Speaker 1: Pushkin. When Rizza put the nine members of the Wu
Speaker 1: Tang clan together, he didn't just form a rap group,
Speaker 1: he created a universe. Their debut album entered the Wu
Speaker 1: Tang Thirty six Chambers was released in nineteen ninety three,
Speaker 1: at the peak of what many considered to be the
Speaker 1: Golden Age of hip hop. It was so packed with
Speaker 1: the classic releases that, if you can believe it, Snoop's
Speaker 1: Doggie Style Tribes, Midnight Marauders, and Woo's thirty six Chambers
Speaker 1: all came out in the same month, But Wu Tang
Speaker 1: was different. Sonically. Rizza produced dark and gritty beats by
Speaker 1: manipulating old soul samples and splicing together sound bites from
Speaker 1: Kung fu films, and lyrically, all nine members had a
Speaker 1: unique style that was untouchable. Rizza spent three decades as
Speaker 1: one of hip hop's elite producers and has gone on
Speaker 1: to become an actor, director, and film composer, working with
Speaker 1: people like went In, Tarantino, Bill Murray, and Denzel Washington.
Speaker 1: Rick Rubin caught up with the Rizzar recently on Zoom.
Speaker 1: Riz says his creativity is peaking. In Quarantine, he reminisces
Speaker 1: with Rick about running around Staten Island with od B
Speaker 1: as a kid. He also talks about the time he
Speaker 1: almost left everything behind to move to Wootang Mountain in China.
Speaker 1: This is broken record liner notes for the Digital Age.
Speaker 1: I'm justin Richmond. Here's Rick, Rubin and Rizza. What's been
Speaker 1: going on, man, man yo. I've been sitting in my
Speaker 1: house doing doing zooms. It's been good because for me,
Speaker 1: I have the Rivers Room going for season two of
Speaker 1: Amernic Ossaga, So a lot of workers getting done. Ironically,
Speaker 1: like people are still working in and we're actually all
Speaker 1: schedule because the best of orders, we're all confusion. There's
Speaker 1: certainly distractions from the outside world. So it's a good
Speaker 1: time to get work done. I gotta agree, especially the
Speaker 1: kind of work that we do, creative work. Uh, it's
Speaker 1: like it's been for me. My creativity is it's it's
Speaker 1: peaking in a way, right, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: Like it's like I've been in the gym and I've
Speaker 1: got creative muscles I need to use and they ever
Speaker 1: ready to use. I've been playing with the MPC. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think I mean a fifteen beat doing the quarantine
Speaker 1: so far, incredible. That's a yeah, that's a nice amount.
Speaker 1: And I'm usually that usually take a year to get
Speaker 1: that minute, you know what I mean from the way
Speaker 1: I've been working in the film, but be at home
Speaker 1: every day. You know what it is, right, the hours
Speaker 1: we used for commuting, it's gone, right, yeah, so those
Speaker 1: hours now come back to me and I get to
Speaker 1: play when it played playing those hours. How how has
Speaker 1: your relationship to making beats change from when you were
Speaker 1: starting to now? Wow, Um, the relationship changed in the
Speaker 1: sense of before I think I made Beast for the
Speaker 1: purpose of a purpose, you know what I mean, A
Speaker 1: purpose of it's going to be a record, a purpose
Speaker 1: of maybe I'm gonna get some money, for a purpose
Speaker 1: of being the best. I mean, I definitely wanted to
Speaker 1: be the best producer or the best hip hop producer
Speaker 1: in the world that had the summer I'm feeling. And
Speaker 1: now when I make it, I just make it as
Speaker 1: an expression of of almost like just entertaining myself, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean. There's no goal, there's no purpose
Speaker 1: for it. It's just like I'm just doing it, like
Speaker 1: just if if I was playing the video game. That's
Speaker 1: if I was playing my piano my beat machine becomes
Speaker 1: that fun moment for me to go down DJ a
Speaker 1: little bit of my old dal on my DJ set,
Speaker 1: take a couple of samples, you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: find some new sim sounds. It's just it's just that's
Speaker 1: my day. I'm entertained by that. You think if you
Speaker 1: could zoom out and look over your work from earlier
Speaker 1: when it was goal oriented to now, you think that
Speaker 1: the goal oriented part of your old work is what
Speaker 1: drove it or was it just one of the aspects.
Speaker 1: To be honest, the majority of my critically acclaimed work
Speaker 1: that you know, like thirty six Shameless, those beasts were
Speaker 1: made with no I could say no goal in the
Speaker 1: sense of or can I say, what's no economic goal?
Speaker 1: A lot of those beats was made because I was
Speaker 1: in my house, I had my beat machine, and I'm
Speaker 1: making beats. It's fun, you know, I mean, blame the
Speaker 1: pain that was made having fun. Maybe after I had
Speaker 1: a flood, you know that lost a lot of my
Speaker 1: tracks away, like in nineteen right before this whole, right
Speaker 1: before the big solo U Tank solo albums, right, so
Speaker 1: maybe ninety four then. But I had made record deals
Speaker 1: with people, right, so I had to turn out a
Speaker 1: lot of work. And I sat in that basement for years,
Speaker 1: turning out a lot of work, meeting deadlines, and I
Speaker 1: succeeded at that, and it still wasn't a lot of money.
Speaker 1: But I think when the money got involved, I think,
Speaker 1: at one point, and I'm not sorry to say this
Speaker 1: now a day, at one point, you know, maybe I
Speaker 1: was getting a hundred one hundred plus a track right
Speaker 1: and around that range, I'm not even making music unless
Speaker 1: you call me with that money, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: So the money became the dictator of my creativity, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean. So what I could say for
Speaker 1: nowaday and it could be from the blessings of being
Speaker 1: able to do to express myself in film or the
Speaker 1: blessing to express myself in other mediums, that when I
Speaker 1: make music, I'm making music purely for the expressing themselves,
Speaker 1: purely for my own entertainment. And maybe maybe it's the
Speaker 1: best stuff I ever made. Maybe it's not, but it
Speaker 1: sounds like from what you're describing your earliest and and
Speaker 1: maybe some say I think your most important work to
Speaker 1: breakthrough works were made without without that pressure from the outside. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I had a conversation with my woutang brothers about about
Speaker 1: a similar conversation, not as on the nose is this,
Speaker 1: but it was was talking about making an album right
Speaker 1: this is before we did our last album was called
Speaker 1: it Better Tomorrow. And you know I had to actually negotiate,
Speaker 1: you know, our neighbor brothers to get him to come
Speaker 1: and do the album undue and this much when do
Speaker 1: wanted that much? And I haven't go through it was
Speaker 1: a self funded album. In the beginning meeting, you know,
Speaker 1: I think I had I'll take a million hours and
Speaker 1: invested in myself, you know what I mean, into my
Speaker 1: clu So I broke everybody off hunt ads for dcs
Speaker 1: there or whatever. But I tried to bring it to
Speaker 1: that conversation, like yo, it's another course money to make
Speaker 1: music in the old days, the songs like take the
Speaker 1: song method that that song came about because he came
Speaker 1: to my house on a Friday night with the week Okay,
Speaker 1: I had an eight track recorder in my house, had
Speaker 1: a micah, had just made a beat because I was
Speaker 1: making beats all day. He showed up. He had a
Speaker 1: couple of comic books, two bags of weed, and some blunts.
Speaker 1: He had jestment is doing his his uh pharmaceutical work,
Speaker 1: and he came. He came forward some downtime. He rolled
Speaker 1: it up, we let it up, we smoked it. I
Speaker 1: picked the beat on a fuck the mic and he
Speaker 1: did the song. In fact, the electricity went out. We
Speaker 1: had to plug into my aunt's electricity downstairs and we
Speaker 1: recorded it right. And that's because that's what we wanted
Speaker 1: to do. And a lot of the woofs wool in
Speaker 1: the early days is that you will come to my
Speaker 1: trip and come hang out and make a song. You
Speaker 1: wanted to do it. So I'll try to be mind
Speaker 1: the brothers that yo. We used to make music because
Speaker 1: that's what we wanted to do. You came to my house.
Speaker 1: I didn't actually to come. I didn't pay you to come.
Speaker 1: It's that's what's the place. You came to let loose
Speaker 1: your verse, to hang out, smoke a blind, plays some
Speaker 1: video games, watching food flick you know what I name.
