting right there.

And

I, you know, we got home and I said, okay, I got a movie written.

And we had a chance to, you know, we had some good economics blessings in our lives.

And so I said, well, she was looking at another house because she likes to get nice houses and shit.

That's the kind of her thing.

And so I said, well,

I wrote the movie.

You want to get another house or you want to make a movie?

Yeah.

And she said, well, what do you want to do?

I said, to be honest, I really want to make a movie, like

with no interruptions.

Like, just go ahead and do it.

and she said okay she gave me the green light she's the producer of the film so me and my wife

yeah so so she's yeah self self-financed from you know leveraging some assets and um

and we we did it and we shot in atlanta we uh finished it and it's going to premiere at the tribeca film festival uh yeah on june 8th i'm super excited about it awesome and so will you are you gonna be looking for distribution at that festival or is or have you already sold it yeah looking for yes it's gonna be like the first time we show it and we're looking for distribution.

So, you know, I hate to use the word hopefully, but hopefully.

What's it about?

What was the pitch you gave to Adam?

And did it remain the same once you got past page 40 or did it morph into something else?

You know what?

It actually,

I guess without giving a spoiler, it morphed into 200 pages.

Oh, wow.

Exactly.

For the listener, usually a movie script is about 110.

Yeah, it morphed into about 200 pages.

And I think I got about 110 pages that we'll see when we look at this thing.

Yeah.

That's amazing.

And now Kill Bill was famously,

what, 200 and something.

And so he had to split it up into two parts.

Yeah.

Right?

Yeah, I actually read the 220-page

Kill Bill.

Yeah.

Which, which, like I said, so Tarantino is my

professor.

I call him my godfather of film.

He's incredible.

Love to have you on the show, Quentin.

Yeah, he's incredible.

He's got to come to me.

He got to come to me.

He's got it, guys.

But not,

I'm always amazed when people like us, meaning that our artists are in the entertainment business or whatever, that create the stuff like your films and music and everything else and us, our TV shows, films, whatever we do.

And that at some point in your life,

you became aware of the business side of it.

And what was that point and or who was that person where you're like, because when I was on the set of Will and Grace, it's a TV show I did a long time ago.

Yeah, yeah, sure, sure.

Hey, a masterpiece, a masterpiece.

We,

after, it took about five, six seasons for me to kind of look

for me to look around.

And I was kind of like, wait a minute.

I was really young.

And I was like, how did this all happen?

Because I was just an actor who memorized my lines and showed up and went home.

And then I was like, Wait, how did this come together?

Like, whose idea?

And then the phone call.

Then I got really interested.

I was really young.

I got interested in

the business side of how to produce something and make something.

So, what was that moment for you?

And, or, or was there a person you were like, wait a minute, how did they do that?

And then it kind of snowballed from there.

Yeah, I think it was a couple of points for me.

You know, first in music, of course, right?

As a producer,

no you could you could control let's just say like i said making an album maybe it's 20 people

right but when i was composing films the thing with kill bill is that i wasn't no i wasn't going to be the composer let me just be clear me and quent just used to watch movies together and he gave me that script and when i read the script of kill bill

It was just such an amazing script.

I just said, yo, anything you may need from me, I'm here.

I said, also, I would love to see how you're going to bring this to life.

At the time, we were just buddies, film buddies.

And he was like, yeah, sure.

You know, if you show up on set, you know, you're going to be the guy, the eyes and ears behind me.

Wow.

And now they were shooting in China and Beijing, but I showed up.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Great.

And then I'm watching him.

I'm watching Rob.

Robert do the DP.

And I'm the guy who's there with

no job.

Yeah.

So I got to study every job.

I'm just chilling, hanging, watching the study, and I realized that this was.

And how old were you then?

Oh, no, I'm a man.

Hell, this is to kill Bill.

I'm 32 at least, right?

30.

Yeah.

So I'm a man.

Yeah.

But I mean, I'm not a kid, meaning,

you know,

I was evolved as a...

I guess you're going to say this too, Sean, right?

That you said after five or six years, right?

Right.

You're not economically thinking about those problems no more.

That's right.

Okay.

