RZA Says Raekwon’s Demands Would Cripple Wu-Tang’s Album Budget
The RZA is on a promo run for his upcoming movie, Brick Mansions, which comes out this Friday, April 25 and co-stars the late Paul Walker. While on his press run, XXL spoke to him about the film and to get an update on the state of Wu-Tang, a topic that has become contentious in the past year and especially heated in the past few weeks.
Since last year, Wu-Tang's reunion album A Better Tomorrow has been in the news frequently. The album would be the group's first release since their 2007 album 8 Diagrams, and just about every fan of hip-hop is waiting for it to drop. However, ongoing disagreements have heightened within the past month, with the back in forth between RZA—who said in a since-outdated interview that he hadn't spoken to Raekwon in months—and Rae in particular getting heated, reaching its peak when The Chef said RZA was a liar and that he was "on strike" from the Wu, to which RZA responded, leading to The Abbot giving Rae what amounts to a 30-day ultimatum to either be on the new album or not.
Obviously, there's been a lot on RZA's plate of late; in addition to his public sparring with The Chef and his new movie out tomorrow, he's also readying a one-of-a-kind Wu-Tang album called The Wu: Once Upon A Time In Shaolin, which the Clan will be auctioning off for reportedly millions of dollars, and has been dealing with news reports identifying former Wu-Tang affiliate Christ Bearer as the man who cut off his own penis in an apparent suicide attempt last week. So RZA might be forgiven for being a little distracted at the moment.
But with all these issues up in the air, RZA spoke with XXL in this second part of our two-part interview—the first of which, focusing on Brick Mansions and his relationship with Walker, can be found here—about the issues between him and Raekwon, the idea of a Wu-Tang album without the entire Clan, and the plans for the album's next single. —Emmanuel C.M.
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