Speaker 1: Make some music, you know. So a lot of ours
Speaker 1: early stuff, a lot of songs. Even you listened to
Speaker 1: the ODB first album, it's just the first album, the
Speaker 1: thirty six Chambers. A lot of that is like remakes
Speaker 1: of what we did as kids, like we had the
Speaker 1: foundation listen Liquid Spards, that same routine and Liquid Spards
Speaker 1: when the MCS came, you know that we made that
Speaker 1: probably when we was fifteen years old with a pause
Speaker 1: tape you know what I name. And then when we
Speaker 1: got an album Deil, I'm like, yo, let's bring back
Speaker 1: that a whole routine we used to play and we
Speaker 1: did it and it became when it became How old
Speaker 1: were you guys when you made the first album? Um
Speaker 1: first album? Officially, I was twenty one. As far as
Speaker 1: the first just well just Just's album. You want to
Speaker 1: count that nineteen when he made Worse Margenius. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: not bad, no incredible, But you guys had already been
Speaker 1: percolating for five or six years. Yeah, yeah, running around
Speaker 1: New York trying. You know, they're trying. You know, I
Speaker 1: got a question for you. I got used with this
Speaker 1: of course. So rock the Bells, Yeah right, you program
Speaker 1: the drums on that one. And and then how about
Speaker 1: Jack the Rapper, Jack the Ripper with the seven or
Speaker 1: seven cow bells? I can't remember because I can't remember
Speaker 1: is that was that on the first album or the
Speaker 1: second album. If it was on the second album, I
Speaker 1: didn't produce it. It It wasn't even on an album. It
Speaker 1: was like like a B side single that I think
Speaker 1: you guys had dropped back at back. Honestly, can't remember.
Speaker 1: I'd have to listen back, I'd have to listen. But
Speaker 1: let me talk about Rock the Bells one moment if
Speaker 1: you don't mind, no, not at all. So Rock the
Speaker 1: Bells one of the hardest beasts to hit the streets, okay,
Speaker 1: and really a pioneering production for hip hop. And then
Speaker 1: The bell Man. Now that my producer, I could have
Speaker 1: imagine that that hit was a good tar hit, basically
Speaker 1: elpo with Jay It's all that's a right, yes, and
Speaker 1: it changes hip hop, it evolves it to be totally honest.
Speaker 1: And I'm only bringing this up to give me some
Speaker 1: points on this right because I remember being very egotistic
Speaker 1: about hip hop myself, Like you know, it took me.
Speaker 1: It took me, like I had to go to France
Speaker 1: and after the album called water Court, in the rest
Speaker 1: of the year two thousand and I had to travel
Speaker 1: around all these different countries and do music right, and
Speaker 1: I'm seeing rappers everywhere, and I realized hip hop as
Speaker 1: a world wide but it did have his roots in America. Right.
Speaker 1: But at one point people said hip hop was black music.
Speaker 1: Wait a minute, and I said in an interview, wait
Speaker 1: a minute, and I was said, I'm glad that I
Speaker 1: was why I said, Rick Rubin may rock the bounce. Okay,
Speaker 1: that's in the early phasis of hip hop. So I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna say that as the black and white music.
Speaker 1: Because Charlie Chase and and and the and the and
Speaker 1: the Fielders four, he had Tito in the group. We
Speaker 1: got Rick Rubin producing the early drums on L L.
Speaker 1: Cuge probably run DMC. Okay. Point I'm making is that
Speaker 1: you got the Latin brother, you got the white brother,
Speaker 1: you got the black brother or naked hip hop. So
Speaker 1: when I so when I was going through you know,
Speaker 1: going through that to the to these countries, you know,
Speaker 1: they was like, yeah, black, you know block, I know,
Speaker 1: hold on hip hop. We can't say it's an American right.
Speaker 1: We should say American before we said it, because actually
Speaker 1: it's been pioneers from every aspect of our culture. Hip
Speaker 1: hop is actually a melting pot of our culture. It's true.
Speaker 1: But maybe that I will say in the early days,
Speaker 1: I always felt like the only white person in the
Speaker 1: room for a long time. Right. Look, you know what,
Speaker 1: in the early days, even in my hood, there's only
Speaker 1: one white dude that lived in the project. But that
Speaker 1: was I'm mad. You know, if you got dog chocolate,
Speaker 1: you put a muspoonful of milk in it, it breaks
Speaker 1: it down a little bit, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: So point on the point being made is that hip
Speaker 1: hop is was one of the first, not one of
Speaker 1: the first, but definitely part of the American culture that
Speaker 1: is emerging of different people from walks of life, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean. Now, Now, the Asian influence may
Speaker 1: have not been identified or identifiable or in it, and
Speaker 1: it came in but it but it was in it
Speaker 1: in a even my sterious way. If you go back
Speaker 1: and talk to Grand Master Flash and talk to some
Speaker 1: of these guys, you realize that some of their names,
Speaker 1: some of their vibes did come from Come to Movies. Right.
Speaker 1: You go back and you talk to some of the breakdances,
Speaker 1: you'll see that they picked up a couple of moves
Speaker 1: from some of the forty seconds three Come to Movies, Right.
Speaker 1: But it still it didn't but it wasn't identifiable. Then
Speaker 1: woul Tang comes and we put it right into music. Basically,
Speaker 1: hip hop is that culture that allowed the entire spectrum
Speaker 1: of American culture to exist creatively and caban and then
Speaker 1: eventually become the culture of the world. What was the
Speaker 1: what was the hip hop scene that you grew up in? Like,
Speaker 1: what were you seeing around? For me? The first time
Speaker 1: I heard hip hop was on stat Nolan nineteen seventy six.
Speaker 1: It was a DJA named DJ Jones. The other guy
Speaker 1: named was Quincy. These these are unknown DJs who who
Speaker 1: who unknown to the rest of the world and uh
Speaker 1: and then an MC named MC punch And they would
Speaker 1: bring that system out between the building two forty and
Speaker 1: two sixty park Hill, there was a parking lot there.
Speaker 1: They would plug up and they would do their jams.
Speaker 1: How many people would come, maybe, you know, eighty ninety
Speaker 1: even if one hundred people the whole because it's park Hill,
Speaker 1: so everybody from all the kids, from all the builders
Speaker 1: would come. I shouldn't be out there. I got my
Speaker 1: ass well from being out there because I'm I'm seven
Speaker 1: eight years old, mesmerize, hypnotized by the music and what
Speaker 1: he was playing was apache that deep, that vibe, it
Speaker 1: it was whatever that song made me want to get
Speaker 1: on the floor and roll around, you see. And the
Speaker 1: first thing I did was I tried to len how
Speaker 1: to do it wasn't even called breakdance and was called
Speaker 1: freak style or freaking freaking off through the freestyle, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean. And so that was my first thing.
Speaker 1: But then when the rapper was like dip dip dive
Speaker 1: so socialized to clean out to ears, then you open
Speaker 1: your eyes right that that was probably a rap that
Speaker 1: he probably got from someone else. Who knows, right, because
Speaker 1: somebody rappers said it, but it hit me and my
Speaker 1: cousin just a couple of years older than me. He's
Speaker 1: the one that took me to the block party. He
Speaker 1: was already writing lymics at that time, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean, Because I was living down South for a
Speaker 1: few years. So I just got back from down South,
Speaker 1: so imagine it. I'm coming back from down South for
Speaker 1: seven years old, going on eight. I hear this music.
Speaker 1: I'm mesmerized. How how popular was the music at that time?
Speaker 1: Would you say everyone your age liked it or no?
Speaker 1: I won't. I don't know if everyone my age liked it,
Speaker 1: but I think no more than a hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: people knew how to do it, you know what I mean. Unity,
Speaker 1: It was a small still a very small community, small community.
Speaker 1: Just A told me he got it from he learned
Speaker 1: it from the Bronx, from sound View Projects. He had
Speaker 1: a cousin up the sound View Projects. He would go
Speaker 1: to their house and people will bring out sound systems
Speaker 1: there and they would do it. That's where it hit him.
Speaker 1: So so my style really could be traced back to
Speaker 1: the Bronx, from the just you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: he boarded the stat now. Um, and then of course
Speaker 1: you know, by the age of nine, I started writing lyrics.