Love is good in life, most likely, right?

Right.

And so, and the art is starting to really feel

fulfilling, like a different type of fulfillment, almost a calling, right?

And so that's what's happening to me.

My love life is good.

My economics is good.

And my art is insaturable, though.

It wants more.

It wants more.

And so that's what led me down that path.

And then, of course, as a businessman, I think,

you know, if you go back and look at Wu Tanga's, you know, from the beginning, we was entrepreneurs, you know, from opening up our clothing stores to video games, like all those things was that's part of it.

And then the last lesson for me, and I'll just share this with your audience,

why that you would say, why the heck would you self-finance a film?

Which is probably, everybody says don't do that.

That's like in the book.

There's a book on that.

Right, right.

It's the first chapter.

Yeah, exactly, right?

But

I got the chance from the year of 2018 to 2023 to be the showrunner of my own TV show.

Right.

Which one?

It's Wu'Take an American Saga on Hulu.

Okay.

So doing that show, it's just like, okay, the best way to do it is to do it.

You know what I mean?

Yeah, right, right.

The best way to do it is to do it.

And so I'm in that philosophy.

Because me spending a dollar may take somebody else $10 to spend that dollar because they don't know how to spend a dollar.

All right.

We'll be right back.

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You know that point in the afternoon where you just hit a wall?

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and back to the show

you know people people who are who are as accomplished as you um in as many um

in as many different um

skill sets,

it takes an enormous amount of not only ambition, but but concentration and focus and discipline.

What would you say to the listeners who are trying to get their feet under themselves and really find that gear that it's going to take to hit the passing lane and get past the folks that they're competing with?

What is that special sauce

for you?

And from whom did you learn it from?

Or what happened that gave you that spark that you tap into that has

fueled so much incredible

accomplished work?

I will show anybody the first thing is mastery of something.

If you master one thing and you mastered it, then you'll understand the relation of all things.

Right.

Because that makes sense.

And for me, you know, of course, the first thing is going to be my lyrics, right?

And I've been writing lyrics since the age of nine.

So by the time, and you know, I'm the guy that finishes schoolwork first, so I could write another lyric.

So mastery of your passion, I guess, would to go together.

Master your passion.

That's great.

And if you master your passion, I think that when it's time for other disciplines to come amongst you, you're going to have a foundation because you'll be able to apply it.

And I think we all could agree, us here, all of us artists right here, that we could say that it is

the artist

has, I use this word, artistry is a wavelength,

right?

It's like if you got a, so let's take a trumpet, right?

And let's call the trumpet the artist.

Whatever plays through that trumpet, though, it could be jazz, soul, rock, pop, doesn't matter.

It's going to come through that trumpet to turn it to music.

But when the artist knows the wavelength, he knows what to pass through his vessel.

You know what I mean?

Can we

get it?

Geez, man.

I know.

That's really cool.

I know.

Yeah.

That's kind of amazing.

Yeah.

That's really cool.

What if it's a piano?

Just kidding.

Sean's an accomplished pianist.

I don't know if he is.

He is.

He really is.

Who cares?

My favorite instrument, Sean.

Okay, there you go.

Yeah.

Well, we'll jam.

How many can you play?

How many different instruments?

Yeah.

I mean, I play, you know, I'm not going to, no, I'm a producer, so producer is a lot technology, but no, I play guitar, drums, of course, guitarist bass is no problem.

I could blow some notes

on my trumpet, and I spend a lot of time on the piano, too.

but i'm very shy on the piano meaning mostly my wife gets to hear me yeah i've never even

you know i gotta be nice to play in front of an audience yeah yeah yeah yeah sean's very coy on a piano he's very coy you know it's funny you you do you mentioned like different instruments and stuff you've done so many different and you've done a lot of collabs and different genres i remember you did that i love that record you put out with um

Paul Banks from Interpol, Banks and Steel.

Dude, that was so rad,

record.

Talk a little bit about that experience and how you guys got together.

Well, let's shout out Paul Banks first and the whole Interpol fan.

I put an Interpol song in Black Rabbit coming out.

Well, congrats, man.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And Paul's getting married this summer.

