RZA: Wu-Tang Clan, Kung Fu, Chess, God, Life, and Death

00:00:00.000 | The following is a conversation with RZA,

00:00:03.340 | the rapper, record producer, filmmaker, actor, writer,

00:00:06.720 | philosopher, kung fu scholar, and the mastermind

00:00:10.680 | of the legendary hip hop group Wu-Tang Clan.

00:00:14.880 | This is the Lex Friedman Podcast.

00:00:17.240 | To support it, please check out our sponsors

00:00:19.240 | in the description.

00:00:20.440 | And now, here's my conversation with RZA.

00:00:23.620 | In the Tao of Wu, you write,

00:00:27.160 | "When my mother left the physical world,

00:00:29.440 | "I lost one of my main links to the universe."

00:00:32.560 | They say that you have an umbilical cord

00:00:35.280 | and an etheric cord, which is the invisible cord

00:00:38.200 | that attaches you to your soul,

00:00:40.160 | your mother's soul, and all other souls.

00:00:43.260 | When one passes away, you really lose something.

00:00:46.480 | It's physical and mental.

00:00:48.360 | It's real.

00:00:49.520 | Part of you dies.

00:00:50.680 | What have you learned about life from your mother?

00:00:56.040 | I mean, I learned life itself from my mother.

00:00:58.800 | You know, being one of 11 children

00:01:03.680 | and seeing the sacrifice that she gave to us,

00:01:10.000 | therefore given to life,

00:01:12.120 | it's really the greatest lesson of life.

00:01:15.480 | The thing that shook me as I wrote those words

00:01:22.460 | was coming up young with arrogance, confidence,

00:01:27.460 | knowledge of myself.

00:01:33.220 | They called me the scientist.

00:01:35.980 | We was taught you're the supreme being.

00:01:40.260 | In order to be the supreme being,

00:01:41.660 | you gotta be supreme amongst other beings.

00:01:44.680 | I understand that more now than I did then

00:01:50.100 | because then it was so literal.

00:01:53.000 | The word God derived basically from the Greek language,

00:01:58.000 | as they say, and it meant wisdom, strength, and beauty.

00:02:01.920 | Yeah, we could have that,

00:02:06.120 | but the power to control life and death

00:02:08.720 | is something that you would assume is a God trait.

00:02:14.220 | So now here you are saying that you're a God, right?

00:02:20.160 | And you're reading the Bible

00:02:21.400 | how Jesus brought back Lazarus.

00:02:23.620 | And now it's your turn to do something.

00:02:27.420 | And when my mother was laying there in the hospital bed,

00:02:32.320 | and air was no longer coming out of her lungs

00:02:34.760 | and going into her lungs,

00:02:36.240 | where's my power to bring her back to life?

00:02:40.000 | - So you can't truly be God.

00:02:44.720 | You're powerless.

00:02:46.320 | - Yeah, or God is not the definition

00:02:48.920 | that we need to use to describe it

00:02:50.720 | because it's a translation of wisdom, strength, and beauty.

00:02:54.640 | So you could be that.

00:02:55.720 | So I'm answering your question,

00:02:58.480 | what did my mother teach me about life?

00:02:59.960 | I learned that day on her physical passing,

00:03:02.880 | that okay, there's a physical me.

00:03:07.760 | - Do you think about her?

00:03:10.760 | Do you miss her?

00:03:12.120 | - Of course.

00:03:13.720 | I keep my mother in my prayer every day.

00:03:17.800 | And the thing I pray the most

00:03:19.960 | beyond giving thanks is I pray that her name

00:03:26.760 | is honored and remembered by my family.

00:03:29.240 | I don't know if the world's gonna remember it, right?

00:03:33.640 | Even though if you watch my movie, "Love Beats Rhymes,"

00:03:36.000 | I named the school in that movie

00:03:38.280 | after my mother just to leave it somewhere else.

00:03:41.720 | - Yeah, in physical space, yeah.

00:03:44.040 | - Yeah, exactly.

00:03:45.160 | But yeah, painful.

00:03:47.720 | The pain of my mother's passing is indescribable.

00:03:51.880 | Only until it happens to a person they know,

00:03:55.360 | and then they won't describe it either.

00:03:56.880 | Only the people that lost their mother,

00:03:58.560 | they could look at each other and they got this nod.

00:04:00.840 | You know what I mean?

00:04:01.880 | But one other thing happened to me

00:04:04.680 | was the joy of life hit me differently.

00:04:08.600 | And I think it was the realization of my own mortality

00:04:16.760 | versus my immortality.

00:04:19.720 | It's a big, big thing.

00:04:22.600 | And I don't know if we'll get to expound on that,

00:04:25.040 | but there was a joy that overcame me

00:04:26.720 | because I was kind of free of a certain illusion

00:04:30.400 | about the immortality of my physical being

00:04:34.360 | versus the mortality of my physical being.

00:04:39.080 | And I was like, okay, wow, I understand.

00:04:42.120 | - So that was the first or the hardest realization

00:04:45.800 | you've experienced that you're mortal?

00:04:47.800 | - Yeah, and I'll say mortal

00:04:50.840 | and what you're looking at here physically.

00:04:54.360 | I wouldn't say my soul is mortal.

00:04:57.480 | I would say it's immortal because at the end of the day,

00:05:01.240 | it's just like I could sit here

00:05:03.840 | and I could just hum, please, please, please, by James Brown.

00:05:09.720 | But James Brown is not gonna come in here and do that.

00:05:15.360 | - So in some sense, James Brown is still here.

00:05:18.360 | In another sense, he's gone.

00:05:19.200 | - The soul is here.

00:05:20.400 | - The soul.

00:05:21.240 | - The soul is here.

00:05:22.400 | - Well, it lives through you by you singing it.

00:05:25.560 | It lives through you by you listening to it, celebrating it.

00:05:28.800 | And the hope is that the human species continues

00:05:32.480 | to celebrate the great minds

00:05:34.880 | and the great creations of the past.

00:05:36.840 | - I would add this to that equation.

00:05:38.640 | When I say it's immortal,

00:05:44.240 | I don't think not just only because somebody sings it.

00:05:47.320 | It's like, where's the fire at right now?

00:05:51.040 | It's in the air.

00:05:54.040 | You just gotta spark the spark.

00:05:56.240 | (laughing)

00:05:57.840 | - Yeah.

00:05:58.760 | - So it's always there.

00:06:00.160 | - Are you afraid of death?

00:06:03.280 | - No, I'm not afraid of death.

00:06:05.960 | I'm not trying to see it.

00:06:07.200 | I'm not rushing that nowhere near me.

00:06:10.800 | Because all I know is life.

00:06:12.880 | My life is living.

00:06:14.080 | I read a lot of ancient texts.

00:06:17.400 | People probably know about me.

00:06:19.400 | I love one of the great teachers named Bodhidharma.

00:06:22.000 | And there was a thing written in one of the books of his,

00:06:29.000 | or one of the teachings of his.

00:06:30.800 | And the question, somebody asked him a similar question.

00:06:34.800 | You're scared of death?

00:06:35.640 | Or what are you gonna be after you die?

00:06:39.440 | And his answer was, I don't know.

00:06:41.440 | He had answers to everything.

00:06:43.720 | But he's like, I don't know.

00:06:44.560 | They said, oh, he doesn't know that.

00:06:46.520 | He said, yeah, because I haven't died yet.

00:06:48.280 | - Yeah.

00:06:49.240 | Well, the uncertainty to some people is terrifying.

00:06:52.040 | Not knowing what's on the other side of the door.

00:06:55.000 | - Yeah.

00:06:56.080 | I mean, especially when you're young.

00:06:58.400 | As a kid, fear permeated my life.

00:07:03.400 | You know what I mean?

00:07:04.480 | I was actually watching horror movies.

00:07:06.320 | And I believe in all type of supernatural things

00:07:10.680 | that could or can happen.

00:07:12.000 | I thought I saw things as well.

00:07:14.400 | And whether it was being projected from my own mind

00:07:17.960 | or whether it was there visible to me, I don't know.

00:07:20.560 | But life is beautiful.

00:07:25.280 | And we have it.

00:07:28.160 | And we should use it all the way to the last drop.

00:07:32.840 | - Realizing the mortality,

00:07:34.800 | the gift your mother gave to you is realizing the immortal.

00:07:38.880 | And in so doing, help you realize that life is beautiful.

00:07:42.600 | - Yeah.

00:07:43.840 | - On this topic, Quincy Jones, I read, said to ODB and you,

00:07:48.640 | when it rains, get wet.

00:07:50.360 | What do these words mean to you?

00:07:52.960 | - Well, I think what Quincy was saying at that time was,

00:07:58.080 | you know, I think I was more conservative,

00:08:02.160 | like as a person.

00:08:03.840 | And like, you know, had money.

00:08:07.320 | Women wanted me.

00:08:08.480 | - Yeah.

00:08:09.320 | - Anything I kind of wanted,

00:08:10.880 | I probably could have had, you know what I mean?

00:08:15.240 | And he was just saying, when it rains, get wet, enjoy this.

00:08:17.920 | Man, it's raining on you.

00:08:19.400 | You know what I mean?

00:08:21.400 | Don't pick up the umbrella.

00:08:22.560 | Don't go back in the house.

00:08:24.400 | - Yeah.

00:08:25.240 | - Get wet.

00:08:26.080 | - Experience the moment.

00:08:27.120 | - Yeah. And enjoy it.

00:08:28.480 | And I didn't take total heed to him at that time.

00:08:32.600 | A couple of years later, I took some heed.

00:08:35.360 | But at that time I didn't take heed.

00:08:37.000 | And when I took heed,

00:08:39.440 | I think that I may have misinterpreted

00:08:44.960 | by looking at his example of getting wet

00:08:48.200 | versus my example of getting wet.

00:08:50.120 | And I can tell you right now,

00:08:52.560 | I'm getting wet right now in my way.

00:08:56.160 | - In part, thanks to your mother.

00:08:57.520 | But overall, you just learned how to appreciate the rain.

00:09:01.600 | Just like the experience of every moment.

00:09:04.760 | - Yeah. And I'll share this with you

00:09:05.840 | 'cause this is gonna be a very open conversation

00:09:08.480 | and I haven't had this conversation.

00:09:09.960 | So definitely in part to my mother,

00:09:12.760 | then in part to my wife.

00:09:14.080 | I meet my wife, it's my second wife,

00:09:19.560 | but I met her after my mother passed.

00:09:22.360 | And she was just a friend.

00:09:23.920 | You know, some girl I met, thought she was beautiful

00:09:27.120 | and actually built a friendship with her.

00:09:29.320 | But a few years later when the relationship became like,

00:09:35.360 | you know, this is gonna be my woman,

00:09:37.680 | it was actually when I was doing the middle of my divorce

00:09:42.040 | and I was like, you know, do I run wild and hey, hey, hey,

00:09:45.680 | you know, me and my wife already filed, we were separated.

00:09:48.880 | And do I run wild?

00:09:51.280 | And I didn't run wild a little bit, but not too wild.

00:09:54.160 | Right?

00:09:55.520 | And you know, I'm still a man, I'm a hip hop guy.

00:09:59.360 | - I read you know how to party.

00:10:01.640 | - Yeah, exactly.

00:10:02.880 | But the funny thing is that my wife now, her name is Talani,

00:10:07.880 | my uncle said she reminds me of your mother.

00:10:13.440 | He knew my mother when, before I knew my mother.

00:10:17.960 | And he saw that and we ended up dating,

00:10:23.720 | got engaged and then her mother passes.

00:10:30.720 | And so now there's a total understanding of everything

00:10:35.680 | and we actually helped build each other back up.

00:10:38.600 | So of course I have to thank my mother for the awareness.

00:10:42.340 | Then I thank my wife for bringing that awareness

00:10:47.800 | to actualization, like to actually feel,

00:10:52.800 | I don't think I'd be talking to you right now

00:10:54.560 | and talking as much as I do these days

00:10:56.760 | if it wasn't for the security and peace and harmony

00:11:00.000 | that I was able to gain at home.

00:11:03.040 | You know, so.

00:11:05.600 | - And like you said, you now share that look

00:11:07.920 | of having both lost your mom.

00:11:12.520 | What have you learned from Quincy about music,

00:11:16.320 | about business, about life?

00:11:17.940 | - Quincy Jones is a great mind, a great artist,

00:11:23.920 | you know, a treasure in all reality.

00:11:27.040 | He seen it from when it was, he couldn't walk in this,

00:11:30.720 | he couldn't eat in the same places he played his music at

00:11:34.000 | to owning places bigger than ours.

00:11:36.840 | So what a beautiful life, you know?

00:11:38.640 | He's the type of guy, if you spend one hour with him,

00:11:44.460 | you got a lifetime of information.