Speaker 1: But in hip hop is still new. It's never been
Speaker 1: on the radio yet, you know what I mean. Um,
Speaker 1: I don't think even w BLI, HBI whatever, HBI, w
Speaker 1: HPI hasn't hasn't hit it yet. Remember mister Magic, don't
Speaker 1: mister Magic. No Supreme Team. Yeah, but you're still talking
Speaker 1: seventy eight, seventy nine. That sugar Hill Game comes in
Speaker 1: seventy nine. But anyway, it wasn't a lot of people
Speaker 1: doing it, answer your question, and it was mostly DJ's
Speaker 1: catching a break beat. The samplers wasn't happening. I remember
Speaker 1: the first time I heard a sampler. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: of course Molly in the early days, but that's like
Speaker 1: Marley's one eighty eighty five. Now, yeah, he comes in
Speaker 1: and when ye, when ye rock the bells for us.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I'm not good with dates, but but
Speaker 1: I know, I do know that when we made those
Speaker 1: first records, there was not a sampler yet. We didn't
Speaker 1: yet happen exactly, no sampler exactly. So that's the point
Speaker 1: I'll make. No samplers. So it's just the break beat,
Speaker 1: the DJ cutting it in. Maybe you had a four track, right, yeah,
Speaker 1: and so it was primitive. But I do remember hearing
Speaker 1: Flash ran Master Flats had a song called Flashes on
Speaker 1: the beat box, like An and Me and Dirty went
Speaker 1: the fourteen Street because fourteen Street had all the electronics stores,
Speaker 1: remember that, of course, and we tried to go and
Speaker 1: find what the heck was a bat box, and we
Speaker 1: end up getting was one of those rhythm boxes that
Speaker 1: they use in church her rhythms. Yeah, and we now,
Speaker 1: I don't know if that's the Is that what the
Speaker 1: Flash is talking about? No, I don't know. I don't
Speaker 1: think I think so, but maybe maybe, Well that's the
Speaker 1: first thing I've ever had. Those were like like rhythm
Speaker 1: like rhythm king. It's like it just has like a
Speaker 1: bunch of buttons to pick the style of beat. You
Speaker 1: don't you don't program a beat. You don't program it.
Speaker 1: It has pre program beat and you can just control
Speaker 1: the tempo, control the tempo. But if you press two
Speaker 1: of them together, yeah, it will do something awkward absolutely
Speaker 1: well if you keep holding the phil In button. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So that was the first That was my first way
Speaker 1: of trying to produce. I had two time tables and
Speaker 1: one of those beat rhythm boxes. And then one day
Speaker 1: there's a guy on stand allan named uh silly phil Right.
Speaker 1: He comes outside with a six h six drum machine. Now,
Speaker 1: I mean that changed the game. But we thought that
Speaker 1: was the masterpiece, right, But then Doctor Rock or the
Speaker 1: fours MDS or foursomcsmember remember DJ Doctor Rocke. So Doctor
Speaker 1: Rock he comes out with a seven h seven. So
Speaker 1: this is nineteen Now I'm going I might I might
Speaker 1: be in nineteen eighty two. Now I'm in eighty two,
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty two, eighty three, the seven h seven is
Speaker 1: on the block. Doctor Rock has it, and he invites me,
Speaker 1: Justiz and odb Over to do a demo. I'm fourteen
Speaker 1: years old, yeah at most, and we recorded a demo
Speaker 1: and we just felt like we was headed. We was
Speaker 1: gonna be on top of the world. And this is
Speaker 1: before the fourso mds had dear Tommy Boy deal. They
Speaker 1: they gonna get a Tommy Boy deal for another year maybe.
Speaker 1: So anyway, point being made is that the seven h
Speaker 1: seven was like the machine that has And then I
Speaker 1: had a DJ on Stanton Island named Scotty Rock right
Speaker 1: not to because not to be complete with Scott mo Rock,
Speaker 1: but his name was Scotty Rock and he came. He
Speaker 1: brought the nine O nine. He had a pair of s,
Speaker 1: he had a pair of twelve running techniques and a
Speaker 1: nine on nine drum machine. And I stayed at his
Speaker 1: house every day after school making beats and making demos
Speaker 1: with him and another guy named b Dub. And we
Speaker 1: had another guy from my high school named DJ Skain
Speaker 1: who also had to had a dope echo machine had
Speaker 1: to He's the one that he asked. He's the one
Speaker 1: that had the Yamaha Forts track, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: And I borrowed it. I bawed this and balled that
Speaker 1: and balld that wanning over my house, and I just
Speaker 1: started making neighborhood albums. Me and ODB would make albums
Speaker 1: and put him out in the hood. But that's that's
Speaker 1: my earliest memories, memories of hip ho hop. You know,
Speaker 1: going back from eight to fourteen. I have to ask
Speaker 1: you what was ODB like as a kid? Wow? Beautiful, funny, crazy?
Speaker 1: Uh at this age to say, around the age of nine,
Speaker 1: ten eleven, um he lived, he lives in Brownsville. Then
Speaker 1: he is a movie se up. But I was going
Speaker 1: to point out he was one of those kids that
Speaker 1: we had this thing called cat agility. So cat agility
Speaker 1: means you you got to jump from one balcony to another,
Speaker 1: run up the walls and order. This is before popcor
Speaker 1: It is basically the foundation of popcorps. And old Dirty
Speaker 1: was nice at it. Yo. Was it inspired by the
Speaker 1: Kung Fu movies? It may have been. I just feel
Speaker 1: like kids. It's like some kids that always started doing something,
Speaker 1: you know, not kids. Uh can you jump from this
Speaker 1: bank to this year, about this to this? And then
Speaker 1: every day it got more and more and next thing
Speaker 1: you know, it's five kids and we are running in
Speaker 1: the road and I was running with him. I wasn't
Speaker 1: never as good as him. He was like a national.
Speaker 1: He could run up the wall to do a flip.
Speaker 1: So when Brave Dance it came out, he could do
Speaker 1: the windmill. I had to set the poplock and I
Speaker 1: cannot woke the floor. And you know, he got into
Speaker 1: hip hop first as a DJ, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: I kind of forced him to be an MC. You
Speaker 1: know what I mean, Like look like you know, I
Speaker 1: was his younger cousin, but I had I was taller,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, And I had had had
Speaker 1: a little spirit, like a little pushy spirit. I think
Speaker 1: that at that age I had got knowledge of myself
Speaker 1: at eleven and a half, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: So you know, by the time I'm fourteen, I'm already
Speaker 1: you know, young Malcolm x mine, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: And and that energy kind of uh was pushy. How
Speaker 1: how do you decide to form? When I think of
Speaker 1: Wu Tang, For me, it's the first group of its kind.
Speaker 1: It doesn't feel like a continuation of a lineage. But
Speaker 1: for you who did you did you feel like it
Speaker 1: was part of a lineage of groups that had come before.
Speaker 1: To be honest, it felt I mean, look, there's other groups.
Speaker 1: I gotta give respect to Cold Crush brothers, like I said,
Speaker 1: Fantastic Freaks or the Fantastic you know, the Fantastic Five,
Speaker 1: the Furious Five, Treacherous three till there's four. I mean,
Speaker 1: I give all respects to those brothers. But I didn't
Speaker 1: see Woutang clan as none of that. It's not it's
Speaker 1: it's nothing of those. It was more of a Kung
Speaker 1: Crue clan, you know what I mean. So there's there's
Speaker 1: certain movies that just really touched me when I was young.
Speaker 1: You know, there's a movie called The The Brave Archer.
Speaker 1: And in this movie The Brave Archer, there's a banker clan.
Speaker 1: There's hundreds of them, man, and and you know them,
Speaker 1: you know, or even Shallon, you know, the Shalon movies.
Speaker 1: Just like there was a movie where if every Shalon
Speaker 1: guy Shalon got burnt down and everybody had to flee
Speaker 1: and take their secret techniques and you're a new one.
Speaker 1: When they had certain hand signals that became like my psyche,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, The Five Deadly Venoms, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean. The Ten Tigers of Quantan, in fact,
Speaker 1: the ten Tigers of Quanta um or Canton if you've
Speaker 1: fronounced it properly. It's probably the the movie that I
Speaker 1: could have modeled. Some of the Wou Tang members asked,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean? And there's another movie called
Speaker 1: The Eight Diagram Pole Fightless with eight brothers all fighting
Speaker 1: for the country, layalless. And those two movies could be
Speaker 1: the movies that inspired me to realize that we can
Speaker 1: move as a clan, you know what I mean, Not
Speaker 1: just five deli ventos, because five is a lot too. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, but the move as a clan.
Speaker 1: I would think that I kind of was inspired by
Speaker 1: the art of martial art films, the shivalry, the brotherhood,
Speaker 1: the one man would die for the other. How do
Speaker 1: you how do you get into martial arts films? My
Speaker 1: first movie I ever saw was Tom Sawyer Huckleberry Finn movie.
Speaker 1: My second movie it's Star Wars. My third movie is
Speaker 1: The Swarm In. My fourth movie is a double feature,
Speaker 1: which was a Bruce Lee movie called A Furia the Dragon,
Speaker 1: which was that's an edited movie of all his Cato
Speaker 1: things but together, and Black Samarai with Jim Kelly. Right,
Speaker 1: those are my first five movies, and if you look
Speaker 1: at me as if you look at what that means
Speaker 1: to me. The force is my spirituality, right, Lightsaber, the swarm,
Speaker 1: killer bees, who tank killer bees? Okay, the kung Fu
Speaker 1: movies is all of my blood, you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: And I think the writing of Mark Twain and the
Speaker 1: storytelling is all in my blood. I think those early
Speaker 1: movies really like imprinted it something on me. And plus
Speaker 1: the people who I was seeing him with. I was
Speaker 1: seeing with my uncle who was just you know, a
Speaker 1: father figure in my life. He's the one that that
Speaker 1: took the time to take me to see a movie,
Speaker 1: you know, and we're talking, you know, the the man
Speaker 1: who would take it to the movie and talked to
Speaker 1: you after the movie was over, which I now doing
Speaker 1: my children out. We don't we don't just watch a movie.