Oh, is he?

Yeah.

I mean, one of the coolest bachelors.

I was married while he was making that album.

He wasn't, you know what I mean?

And all the people

screamed for him.

He's a cool dude, man.

Oh, I mean, I don't know him, but I'm such a fan.

Yeah, talk a little bit about that experience.

Well, we met because he, I guess he had, he listened to some of my music and he was making it.

He used, I guess one of his articles, he used me as a reference to something he was striving to do as an artist.

And I think

my manager read it and was like, oh, my manager's a fan of Paul.

He's like, oh, Paul is a fan of yours.

And he kind of quoted something about you.

You guys are both New Yorkers.

You hook up.

I mean, he's not a native New Yorker, but

he was living in New York at the time.

He said, maybe you guys could hook up and chop it up.

And we hooked up and we both were chess players.

And so we would just play chess.

At the time,

he did drink tequila.

We met at the tequila bar.

That's tequila and chess.

And

that built the friendship.

And maybe a couple of years later,

I think Warner Brothers approached us and was like, would you guys be interested in kind of collaborating on something together?

We just think you guys are just too cool, too cool motherfuckers, that's to be quite frank, was the slang they used.

And we was like, Yeah, whatever, yo, we hang anyway.

Like, you want us to do music too?

Cool.

You want to pay us to hang out?

Um, I used that single, uh, actually, as a temp track in my show.

Uh, Shason, you mentioned uh, quite drolly flake the other day, but we couldn't afford it.

Uh, but we used it as

we used it as a temp

in the show, so I was a big fan.

Anytime you can't afford something of mine, hit me up.

I got it.

I'm going to hit you from now on.

I discount so many things and $1 gratis.

If it gets to my desk, it gets easy.

If it don't get to my desk, I'm going to take you up on that.

I'm coming.

Hey,

did you score your four films that you directed?

No, I scored two.

I scored the first one with my buddy Howard Drawson.

The second one, Richard Gibbs, me and him collaborated on the second one.

The third one, I passed over to Danny Harrison, a good friend,

George Harrison's son,

him and his crew did it.

And on the fourth one, I actually combined with Tyler Bates, which is, I think Tyler's

incredible composer, just very bold and brave in his sound selection.

So the fourth film is me and Tyler together.

Wow.

I want to see that film.

I know it's me too.

Yeah, go ahead, Jason.

You had a follow-up.

Well, it was unrelated, but one thing I keep forgetting to ask.

Sorry, This is our new segment we're doing called Unrelated.

Go ahead.

Yeah.

I like it.

What about martial arts for you?

Are you an accomplished martial artist?

Or

is there any crossover there?

It's a big word.

Accomplished.

Look, no, I wouldn't say that.

I don't know, right?

Of course, I practice martial art.

You do, okay.

Yeah.

But my philosophy is mental martial art, cultural, artistic martial arts.

You know what I mean?

It's, you know, just to give you a little bit about the Wu-Tang philosophy in the martial world.

So, the Shaolin philosophy is known to be external, right?

You train your body to be hard as iron, right?

In the Wu-Tang, you train your body to be soft as cotton.

The Shaolin martial artist would throw a thousand punches a day.

The Wu-Tang martial artist would sit still

and contemplate the thousand punches in his mind.

So exercising the mind is

known as, because it's kind of Taoist.

So it's known as that's the Wu-Tang way.

But exercising the body is Zen or Buddhist way.

So being the Wu-Tang abbot, I'm going here.

And so that's why, you know, my lyrics or my art is always formulating.

Now, somebody was a step to me now.

Okay.

It's a mistake.

Yeah, yeah.

So Shaolin going to jump up out of you.

You know what I mean?

Dude,

dude, I am so, I'm entranced.

I am, this is like unbelievable.

This is so.

I'm going into a Wu-Tang cave when this interview's over.

I've been in a Wu-Tang.

We were supposed to record a little while ago.

I've been in a Wu-Tang, just absolute cave for months now.

Hey,

speaking of Wu-Tang, so when you, and just your music in general, do you see, you guys have been so, like I said, you're so influential on other musicians for the last over 30 years.