00:11:48.840 | And I was blessed to spend multiple hours with him

00:11:50.960 | and days with him and, you know,

00:11:52.760 | there's a certain period of time

00:11:54.000 | where we came across each other

00:11:55.440 | and he was always there to share the knowledge.

00:11:59.520 | Like that's another thing about him that I think is special.

00:12:01.760 | And hopefully I picked that up is that

00:12:06.000 | he's always willing to share,

00:12:09.220 | share with his experience, his knowledge.

00:12:12.080 | I mean, I think he'll even share his home

00:12:17.080 | to the right person if he feels that

00:12:19.120 | that's what they need to get back on their feet.

00:12:20.880 | He's a very beautiful man.

00:12:23.480 | - So just the kindness, the goodness of the man

00:12:26.000 | is like the thing that really rubbed off on you.

00:12:28.800 | - Yeah, I mean, minimum, right?

00:12:31.200 | I mean, Quincy Jones also in his fifties,

00:12:34.780 | as a producer produced one of the greatest albums

00:12:38.580 | of all time and one of the greatest selling albums

00:12:41.400 | of all time, not just great critically,

00:12:43.720 | economically great.

00:12:45.740 | And I mean, he made, I think he did it

00:12:48.520 | at the age I am right now.

00:12:49.720 | So I might have a great year coming up.

00:12:51.620 | (laughing)

00:12:53.880 | - Time it well, yeah.

00:12:56.380 | So now you got a taste of what greatness is.

00:13:00.160 | You get to see what greatness is.

00:13:01.700 | So you know what--

00:13:03.500 | - Exactly, how to strive for yourself, yeah.

00:13:06.660 | - You've have a few people you've worked with

00:13:08.580 | who are fascinating like yourself, Quentin Tarantino.

00:13:11.940 | You worked with him.

00:13:12.940 | When somebody asked you to describe him with one word,

00:13:16.380 | you said encyclopedia.

00:13:18.480 | What have you learned from the guy?

00:13:19.940 | About filmmaking, about life again.

00:13:22.700 | - A very generous man with his knowledge.

00:13:25.020 | And for me, he shared it, I think in a way

00:13:28.700 | that was unique in a sense of,

00:13:30.720 | no at a point in time, we just was super duper tight.

00:13:35.820 | Like I'm going to his crib and watching movies

00:13:39.260 | and just having long conversations about art

00:13:42.900 | and about life.

00:13:44.460 | You know what I mean?

00:13:45.500 | So I learned a lot.

00:13:47.980 | I consider him, especially when it comes

00:13:50.860 | to anything cinematic in my life,

00:13:53.580 | I consider him the godfather of that for me.

00:13:56.340 | I think, I humbly asked him to mentor me,

00:14:01.340 | which is a very humbling thing to do

00:14:04.580 | coming from my neighborhood, coming from who I am,

00:14:07.220 | coming from, I was already a multi-platinum artist.

00:14:10.980 | I mean, it was past the year 2000 already.

00:14:16.120 | So like 2001, 2002 that I asked him to mentor me.

00:14:20.200 | So I was the wizard already, you know what I mean?

00:14:23.580 | But I humbled myself because I saw in him

00:14:28.420 | a craft of brain power that to me resonated with me,

00:14:33.420 | but I was just a Patamon at it.

00:14:36.580 | I was a novice at it

00:14:37.820 | because I was trying to make movies in my music,

00:14:42.220 | you know, trying to make videos.

00:14:44.220 | And here was a man who was a master of it

00:14:46.280 | and an encyclopedia of it as well.

00:14:48.740 | And-- - Like film history.

00:14:51.520 | - Film history from whether it's the actor,

00:14:54.240 | the director, the cinematographer,

00:14:56.660 | maybe even the costume designer.

00:14:58.500 | He may know 50, 60,

00:15:00.280 | he may know the 50 greatest costume designers in his memory.

00:15:03.440 | Yeah, I mean, this guy's brain.

00:15:06.380 | - Both of you have pretty good memory.

00:15:08.140 | (both laughing)

00:15:09.680 | - I'd love to be a fly on the wall in that conversation.

00:15:12.440 | - Yeah, and kung fu movies mostly, I guess.

00:15:14.560 | - We actually started,

00:15:16.240 | I think we started our relationship

00:15:19.720 | trying to outdo each other.

00:15:21.560 | - Knowledge-wise or what?

00:15:22.860 | - Yeah, movie knowledge-wise.

00:15:24.880 | Actually, kung fu movie knowledge-wise.

00:15:27.280 | And I think that category,

00:15:28.360 | if it wasn't another category, I wouldn't have had a chance,

00:15:30.840 | but at least in that category,

00:15:33.260 | I was pretty holding my weight.

00:15:35.200 | - Who won?

00:15:36.220 | - You know what?

00:15:37.460 | I'll be honest and say that I may have said a few,

00:15:42.080 | he didn't see, but Quentin is older than me.

00:15:44.920 | So he could go back.

00:15:47.360 | - Farther.

00:15:48.200 | - Yeah, he could go back to 72,

00:15:50.280 | when I didn't see one yet, you know what I mean?

00:15:51.960 | - Yeah.

00:15:52.800 | - Yeah.

00:15:53.640 | - Well, he said "Master of the Flying Guillotine"

00:15:55.080 | that I got a chance to,

00:15:56.800 | that you commentate over today,

00:15:58.160 | and I got a chance to see the screening of.

00:16:00.200 | He said that's one of his favorites.

00:16:02.640 | For you, the 36 Chamber of Shaolin,

00:16:08.000 | the Master Killer is your favorite.

00:16:10.120 | Best ever, would you say?

00:16:11.920 | That's the greatest Kung Fu movie ever?

00:16:15.200 | - It's hard to say the greatest ever, right?

00:16:18.120 | Because somebody may make another one,

00:16:20.160 | and it depends on your own phase of life,

00:16:22.600 | but I will put that first.

00:16:27.600 | If I want to introduce somebody to Kung Fu movies,

00:16:30.240 | that's a beautiful entry.

00:16:32.360 | - You talk about knowledge, you talk about wisdom.

00:16:35.040 | What kind of wisdom do you draw from Kung Fu movies?

00:16:39.320 | You know what?

00:16:40.160 | The martial art itself and the movies.

00:16:42.520 | - It's endless wisdom to be drawn, and I draw it.

00:16:45.760 | You know?

00:16:46.600 | I draw it in a way, you know,

00:16:49.560 | that I could decipher it in my own life.

00:16:52.480 | So, for instance, in the movie "Master Killer,"

00:16:58.480 | he basically, when he does Kung Fu,

00:17:04.040 | he does a really, a style called the Hung Gar technique.

00:17:08.000 | And the director of the movie is actually a Hung Gar expert

00:17:12.960 | who has a lineage that traces all the way back

00:17:15.800 | to Shaolin Temple.

00:17:17.080 | And this director always wanted to keep his movies pure

00:17:21.440 | and to bring Hung Gar to the world.

00:17:23.320 | It's like he wanted to show the world this lineage.

00:17:26.440 | In fact, you just said "Master of the Flying Guillotine"

00:17:29.520 | is Quentin's favorite movie,

00:17:30.800 | and we mentioned in "36 Chambers," it's my favorite movie,

00:17:33.080 | but the action director of "Master of the Flying Guillotine"

00:17:36.800 | is the director of "36 Chambers of Shaolin."

00:17:40.720 | And some of the things that's happening

00:17:43.040 | in "Master of the Flying Guillotine"

00:17:45.760 | is really the infant stage

00:17:47.560 | of what this action director's gonna learn

00:17:50.560 | and then use later on in his movies.

00:17:53.440 | So that's the beauty of it.

00:17:54.480 | It's almost like, you know,

00:17:57.240 | Quentin is seeing him in his generation,

00:17:59.880 | so Quentin might have been the same age I was

00:18:02.320 | watching that movie.

00:18:03.160 | And then when he becomes a director,

00:18:05.080 | I'm at Quentin's age and I'm seeing his work.

00:18:07.960 | So some symbiontist relationship there.

00:18:10.600 | And I'll end this question by saying,

00:18:12.960 | Hung Gar deals with the five animal technique.

00:18:18.160 | The tiger, the crane, right?

00:18:20.840 | The leopard, the snake, and the dragon.

00:18:24.520 | Those are the five, that's the five pattern.

00:18:26.360 | Some people go seven, some go 12,

00:18:27.800 | but let's just stick to the five pattern first.

00:18:30.680 | How do a man emulate a tiger?

00:18:35.360 | And you see a tiger's fists.

00:18:39.000 | He curls before he spawns on you.

00:18:43.560 | How does a man emulate a snake?

00:18:46.520 | It doesn't have to be only in the Kung Fu move.

00:18:50.920 | It's in the ideology of the snake.

00:18:54.720 | It's in the agility of the crane.

00:18:58.440 | At any moment, sometimes punching a person

00:19:02.440 | is not gonna work, as they would say

00:19:05.040 | in leopard fist or tiger paw.

00:19:07.200 | So sometimes you might have to poke him

00:19:09.600 | in the eye with the crane's beak.

00:19:12.760 | So having your mind able to adapt the instinct

00:19:16.280 | of the animal when you are being attacked

00:19:20.680 | or when you are being the aggressor,

00:19:22.580 | that's something that you don't need a form for.

00:19:26.560 | That's the mentality.

00:19:27.480 | So Kung Fu, like I said, it informs me endlessly

00:19:30.760 | because at first I was trying to learn all the,

00:19:33.200 | ah, hold my, like I can't really hit you with that

00:19:35.920 | and really hurt you unless I've been banging my hand

00:19:37.840 | a thousand times on some bricks

00:19:39.720 | and made it so callous or muscles are so strong.

00:19:43.400 | But the idea that if me and you was to get into a fight

00:19:47.680 | and I'm gonna tiger up on you and take that instinct

00:19:50.840 | and prance when I'm a prance,

00:19:53.240 | or fly away like the stork.

00:19:57.360 | You know what I mean?

00:19:58.200 | Like, yo, that's the mentality.

00:20:00.560 | - It's much more than the technical moves.

00:20:02.760 | It's much deeper.

00:20:04.760 | - Yeah.

00:20:05.600 | - Yeah, it's interesting.

00:20:07.440 | I mean, when I see the Kung Fu movies,

00:20:08.840 | 'cause I love martial arts, all martial arts,

00:20:11.840 | and competitive ones too,

00:20:13.000 | like the actual competitions and so on.

00:20:15.080 | It just seems like Kung Fu movies go much deeper

00:20:18.360 | than just like the techniques.

00:20:20.080 | - Yeah.

00:20:20.920 | They strike, I mean, if you see it, right?

00:20:23.200 | Even, I watched a great MMA fight recently

00:20:25.640 | and just interesting 'cause he was on top of the guy,

00:20:30.640 | you know, and the way he got from under him,

00:20:34.280 | you know, it had to be, you know,

00:20:40.200 | his spirit got from under him.

00:20:42.160 | - It's something like mixture of crane and whatever.

00:20:45.160 | - Snake, ill, with the slippery ill technique.

00:20:48.880 | - Yeah, no, I love that when people become artists

00:20:52.240 | in the cage or that's much bigger than just like

00:20:55.520 | winning much bigger than particular techniques.

00:20:57.800 | It's just art, especially at the highest level competition

00:21:00.640 | where millions of people are watching.

00:21:02.760 | - Which is pressure within itself.

00:21:04.040 | - Yes, that's art under pressure

00:21:07.320 | is even more beautiful art.

00:21:10.160 | - You know, you look at some of these fights

00:21:11.760 | and you wonder like why somebody wins and lose.

00:21:14.720 | And sometimes the less talent guy could win

00:21:19.280 | because he could deal with the pressure.

00:21:21.600 | When the other guy, he could have beat him

00:21:23.200 | if there was someone else, but not in this arena.

00:21:25.640 | - So you're a scholar of history, including hip hop history.

00:21:31.840 | I've listened to so many of your interviews.

00:21:35.400 | You've spoken brilliantly about some of the big figures

00:21:38.480 | in hip hop history, Tupac, Biggie, Nas, many others.

00:21:43.200 | Maybe let's look at Tupac and Biggie.

00:21:47.200 | What made them special in the history of music?

00:21:49.840 | - That's a good question.

00:21:52.880 | So I don't know if I'm the authority to answer it,

00:21:56.200 | but I'll just speak my piece on it.

00:21:58.840 | And maybe I can just add on,

00:22:00.720 | 'cause I'm sure it's a lot of people

00:22:02.040 | that spent a lot of time with them that could speak on it.

00:22:05.320 | But just as a fellow artist,

00:22:07.200 | I think not only was B.I.G. a dope lyricist,

00:22:14.520 | I think he had a voice that was really immaculate

00:22:19.760 | in a sense that some rappers get on top of music

00:22:24.760 | and you gotta get used to them,

00:22:27.520 | or you gotta vibe with them.

00:22:30.680 | But he make a record sounds like a record immediately.