Speaker 1: We watch it after the movies, don't. We sit down
Speaker 1: and we spent fifteen to thirty minutes, maybe even an
Speaker 1: hour depending on the movie, and we talked about it.
Speaker 1: So those movies probably uh have the big inspiration, but
Speaker 1: the kung fu movie had the biggest And so then
Speaker 1: what my cousin Vince had took me down to forty
Speaker 1: seconds stry it was a kung Fu triple feature, so
Speaker 1: you can imagine for a dollar fifty and so that
Speaker 1: became my my my stimulation to the point that by
Speaker 1: the time I was a teenager, me and od B,
Speaker 1: we would play hooky and those students, you know, were
Speaker 1: those kids in the theaters would a joint cut in
Speaker 1: school watching movies. We'll be back with more from Rizza
Speaker 1: after a quick break. We're back with more from Rizzina.
Speaker 1: How much would you say, um, smoking influences your creativity.
Speaker 1: That's a great question. I there, um, and I gotta
Speaker 1: be honest, right, I started creating before I was smoking.
Speaker 1: I created a lot doing my smoking. I got to
Speaker 1: an argument with my little brother about five years ago.
Speaker 1: My little brother he's in a group called Killer Army,
Speaker 1: and you know, he's he's he's he's maybe eight years
Speaker 1: nine years younger than me. And so he's the guy
Speaker 1: that looked at me, learned from me, and continues and
Speaker 1: hip hop. You know, he wanted you know, he's he's
Speaker 1: he I'm like his big brother that he's copient. And
Speaker 1: the more I got into drugs and more he got
Speaker 1: drug I smoked it. He smoked it. Okay, whatever I did,
Speaker 1: he did. If I chewed it, he chewed it, and uh,
Speaker 1: I stopped about five years ago. I don't like I
Speaker 1: haven't you know, I don't even smoke weed right now,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. I just chilled out like
Speaker 1: I'm good. Like if I smoked weed. Now it has
Speaker 1: to be a total celebration of something great. I gotta
Speaker 1: get the Grammy or the hostile, something really great for
Speaker 1: me to say, I'm want to celebrate with that, with
Speaker 1: that drug and nothing to guess that I smoked enough
Speaker 1: for two lifetimes. But the point I want to make
Speaker 1: is that he was like, yo, because I told him
Speaker 1: you should quit. You know, you just quite especially the
Speaker 1: hard drugs, you should quit them. And he was like, nah,
Speaker 1: many crazy, all the greats. Man made this ship of
Speaker 1: the drugs, Jimmy Hendricks, Jane Brown, Jannys jep He started
Speaker 1: naming motherfucker's the even you that's the Wait a minute,
Speaker 1: let me think about that. I said, Nah, I made
Speaker 1: thirty six chambers sober because remember I went on trial.
Speaker 1: I cook and get high and I just kept making
Speaker 1: music and doing things sober. I said, Actually, I made
Speaker 1: my company. Everything I did was the best. Met was
Speaker 1: the sober me. Right. He was like he didn't believe it.
Speaker 1: I said, yeah. Then I said, you know what, two nice.
Speaker 1: When I went to do my movie Man with the
Speaker 1: Eye insist, I sobered up. I had to be I
Speaker 1: wrote it. I went to China. No drugs in China anyway.
Speaker 1: I stayed there for nine months and I directed a film.
Speaker 1: I couldn't afford to be high, and I was able
Speaker 1: to operate all my creative abilities. So I'm only saying
Speaker 1: that I made a lot of music while Bobby digitals
Speaker 1: and all type of ship. Bro. But I honestly gotta say,
Speaker 1: and I can speak from the truth that my creative
Speaker 1: energy is not generated from drugs. It's it's a self
Speaker 1: generating desire to create. And like I said, I made
Speaker 1: fifteen beats so far on this quarantine. No drugs in
Speaker 1: my house, bro, tell me about what was it like
Speaker 1: living in China for nine months? Thanks for asking, But
Speaker 1: that was the first world I'm gonna say, lonely. And
Speaker 1: it's not a lot blocks over there, Bro, I sold
Speaker 1: like two blocks in nine months, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: Let's say, let's say came over with me, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean, not a lot of us over there.
Speaker 1: I'll tell you how lonely. It was. Now we could
Speaker 1: say in America we got red system. All right. If
Speaker 1: you know, an average black guy dressed him in my
Speaker 1: hoodie stown and I don't know I made dressed. If
Speaker 1: I come across an average white guy, he might feel like, Yo,
Speaker 1: what this dude gonna do? Right, I'm in China, bro
Speaker 1: at an elevator, about to go to my room whatever,
Speaker 1: sitting there, and here comes a white guy, average white
Speaker 1: guy from the Midwest. He he hits the button. He
Speaker 1: looks at me. I look at him. How you knowing
Speaker 1: that my name is Bob? I think what's your name?
Speaker 1: We became immediate friends, Bro, because first of all, you
Speaker 1: don't even here in English, okay, and we talked about sports.
Speaker 1: He was out. That's what you're going out here. He's
Speaker 1: out my head with the fort the Fourth Corporation building
Speaker 1: a whole new plant. I'm there, I'm building a plant.
Speaker 1: It's what you're doing something. I'm making a movie. We
Speaker 1: became for him. So now, maybe in Arabica that wouldn't
Speaker 1: have happened. Even the gout in the elevator that got
Speaker 1: the offer, But it was so lonely that even they here,
Speaker 1: somebody speak your own language and understand the culture of
Speaker 1: what America because it's a different we have a unique
Speaker 1: coaching bro, good, bad or ugly, it's different, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean? And when I was over there, I
Speaker 1: recognized that I felt that describe a bit about that culture,
Speaker 1: like what are some of the differences for those of
Speaker 1: us who haven't been well on a on a micro
Speaker 1: on a I'm gonna macro first, on a macro level,
Speaker 1: it's almost like everything looks like it's like the building
Speaker 1: looks like the building is gonna be you walk in,
Speaker 1: the building's going to be the same, right, but it's
Speaker 1: not going to be the same because the coach it's
Speaker 1: a communist country. Bro, Okay, you did them a common zoon.
Speaker 1: That means that the freedom of speech, the freedom of
Speaker 1: what you want to say. It's not really like that
Speaker 1: you can't say it like I couldn't say they like
Speaker 1: they had to check my script and make sure that
Speaker 1: I was saying the right shiit yo. Now I respect that,
Speaker 1: I respect their culture. But if you want to know
Speaker 1: about censorship and and being controlled at the highest level,
Speaker 1: but that's what they do, you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: And it's law. Any of the things that were you
Speaker 1: were not allowed to do anything that you said or
Speaker 1: any themes in the movie that were questioned. I couldn't.
Speaker 1: I couldn't say Shalon in my movie because because Shalon
Speaker 1: is historically a place in China that's historically real, and
Speaker 1: so they didn't want me to dampen their culture by
Speaker 1: saying Shalon in my movie on a story that wasn't
Speaker 1: real to shout l now, I don't know why, because
Speaker 1: I don't see a hundred movies with different stories about Shallette,
Speaker 1: and I've been to China. Vary sounds. So I went
Speaker 1: on the pilgrimage to China as well. And when I
Speaker 1: went on that pilgrimage, it was one of the greatest
Speaker 1: sxpienities of my life because I went to Shalotte Temple,
Speaker 1: I went to Woutang Mountain and and the history of
Speaker 1: their culture, of what they preserved in their culture, it's
Speaker 1: a blessing for the entire world because they got history
Speaker 1: four thousand years still contained beautiful and when I went there,
Speaker 1: it's not commercialized. Well, when I went it wasn't commercialized
Speaker 1: yet Shalon became a little commotionalized based on a lot
Speaker 1: of movies and a lot of tourism Wu Tanging Mountains.