Can you see, can you catch glimpses of your influence in music now when you listen to hip-hop?

Yeah, definitely.

I mean, it's a blessing, right, to be able to inspire anything or anybody, right, after getting inspiration from life yourself.

But yeah, that's, you know,

constantly, you know, some of our greatest artists, they are not shy to...

you know, give us a name, drop, you know, I mean, Drake named the song Wu-Tang Forever, you know?

Yeah.

You know, one of Kendrick Lamar's first samples you know was a a riser sample which i cleared for free

yeah yeah yeah yeah um you're welcome man i had a you guys did so much you did so much sampling over the years i mean you guys were like the masters of it was there ever a sample that you couldn't clear that you that you wished you could have gotten you were not able to get um

well what was no the worst no i want to say that i Let me see.

There was a couple because some people like become born-again Christians and

they wasn't letting hip-hop go.

But one of my biggest glitches was this, and I don't mind sharing this with your audience, is that there's no floor or ceiling when it comes to sampling and the interpolation rights.

And I totally disagree with that, right?

The reason why I disagree is because if you sample a song, say you sample a James Brown song, right?

And you got,

you know,

you know, Bootsy on bass, but you got all these, you know, all these different people playing maceyo and they all playing

the the publisher will come and could potentially take 100 of that song away from you

right

and say that because you're copyright infringing and even though your song could be

almost unrecognizable from their song

and then the musicians who

You're probably more into the musicians than the song itself.

Like if I sampled a little bass part from here, a little horn from this this guy, a little snare from this guy, and me, I'm the type of guy that had Peter Pan records, so I may get a string section from that, you know what I mean?

And make a track.

So it's like, what about those musicians?

They never get compensated.

It's just

the publishing company.

And then I said this last, to me, in my opinion, that

it should be a floor in a ceiling.

The ceiling should be 50%.

That should be the ceiling.

You should never take more than half because you got the lyrics, you got the talent, you got everything else that the other person is building to make the song, right?

And then the floor should be then prorated by how much you took, you know, versus what the song is.

But with a ceiling, so the floor could be, I'll put the floor at even 20% to be merciful, 20% floor, no matter what.

If you put my record on, you take something, give me 20% for that inspiration, right?

But but most I could take from you is 50%, and we'll measure how to get to 50%.

I got a situation where I did sample

Marvin Gaye and Tammy Terrell's All I Need.

And it was a double platinum selling song.

Wanda Grammy,

Method Man, and Mary J.

Blodge was the Coca-Cola commercial of the summer.

And all we received is 10% of the song.

Wow.

They took it all.

Wow.

Yeah.

And that song made.

Yeah.

Every time it made a dollar, they only gave us a dime.

No, no, no way.

And look, and one, I could argue back.

They, you know, they would, they say it was ours.

You took it.

And but you also, I could then argue back, but no, we didn't know.

We didn't know that that was a law or because hip-hop started from a guy with a turntable and he's scratching beats back and forth.

We rapping over it.

And then they made a sampler.

A sampler says, sample an instrument.

Okay, that's my new instrument.

And now I'm sampling sounds and records from my collection and I'm making my own thing.

We didn't know that

it was going to be a law or some type of thing that was going to stop us.

And eventually, hip-hop got slowed down because of

sampling and interpolation laws.

Because of lawyers.

And then

all those fees were assessed retroactively in all of those songs that were created with some samples and stuff.

Once the law went into effect, then they reached back

and charged.

Oh, wow.

You got some songs now.

I got a song of mine that is totally wrong.

Two or three of my songs

because they thought they thought that it was it and it wasn't it right wow wow and it's like

hold on that's not roger troutman what is i don't i didn't even i wasn't i wasn't a roger troutman fan right i was a thelonious monk fan but i wasn't a roger troutman i love that i love your i love your floor and ceiling uh uh idea i think that that's something that should that should take root i hopefully i i think that that makes a lot of sense and seems really fair really really fair so i hope that works out um all right before I let you go, I want to talk a little bit about a ballet through mud because you released a classical album last year.

I did not know this.

I want to hear this.

It's unbelievable.