00:22:35.680 | If you go back and listen to his music,

00:22:41.040 | you could take his voice and put it on anything.

00:22:43.400 | And for some reason, it sounds like a record.

00:22:47.560 | You know what I mean?

00:22:48.400 | - Is he just like the raw voice of the man?

00:22:50.360 | - Yeah.

00:22:51.200 | - So you could just listen to it raw

00:22:52.760 | and it sounds like a record.

00:22:54.200 | - Yeah, but if you put a beat,

00:22:56.360 | take his voice and put it on any beat,

00:22:58.240 | he just has a voice, it's immaculate.

00:23:04.200 | So his lyrical skills and all that was great.

00:23:06.480 | And you gotta think once again,

00:23:10.120 | he's doing all this, he's not even 25 years old.

00:23:15.280 | Then you go to Pac, once again, immaculate voice.

00:23:18.760 | But what Pac had, I think,

00:23:22.440 | was a way of touching us on all of our emotions.

00:23:27.440 | And especially on, Pac had the power

00:23:30.880 | to infuse your emotional thought,

00:23:33.720 | like Brenda has a baby, they're a mama.

00:23:36.120 | But then he had the power to arouse the rebel in you.

00:23:41.540 | You know? - Yeah.

00:23:44.280 | - And those two things,

00:23:46.080 | actually, he was probably more dangerous

00:23:51.960 | than Big, Notorious B.I.G.

00:23:56.440 | Like Notorious B.I.G., we could party with him

00:23:59.320 | to this day, we're still,

00:24:01.360 | but Pac was probably going to a point,

00:24:04.200 | you know, he was more going into the Malcolm X of things.

00:24:08.000 | - Yeah.

00:24:08.840 | - And society fears that.

00:24:12.200 | - Yeah, so he was really good at communicating love

00:24:15.400 | and at starting revolutions.

00:24:18.960 | - Yeah, yeah.

00:24:20.080 | - And that's dangerous.

00:24:21.040 | - Very dangerous.

00:24:22.480 | And Big communicated love,

00:24:24.720 | but he wasn't starting revolutions.

00:24:26.680 | (laughing)

00:24:27.920 | - Well, it's interesting to think about

00:24:29.920 | what the world would be like if they were still with us.

00:24:32.680 | But it's the way of the world.

00:24:35.320 | Hendrix, a lot of those guys just go too soon.

00:24:39.640 | - Yeah, it's a peculiar thing.

00:24:41.480 | Now, you asked me earlier, am I scared of death?

00:24:45.200 | And I answered you, no, I'm not scared of death.

00:24:49.760 | I mean, I'm not trying to see it, though.

00:24:51.360 | You know what I mean?

00:24:52.440 | - Yeah.

00:24:53.280 | - It's like, that was the block of death.

00:24:55.280 | It's like, I'm not really going right there right now.

00:24:57.720 | I'm making a left or right turn.

00:25:00.020 | You know what I mean?

00:25:01.000 | Unless it was mandatory for some greaterness,

00:25:04.360 | greater good, it's like, okay, I gotta drive through that.

00:25:07.600 | You know what I mean?

00:25:08.440 | - Yeah, but it can still happen.

00:25:09.880 | That's the meditation on death part,

00:25:11.760 | where you could die at the end of today.

00:25:14.320 | - Yeah, you could die, well, dying and death,

00:25:17.520 | I think it's two different things, personally.

00:25:19.820 | - The process you mean of death, or just--

00:25:23.240 | - Yeah, I mean, you could die, like I said,

00:25:25.120 | you could die every day.

00:25:26.600 | You could die and not be yourself.

00:25:29.840 | You know what I mean?

00:25:30.960 | Which is crazy.

00:25:32.760 | But to get to a point of no return,

00:25:35.160 | that's a whole 'nother chamber.

00:25:38.280 | - I mean, there's some sense in which,

00:25:40.180 | RZA, the producer, becomes somebody else completely

00:25:46.120 | when you're making a film,

00:25:47.200 | becomes somebody else completely when you're,

00:25:50.520 | I don't know, playing chess,

00:25:51.760 | becomes completely something different

00:25:53.800 | when you do Kung Fu or watch Kung Fu,

00:25:57.200 | or when you're a family man.

00:25:58.720 | All of those are little deaths

00:25:59.960 | when you transition from one place to another.

00:26:02.320 | So it's not like you're one being, you're many things.

00:26:06.520 | - Yeah.

00:26:07.400 | I would describe, now I would describe that

00:26:08.800 | as a whole life, though.

00:26:10.000 | (laughing)

00:26:11.720 | - Yeah, it's fun.

00:26:12.560 | Outside of you and anybody on Wu-Tang,

00:26:18.200 | who is the greatest rapper from a lyrics,

00:26:21.960 | like a wordsmith perspective in hip hop history,

00:26:24.680 | or some of the greatest, maybe some candidates?

00:26:27.000 | - Let's name a few.

00:26:28.600 | I mean, you're gonna have to start with Rakim.

00:26:31.440 | You know?

00:26:32.280 | You're gonna have to put Coogie Rap in there.

00:26:34.640 | You know what I mean?

00:26:35.680 | - So going back.

00:26:36.640 | - You're gonna have to pick up with those brothers first.

00:26:38.880 | You might have to, if you want a good,

00:26:41.120 | technically you might have to start with Grandmaster Cass.

00:26:43.840 | You know what I mean?

00:26:44.680 | Who you might not, you might not even heard of.

00:26:46.480 | - Nope.

00:26:47.320 | - You know what I mean?

00:26:48.140 | But you may have sung his lyrics

00:26:49.400 | every time you sang Sugarhill, "Rapper's Delight."

00:26:52.080 | 'Cause that's--

00:26:52.920 | - That's his?

00:26:53.740 | - Yeah, they copied his, and they made it theirs.

00:26:56.720 | (laughing)

00:26:59.120 | But point being made, but I'll name a couple more.

00:27:02.640 | I gotta put Nas in that category.

00:27:05.680 | You know, we got a chessboard in front of us,

00:27:07.440 | and one of the greatest chess players,

00:27:10.400 | the youngest Grandmaster, you know,

00:27:13.200 | before, I think, Carlson,

00:27:16.520 | was Bobby Fischer.

00:27:21.520 | So let's use Bobby Fischer as American.

00:27:23.520 | One of the greatest American chess players.

00:27:25.160 | Of course, Susan Pogar may have tied his record

00:27:27.720 | as the youngest Grandmaster,

00:27:29.880 | and she's the youngest female Grandmaster, I think, to date.

00:27:32.880 | But he was a master at what, 14?

00:27:37.480 | - Yeah, something like that.

00:27:38.600 | - Right?

00:27:39.480 | So now, to me, I met Nas when he was 15.

00:27:43.800 | He was already a master lyricist.

00:27:46.760 | It takes about 10 years to become a master lyricist.

00:27:49.240 | So by the time the world heard Wu-Tang,

00:27:52.760 | most of us had 10 years of rapping in us already.

00:27:55.940 | So that's why you met us at mastery level.

00:27:58.880 | The Jizzle was already a master when Nas was a master,

00:28:02.280 | but Jizzle was 21, Nas was 15.

00:28:04.880 | (laughing)

00:28:06.840 | - Nas is like the Mozart of rap.

00:28:09.400 | - Yeah, or the Bobby Fischer.

00:28:10.760 | - Just a Bobby Fischer, just born something in him,

00:28:13.640 | or maybe those early years,

00:28:15.240 | just because he's not just good at the lyrics,

00:28:20.000 | he's also, he goes deep with it, just like you.

00:28:23.320 | So he's like, there's depth.

00:28:25.320 | It's not just like mastery of the word smithing.

00:28:30.960 | It's just the message you actually sent across.

00:28:34.640 | - It's information into a small phrase.

00:28:39.640 | Right, that's the whole thing of energy.

00:28:42.120 | How do we condense all that energy into this

00:28:46.720 | so that it can feel that?

00:28:48.960 | And he's definitely one of those artists,

00:28:52.420 | MCs that does that.

00:28:54.240 | And he was doing it at 15.

00:28:56.480 | Like I said, I'm thinking five years,

00:28:58.160 | or four or five years older than Nas.

00:29:00.380 | So I was always feeling my confidence

00:29:03.280 | over what I was doing,

00:29:04.120 | but I was like, this kid is only 15.

00:29:06.360 | - I gotta step up my game.

00:29:09.160 | - When he turned 19, then we got Illmatic.

00:29:13.000 | - Yeah.

00:29:13.840 | From you, what are the best

00:29:17.600 | and most memorable lyrics you've ever written?

00:29:19.900 | - Wow, that's a hard question for me.

00:29:24.180 | - The stuff stand out, like stuff you're really proud of

00:29:26.600 | that was important in your career?

00:29:29.680 | - Yeah, I mean, I think I did a song called "Sunshower."

00:29:34.680 | I don't know if it, we put it on the Wu-Tang Forever

00:29:37.720 | double CD, but only on the international version.

00:29:40.900 | But if anybody could go get those lyrics

00:29:44.560 | and write those lyrics down,

00:29:46.040 | you could just put that in your pocket,

00:29:47.420 | and I'm sure it'll answer at least about 25%

00:29:50.040 | of your life's problems.

00:29:51.340 | - Well, that's a good one, "Sunshine,"

00:29:55.320 | where you talk about religion and God, that's good.

00:29:58.080 | - Tomorrow, I think it's on "A Diagram."

00:30:00.080 | - I'm not a record guy, I'm a song guy.

00:30:03.440 | - Might've been "A Diagram."

00:30:04.680 | What, do you have a lyric from it?

00:30:06.480 | - Yeah, "The answer to all questions."

00:30:08.840 | You're talking about God.

00:30:10.080 | - Yeah.

00:30:10.960 | - "The spark of all suggestions, of righteousness,

00:30:14.120 | "the pathway to the road of perfection,

00:30:16.280 | "who gives you all and never asks more of you,

00:30:19.040 | "the faithful companion that fights every war with you.

00:30:22.260 | "Before the mortal view of the prehistorical, historical,

00:30:25.560 | "he's the all in all you searching for the Oracle."

00:30:28.560 | That's a good line, man.

00:30:30.020 | This is such a good, this is so good.

00:30:31.680 | "A mission impossible, it's purely philosophical,

00:30:33.920 | "but you can call on your deathbed

00:30:36.340 | "when you're laying in the hospital."

00:30:37.840 | - You will call them on your deathbed.

00:30:39.480 | I had a big, I have a scientist friend,

00:30:42.100 | well, my wife's best friend, Rebecca,

00:30:45.560 | she married a scientist, they're both scientists,

00:30:49.080 | they're both were scientists, and she married Dr. Neal.

00:30:53.520 | I ain't gonna say their last names.

00:30:55.760 | But Neal and Rebecca, you know,

00:30:57.760 | they're my wife's best friends, so they come over,

00:31:00.760 | and me and Neal, we go through the longest debates

00:31:05.320 | of science and religion, we just go.

00:31:07.720 | We could go a great day with it.

00:31:10.320 | And, you know, before he had a child,

00:31:14.760 | he was more adamant and, you know,

00:31:20.600 | there's, you know, don't believe in God,

00:31:22.120 | you know what I mean?

00:31:23.360 | After a child, he still kept his thing,

00:31:26.000 | but I just hit him with the question,

00:31:27.440 | if you was about to die,

00:31:29.120 | 'cause now you got a child to think about, right?

00:31:31.200 | It's different when you thinking about yourself.

00:31:33.080 | I said, "If you was about to die,

00:31:34.920 | "you don't think you gonna make that call?"

00:31:37.160 | He's like, "I'll make that call."

00:31:39.600 | And it kinda inspired my lyric,

00:31:42.480 | because it was like, yeah, who you gonna?

00:31:44.960 | And I just wanna say, as far as,

00:31:47.320 | so you mentioned lyric, that is one of my favorite lyrics,

00:31:49.620 | but that's part two to "Sunshower"

00:31:53.660 | was the prequel to "Sunshine."

00:31:57.260 | So if you ever get a chance to check out "Sunshower,"

00:32:00.740 | it starts off with, "Trouble follows a wicked mind.

00:32:04.140 | "2020 vision of the prism of life,

00:32:07.840 | "but still blind because you lack the inner.

00:32:10.100 | "So every sinner could end up

00:32:12.580 | "in the everlasting winter of hellfire.

00:32:16.960 | "But thorns and splinters prick your eye out.

00:32:19.600 | "You cry out, your words fly out,

00:32:22.180 | "but you remain unheard.

00:32:24.200 | "Suffering, internal and external,

00:32:28.420 | "along with the wicked fraternal of generals and colonels,

00:32:31.520 | "letting off thermonuclear heat

00:32:33.080 | "that burns you firmly and permanently

00:32:36.060 | "upon the journey through the journal of the book of life.

00:32:39.520 | "For those who took a life without justice

00:32:41.920 | "will become just ice.