Speaker 1: It's hard to get to first of all, it's not
Speaker 1: as easy to get to a shallete. And when I
Speaker 1: went there, it was really interesting because they had a
Speaker 1: different type of serenity about them, you know. So Wu
Speaker 1: Tang malant is considered the birthplace of tai Chi Zingy
Speaker 1: and bah Wah of course, and the months there. Although
Speaker 1: they're not celibate, they don't practice selimancy, but they practiced
Speaker 1: internally before external right, and it shows in their demeanor
Speaker 1: because their smile starts from their belly and it comes
Speaker 1: out their face, you know what I mean. And it
Speaker 1: was big strong smiles, big strong energy. If I didn't
Speaker 1: have a family, and this is gonna sound funny because
Speaker 1: does only happened to me twice in my life. Now
Speaker 1: my Jenny is both let me. If I didn't have
Speaker 1: a family and children back home, I would never have left.
Speaker 1: I felt almost like Superman when felt when he left
Speaker 1: pripped on and landed on earth. That happened to me
Speaker 1: at the Ru Tang Mountain, and then it happened to
Speaker 1: me when I was when I visited Africa, when I
Speaker 1: went to visit ghost Face, he was in Africa and
Speaker 1: I had to go. I promise Monatico I would visit him,
Speaker 1: and so I visited him. Promise I had to keep.
Speaker 1: But something about the way the sun was hitting me,
Speaker 1: it felt like, wow, I understand what Superman feels like.
Speaker 1: So the Star Wars, the forcing Star Wars was your
Speaker 1: first introduction and spirituality basically from yah on the Baptist church.
Speaker 1: Ye tell me about that, like, tell me about all
Speaker 1: of your the roots of your spirituality from the beginning. Well, yeah, first,
Speaker 1: of course, a Baptist church. You know, I went to church.
Speaker 1: My mother said me to church. My uncle who took
Speaker 1: me to church. But my uncle who took me the church,
Speaker 1: the same one who took me to see Star Wars.
Speaker 1: The church was scary to me, you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: when people stopped falling out screaming the Holy Ghost and
Speaker 1: all that. Man, I ain't want to stand them parts
Speaker 1: of that. Was it a very musical service that you
Speaker 1: went to, Yeah, it with musical services, but somebody always
Speaker 1: caught the Holy Ghost, bro, And I'm like, how could
Speaker 1: the ghost be holy? You know what i mean? And
Speaker 1: I'm looking you know, I mean, you gotta think the
Speaker 1: Exorcist is out too. All right, So the Holy Ghost
Speaker 1: don't add up to me. But I didn't understand what
Speaker 1: that meant, and I didn't understand how they was displaying it.
Speaker 1: So that pushed me away. Star Wars attracting me. Okay,
Speaker 1: so that's my first like personal attraction. The church was
Speaker 1: forced on me. Yeah. Ten years later, of course, still
Speaker 1: church was being pushed on me until around the age
Speaker 1: of eleven eleven and a half, my cousin Schulza taught
Speaker 1: me about the mathematics and about Islam. And it was
Speaker 1: there that I began to study. In my studying the
Speaker 1: Islam and studying our lessons. Our lessons mentioned Buddhism and
Speaker 1: mentioned the Indians, and mentioned Jesus, you mentioned the plos
Speaker 1: of Muhammad, you know what I mean. And so it's
Speaker 1: just so. So it's then it being that it mentioned
Speaker 1: all those religions, I began to research those religions and understand,
Speaker 1: you know, because in our lessons and it's like in
Speaker 1: the lessons it mentions the Bible. There's a version of
Speaker 1: it from the Book of Ezekiel. If you read the
Speaker 1: Book of Ezekiel, what what a book? Okay, there's also
Speaker 1: a lesson from the from the Book of Matthew. What
Speaker 1: another beautiful book. But then it tells about then it's
Speaker 1: a lesson about Buddhism. It's like, wait a minute too.
Speaker 1: So I had to study that. But I got deeper
Speaker 1: into Buddhism and Taoism because when I've seen thirty six
Speaker 1: Chambers of Shall and there was a quote in the
Speaker 1: movie that just pierced my heart. And the quote was
Speaker 1: the five colors blond VII repeat, repeat that one more time.
Speaker 1: He said, the five colors blinds the eyes, the five
Speaker 1: tones deafens every year without wisdom, no game. That was
Speaker 1: in the movie that sent me right to Chinatown. Looked
Speaker 1: at for books and I found the couple, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean? Um and uh and And I've never
Speaker 1: turned away from that, always kept researching that um and
Speaker 1: that led to Taoism. How did how did Jessy get
Speaker 1: into the mathematics? Do you know? I think I think
Speaker 1: my cousin of life from Ou the Queens may have
Speaker 1: inspired him. And as the far as far as I know,
Speaker 1: far as the root of it, you know, so it
Speaker 1: started with life. That's what he took from this verbal
Speaker 1: from them telling me and then him telling me and
Speaker 1: what what what the reason why the mathematics was it
Speaker 1: through Nation of Islam at that point, do you think, yeah,
Speaker 1: because that was around at the time, Like that's what
Speaker 1: was hot in the neighborhood. You had to be the nation.
Speaker 1: Nation of Islam is a foundation. And then a man
Speaker 1: named Climates thirteen next Smith breaks away from the Nation
Speaker 1: of Islam and he starts teaching the right to the youth.
Speaker 1: I think what he did, if we could talk about that,
Speaker 1: is that usually if you're in a Nation of Islam,
Speaker 1: and I know, I can't someone speaking this by here.
Speaker 1: This is not personal experience. I haven't joined the Nation
Speaker 1: of Islam to notice. But for what I was told
Speaker 1: in the Nation of Islam, you have to go through
Speaker 1: like a period of time or a period of service
Speaker 1: before you're given one hundred or twenty lessons, right, and
Speaker 1: that it could take you five years to get that
Speaker 1: ten years either get all you know, whatever it takes.
Speaker 1: The father took those lessons and put them in the
Speaker 1: hands of the youth in one day. Okay, you could
Speaker 1: study at your own pace. I lunk the whole hundred
Speaker 1: twenty lessons in seven months. By the time I was twelve,
Speaker 1: I knew it. That's you know, there's grown men who
Speaker 1: didn't know it, you know what I mean. So the
Speaker 1: beauty of it, I think is that it just allowed
Speaker 1: it pushed me into deep study. But let me share
Speaker 1: something that the mathematics did, right. It had this lesson
Speaker 1: that I heard people talking about, like in the neighborhood,
Speaker 1: you got the twelve Jews, you got the twelve Jewels.
Speaker 1: Everybody would say this, right, And I'm like, what are
Speaker 1: they talking about? Twelve Jews? And I lived in Brooklyn
Speaker 1: Browns at the time, so twelve Jews. I thought they
Speaker 1: were saying the twelve Jews, like twelve Jews. Rights, that's
Speaker 1: what it sounds like, the twelve Jews. And at the
Speaker 1: same time, my mother had gave me a gift of
Speaker 1: Bible stories, right, So because I'm I'm gonna leven years
Speaker 1: old and I'm reading about Joe, Abraham, lot Uh, Samuel,
Speaker 1: David Solomon, I'm beating about all these great, great great men, right,
Speaker 1: and and these small Bible stories. I'm memolizing stuff. The
Speaker 1: one thing about me, Rick, I gott a good memory.
Speaker 1: So I'm memolizing this stuff. And then they say the
Speaker 1: twelve Jews. I'm thinking, like the twelve Sons of Jacob
Speaker 1: was twelve right, you know so, But it wasn't twelve jews,
Speaker 1: I mean, Jay Jay, it was duels, yes, and those
Speaker 1: twelve jewels was knowledge, wisdom, understanding, freedom, justice, equality, food, clothing, shelter, love, peace, happiness,
Speaker 1: beautiful and it said it. But man obtained that he's
Speaker 1: truly wealthy. And I went on a mission to obtain that,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. And uh, I feel like
Speaker 1: I got it, you know what I mean. Because it's
Speaker 1: because at the end of the day, food, clothing, and shelter,
Speaker 1: as long as there's food on the table, clothed on
Speaker 1: your back, and some type of selling to you good yo,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying. I know I've been blessed,
Speaker 1: you know, to have a nice home, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean. But even when I was fourteen years old
Speaker 1: living in an apartment with nineteen people, because I had
Speaker 1: those twelve jewels in my heart, I was still good
Speaker 1: sleeping on the floor, you know, I mean, next to
Speaker 1: three other people. And then it never I'm never was unhappy,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. So those things are are
Speaker 1: more valuable than some of these physical material things. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like the outer pleasures are much more temporary than
Speaker 1: the inner Wisdom. We'll be back with more Rix Conversation
Speaker 1: with Rizza after the break. We're back with the rest
Speaker 1: of Ricks Conversation with Rizza. So technically on the new
Speaker 1: beat your making, technically, how are you doing it? What
Speaker 1: equipment are you using? Oh? Um, I'm using MPC still
Speaker 1: as the as the as the brain of things. But
Speaker 1: I played with all the programs. You know, I may
Speaker 1: play with uh logic. I played with able t UM.