Like, every time there's something else that you did, talk a little bit about how that came about and your ambition with that.

And where we can see it.

Will it ever be done again?

Well, the ballet was performed a few times already.

And so we don't know if it's going to, if I'm going to, you know, do it again, like perform it again, but we did perform it in LA.

We did in Colorado, which we i wrote it for uh colorado um i was part of this uh

artist in resident where for three years i would create something to take to the colorado symphony orchestra and and perform so it was during the pandemic of course that i found this notebook of old lyrics and then inside these lyrics uh this These are like my high school lyrics.

So this book is so old.

My buddy Ray Kwan made a joke, said that book book is growing hair, man.

It's that old, right?

But in it is all of the ideas from ninth grade up until graduation.

So you could hear, you could see the first blunt, the first weed.

You could hear the early sexual ideas and everything.

And you could also hear the imagination growing.

And so when I found the book, I said,

I can't wrap these.

What should I do?

And then I eventually decided, talking with my wife about it of course that what if i kind of composed it into like a ballet or something okay yeah and so she thought it was a great idea as well and i kind of went into it the funny thing is that uh

one of the let me let me share one of the lyrics that led to it okay yeah yeah so one of the lyrics was uh

about these six teenagers um who are

exploring life, right?

So Sue was this girl who was really quite fly.

fly.

And Brad was real cool.

He was her guy.

Lisa was freaky.

She loved to have sex.

Her brother name was Dexter, but they called them Dex.

His girlfriend name was Monica.

She was a verge.

And Joe, he was their friend.

And he was a nerd.

Brad bought the beer.

Sue bought the smoke.

Lisa had sheets.

Dexter had Coke.

Joe was the type who didn't get high.

Nor did Monica, but she was willing to try.

So Brad lit a blunt and passed it to Joe saying, come on, man, smoke it.

And Joe said, no.

What's wrong?

Are you scared?

Was asked by Sue.

Oh, you're just a nerd.

Joe said, that's not true.

Monica said, come on, Joe, just have a taste.

And she puffed on the joint and blew smoke in his face.

Now, on Monica, Joe had a crush.

He didn't want to do it, but felt that he must.

Like many, we know, love made him a fool.

So he smoked the joint to prove he was cool.

Then Lisa was like, yo, forget about Joe.

Then say, hey, Dex, where the heck is the blow?

He pulled out two grams, said, it's all that I bought.

But it's more than enough.

And they proceeded to snort.

Now, at this time, Joe had finished two beers.

And Brad was like, here, have another, you queer.

And Joe said no, while holding his stomach.

And while facing Monica, he suddenly vomited.

She screamed, oh my God, shit, how absurd.

And everyone laughed and said, Joe is a nerd.

Joe is a nerd.

Joe is a nerd.

Joe felt embarrassed, so he did the bird.

They chased him.

He ran.

They screamed and they laughed into this abandoned house and with the sound of this crashing glass.

And it was dark in there, so Brad had to get a light to check to see if Joe was all right.

But when they found him, he was laying on his back with quartz of red blood spurting from his head.

And Monica said, oh my God, Joey is dead.

And they started to run.

And they never mentioned this incident again to anyone.

So

that's beautiful.

That is amazing.

And I turned that to a ballet.

That's unbelievable.

You've got to see that.

Just pive it.

How in the world do you remember?

I know.

Not only remember that, but remember everything that you make.

I mean, it's incredible.

It's so good.

God, man.

We could talk for hours.

We've taken up way too much of your time.

What an absolute, like I said at the beginning, what an absolute honor to have you, man.

I'm such a fan.

It really has been.

You're such a creative juggernaut, dude, in every way.

So just, you know, continued success.

Yeah, thanks.

And I said all of respect, and I just saying I'm a fan of all you guys' work as well.

Thank you for what you contributed to my life.

It's just, you know,

idea i've watched you it's i've watched as a fan you know the things you guys create uh whether in the theater or in front of my tv set and uh got my laughs got my inspiration and and and and probably took something from your tree here and there come i'm hip-hop so i sampled yeah okay you sampled us you sampled us i sampled yes indeed

right back at you you've touched all of us and millions and millions around the world

you really inspired us today well thank you risen for your time and thank you guys And yeah, spoonful of chocolate.