00:32:44.840 | "It's been taught your worst enemy

00:32:47.020 | "couldn't harm you as much as your own wicked thoughts.

00:32:49.820 | "But people ought be nought unless in wrought,

00:32:54.520 | "so they find themselves persecuted

00:32:56.980 | "inside their own universal court."

00:32:58.940 | So that is a long one, it's like a three-pager.

00:33:03.820 | - Wow, that is about life.

00:33:05.120 | That's like character, integrity, how to be,

00:33:07.480 | how to be in this world,

00:33:10.440 | and that ultimately connects to God.

00:33:13.780 | Who is God to you?

00:33:15.740 | - I'm glad you just asked that question

00:33:16.980 | 'cause I actually,

00:33:18.880 | I'm gonna have to make a distinguishable separation here.

00:33:22.860 | (laughs)

00:33:23.820 | - All right.

00:33:24.660 | - And it's funny because I heard recently,

00:33:28.960 | I heard a rabbi was debating with this historian,

00:33:34.700 | Dr. Ben, I can't pronounce Dr. Ben's name,

00:33:36.740 | but they was debating,

00:33:38.580 | and in the debate,

00:33:40.260 | they started going back through the etymology,

00:33:43.740 | they went way back beyond antiquity

00:33:47.580 | 'cause they was debating,

00:33:48.660 | and so there was some things,

00:33:50.820 | they was going deep,

00:33:52.340 | and they really went far, far back

00:33:54.420 | to kind of the first word of God.

00:33:57.740 | And it was, when they pronounced it

00:34:00.800 | on this particular debate, it was Allah.

00:34:02.760 | And they said from that, they got Elohim.

00:34:07.980 | I've already agreed in my heart, in my life,

00:34:11.820 | that the father of this universe,

00:34:15.100 | proper name is Allah.

00:34:16.460 | And of course, in Allah, I get all.

00:34:20.220 | (laughs)

00:34:22.300 | And I don't think that God is the same as that.

00:34:28.260 | I think Allah gives birth to God.

00:34:30.960 | In fact, if you take the word Allah,

00:34:35.540 | A-L-L-A-H,

00:34:37.500 | and you take it through numerology or numbers,

00:34:40.180 | the number A being,

00:34:42.020 | letter A being one, L being 12,

00:34:44.300 | and you add it all up to its lowest,

00:34:48.100 | to the last denominator,

00:34:49.780 | you're gonna get the number seven.

00:34:51.860 | And the number seven's gonna bring you

00:34:53.220 | right back to that letter G.

00:34:55.500 | So Allah borns God, but God don't born Allah.

00:34:59.180 | - How does that God, how does Allah connect to the oracle

00:35:03.020 | that you're going to be calling for

00:35:06.600 | when you're laying in the hospital?

00:35:08.380 | - Well, what I was saying in that particular verse

00:35:10.140 | was that we're looking for the oracle.

00:35:12.260 | We're looking for somebody else or something to help us

00:35:14.620 | that nobody can really help you at the end of the day.

00:35:17.720 | And we're speaking on,

00:35:21.820 | so now that we, I don't wanna say we're speaking on religion,

00:35:24.540 | but we're speaking on a way of life and a way of thinking.

00:35:27.440 | And I've read many books, of course,

00:35:31.460 | and I could say there's no book that,

00:35:36.300 | the book that is the most strongest book I've ever read

00:35:38.560 | is actually the Holy Quran.

00:35:40.400 | It's stronger to me than the Bible, which I've read.

00:35:43.720 | It's stronger than quantum physics, which I've read.

00:35:46.800 | It's stronger than the Bhagavad Gita.

00:35:48.600 | It's just, and I read once a British scholar said

00:35:53.080 | it's the most stupidest book ever written,

00:35:56.120 | and it doesn't make sense.

00:35:58.880 | And so I said, oh, I see why he says that.

00:36:01.760 | Now I can understand exactly why he said that as well.

00:36:04.600 | - Why is that?

00:36:05.920 | - Because the structure of the words are just,

00:36:10.920 | it's peculiar, you know what I mean?

00:36:14.280 | But it's almost like how some people's songs,

00:36:16.480 | you don't really know exactly what they're saying

00:36:18.880 | until years later.

00:36:20.020 | - Yeah, you have, actually with Joe Rogan,

00:36:24.800 | I think you talked about how a joke of Dave Chappelle's

00:36:28.080 | hit you like a long time after this,

00:36:30.720 | so this is kind of like the Quran.

00:36:33.800 | I tend to believe that we,

00:36:35.600 | that human beings cannot possibly understand

00:36:39.520 | anything as big as these ideas.

00:36:41.840 | So just, I don't know, do you think that,

00:36:45.800 | like are you humble in the face of just the immensity of it?

00:36:51.520 | - To be honest, yes.

00:36:52.620 | I'm humble in the face of the,

00:36:55.680 | you can say the word again, I pronounce words funny,

00:36:58.840 | the omnipotence, the omnescence, the magnitude,

00:37:03.840 | I'm humble in the face of Allah.

00:37:07.520 | The problem that I may have had was that

00:37:10.120 | I wasn't humble in the face of God

00:37:12.040 | because it's just a definable thing.

00:37:16.080 | And that's why I think a lot of us,

00:37:18.040 | and I'm not saying that, you know,

00:37:19.200 | I know when we say God, we're trying to say Allah,

00:37:22.200 | like people was saying that,

00:37:23.800 | but you're actually not saying the same thing

00:37:26.880 | because you're actually putting something beside Him.

00:37:30.100 | And that's the reason why you can have,

00:37:34.640 | oh, there's many gods.

00:37:36.220 | You can find a whole bunch of them.

00:37:39.520 | (laughs)

00:37:40.360 | You know what I mean?

00:37:41.180 | But you're not gonna find many.

00:37:42.320 | There's nobody beside Allah.

00:37:44.480 | I mean, Allah is one.

00:37:45.800 | So I know it's a whole thing, but that's my heart is there.

00:37:50.060 | I'm humbled by it.

00:37:51.960 | I'm at peace with it.

00:37:54.420 | And it doesn't take nothing or demerit anything from myself.

00:37:59.220 | That's the beauty of it.

00:38:00.380 | It doesn't take nothing from me, from being who I am.

00:38:03.340 | So if I say, if somebody walk up, "Yo, peace, God,"

00:38:06.780 | I could take that because they're telling me that,

00:38:08.860 | "Yo, I'm a man of wisdom.

00:38:10.220 | "I'm a man of strength.

00:38:11.680 | "I'm a man of beauty," or some attribute of that.

00:38:15.140 | You know what I mean?

00:38:15.980 | So Wu-Tang, they the gods of rap.

00:38:17.860 | There's wisdom there, there's strength there,

00:38:19.340 | there's beauty, then we'll take that.

00:38:21.240 | Yeah.

00:38:23.340 | - So Wu-Tang is one of the greatest musical,

00:38:25.740 | artistic, philosophical groups ever.

00:38:28.140 | Let's look hundreds of years from now,

00:38:31.540 | when humans or robots or aliens

00:38:33.300 | or whatever that's left here, they look back,

00:38:35.760 | what do you hope they remember about Wu-Tang?

00:38:37.620 | What do you hope the legacy is?

00:38:39.280 | - Well, even if it's thousands of years,

00:38:43.100 | I hope we don't get rid of the humans.

00:38:45.820 | But you know, look, whatever happens is gonna happen.

00:38:47.960 | But I think that my philosophy on it is that

00:38:53.100 | we're gonna continue to advance

00:38:58.100 | and continue to advance things around us.

00:39:02.020 | But I don't see us becoming extinct.

00:39:04.620 | - Well, I mean, the reason I bring up sort of Wu-Tang

00:39:07.220 | in that context, and this is a special moment

00:39:10.260 | in human history.

00:39:11.140 | It's like 100 years and we've created all of this music.

00:39:13.860 | Just if you think of all the richness of music

00:39:16.220 | that's been created over 100 years,

00:39:18.320 | it's like, it's not obvious to me

00:39:19.780 | that that's not going to stop.

00:39:21.420 | Like there's a flourishing here.

00:39:23.780 | So it's funny 'cause I could see where the book

00:39:28.020 | of human history is written.

00:39:29.540 | There's a chapter on this period of time.

00:39:32.160 | And one of the things we did well

00:39:34.020 | is like all the technological innovation

00:39:36.860 | with like with rockets and with the internet,

00:39:40.780 | but then there's also the musical innovation

00:39:42.580 | and film innovation.

00:39:44.060 | Just so much art that's being created

00:39:45.780 | and Wu-Tang is a huge part of that.

00:39:47.980 | So I just wonder what, like if there's a few sentences

00:39:50.200 | written about Wu-Tang.

00:39:51.400 | (laughing)

00:39:53.340 | It just makes me wonder how they remember.

00:39:56.780 | - I would hope that people will,

00:39:59.080 | no matter how many years are inspired by us,

00:40:02.540 | but I will say if I can just use Wu-Tang as itself.

00:40:07.300 | So we first started off the witty,

00:40:11.780 | unpredictable talent and natural game, right?

00:40:16.780 | Natural game, meaning natural wordplay.

00:40:19.700 | And then we went to the wisdom of the universe,

00:40:24.700 | the truth of Allah for a nation of God.

00:40:32.160 | Wisdom, universal, truth, Allah, nation, God.

00:40:37.920 | It's just like, so this is go back to a nation of God.

00:40:41.420 | Let's just take the last two letters.

00:40:43.260 | A nation of wisdom, strength and beauty, right?

00:40:48.780 | And I'm gonna go a little political here,

00:40:52.180 | but not going political.

00:40:53.660 | As we're saying we're the greatest country in the world,

00:40:56.060 | what makes us the greatest?

00:40:57.700 | That should be a question we ask.

00:40:59.740 | Is it our wisdom?

00:41:00.740 | Is it our strength?

00:41:03.580 | Is it our beauty?

00:41:04.820 | Now, let's just say off the easiest answer,

00:41:07.460 | you know it's our strength, we got the nukes.

00:41:10.520 | Nobody can really, between America and Russia,

00:41:14.780 | they said, that's the argument.

00:41:17.020 | Who could beat them?

00:41:18.020 | But where's the wisdom?

00:41:19.980 | Then they can argue, well, we got the technology, right?

00:41:24.660 | But then where's the beauty

00:41:25.900 | when there's so much suffering in the people?

00:41:28.160 | So it's not complete.

00:41:30.500 | - The hope is that the wisdom is in the founding documents

00:41:33.300 | in the imperfect, but wise founding documents

00:41:37.500 | that celebrated freedom, that celebrated all the ideas,

00:41:41.680 | sort of having a lot of nukes,

00:41:43.740 | having a lot of airplanes and tanks.

00:41:46.220 | And that's not important.

00:41:50.180 | And the hope is whatever we're doing here

00:41:52.780 | with this quote greatest country on earth,

00:41:55.260 | that we preserve the ideas and help them flourish.

00:41:57.980 | - Yeah, well, that's what I mean.

00:41:59.820 | So if you go back to the Wu Tang, I'm saying,

00:42:02.980 | that's what we're striving for.

00:42:04.580 | We're striving for that, you know what I mean?

00:42:07.380 | - We started on predictable and just like.

00:42:09.580 | - Yeah.

00:42:10.420 | - Yeah, but like got deep pretty quick.

00:42:14.540 | - Yeah, I gotta talk to you about Bruce Lee.

00:42:18.140 | Who's Bruce Lee to you?

00:42:20.740 | Who is he to the world?

00:42:21.940 | What ideas of his were interesting to you?

00:42:25.300 | Like what, you know, you talk about like Hendrix and music,

00:42:29.660 | Bruce Lee is that a martial arts.

00:42:31.260 | He just seems to have changed the game.

00:42:33.140 | - Yeah, you know, I went as,

00:42:36.740 | I guess I don't know what the word bold

00:42:38.180 | is the right word to say,

00:42:39.060 | but I went as bold as to say that he was a minor prophet.

00:42:44.780 | And I got that concept from the Holy Quran

00:42:47.100 | where it says that we send prophets to every nation,

00:42:50.620 | every village.

00:42:52.180 | We don't let nobody not hear the word in some form.

00:42:55.340 | 'Cause it won't be fair.

00:42:57.020 | And so if Allah is merciful,

00:42:59.020 | even a man who's deaf has to somehow get a sign.

00:43:03.420 | I don't know if Moses saw a burning bush.

00:43:05.820 | It was nobody else to talk to.

00:43:06.900 | So he had to talk to the bush.

00:43:08.220 | I don't know.

00:43:09.140 | It could have been the bush this way too, right?

00:43:11.540 | But point being made,

00:43:13.460 | it says that there are minor prophets

00:43:15.020 | and I see Bruce Lee as one of them

00:43:17.580 | because what he brought to the world through martial art

00:43:20.900 | was a whole shift in the dynamic of thinking, you know?