Speaker 1: I got a great keyboard that I'm I'm really loving
Speaker 1: right now called the wad Off. It's a great sim.
Speaker 1: I like doing the physical sims, you know what I mean. So, UM,
Speaker 1: I use the physical sims. I got my UH, I
Speaker 1: got the UM. The Artaria has a great sim as
Speaker 1: well called the group uh. And just really those two
Speaker 1: SEMs mixed with the MPC UH. And of course I've
Speaker 1: got my DJ set up, so yeah, you know, and
Speaker 1: through other toys I keep I keep toys, but the
Speaker 1: MPC is the brain right now. And what's your h
Speaker 1: Craig digging? How does how do you find how do
Speaker 1: you find sample and inspiration music? Well, well, I sampled
Speaker 1: maybe only thirty percent now, so like like I kind
Speaker 1: of like sample on weekends because I DJ, so I
Speaker 1: started playing the music DJ and oh wow. But fortunately
Speaker 1: I was able about ten years ago to transfer most
Speaker 1: of my library to digital. So you know, I think
Speaker 1: I got about I mean, I got friends of my
Speaker 1: personal transfer transferred library. I probably got about forty thousand songs.
Speaker 1: And then Shovo, my buddy seen Shago of course bass
Speaker 1: player system of a down exactly. He gave me for
Speaker 1: my birthday because when I started hanging up with Shavo,
Speaker 1: I was unfamiliar with heavy metal, when rock, I wasn't
Speaker 1: good at it. I knew a few, you know. He
Speaker 1: gave me a iPad for Christmas one year of thirty
Speaker 1: thousand songs that covered that genre, and I just download
Speaker 1: all that into my computer. So I'm sitting on, you know,
Speaker 1: hundreds of thousands of songs. It's already on my hard drives,
Speaker 1: and that's my digging technique. I just go through all
Speaker 1: the songs, you know what I mean. I still got
Speaker 1: about you know, I still got some a lot of
Speaker 1: boxes of vinyls. That's back East. And when I go
Speaker 1: back East, I normally dig through vinyl because I had
Speaker 1: the breastings of getting economics and getting able to travel
Speaker 1: around the wall. So I bore boxes of records almost
Speaker 1: every stop, you know what I mean. I got a
Speaker 1: box from Italy that's all seventies Italian rock soul. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because they cover all this ship with their bands. So
Speaker 1: the intro is different, the vibe is different, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean. So and every once in a while
Speaker 1: I'll dig through that stuff and find a loop, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean. But you know, hopefully it ain't
Speaker 1: got to clear them right, but I do clear. I
Speaker 1: clear my samples. Let a couple of questions and on you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was a drum machine. First drum machine was an
Speaker 1: eight O eight and it was not mine. It was
Speaker 1: I was going to NYU, living in the dorm. There
Speaker 1: was a kid named Eric who was in a band
Speaker 1: or like a new wave band called the Speedies who
Speaker 1: played at places like Danceteria or the you know Roxy,
Speaker 1: the maybe not the Roxy, the Rits like those kind
Speaker 1: of clubs, yeah, maybe mud Club if you remember that Downtown,
Speaker 1: but they played more like alternative music clubs and uh.
Speaker 1: And even though he was in a rock band, he
Speaker 1: had an eight oweight drum machine. Um and this was
Speaker 1: there had eight awaits had not really been used in
Speaker 1: hip hop yet, and there wasn't really so much hip hop.
Speaker 1: The culture existed, but there weren't so many records. There
Speaker 1: were were twelve inches, and the twelve inches that there
Speaker 1: were more often than I think, I'm trying to think
Speaker 1: there were any exceptions. It was almost always a band
Speaker 1: played track, because even though like if you went to
Speaker 1: a hip hop party, what you'd what you'd hear in
Speaker 1: at a hip hop party would be breakbeats and scratching
Speaker 1: and maybe a DJ using a drum machine. I mean
Speaker 1: maybe Grand Wizard Theodore was the first one I saw
Speaker 1: use a drum machine as part of his DJ set.
Speaker 1: The records were still being made like disco club records,
Speaker 1: but with guys rapping on them, you know, like all
Speaker 1: the sugar Hill. The sugar Hill records were not programmed,
Speaker 1: you know, they were played by a band, a house band.
Speaker 1: Even the Enjoy records were played by a house band.
Speaker 1: So I bought these records wanting it to sound like
Speaker 1: what I heard at the club, and never did. It
Speaker 1: always sounded like a band playing and a guy rapping.
Speaker 1: Where the thing that first excited me about the music
Speaker 1: was the djaying more even than the MC's you know,
Speaker 1: it's like I love the Treacherous Three and they were
Speaker 1: exciting as MC. Yeah, but when I got to see
Speaker 1: you know, Jazzy Jay cutting up breaks beat beat, you know,
Speaker 1: break records and Octopus records, if you remember yep, I
Speaker 1: got ye Octopus incredible. So that felt more like what
Speaker 1: hip hop was to me. And again I'd buy these
Speaker 1: records every week and none of them sounded like that.
Speaker 1: So when I so I decided to start making them
Speaker 1: not I never thought of it in any commercial way.
Speaker 1: I never knew that anybody would like it. I just
Speaker 1: tried to make a record that sounded like the club
Speaker 1: that I went too, almost like a documentarian, you know,
Speaker 1: like I just want to I want to hear this sound.
Speaker 1: I don't get to hear this sound and m and
Speaker 1: then it kind of spread from there. So now one
Speaker 1: of my trade I mean, of course all the bcs
Speaker 1: and then you produced all that and that's all that's
Speaker 1: it was the first album. Of course, that first time
Speaker 1: talking about the first album. First of all, I was
Speaker 1: so when y'all had the Horns, like that was the
Speaker 1: breakbeat was called the Horns, But what's the real name
Speaker 1: of it? Though I don't know. I was like me,
Speaker 1: me and old because see, we was also going to
Speaker 1: the going to those recket stores, buying all the octopus breaks,
Speaker 1: put them on our four tracks, making our demos right,
Speaker 1: no sampler, so you gotta cut it. We gotta cut
Speaker 1: it on the four track. Then the wrapper raps on
Speaker 1: top of the that right, and we was trying to
Speaker 1: get uh. But when y'all came with that, man, it
Speaker 1: was like it did it first? It was one song
Speaker 1: no no, because you know you were all dreaming were
Speaker 1: Once I heard a sugar Hill game on the radio.
Speaker 1: That's why I was heaving. I would say. When I
Speaker 1: heard them on the radio, I knew that's where I was.
Speaker 1: I had to be one day. One day, that's what
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be. I knew it was possible run anyway,
Speaker 1: you know. So you produced all those ill joints and
Speaker 1: you took the great Beasts based it with the drummers,
Speaker 1: say but on together forever. That's your programming together forever.
Speaker 1: One DMC top for another. It was either me or
Speaker 1: jam Master Jay, and I can't remember because we would
Speaker 1: work together in the studio on all the records, and
Speaker 1: sometimes he would program the beat sometimes I would program
Speaker 1: to beat. It was not exclusive. But the coolest thing
Speaker 1: about that track was that that was all eight oh
Speaker 1: eight and getting the eight O wait first of all,
Speaker 1: always not It wasn't an easy machine in the program either.
Speaker 1: Awkward it wasn't easy, very awkward way of thinking getting one.
Speaker 1: There wasn't even a lot of them out there. I
Speaker 1: mean there was more seven H sevens than eight O eights,
Speaker 1: right yeah, nine O nine is more of those with
Speaker 1: eight O ways, was like, no, you don't have one,
Speaker 1: You're not getting one, and so I never I never
Speaker 1: on the eight O eight until after I was famous.
Speaker 1: It was it was considered a failed drum machine, you know.
Speaker 1: It was it was a flop of a drum machine
Speaker 1: when it came out right, because it didn't really sound
Speaker 1: like drum. The whole idea of the drum machine was
Speaker 1: supposed to sound as much like drums. So there was
Speaker 1: already like Lynn drums and the d X and DMX.
Speaker 1: We had. We had a d I think we had
Speaker 1: a d X also, and on a lot of like
Speaker 1: the Openheimer right yeah, and on a lot of the
Speaker 1: run DMC records, we would sync up the d X
Speaker 1: and the eight to eight together and just pick certain
Speaker 1: sounds from each and get them to play in sync.
Speaker 1: And then it made it sound like a new machine
Speaker 1: you hadn't heard before, because it wasn't just either one
Speaker 1: of those drum machines fol both. Yeah, I recognized that.
Speaker 1: And I think suck MCS is that the d X
Speaker 1: because I feel like Suck MCS was like an attempt
Speaker 1: like a DJ, a program of action yea, and Russell
Speaker 1: was Russell had that beat for action, and then he
Speaker 1: got Larry to program Sucker MCS based on action. Okay.