All the best of luck with it, man.

Can't wait for it.

We'll be watching.

That's bad.

Peace.

Thank you.

Peace.

Yeah.

Bye, Pal.

Wow.

Wow, Willie.

I didn't think you had it in you.

You know, you always talk about them.

You've talked about them forever.

I wanted to have him on for a long time.

And I'm so,

I'm like, I knew the bar was high.

I was like, oh, he's going to be inspirational.

He's going to be cool.

And I can't believe how

he just exceeds expectations just as a creative, right?

It's just unbelievable.

It's like an awesome swell of creativity.

Yeah.

And also like just philosophies and like, yeah, I mean, spiritual.

Like, I love the thing you said about the trumpet, like the where the artist has to connect the energy to the vibrations that go through the thing that makes the sound, like whatever that was.

But that was really cool.

Yeah, that was cool.

More like trumpet.

Jay, you're more like a Waymo.

You know what I mean?

You're just like a

pro with nothing inside.

So

please rate me.

MT vehicle that goes from just destination to destination, but that's fine.

That's fine.

And we still love you.

But honestly, he had so many, you're right.

He had so many cool philosophies.

I mean, I think that's the thing.

But by the way, the whole Shaolin approach that he does and the way they created that community and kind of like there's just, and he produced all those records for all those guys,

for you know, for Ghostface and for all those dudes, like Method Man, it's insane.

It is wild.

I want to be in the music world a little bit.

They all just seem like

they kind of got it all together.

Super chill.

Yeah, no one's running.

They're just, you know, they're just doing their thing.

I'm really excited for him.

I knew Jay, you'd be excited that he's directing.

I didn't know he'd done four films, but I saw the trailer.

I saw the trailer for his new film.

It looks really, really good.

Yeah.

So I'm excited for that.

And

how cool.

And it makes sense that he'd be a good director because he has been sort of the abbot, as he says, of the Wu-Tang for so long and does so many.

And wears so many hats.

And Jay, as you know, is a director.

That's what you have to

do.

He's pulling on all those different levers.

Yeah.

And just a great level.

We spent a lot of time on Abbott Kinney.

There's a gay bar in Abbott Kinney.

You know, the funny story about that, Gay Bar, it's called

The Rooster Fish.

How do you guys know that?

Yeah.

So when I

told you,

when I was.

There's a light bulb out in the back alley behind.

Anyway, forget that.

Oh, no.

It doesn't matter.

Way Jay go.

I used to live right around there.

And when I first moved into my house, me and my buddy

went down the street and like, well, we got to find our local bar, right?

If we're going to be living down here, and this place is

at the time, I don't know if it still is, it was painted this like this really cool, like turquoise blue.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And

we're like, well, this place looks kind of cool.

Walked in there, fucking sat at the bar and ordered a couple of beers and just kind of started talking to each other.

And I get a little tap tap on the shoulder.

I don't think the guy had like a gag ball in his mouth, but it seemed

something was it was very clear that we were in the wrong spot almost immediately.

Right, right.

We finished the beer, and we

got another one of her hands.

So, we only had three more beers.

I only had three more, and then I was out of there.

By the way, I forgot to mention

that.

I forgot to mention that

for Rizza that

they're on tour this summer, right?

The Wu-Tang final final tour.

So I also wanted to mention that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

We should go.

We should really go.

Yeah, why didn't you mention that during the interview so we could lock up some tickies?

I know, I forgot.

We can still lock up some people.

We can get tickies.

Look, he picked it up from

Roosterfish.

That's the way I would have phrased it with him, too.

I say, hey, Rizza,

we get some tickies.

And

it would have been uncomfortable, ambush him in the interview live.

He would have had to get up.

It would have been uncomfortable for anybody, dude.

The way you sort of infantilize everything is so

by the way, I feel like that rooster fish story isn't over, but well, it can it can be for now.

I'll tell you the ending after we come through after we shut down.

Is that the day?

That was the day that you discovered that you weren't gay, but that maybe you were

gay at Jason.

Yes.

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