00:43:27.100 | And that happens when certain entities are born,

00:43:30.660 | but he didn't do it only in a physical sense.

00:43:35.660 | He was also for the philosophizing in the same process.

00:43:41.780 | And he was also striving to be the best of himself.

00:43:45.980 | So you got three things going on.

00:43:48.780 | I studied Bruce Lee multiple times.

00:43:53.140 | And first, of course,

00:43:55.340 | when I saw my first Kung Fu movie,

00:44:00.900 | it was the fake, it wasn't really Bruce Lee.

00:44:03.380 | It was a few green hornet clips cut together.

00:44:07.580 | And then I saw "Black Samurai."

00:44:09.020 | Then my following Kung Fu movies

00:44:11.180 | was like "Fearless Fighters," "The Ghostly Face,"

00:44:14.780 | you know, "The Fist of the Devil."

00:44:17.380 | But basically, in "Fearless Fighters,"

00:44:19.780 | the lady put the little kid on her back

00:44:21.480 | and flew across the ocean, across the lake, right?

00:44:25.820 | So Bruce wasn't doing that.

00:44:27.940 | And then I went on to "Five Deadly Venoms"

00:44:30.220 | and "Spiermen" and "36 Chambers."

00:44:32.740 | And these movies are beautiful

00:44:36.260 | and yet they're all heightened.

00:44:39.780 | Bruce, they're heightened beyond doable.

00:44:42.940 | You're not gonna--

00:44:43.780 | - Yeah, it's like surreal.

00:44:44.620 | They play with the world that's not of this world.

00:44:47.460 | - Yeah.

00:44:48.860 | Bruce played with this world.

00:44:51.180 | So when I first saw Bruce,

00:44:55.060 | I actually didn't think he was as good as these guys.

00:44:57.780 | He can't fly.

00:44:58.900 | He's not flying in the movies, right?

00:45:02.300 | But then when I saw,

00:45:06.140 | 'cause the first one I saw was "The Big Boss,"

00:45:08.820 | which they retitled "Fist of Fury."

00:45:11.220 | But then when I saw "Chinese Connection,"

00:45:14.820 | which is the real "Fist of Fury,"

00:45:17.900 | right, I saw something different there.

00:45:21.300 | And I got enamored.

00:45:24.300 | And then of course, "Enter the Dragon," right?

00:45:26.380 | Just really complete.

00:45:28.020 | That's why my first album was "Enter the Wu Tang,"

00:45:32.020 | "36 Chambers of Shaolin."

00:45:33.420 | So it's "Enter the Dragon" and "36" put together

00:45:35.500 | 'cause those are the two epitomes.

00:45:38.300 | So what happened is, that's young me.

00:45:40.260 | Then teenage me studies him again.

00:45:43.300 | And I realized, wow, look at his physicality.

00:45:46.700 | Look how he's really, he's moving for real.

00:45:49.900 | And then I studied him again.

00:45:52.300 | Wow, look at what he's saying.

00:45:53.800 | Then I studied him again.

00:45:55.900 | Wow, look at what he stands for.

00:45:57.660 | - Which do you like in the realm of martial arts,

00:46:03.460 | the real or the surreal, or the dance between the two?

00:46:07.780 | - Yeah, I like the dance between the two

00:46:09.220 | because a movie to me is to entertain you.

00:46:14.100 | So I'm cool with Obi-Wan Kenobi disappearing out of the cloak

00:46:20.580 | when Vader strikes him down.

00:46:25.860 | And then I'm like, "Yo, what happened?"

00:46:27.500 | And he's like, "Run, Luke, run."

00:46:29.260 | [laughing]

00:46:30.220 | I'm cool with that, right?

00:46:31.780 | Because that's the imagination.

00:46:34.060 | And the imagination gets stimulated to the point

00:46:36.460 | to where as things that we saw imagined by our artists,

00:46:40.140 | we strive to create in our real world.

00:46:42.220 | Thus, "Star Trek" to me is just a precursor

00:46:45.300 | to our cell phones.

00:46:46.500 | - Yeah.

00:46:47.680 | - So for me, I like the mix, the two.

00:46:50.140 | - Yeah, it's funny how science fiction,

00:46:53.780 | pushing into the impossible actually makes it realized

00:46:56.180 | eventually.

00:46:57.020 | - Yeah.

00:46:57.860 | - Yeah, we humans, once we see an idea on screen,

00:47:00.420 | no matter how wild it is, we--

00:47:02.140 | - We're trying to make it.

00:47:02.980 | - Yeah, we're trying to make it.

00:47:03.900 | There's some young kid that gets inspired and watch that.

00:47:06.620 | Be like, "I'm gonna build that."

00:47:08.180 | - Exactly.

00:47:09.020 | So I don't know who's gonna come

00:47:10.700 | with the "Back to the Future" time machine,

00:47:12.980 | but do you have any classmates that you think--

00:47:15.500 | [laughing]

00:47:16.340 | - Time machine?

00:47:17.780 | I thought you were going to "Back to the Future,"

00:47:19.700 | like the, what is it?

00:47:21.220 | The hoverboard or like--

00:47:24.420 | - Yeah, we're there at least.

00:47:25.860 | - Yeah.

00:47:26.700 | - Somebody, they got, you seen the one on the water?

00:47:29.540 | - No.

00:47:30.380 | - No, you know--

00:47:31.200 | - It's close on the water, wait.

00:47:32.040 | - No, the surf hover.

00:47:33.180 | - It's great, it's dope.

00:47:34.420 | - Nice.

00:47:35.260 | - It's dope.

00:47:36.100 | It actually, if you a "Back to the Future" fan,

00:47:40.180 | you feel like you made it to, you made it there.

00:47:43.060 | - Yeah, all right.

00:47:43.900 | Well, now we just gotta work on the time travel.

00:47:46.180 | And it was cool to hear you talk about

00:47:48.340 | the master of the flying guillotine today,

00:47:50.660 | that that inspired the lyric for the Wu-Tang Clan

00:47:55.660 | and nothing to F with.

00:47:58.820 | - Yeah.

00:48:00.020 | - How does that go again?

00:48:02.340 | - What, the curse word or the lyric?

00:48:03.700 | - No, not that.

00:48:04.540 | (laughing)

00:48:05.380 | - No, I remember the curse.

00:48:06.300 | I am Russian, but I remember the curse word.

00:48:08.460 | But the lyric.

00:48:09.900 | - I said, "I be tossing and forcing.

00:48:12.500 | "My style is awesome.

00:48:13.820 | "I'm causing more family feuds than Richard Dawson.

00:48:17.260 | "And the survey said, you're dead.

00:48:20.060 | "The fatal flying guillotine chops off your head."

00:48:23.500 | - Yeah.

00:48:24.340 | - Yeah.

00:48:25.160 | - And it was interesting to see the guillotine

00:48:26.900 | in that movie today, how, I don't know.

00:48:32.060 | That's surreal, right?

00:48:33.740 | But it's not.

00:48:34.580 | It's engineering, it's both surreal and it just,

00:48:38.300 | and it adds this chaos into this real world

00:48:43.300 | that, and then challenges everybody to think

00:48:45.300 | what you're gonna do with that.

00:48:46.500 | - Yeah, how you gonna beat it?

00:48:47.700 | - Yeah, how you gonna beat it?

00:48:48.700 | Both when you have like the good and the evil

00:48:51.420 | and the mix of the bad guys and the good guys,

00:48:54.220 | and you're not sure who the bad guys are.

00:48:56.100 | It's the old question of good versus evil, right?

00:48:58.540 | - Yeah.

00:48:59.380 | - Like you said, then the question of who was good,

00:49:02.180 | who was evil, but they all had a similar problem

00:49:05.540 | when the guillotine came.

00:49:07.620 | - But in terms of the real, you mentioned "The Godfather,"

00:49:11.020 | good and evil, that's your favorite movie.

00:49:13.660 | - Yeah.

00:49:14.720 | - What makes it great, do you think?

00:49:16.140 | The characters, the study of family, of justice, of power.

00:49:20.420 | What connects with you?

00:49:21.300 | - Oh, oh, I mean, every one of those themes

00:49:24.340 | connects in the real,

00:49:28.660 | and it connects in a cinematic way as well.

00:49:30.860 | The difference I think with me in "The Godfather"

00:49:34.420 | was I seen it during a period of time

00:49:36.380 | when my father was absent,

00:49:37.800 | and therefore family structure and family values

00:49:43.860 | was actually adopted in my family because of that.

00:49:49.240 | Me and my brother, Devon, we actually took

00:49:55.220 | so much heed to that movie in our family life.

00:49:59.140 | And we kind of mimic that family in its structure

00:50:04.140 | of somebody has to be the leader of the family,

00:50:10.340 | even if it was the younger.

00:50:11.340 | Michael was younger than Sonny and Phaedra,

00:50:15.060 | you know what I mean?

00:50:15.900 | But he was worthy.

00:50:17.460 | And my brother, Devon, is older than me,

00:50:19.220 | and my brother, King, is older than me.

00:50:20.820 | And it's funny, sometimes Devon calls King, Phaedra,

00:50:23.420 | and I know King wants to, 'cause King was actually,

00:50:25.780 | he actually was, he could beat our ass,

00:50:28.100 | to say it in my language.

00:50:28.940 | Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:50:30.340 | But you're Michael.

00:50:31.460 | Yeah, and not by choice,

00:50:34.960 | just by definition of that's what I am,

00:50:38.740 | you know what I mean?

00:50:39.580 | And it's just a blessing for me

00:50:43.380 | to have my older sister, my older brothers,

00:50:46.180 | and my younger brothers look to me as,

00:50:52.780 | just as a good light in the family.

00:50:55.580 | And like I said, that movie helped my sisters too.

00:50:58.660 | The cool thing about my family,

00:51:01.100 | I don't know if I share this a lot,

00:51:03.020 | is a big, we all watch these movies together.

00:51:05.780 | And so, "The Eight Diagram," "Pole Fighter,"

00:51:08.460 | "Master Killer," "Five Deadly Vengeance,"

00:51:10.940 | my family knows these movies.

00:51:12.380 | It's not just I know them, right?

00:51:15.780 | And then you extend it further,

00:51:17.260 | my friends know them, right, too.

00:51:19.900 | So there's a language that we all can have

00:51:23.260 | that actually film has informed our communication.

00:51:29.080 | So "The Godfather," which also is still

00:51:33.060 | a fictitional story of something,

00:51:36.740 | but since it was based in reality,

00:51:39.900 | based on something real, and it was human,

00:51:42.700 | it wasn't so heightened,

00:51:44.620 | I think the purity of it resonates.

00:51:48.180 | And the purity of it is something that resonates with me.

00:51:51.520 | You gotta plan ahead.

00:51:55.220 | He didn't wanna deal with the drugs,

00:51:59.000 | but that time of business was upon him.

00:52:02.220 | It's almost like, and this is a tough one,

00:52:05.460 | sometime when the Muslim brothers come

00:52:07.020 | from the Middle East to America,

00:52:09.340 | and they open up delis, right,

00:52:12.140 | they would sell ham.

00:52:14.460 | And we would go in there and complain to them,

00:52:17.260 | and make them, they used to get mad at us

00:52:19.820 | when we came in.

00:52:21.020 | But that's as a kid, but as a man,

00:52:22.980 | I'm like, yo, he's here to sell.

00:52:25.660 | Now he still don't have to sell the ham.

00:52:27.420 | Like Vito Corleone didn't wanna sell the drugs.

00:52:30.940 | Okay, he didn't have to do it, he didn't do it.

00:52:34.660 | And it cost him some bullets.

00:52:36.400 | So eventually somebody in the family ended up doing it.

00:52:40.020 | You see what I mean?

00:52:41.780 | - What about this idea that family before everything else?

00:52:45.860 | So like, there's different laws you live

00:52:49.300 | according to in this world, and family is first.

00:52:54.180 | - Yeah, that's mathematically correct.

00:52:58.220 | - I like that.

00:53:01.420 | I mean, there's a certain sense of,

00:53:03.820 | you look at powerful people, you look at Putin,

00:53:08.420 | there's a certain sense in which the people

00:53:10.820 | who are in the inner circle, that's who you take care of.

00:53:13.780 | That's family.

00:53:15.020 | And anyone else that crosses you,

00:53:16.760 | that there's a different set of ethics

00:53:21.300 | under which you operate for those people.

00:53:23.860 | - Well, Jesus said the same thing.

00:53:26.240 | You know, when he said love thy neighbor and thy brother,

00:53:30.460 | he was talking about that community.

00:53:32.780 | When that other lady, the Samaritan,

00:53:35.900 | say, hey Jesus, I'm not feeling,

00:53:37.740 | my brother not feeling so well,

00:53:39.180 | and he say, give not that which is holy unto the dogs.