Speaker 1: I would always thought that as a moment, I'm a
Speaker 1: young deep so I'm I'm I'm that young DJ scratching
Speaker 1: it all day, trying, you know, few years or three
Speaker 1: years behind you guys, just dreaming, you know what I mean. Um,
Speaker 1: But the d X. I love how that one sounded.
Speaker 1: I think the shakers on that one did you agree? Absolutely?
Speaker 1: And it had that uh the swing function where you
Speaker 1: can get into which was really like the whole what
Speaker 1: ended up becoming New Jack swing. That machine was the
Speaker 1: was the first drum machine that could create the beat
Speaker 1: that skipped in that way, that particular way. Okay, let
Speaker 1: me get to it. Let me get a couple more
Speaker 1: in on you. So no, no, because come on, they do.
Speaker 1: We could do this forever. So you so you did
Speaker 1: when you did, I'm glad postpone, glad we got a
Speaker 1: chance to work together finally on a on a better tomorrow.
Speaker 1: I was like, man, I said, how can I be
Speaker 1: on the planet and not get his hands to work
Speaker 1: with Rick group? And that's not that's that's not that's
Speaker 1: not supposed to be because I really, I really appreciate
Speaker 1: what you did for hip hop, what you do for
Speaker 1: hip hop, what you do for music. And I watched you, right,
Speaker 1: I watched you as an example, right, and you did
Speaker 1: something that you know what you did. But I just
Speaker 1: want to say, my whome mouth, even after you help
Speaker 1: build Death Chin right, and can can be you know, well,
Speaker 1: I know you got people around you or whatever that
Speaker 1: helped out, but can be the spinhead who combine hippop
Speaker 1: and rock together. Bro Okay? Even with this good tar
Speaker 1: hit on rock the Bells to the Arrow Smep song
Speaker 1: said all this stuff that eventually became a movement to
Speaker 1: help spread this culture. Even after you separated from hip hop,
Speaker 1: you went to and made Death of Monitor right and
Speaker 1: then continue to push the culture. Like I just remember
Speaker 1: some of the records that was coming out on it.
Speaker 1: I was like, it's it's, it's, it's, it's, it's it's
Speaker 1: still has a hip hop vibe in it, even though
Speaker 1: the average critic didn't know what to write. No, they
Speaker 1: could write whatever, but no, it's it's still had those foundations.
Speaker 1: And that's because you are producing it. Yeah, right, and
Speaker 1: and and then you took it from there. And then
Speaker 1: we talked about Shavo. But you produced that first album
Speaker 1: for it. I produced all the System of the Down albums. O,
Speaker 1: come on bro, all right here? Like did you go
Speaker 1: to NYU to study music? Like? Who would you study here? No?
Speaker 1: I started as a philosophy major and then switched to
Speaker 1: film and television because all of my friends were in
Speaker 1: film and television. Just seemed like the classes were more fun,
Speaker 1: So I just switched watch. I'd rather watch movies than
Speaker 1: discuss philosophy at that point in time. Right, that's crazy
Speaker 1: because because you think about all the records you produced
Speaker 1: that you know, that's Grammy winning, ground ground breaking, Like
Speaker 1: if somebody go and of course you know, you know
Speaker 1: you people bring you up to the you know, say
Speaker 1: the Dixie Chicks or whatever whatever, Right, but if somebody
Speaker 1: was just say it's it's it's somebody like take fifty years,
Speaker 1: a hundred years, twenty years from now, somebody start off
Speaker 1: with one of your Dixy Chicks songs, right, how deep,
Speaker 1: big out a day or how would their constouness go,
Speaker 1: Wait a minute, this is the same guy who made
Speaker 1: rock the bells. They you know what I mean? They
Speaker 1: and hip hop? You know so certain the pop like myself,
Speaker 1: like you know, jay Z came to you for ninety
Speaker 1: nine problems. We understand that, but I think a lot
Speaker 1: of motherfuckers don't understand this subjectory in this role. You
Speaker 1: you you've traveled and you've paid. Because when I look
Speaker 1: at me, if did the album with Paul banks Um
Speaker 1: last year, A couple of years of other think too,
Speaker 1: we did in twenty sixteen, k My twenty seventeen. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but Court Banks and Stills. But it's still it's just
Speaker 1: on the road you carved already. You see me and
Speaker 1: the black remember me and the Black Teasers doing songs together? Right,
Speaker 1: We didn't release it, but I remember they took it.
Speaker 1: They they they took it. They say, people taking the
Speaker 1: rick and see what he thinks because they if you
Speaker 1: don't like it, it ain't working, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: But the point being made is that you actually pioneered
Speaker 1: um this melding, you know what I mean. So I's
Speaker 1: gonna thank you for that, because as a composer, you know,
Speaker 1: I have to do that anyway. And I always felt
Speaker 1: like at one point and I don't At one point,
Speaker 1: I was strictly hip hop bro I got nauseous from
Speaker 1: R and B right, and I didn't understand where rock was,
Speaker 1: what rock was because I didn't equate great beasts with rock.
Speaker 1: But meanwhile, I'm cutting up hockey tonk woman, I'm cutting
Speaker 1: up saloon rocking in the pocket. Yeah, okay, I'm cutting
Speaker 1: up back in black ac DC. I'm cutting all that.
Speaker 1: Another one bites the dust. Now, I think another one
Speaker 1: bites the dust. He was inspired by the other. I
Speaker 1: think that was a verse. I think that might have
Speaker 1: been me verse inspiration on that one thing. Yeah, But regardless,
Speaker 1: I'm cutting up these these joints. I know what's when
Speaker 1: I'm cutting up that that we lost them this year,
Speaker 1: we lost them Rush Tom Sawyer. Nobody never really came
Speaker 1: over that track yet, There's never really been been a
Speaker 1: total hip hop song. Off of that, I did four
Speaker 1: of them, never released them because I thought that break
Speaker 1: Tom Sawyer your mama name. Yeah. I mean so meanwhile,
Speaker 1: I'm not knowing that rock is always part of it,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean? Um, A lot of our
Speaker 1: drums and break beats as coming from rock. We're not
Speaker 1: realizing it, um. But the man who I think did
Speaker 1: realize it, it's you, and I thank you, constantly added
Speaker 1: it to the music. Yo. I'll say that I rarely
Speaker 1: looked it at it by genre. It was more the
Speaker 1: feeling that it gave me, you know, Like I'll say,
Speaker 1: as a as a genre, I never really listened to
Speaker 1: R and B. I never really liked R and B.
Speaker 1: But I love James Brown and I love Barry White,
Speaker 1: you know so like. But as a as a style,
Speaker 1: it didn't speak to me. But the cases spoke to me.
Speaker 1: Samee and hip hop. I don't like all hip hop.
Speaker 1: I liked certain flavor. As a matter of fact, after
Speaker 1: leaving Deaf Jam and stopping doing hip hop for a while,
Speaker 1: I felt, I don't know if I don't know if
Speaker 1: we ever talked about this before, but like when when
Speaker 1: I started making hip hop, it was a very creative
Speaker 1: time in hip hop. Everyone who was doing it was
Speaker 1: finding their own way of doing it. And if you
Speaker 1: listen to the like the master mix shows on BLS
Speaker 1: or HBO or or Kiss at that time, during the
Speaker 1: Deaf Jam time, early the mix shows set, which was
Speaker 1: the only place you heard hip hop by the way,
Speaker 1: it wasn't on the regular station. It would only be
Speaker 1: on the mix show two Baby. So if you listen
Speaker 1: to the mix show, the records didn't sound alike. They
Speaker 1: all sounded different. They were interesting, eclectic takes on what
Speaker 1: hip hop could be. And once the Deaf Jam records
Speaker 1: got very popular, I started listening to the mix show
Speaker 1: and they just started sounding like all our records, whether
Speaker 1: we made them or not, it just felt like it.
Speaker 1: And it felt like, well, this community, this community of
Speaker 1: people making interesting things, isn't doing that anymore. Now. They're
Speaker 1: just trying to follow the one that people liked. And
Speaker 1: that's it's boring. You know. It's like it's almost like
Speaker 1: a conversation, you know, like you you put out something
Speaker 1: and then somebody puts out something you know, maybe not
Speaker 1: inspired by, but like they got a glimpse into what
Speaker 1: was possible. Because it's something you made and then they
Speaker 1: made something completely different and just as interesting, and then
Speaker 1: that would excite you. Was like, oh wow, I never
Speaker 1: thought of it like that. That means that means we
Speaker 1: could go way over here now, right, So it's it's
Speaker 1: a it's like a So I died that part of it,
Speaker 1: died out, died out. So I kind of lost interest
Speaker 1: at that point, and that's when I started making more
Speaker 1: rock records. And then the two um, the two artists
Speaker 1: who got me excited about hip hop again, We're Nwa
Speaker 1: and Moutang. Those were the next lot that was where like, oh,
Speaker 1: somebody cares again, do you know what I mean? Like
Speaker 1: somebody's not just doing the same thing. Someone's their new
Speaker 1: voices and it's exciting. Thank you for that, bro, truth,
Speaker 1: thank you for being one of those people. Because I
Speaker 1: will say what I would say as a producer when
Speaker 1: I thought I was doing or I didn't, and I
Speaker 1: love my hip hop piers. I didn't want nobody to
Speaker 1: say that my record was nothing else for hip hop,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean? I think hip hop aft
Speaker 1: though while we started wanting to be something else, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean? Like you remember people like everybody
Speaker 1: who put a reggae record on their on the album,
Speaker 1: or r B record on the album, or you know,
Speaker 1: because once l May the love song, everybody got niggah.
Speaker 1: So you know, it started, like I said, people started
Speaker 1: cookie cutting. I was like, no category for me but
Speaker 1: hip hop. And I'm gonna give a fuck when nobody's doing.
Speaker 1: I don't care what they're doing. Like, you know, that's
Speaker 1: that's a that's a bold thing. And you and you
Speaker 1: know what I think. You look. I think, as I
Speaker 1: said to myself, you actually lose that. Somewhere down the line.
Speaker 1: I lost that, you know, I lost that, like I said,
Speaker 1: when they started sharing one hundred thousand and beat, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean. And it started being like, you know,
Speaker 1: I guess when the I guess I think when the
Speaker 1: radio graph control again, because the radio had lost control
Speaker 1: for a little while too. When they grabbed control again,
Speaker 1: it was like, you gotta make it for the radio.
Speaker 1: You gotta be on this station. You know, I didn't
Speaker 1: even know, Like I learned later on a high ninety
Speaker 1: seven turned to hip hop station that when they turned
Speaker 1: to hip hop station, it was based on the success
Speaker 1: of Wool. I learned that later. Wow, Yeah, there was
Speaker 1: a dance station, but the woof songs was getting so
Speaker 1: much requested that it helped change their format. Yeah, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean. And and then at a but
Speaker 1: by time we got to nineteen ninety seven, they stopped
Speaker 1: playing well we got to like a war with them.
Speaker 1: But it's like wow, And then we started trying to
Speaker 1: make something or I as a producer, uh rabe around
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety nine, I would say ninety seven, I still
Speaker 1: don't kid, But nineteen ninety nine I started thinking I
Speaker 1: want to make something so they could play it on
Speaker 1: the radio. And it never worked for me because that's
Speaker 1: not why. That's not why you made it in the
Speaker 1: first place. That's not why people like your music in
Speaker 1: the first place. It came from you led the radio.
Speaker 1: They didn't leave you. And but like I said, it's
Speaker 1: a point. I guess. I guess it's a part in
Speaker 1: the artist. I know it's a part in my life.
Speaker 1: That you began you have a doubt. Why you start
Speaker 1: thinking it's I think the world is called conformity. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you begin to conform to what you think is normal,
Speaker 1: and at the end of the day, do a lot
Speaker 1: of yourself or you acself a lot. And I think
Speaker 1: that happened to me, and I think I realized that,
Speaker 1: you know that I stually became creatively weak. If you're
Speaker 1: noticed that after the year two thousand and I had
Speaker 1: a personal thing in my life. You know, I lost
Speaker 1: my mother in the year two thousand, I stopped. I left.
Speaker 1: In two thousand and one, I left New York and
Speaker 1: came to Cally. Basically, I just became friends with Tarantin.
Speaker 1: Though I kind of understood. I just kind of understood
Speaker 1: music theory myself by studying books, and I was like,
Speaker 1: I want to be a composed I had to. I
Speaker 1: had composed postal, took some critical critical got critical success
Speaker 1: out of it. Now I was like, I want to
Speaker 1: do this, and I want to And I ended up
Speaker 1: just composing. From the year two thousand but to two
Speaker 1: thousand and five, all I did was composed movies. And
Speaker 1: then in two thousand and uh five, I guess I
Speaker 1: showed up in a movie and then they said they
Speaker 1: gave me they saw pick me in movies, right and
Speaker 1: uh and then I wanted to be a director, and
Speaker 1: I kind of studied that for like six years, and
Speaker 1: then I became a director. And that's now as a director,
Speaker 1: I would say all my creative energy became stimulated. It
Speaker 1: was my music, my aunt, my visual everything about creativity,
Speaker 1: my writing, it all would stimulate it. It's actually, to me,
Speaker 1: the highest form of creative expression. A director who was
Speaker 1: considered our tour, someone who who asked me writes it
Speaker 1: all that. So I became that right, and I'm glad
Speaker 1: that I did. I'm satisfied in the life that it
Speaker 1: brought me. Um. But it's but after a few years,
Speaker 1: it took me to about two thous took like I said,
Speaker 1: maybe five or six years ago. It's not that moment
Speaker 1: ago that I became creatively free again. Like I don't
Speaker 1: make music for no reason or nobody, but for what
Speaker 1: Rizzo is doing for Rita. But if I want to
Speaker 1: be controlled, I'll go and do a movie. You know
Speaker 1: what I mean. Because in a movie, the character, if
Speaker 1: he's dying, he's dying. Okay, that's what it says in
Speaker 1: the script. Okay. But musically there's no way to control
Speaker 1: me anymore. And I feel grateful that, and I think
Speaker 1: I'm gonna have a sell musically again. I don't know
Speaker 1: what that means far as for a commercial level, that
Speaker 1: it doesn't have to mean nothing. I'm satisfied with the
Speaker 1: idea that it's not an economical need for me to
Speaker 1: do it, and that economically I have found the way
Speaker 1: to to to express art and get economics for it,
Speaker 1: which is my filmmaking commits. Right. It's a great place.
Speaker 1: It's a great place to be. It's a great place
Speaker 1: to be where you can support yourself making art and
Speaker 1: then still be able to examine all of the different
Speaker 1: creative areas that are exciting to you, regardless of whether
Speaker 1: they're you know, whether they're for commercial purposes or not. Right,
Speaker 1: I agree, brother, exactly. How's your relationship with the other
Speaker 1: woo the rest of the woo? Always that peace, always
Speaker 1: that peace. Man. Yeah, well we are, we are, we
Speaker 1: are brotherhood. My best example, right is that I got
Speaker 1: a lawsuit you God issuing me, right, and it's this
Speaker 1: lawsuit been going off for about three years now, maybe
Speaker 1: the fourth year. And we was in Australia last year.
Speaker 1: They did a U tank tour in Australia, Sydney our
Speaker 1: house and he gets there and his credit card isn't working,
Speaker 1: and so I took my credit card to them in
Speaker 1: a suite take care of everything for him, and then
Speaker 1: he was just like only WO could do that, this
Speaker 1: niggasuing you. You're feeding them and lending them money. I said,
Speaker 1: in this business, I love his motherfucker. I love my
Speaker 1: brothers man, and we have that, you know, we we
Speaker 1: have that love for each other. And I think and
Speaker 1: I'm proud, I think our passed to be proud to
Speaker 1: see that this was a community. Wuchang wasn't just a
Speaker 1: you know, a bunch of guys like you know some
Speaker 1: of some a lot of these bands maybe two guys
Speaker 1: didn't know each other or whatever, you know, they put together. No,
Speaker 1: this is a group of men who at minimum twenty
Speaker 1: five thirty year relationships some mere Ray Kuan go back
Speaker 1: to the third grade. Bro. Amazing. Yeah, So that's a
Speaker 1: blessing and it's uh in that part of it permeates
Speaker 1: and seems to you know, trump anything else. Yeah, beautiful man,
Speaker 1: Thank you for talking, brother, Thank you for having me. Man.
Speaker 1: It's a blessing seeing you. Blessing to you, n bum bum,
Speaker 1: Thanks brother Taste. Thanks to Rizzard for catching up with Rick.
Speaker 1: You can hear all of our favorite Rizard produced songs
Speaker 1: by heading to Broken record podcast dot com and be
Speaker 1: sure to check out our YouTube channel. We can find
Speaker 1: some great bonus material from this innerview. You can subscribe
Speaker 1: to our YouTube channel at YouTube slash Broken Record Podcast.
Speaker 1: Broken Record is produced with help from Jason Gambronil Lobell,
Speaker 1: Leah Rose, and Martin Gonzalez for Pushkin Industries. Our theme
Speaker 1: music is by Kenny Beats. I'm justin Richmond. Thanks for listening.