00:53:42.460 | If you're gonna tell a woman,

00:53:43.900 | give not that which is holy unto the dogs,

00:53:48.740 | and she's a woman, you just called her a dog.

00:53:51.780 | If I translate that into hip hop,

00:53:53.460 | she's a female, he called her a dog.

00:53:57.220 | - I know how that goes.

00:53:58.860 | - But she said to him,

00:53:59.960 | but even a dog is allowed to eat the crumbs

00:54:04.340 | that falls from the master's table.

00:54:06.440 | And he went and helped her.

00:54:09.460 | He helped her.

00:54:10.300 | And let's go back to what you said about Putin

00:54:12.540 | or Vito Colonna, myself and my family.

00:54:15.460 | Of course the family is first,

00:54:17.820 | but once the family is good,

00:54:20.380 | it has to then spread to the community,

00:54:22.980 | then to the state, country, world.

00:54:27.860 | The problem we have sometimes is that,

00:54:30.060 | and this is the reason why a lot of powerful families

00:54:31.820 | was overthrown, like why do they behead their own king

00:54:35.220 | with the guillotine, right?

00:54:36.500 | Because that, once the family was strong,

00:54:40.400 | they didn't let the wealth, the opportunity expand out.

00:54:45.400 | You look at Wu Tang, yes, our family was made strong first,

00:54:53.440 | but then all the Wu members

00:54:55.680 | able to form their own corporations,

00:54:57.920 | and they had their own sub-families.

00:55:00.400 | It has to grow out.

00:55:01.440 | - And they took over the world.

00:55:03.200 | You've talked about being vegan.

00:55:05.920 | I don't think I heard you explain this

00:55:09.720 | because it connects somehow about how you think about life.

00:55:13.420 | So you talk about when your family's good,

00:55:16.960 | you grow that like circle of empathy, you grow the community.

00:55:21.340 | Is that how you think about being vegan?

00:55:24.760 | That just the capacity of living beings on earth to suffer,

00:55:29.760 | that you just don't wanna add suffering to them?

00:55:33.440 | - Yeah, I mean, you said it clear.

00:55:36.440 | It's like nothing, in all reality,

00:55:39.820 | I came to a realization that nothing really has to die

00:55:44.160 | for me to live.

00:55:45.320 | No animal, the plants themselves, right?

00:55:49.520 | So let's just say you want a steak,

00:55:53.480 | which is probably the most,

00:55:54.840 | I don't know, the most expensive piece of meat,

00:55:57.320 | but let's just say the steak is top of the line, nice steak.

00:56:01.460 | And you're eating the steak for the protein

00:56:03.280 | to help build your muscle.

00:56:05.320 | And I don't know if you got it from a cow or a bull,

00:56:07.680 | but whether it's the cow or the bull,

00:56:09.520 | they grow to about 1500 pounds.

00:56:12.000 | And if it's a bull, it's all muscly muscle.

00:56:14.520 | And it's only eating grass.

00:56:18.080 | - Yeah, yeah, there's, yeah.

00:56:24.240 | It's possible to both as an athlete

00:56:26.800 | and just as a human being to perform well

00:56:28.880 | without eating meat.

00:56:29.920 | There's something,

00:56:31.200 | especially in the way we're treating animals,

00:56:33.840 | to deliver that meat to the plate.

00:56:37.680 | I think about that a lot.

00:56:38.680 | So I do, I'm a robotics person, AI person.

00:56:42.180 | And I think a lot about,

00:56:44.160 | I don't know if you think about this kind of stuff,

00:56:45.720 | but building AI systems

00:56:47.380 | as they become more and more human-like,

00:56:49.960 | you start to ask the question of, are we okay

00:56:52.720 | if we give the capacity for AI systems to suffer,

00:56:59.080 | first to feel, but then to suffer,

00:57:01.480 | to hate and to love, to feel emotion?

00:57:05.800 | How do we deal with that?

00:57:07.600 | It starts asking the same question as you ask of animals.

00:57:11.040 | Are we okay adding that suffering to the world?

00:57:14.600 | - Right.

00:57:15.760 | And I don't think we should add the suffering

00:57:17.560 | 'cause it's not necessary.

00:57:19.440 | Like, look, if it's necessary, right?

00:57:22.440 | 'Cause we're, you know, survival,

00:57:24.480 | the first law of nature is self-preservation.

00:57:27.200 | If you are in a desert and there's nothing else to eat,

00:57:30.120 | but that lizard, yeah, okay, you gotta do what you gotta do.

00:57:33.680 | - Lizard's gotta go.

00:57:34.680 | - Yeah, you gotta go.

00:57:35.520 | You gotta do what you gotta do

00:57:36.400 | because at the end of the day, man is,

00:57:38.880 | when they say man has dominion over these things,

00:57:41.840 | his dominion is almost like a caretaker.

00:57:45.560 | The way we do our dominion, we dominate it,

00:57:48.120 | eat it, cook it.

00:57:49.800 | Like, who's the first guy that looked at the lobster?

00:57:52.920 | He was like, "I'm gonna eat this thing."

00:57:55.720 | You know what I mean?

00:57:56.560 | Like, first of all, it's hard to eat it.

00:57:59.040 | You gotta go through a process to get that.

00:58:01.520 | A crab, I remember we used to eat crabs when we was kids

00:58:04.480 | and I didn't know why I was always getting itchy throats

00:58:06.760 | and all that.

00:58:07.600 | You know, you can't, you don't know, just eat.

00:58:09.040 | But at the end of the day, a crab didn't provide

00:58:11.840 | no more than a finger worth of meat, maybe.

00:58:15.720 | And it was hell getting that steak, getting it out.

00:58:18.800 | It's like, it's not worth it in all reality.

00:58:20.920 | You could've gave me a,

00:58:22.560 | you could've gave me a banana

00:58:26.000 | and did better for my body

00:58:27.520 | and my appetite and my being fulfilled as full.

00:58:33.880 | Like, look at the blessings of life, right?

00:58:37.920 | If you take a seed,

00:58:40.360 | or you get an apple and you eat it,

00:58:43.480 | in that apple is multiple seeds in it.

00:58:49.280 | If you plant that seed, it'll give you a whole tree

00:58:53.040 | with a whole bunch of apples with all multiple seeds.

00:58:56.760 | But if you kill a fish, it can't reproduce, it's done.

00:59:01.760 | If you kill a cat, it's done.

00:59:03.480 | It's nothing coming back.

00:59:04.840 | But when you deal with the plants,

00:59:07.000 | even after you eat the apple and then you defecate,

00:59:10.560 | your defecation is what feeds the ground

00:59:14.400 | that caused the apple to grow more.

00:59:16.200 | Yeah, it's a circle of life.

00:59:17.960 | - And especially there's a guy named David Foster Wallace.

00:59:21.280 | He wrote a short story called "Consider the Lobster."

00:59:24.560 | If you actually think philosophically about what,

00:59:27.800 | from a perspective of a lobster,

00:59:29.700 | that's like symbolic of something

00:59:32.280 | because you basically put in the water, like cold water,

00:59:36.920 | and then it heats up slowly until it's no more.

00:59:41.160 | - It's torture, yeah.

00:59:42.000 | It must've been like,

00:59:42.840 | you think they started eating lobsters in the Inquisition?

00:59:45.840 | - Yeah, yeah.

00:59:46.680 | They just enjoy,

00:59:47.960 | they were probably enjoyed torturing animals

00:59:50.080 | and they realized they're also delicious

00:59:51.640 | after the torture is finished.

00:59:52.920 | That's probably how they discovered it.

00:59:54.920 | - Let me ask you a question.

00:59:55.880 | I know you're asking me the questions,

00:59:57.000 | but I just wanna talk a little bit about the AI.

00:59:58.960 | And you said something about trying to put the emotion in it.

01:00:02.720 | - Yeah. - Right?

01:00:03.820 | So are you thinking there's an algorithm for emotion?

01:00:10.940 | - Yes, but I think emotion isn't something

01:00:15.720 | that there's a algorithm for, for a particular system.

01:00:19.500 | We create emotions together.

01:00:21.440 | So emotion is something, like this conversation,

01:00:25.440 | it's like magic we create together.

01:00:27.600 | So I've worked with quite a few robots,

01:00:30.920 | I've a very simple version of that.

01:00:33.040 | I've had Roomba vacuum cleaners.

01:00:35.160 | I've had them make different sounds

01:00:37.720 | and one of them is like screaming in pain, like lightly.

01:00:41.200 | And just having them do that when you kick them

01:00:43.160 | or when they run into stuff,

01:00:44.560 | immediately I start to feel something for them.

01:00:47.800 | - So the emotion, okay.

01:00:49.160 | So the emotion you're saying is imposed back on the human.

01:00:52.960 | - Yeah. - But I'm asking,

01:00:54.320 | do you think there's an algorithm for the emotion

01:00:56.040 | to be imposed from machine to machine?

01:00:59.000 | - Yeah, that's a really good way to ask it.

01:01:01.700 | It's difficult because I think ultimately

01:01:06.960 | I only know how to exist in the human world.

01:01:09.280 | So it's like, it's the question of if a tree falls

01:01:12.120 | in the forest, nobody's there to see it,

01:01:13.960 | does it still fall?

01:01:15.400 | I still think that ultimately machines will have to

01:01:19.400 | show emotion to other humans

01:01:22.640 | and that's when it becomes real.

01:01:24.240 | - I've been thinking about this a lot too.

01:01:26.440 | And I just, okay.

01:01:29.520 | Now I come at you with this

01:01:32.160 | because I've been thinking about this

01:01:33.000 | and this is your field.

01:01:34.240 | Well, do you think the emotion is wave?

01:01:40.240 | Like light is wave or do you think it's particle?

01:01:42.760 | - So emotion is just a small,

01:01:47.600 | it's like a shadow of something bigger.

01:01:49.320 | And I think that bigger thing is consciousness.

01:01:51.960 | So emotion is just--

01:01:53.440 | - I don't know if it's a wave or a particle.

01:01:55.240 | Y'all haven't thought about that?

01:01:57.220 | - I have thought about it, whether there's something like,

01:02:02.140 | whether consciousness or emotion is a law of physics.

01:02:06.600 | Like if it's that fundamental to the--

01:02:08.760 | - I had a lyric, I had a lyric that said this.

01:02:12.040 | It comes out, they did this documentary about the planet

01:02:15.760 | and I wrote a song, it's called "The World of Confusion."

01:02:19.520 | And I'll try to paraphrase the lyric,

01:02:21.240 | but in the world of the confusion

01:02:22.680 | where there's so much illusions,

01:02:23.940 | we suck the blood from the planet.

01:02:26.440 | Now it needs a transfusion and the redistribution of wealth,

01:02:30.440 | of health and wealth of self

01:02:35.280 | and a deeper understanding about mental health.

01:02:38.440 | The doctor prescribed the physical solution.

01:02:43.580 | The psychiatrist wants to build a bigger institution,

01:02:49.800 | but neither have the solution or the equation

01:02:55.280 | to make an instrument to measure

01:02:58.840 | the weight of the hate vibration.

01:03:03.460 | What is the weight of hate?

01:03:05.600 | Is it heavier than the weight of love?

01:03:08.560 | Is it heavier than the weight of lead inside of a slug?

01:03:15.320 | Which is 10 milligrams, that's all it takes to kill a man.

01:03:19.080 | But anyways, then I go on from there.

01:03:20.540 | - Damn, that's good.

01:03:21.800 | - But the question, you see the question there, right?

01:03:23.940 | - Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:03:24.780 | Can it be measured?

01:03:26.380 | Can that be measured?

01:03:27.540 | I think so, I think so.

01:03:29.460 | - Just don't got the estimate yet, right?

01:03:30.980 | - Yeah, we're in the dark ages of that,

01:03:35.260 | but I think it could be measured.

01:03:36.380 | I think there's something physical,

01:03:39.100 | like something that connects us all this much.

01:03:41.940 | You know, we tend to think we humans are distinct entities

01:03:44.900 | and we move about this world,

01:03:46.100 | but I think there's some deeper connection.

01:03:48.260 | But we're so, listen, science is in the,

01:03:53.340 | we just had a few breakthroughs in the past 100 years

01:03:55.940 | from Einstein on the theoretical physics side.

01:03:58.880 | We don't know anything about human psychology.

01:04:00.860 | We barely know much about human biology.

01:04:03.780 | We're trying to figure it all out.

01:04:05.720 | - Yeah, I had another theory,

01:04:08.660 | because you think about quantum, right?

01:04:12.820 | As long as you say that there's an uncertainty

01:04:16.540 | and you have me believe there's an uncertainty,

01:04:20.260 | then there's an uncertainty.

01:04:22.180 | But if there's not an uncertainty, what happens?

01:04:25.260 | So I'm only saying that, it's last, last, last.

01:04:28.500 | 'Cause you look at quantum computers,

01:04:29.940 | they're gonna give you the O, the one, the one, the O.

01:04:33.620 | They're gonna take two things and make it eight things.

01:04:36.460 | And by the time you multiply four of those things together,

01:04:39.340 | it's like this chess board, right?

01:04:41.180 | The moves goes into the millions.

01:04:44.080 | But the thing that's introduced is the uncertainty, right?

01:04:49.080 | You're gonna make a move.

01:04:58.220 | You know this already, right?

01:05:00.940 | Because this has been played a thousand times.

01:05:04.060 | But sooner or later, something uncertain is gonna come in

01:05:06.620 | or make your next move.

01:05:08.440 | - I like the weight of these.

01:05:15.940 | They add the certainty.

01:05:18.340 | I think just like we were saying, unpredictable.

01:05:20.660 | There's something about us humans

01:05:22.860 | that really doesn't like everything to be fully predictable.

01:05:25.740 | I mean, chess too is perfectly solvable.

01:05:30.680 | There's nothing unpredictable about chess.

01:05:32.900 | - Right, I could agree to that

01:05:34.460 | because Bobby Fischer said in one of his books,

01:05:39.460 | which I actually love what he said.

01:05:41.460 | He said, "Every game of chess is a draw."

01:05:46.680 | - Yeah.

01:05:49.660 | - The only way somebody win is when one of us

01:05:51.740 | makes a mistake.

01:05:54.900 | - I mean, it doesn't get any better than that.

01:05:56.300 | - Yeah, it doesn't.

01:05:57.220 | What is chess?

01:05:59.360 | Like, how do you think about chess?

01:06:00.580 | What's at the core of your interest in chess?

01:06:02.500 | Do you see Kung Fu, music, film, all of it, life,

01:06:07.500 | all just living through chess?

01:06:09.860 | - Yeah, I see.

01:06:11.500 | It's the most stimulating passage of time for me.

01:06:16.500 | That's also, it's like, it's a pastime

01:06:21.740 | that stimulates my mind, my music,

01:06:25.280 | my thoughts about life at the same time.

01:06:27.580 | So while some pastimes is like,

01:06:29.140 | say baseball is a pastime,

01:06:31.100 | and baseball can stimulate you

01:06:32.100 | depending on how you look at it, right?

01:06:33.340 | But most likely you're not gonna get

01:06:36.440 | this much brain activation, this much calculation,

01:06:39.960 | and this much thinking about yourself

01:06:41.820 | in a game of baseball.

01:06:44.420 | I mean, the player maybe, but not the viewer.

01:06:47.620 | Chess is something that I can engage in too.

01:06:50.980 | And even though it's a pastime,

01:06:53.340 | it's giving me all the stimulation of real time in my life.

01:06:59.100 | - It's funny 'cause it's also,

01:07:01.100 | it's a funny game 'cause it's connected

01:07:03.900 | through centuries of play.

01:07:06.900 | Just some of the most interesting people

01:07:09.500 | in the history of the world have played this game

01:07:11.820 | and have struggled with whatever,

01:07:14.460 | have projected their struggles onto the chessboard

01:07:17.300 | and thought through,

01:07:18.140 | and then nations have fought over the chessboard.

01:07:19.900 | - Right, right.

01:07:20.740 | - The Soviet Union versus the United States.

01:07:22.500 | Bobby Fischer represented the United States.

01:07:24.620 | - Spassky represented the Soviet Union.

01:07:26.340 | - Yeah.

01:07:27.860 | I gotta, before I lose track of it,

01:07:30.500 | when we talked about "The Godfather,"

01:07:32.420 | you were in "American Gangster," great film.

01:07:35.100 | You said it's one of your favorites too.

01:07:37.940 | You were in it with Denzel Washington.

01:07:40.960 | What makes that movie meaningful to you?

01:07:43.860 | What was it like making that movie?

01:07:47.140 | 'Cause it's a great, great American film.

01:07:49.300 | - That was a great American film.

01:07:50.620 | It was so many things in that film.

01:07:52.340 | Being a part of that film was probably

01:07:54.780 | a blessing and a treasure.

01:07:57.300 | 'Cause even if I wasn't a part of it,

01:07:59.340 | this court's such great filmmaking

01:08:02.740 | and to me a really cool, great story.

01:08:05.940 | The thing that I love about it the most

01:08:11.180 | really is the process of it.

01:08:15.680 | - Which part of the process?

01:08:19.260 | - I wouldn't have known the process if I wasn't part of it.

01:08:22.460 | So as a film, joy, it was great film.

01:08:24.940 | But even the process of making it

01:08:27.860 | was like high level education for me on multiple levels.

01:08:32.460 | I'm working with Ridley Scott,

01:08:34.180 | which is, and this is a bold statement if I say this here,

01:08:38.540 | 'cause I got a lot of friends that's gonna probably,

01:08:41.580 | but he's probably the best living director.

01:08:46.740 | Because watching him allowed me to understand

01:08:51.260 | a principle that I've coined to him,

01:08:54.100 | and I don't know if people use it yet,

01:08:56.180 | called multi-vision.

01:08:57.500 | He seems to have the capacity

01:09:03.060 | to see eight things at one time.

01:09:09.020 | I heard on Robin Hood he had 18 cameras.

01:09:11.780 | I wasn't there for that.

01:09:13.300 | - And you think he keeps them all in his mind, just sees--

01:09:15.620 | - I seen him do it when he went to the monitors

01:09:19.260 | with the video playback guy.

01:09:22.380 | I seen him bring everything back to a point,

01:09:26.520 | but nothing was the same on the frame.

01:09:28.520 | He was already there.

01:09:31.500 | And he knew if he had what it was or not.

01:09:34.760 | And he placed the cameras there,

01:09:38.260 | and he saw it in his own way, and I peeped it.

01:09:44.900 | (laughing)

01:09:46.500 | I peeped it.

01:09:47.700 | And I said, "Yeah."

01:09:48.860 | And I just humbly asked him.

01:09:50.660 | He was gracious enough to speak to me and talk to me

01:09:55.020 | and confirm what I thought I saw.

01:09:59.580 | - He confirmed it?

01:10:00.420 | - He confirmed it, and I was able to utilize it,

01:10:03.300 | as I'm a filmmaker now,

01:10:05.340 | and I see, I can at least see three or four things.

01:10:09.100 | I can't see eight yet.

01:10:10.300 | I'll be there though.

01:10:12.780 | But I could definitely, even right now,

01:10:15.900 | just I could go like this in the room.

01:10:17.960 | Okay.

01:10:20.260 | I got it now.

01:10:22.420 | I got how to make this right here,

01:10:25.380 | which is just us all sitting.

01:10:27.020 | How do I make this?

01:10:28.260 | Look, boom.

01:10:29.500 | Come on on him.

01:10:32.140 | - There's a story there.

01:10:32.960 | - There's a story there.

01:10:34.060 | And I might just go off his hanging watch

01:10:36.380 | or his hanging wristband.

01:10:38.100 | - Yeah.

01:10:38.940 | - You know, because there's something else there too.

01:10:40.340 | - Is he dead?

01:10:41.180 | We don't know.

01:10:42.000 | - Okay.

01:10:42.860 | - So he has this.

01:10:45.860 | And even though this is the scene.

01:10:47.420 | - Yeah.

01:10:48.260 | You keeping that in mind, all of this in mind.

01:10:50.660 | - Yeah.

01:10:51.580 | - What about like, can you give an inkling

01:10:53.860 | of other parts of the process, like the editing?

01:10:56.660 | Like where does the magic happen?

01:10:58.100 | - Another thing, Pedro,

01:10:59.740 | I don't pronounce Pedro last name right.

01:11:02.140 | He's a cool guy.

01:11:02.980 | I had a chance to play rugby with him.

01:11:04.700 | He was on, was he on my team?

01:11:06.180 | Yeah.

01:11:07.020 | Well, we were in both teams.

01:11:08.320 | But Pedro, the editor who, you know,

01:11:12.460 | edit many great films.

01:11:15.540 | Once again, he has,

01:11:19.160 | I will call it deciphering power.

01:11:22.940 | A good editor is a decipher,

01:11:26.400 | almost like breaking the enigma

01:11:29.060 | because he's dealing with thousands,

01:11:34.020 | or we'll call it a film,

01:11:35.460 | with millions of feet of film,

01:11:36.740 | at least a million feet of film.

01:11:37.860 | That's a lot of film for a feature.

01:11:40.580 | He's dealing with that,

01:11:41.920 | but he's dealing with multiple cameras.

01:11:45.460 | - Yeah.

01:11:47.060 | - So it ain't like it's like two cameras.

01:11:48.700 | He got an A, B, and he could just go back.

01:11:50.820 | No, he may have six cameras

01:11:53.340 | and he has to go back and deal with that process.

01:11:56.140 | And you know what?

01:11:57.060 | He knows how to tell the story again.

01:12:01.520 | And he proved it on "American Gangster"

01:12:05.980 | as me being a witness,

01:12:08.020 | because it's so much information.

01:12:10.940 | It's even when the brothers all start

01:12:13.220 | getting their little business

01:12:14.260 | and he picked one in the Bronx,

01:12:16.180 | and he just captured every neighborhood

01:12:19.460 | within one minute,

01:12:20.880 | and you knew what would happen.

01:12:22.860 | You knew it all.

01:12:23.980 | You saw the whole rise to fame.

01:12:26.500 | You watch the Palmer and Scarface,

01:12:29.020 | who does it in two minutes,

01:12:30.640 | but it's only one character.

01:12:34.140 | So you see him go to the bank,

01:12:35.460 | he drops the money off.

01:12:36.500 | You see him buy the lion.

01:12:37.740 | You see him gets his wife or the tiger.

01:12:39.860 | You see him gets his wife.

01:12:40.700 | You see all that.

01:12:41.820 | Then it ends on a big shot of him in the big house

01:12:44.780 | with all the TV screens.

01:12:46.620 | And you seen him go through it, right?

01:12:49.100 | But in "American Gangster,"

01:12:50.440 | you're gonna tell that story of rising,

01:12:52.580 | but you also got to include these five brothers.

01:12:54.860 | - Yeah.

01:12:56.300 | And that's all in the edit.

01:12:57.780 | Oh man.

01:12:58.620 | - But also all in the director,

01:13:00.100 | knowing that as well.

01:13:01.260 | - And you gotta keep track.

01:13:03.460 | You gotta keep thinking about them,

01:13:04.900 | 'cause that was a story right there.

01:13:06.500 | - Yeah.

01:13:07.340 | While I was hearing it,

01:13:08.540 | I don't know if they was taking pictures of him

01:13:10.180 | or everybody's having a little party over there.

01:13:12.900 | - Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:13:13.740 | Chess, I think.

01:13:15.300 | Yeah, I like it.

01:13:16.700 | They're playing chess in the distance.

01:13:19.660 | This is great.

01:13:20.540 | You said that you were always an old soul

01:13:25.940 | and see the world as if you're 200 years old.

01:13:28.180 | I like this line.

01:13:29.420 | Because your creative vision allows you

01:13:31.220 | to see the final piece you've created

01:13:33.740 | or you're creating very quickly, quicker than others.

01:13:36.380 | I heard that as if you've almost lived many lives.

01:13:42.180 | So you have this experience

01:13:43.740 | that allows you to see the vision.

01:13:45.500 | So let me ask you on creativity.

01:13:47.620 | Where does this creativity behind "RZA" come from?

01:13:50.700 | This both musically and film-wise.

01:13:53.060 | - That I don't know if I have the answer to that one.

01:13:56.300 | No, seriously, where does it come from?

01:13:58.840 | Only thing I could say about that

01:14:02.020 | is that for some reason, it seems endless.

01:14:06.140 | And that's peculiar when I think about it myself

01:14:12.660 | because I was taught a lot of things from the jizzer.

01:14:18.620 | He introduced me to mathematics.

01:14:22.060 | He introduced me to hip hop itself, to breakdancing.

01:14:26.060 | I got other cousins that introduced me to graffiti.

01:14:31.020 | Cousins that introduced me to DJing.

01:14:34.180 | I realized that I had a lot of introductions,

01:14:36.940 | but the jizzer definitely,

01:14:38.340 | my older cousin gave me a lot of early inspirations.

01:14:44.380 | And not saying that he's not creative,

01:14:49.380 | as creative as he was then or now,

01:14:53.420 | I just didn't, the wide span of creativity,

01:14:59.460 | I don't see him doing that.

01:15:00.860 | And I don't see my, the cousins that taught me how to DJ,

01:15:06.940 | I didn't see them move from DJing to making the beats.

01:15:11.180 | My cousin that, who actually got me into instruments,

01:15:18.260 | I didn't see him leave funk and rock.

01:15:23.620 | He didn't go, like I'm orchestra composing now.

01:15:26.500 | - Yeah.

01:15:29.260 | - So I just said to myself,

01:15:31.980 | I just accept myself as a artist, as a creative artist.

01:15:36.940 | That's what I am.

01:15:37.780 | I have to accept that.

01:15:40.380 | Now, where it comes from, I don't know.

01:15:43.060 | If I was to try to say where it comes from,

01:15:45.620 | like, hey, give me some type of answer,

01:15:48.500 | I'll say from life itself.

01:15:50.660 | - But what does it feel like?

01:15:51.580 | Because you mentioned during this pandemic, for example,

01:15:53.900 | for some reason more came to you in terms of writing.

01:15:57.860 | And so do you feel like you're just receiving signals

01:16:00.700 | from elsewhere or like, do you feel like it's hard work

01:16:04.940 | or you're just waiting?

01:16:06.260 | - Wow.

01:16:07.980 | It's not even waiting, no, it's hard work.

01:16:10.660 | It's almost like I said in one of my other lyrics,

01:16:13.540 | this is for the MC part of it.

01:16:15.500 | I said, "MCing to me is easy as breathing."

01:16:18.140 | - So it's like breathing.

01:16:20.860 | - Yeah, it's just like, in fact,

01:16:23.700 | this actually was a scientific thing I read about that,

01:16:26.380 | and now that you said that, you heard this,

01:16:28.540 | I know you've had to hear this.

01:16:30.080 | They say that,

01:16:31.120 | the atoms in our atmosphere,

01:16:36.820 | which seem to be infinite in number,

01:16:39.520 | are not infinite in the space they occupy,

01:16:43.180 | right, 'cause they're in our atmosphere.

01:16:46.580 | And so there's a chance that at least 1 million atoms

01:16:52.700 | that you breathe in your life

01:16:55.180 | was breathed by Galileo.

01:16:56.860 | You heard this before, right?

01:16:59.460 | - Yeah.

01:17:00.380 | - Okay.

01:17:01.220 | - It's very accurate.

01:17:04.140 | - Okay, how does your body digest it?

01:17:07.380 | - Well, let's start at the fact that most of the atoms

01:17:13.700 | that we're made of is from like stars, right,

01:17:18.300 | from stars' births, so like we're all really connected

01:17:21.100 | fundamentally somehow, and then the atoms

01:17:23.740 | that make up our body come and leave,

01:17:25.940 | and the same with the cells that are in our body,

01:17:28.060 | they die and are reborn, and we don't pay attention

01:17:30.940 | to any of that, that all just goes through us.

01:17:33.340 | I don't know.

01:17:34.180 | That makes me feel like I'm not an individual,

01:17:41.980 | I'm just a finger of something much bigger,

01:17:45.620 | some much bigger organism.

01:17:47.580 | - Well, 'cause you're drinking the coffee there, right?

01:17:51.780 | You're gonna digest that, you're gonna digest those atoms,

01:17:56.020 | whether you're gonna put 'em through the bowel

01:17:58.900 | or through the urination, it's coming out,

01:18:00.660 | or maybe you'll sweat it out.

01:18:02.300 | You might sneeze it out, but they're gonna make

01:18:04.700 | their way out.

01:18:05.620 | How do you digest the atoms if you just breathe

01:18:08.020 | in Galileo, right?

01:18:10.660 | How do, and that's what I think an artist does.

01:18:14.580 | I think something in the art, it's like some people

01:18:16.940 | eat things and they're gonna gain weight,

01:18:18.540 | some people ain't gonna gain weight,

01:18:19.660 | they're gonna gain muscle.

01:18:21.960 | My, I'm just giving you an analogy here.

01:18:23.600 | I'm thinking that the artist breathes in

01:18:26.320 | and translates it into the art.

01:18:29.680 | - First, they gotta hear it.

01:18:30.760 | I think most of us don't hear that.

01:18:32.600 | Like don't, we receive it, but it just isn't like that.

01:18:35.240 | - Right, it's not, yeah, we not have the frequency.

01:18:37.560 | I said this to a lot of artists, and even, you know,

01:18:41.320 | we all consider ourselves artists in a certain way,

01:18:43.320 | but not, you know, but let's just say

01:18:47.200 | there's only one million artists in the world.

01:18:51.040 | Good.

01:18:52.760 | (laughing)

01:18:54.160 | 'Cause there's, you know, it's probably 10,

01:18:55.880 | yeah.

01:18:57.520 | If you divide that into the population,

01:19:00.280 | what would that, what part of the table would it be?

01:19:03.000 | - A tiny part.

01:19:04.160 | - Yeah, it might be that, right?

01:19:06.360 | - Yeah.

01:19:07.760 | - And yet it's that that inspires that.

01:19:11.560 | - Oh yeah.

01:19:12.400 | - And you know what's so crazy about that though?

01:19:13.940 | There's also a chance, I'm just going numbers

01:19:16.160 | and I'm just hypothesizing with you,

01:19:18.160 | but there's also a chance that all of this

01:19:20.880 | is actually informing that.

01:19:24.240 | - Yeah.

01:19:25.080 | The artist is just watching this, all of this,

01:19:29.760 | all the chaos of this.

01:19:32.080 | Yeah, so it's hard to know where the beauty comes from.

01:19:34.600 | Is it the artist or the chaos from the?

01:19:36.720 | - So I just, I don't have the answer,

01:19:39.280 | but if I was to be forced to say an answer,

01:19:42.000 | and you're not twisting my arm, but.

01:19:43.480 | - Yeah, I can if you want me to.

01:19:45.280 | - No, thank you.

01:19:46.120 | - I don't see life.

01:19:47.120 | - Yeah, life.

01:19:50.020 | In "Tower of Woo" you write something about confusion,

01:19:54.900 | which I really like.

01:19:56.080 | "Confusion is a gift from God.

01:19:58.640 | Those times when you feel most desperate for a solution,

01:20:01.840 | sit, wait, the information will become clear.

01:20:06.080 | The confusion is there to guide you.

01:20:08.700 | Seek detachment and become the producer of your life."

01:20:12.480 | So I got to ask you advice.

01:20:15.600 | If a young person today in high school, college,

01:20:20.040 | is looking for some advice, what advice could you give them

01:20:23.320 | to be a producer of a life they can be proud of?

01:20:26.120 | - Read the "Tower of Woo."

01:20:27.720 | (both laughing)

01:20:29.360 | - Let's start with the Wu-Tang Manual first.

01:20:31.400 | - Yeah, no, you can do that second.

01:20:33.320 | - Second? - Yeah.

01:20:34.560 | I think you can read the "Tower of Woo" first

01:20:36.400 | and then do the manual.

01:20:37.800 | Because the manual is not to put the two books

01:20:41.320 | against each other, but the manual is talking about things

01:20:43.840 | that is so deeply connected to the music

01:20:47.360 | and the people in the "Tower of Woo" goes beyond that.

01:20:51.280 | So I would actually start there,

01:20:55.600 | which is not normally how I prescribe.

01:20:57.640 | I always tell people, start at knowledge,

01:20:59.040 | then go to wisdom.

01:21:00.440 | But since the "Tower-

01:21:01.280 | - Skip ahead to the wisdom, I like it.

01:21:02.800 | - Yeah, I think for a young man in high school,

01:21:06.200 | go to the "Tower of Woo" and then go back.

01:21:09.000 | It's just like sometimes, you know,

01:21:11.320 | you had, you know, like my son's generation,

01:21:13.560 | they had to watch the second round of "Star Wars."

01:21:17.080 | - Yeah. (laughs)

01:21:17.920 | - And then go back, you know what I mean?

01:21:19.680 | This generation is watching "The Force Awakens"

01:21:22.640 | and then they go back, yeah.

01:21:24.480 | - But what, because if you just look at your life

01:21:28.560 | as an example, that's one heck of a life.

01:21:31.880 | There's very few lives like it.

01:21:33.760 | You've created some of the most incredible things

01:21:36.200 | artistically in this world.

01:21:38.280 | Like if somebody, you talk about that, like 1 million,

01:21:42.600 | right at the corner of the table.

01:21:44.680 | If somebody once strives, dreams to become one of those,

01:21:48.840 | how do they do it?

01:21:50.480 | - Well, the beautiful thing is that there are footprints

01:21:54.400 | left by those who've done it, you know?

01:21:58.240 | And the best way is to study that,

01:22:02.440 | to study those who've already done what you wanna do.

01:22:07.240 | You know, we live on a civilization,

01:22:10.520 | we say this is the greatest country in the world,

01:22:13.280 | but our sailors are a pyramid with an eye on it.

01:22:16.120 | You know what I mean?

01:22:18.040 | Because they did it before and they may have failed

01:22:21.600 | for some reason or something happens,

01:22:24.200 | but it was just a strong enough example, right,

01:22:27.640 | to take us further.

01:22:28.680 | You know, Elon Musk is sitting here trying to do better

01:22:31.480 | than what the rocket builders did before.

01:22:33.760 | He's not the first one to build the rocket.

01:22:36.200 | He's not the first guy to think of the electric car.

01:22:39.000 | He's doing it better.

01:22:40.360 | He's advancing it to the point that whoever picks up

01:22:44.240 | after him, maybe they'll get to that flying car.

01:22:47.680 | So that's the beauty.

01:22:49.620 | There's a good verse.

01:22:52.480 | I love finding verses to say things, to confirm,

01:22:55.360 | because this way people could take it verbally,

01:22:58.840 | physically, and then maybe even spiritually.

01:23:01.160 | But Christmas has said a verse, he said,

01:23:03.560 | "The fastest way to heaven is by spending time

01:23:07.000 | "or studying the wise people."

01:23:08.600 | Meaning the wise people who is living

01:23:10.440 | and those who live before you.

01:23:11.940 | - Study the masters.

01:23:14.840 | Let me ask you a big, perhaps ridiculous question,

01:23:17.320 | but give it a shot.

01:23:18.840 | What is the meaning of this whole thing?

01:23:20.240 | What's the meaning of life?

01:23:21.600 | - Big question.

01:23:24.440 | I'm not gonna rush into the answer.

01:23:26.240 | I'm gonna give you somebody else answer first

01:23:33.160 | and I'll give you my answer.

01:23:35.000 | I remember asking this,

01:23:36.360 | and I don't know, I was 15, 16 years old.

01:23:42.000 | One of the brothers was studying in mathematics

01:23:45.040 | and the letter I itself means I, Islam.

01:23:51.080 | I meaning the individual, right?

01:23:58.960 | Being in total accord with Islam.

01:24:03.000 | And let's finish this.

01:24:04.000 | Then they took the word Islam and they defined it.

01:24:07.120 | That Islam is an Arabic word for peace.

01:24:12.120 | Then they said peace is the absence of confusion.

01:24:18.320 | Okay?

01:24:21.680 | So then they took,

01:24:23.680 | and this is something that really hit me

01:24:25.200 | when I was, and I never forgot it

01:24:26.640 | and I'm gonna decipher it.

01:24:28.760 | But then they took the word Islam

01:24:31.280 | and they broke it down by the letter

01:24:33.480 | into a acronym like cash with everything around me.

01:24:36.560 | They broke it down to I stimulate light and matter.

01:24:42.800 | And I was like.

01:24:46.880 | Because what hit me is that if you're not here,

01:24:51.040 | then light and matter don't exist to you.

01:24:55.240 | So you're stimulating it or it ain't here for you.

01:24:59.280 | So anyway, taking all that.

01:25:00.240 | But then I said, so what's the meaning of life?

01:25:03.920 | And they brothers just said, love Islam forever.

01:25:06.920 | Right?

01:25:10.760 | I ain't saying the religious point of it.

01:25:12.840 | I'm just saying all those other elements

01:25:14.360 | I just spoke about in front of it.

01:25:15.840 | - I stimulate light and matter.

01:25:17.960 | I love that.

01:25:18.800 | That's powerful.

01:25:19.640 | - And let me give you my definition of life.

01:25:23.120 | I think life is that simply for each and everyone of us.

01:25:30.560 | To add on to.

01:25:31.640 | - Build, like you said, the masters build on top.

01:25:37.400 | - Life gave you life, give life back.

01:25:39.640 | - I don't think there's a better way to end it

01:25:43.280 | than talking about the meaning of life.

01:25:44.840 | RZA, I'm a huge fan.

01:25:46.680 | It's such a huge honor

01:25:47.520 | that you spend your valuable time with me.

01:25:49.400 | Thank you so much.

01:25:50.960 | - Peace.

01:25:52.440 | - Thanks for listening to this conversation with RZA.

01:25:55.280 | To support this podcast,

01:25:56.720 | please check out our sponsors in the description.

01:25:59.480 | And now let me leave you with some words from Plato.

01:26:02.320 | Poetry is nearer to vital truth than history.

01:26:07.320 | Thank you for listening and hope to see you next time.

01:26:11.000 | (upbeat music)

01:26:13.600 | (upbeat music)

01:26:16.200 | [BLANK_AUDIO]

RZA: Wu-Tang Clan, Kung Fu, Chess, God, Life, and Death | Lex Fridman Podcast #228

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