Wu Tang Art Show Asian Art Museum San Francisco
At the Asian Art Museum, RZA Talks Fashion, Wu-Tang, and Martin Shkreli
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If the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco seems like an unorthodox venue for one of the world's most famous hip-hop producers to premiere a new song and mode collection, y'all plainly don't know the Wu-Tang Clan.
Samples from kung-fu films like Shaolin and Wu Tang pepper the Wu-Tang Clan's early albums, an outgrowth of group leader RZA'due south boyish obsession with martial arts. Over the years, still, the rapper, producer, and entrepreneur has immersed himself in Eastern philosophical and spiritual teachings, and has even traveled to the Shaolin Monastery — a Buddhist temple in Dengfeng, People's republic of china — to become officially ordained equally a disciple.
"My appreciation [of Asian culture] has evolved from beingness an outside admirer to being a historical studier to actually condign, you could say, a member of it," says RZA (a.k.a. Robert Diggs) when we sit downward in the VIP room of San Francisco'southward Asian Art Museum on Thursday nighttime.
Tonight, the museum is abuzz with hip-hop heads, fashionistas, and photographers anxious for the launch of RZA'southward second fashion collection for 36 Chambers ALC, his nascent lifestyle brand and record label. In addition to its new line of limited edition jackets, t-shirts, and accessories -- bachelor online and at the Asian Fine art Museum starting today -- 36 Chambers is also set to release Wu-Tang Clan'southward adjacent album, Wu-Tang: The Saga Continues, on Oct. 13.
The launch party's attendees are the outset to hear the collective'due south new single, "Lessons Learn'd," which plays every hour on headphones available at the museum's kiosks. In it, the grouping takes a articulate attack on Martin Shkreli, the "pharma bro" who purchased the sole copy of Wu-Tang's last album, One time Upon a Time in Shaolin for $2 million — and who, while being sentenced this month to federal prison, unloaded it on eBay.
Museum attendees wear headphones, hearing the lyrics: "Hater / Wouldn't concluding a 24-hour interval in my shoes / Y'all know very well / Bet he swell / You can tell he jeal' / My price hikin' similar the pills Martin Shkreli sell."
Earlier our talk is over, RZA talks almost Shkreli and his eBay auction. But first: why the Asian Fine art Museum?
Last year, RZA's San Francisco-based business partner at 36 Chambers, Mustafa Shaikh, went to the museum on a appointment, and was immediately impressed by the Emperors' Treasures exhibit of artifacts from the National Palace Museum in Taipei spanning the 12th through 20th centuries. When RZA was in town on bout, Shaikh brought him to the museum, and they began to anticipate fashion designs based on Buddhist sutras, wax seals from calligraphic scrolls, and other artifacts from Emperor's Treasures.
"When I got here, I wished I had more time," says RZA. "I was really engaged. I was like a kid in a toy shop."
Fashion is by no means RZA'due south first foray into another creative field beyond hip-hop. His soundtrack work has appeared in various films and video games, including Kill Bill: Vol. i, Soul Aeroplane, and Afro Samurai. He'due south as well the author of two philosophy books, The Wu-Tang Manual and The Tao of Wu, which combine teachings from Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, and more esoteric sects similar the Five-Percent Nation. For RZA, fashion is only the next step in his continuous creative development.
"I recognized early on that fine art is a wavelength, and that wavelength could exist tuned to different forms of art," he says. "If I go the instrument, I tin let anything catamenia through me, like a trumpet. Yous can play jazz with it, you can play rock with information technology, you tin can play classical with it. You can play anything yous want with information technology, information technology depends on the player. Simply if I become the instrument as well every bit the role player — you know what I mean — and so I can be both, and that'southward what I remember I've become."
RZA recently returned to his roots with the new Wu-Tang anthology, handing off beat-making to DJ Mathematics (who, incidentally, created the original Wu-Tang logo) so that he could focus exclusively on rapping and mail-production. On the new project, Mathematics channels the gritty, organic feel of RZA'south old-school piano loops, the foundation of Wu-Tang'due south offset album, Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers).
Even amidst the new album'due south rollout, RZA says that he's already itching to make more music. "Expect, I love the studio. Sometimes when I'yard not in it for a while and I go back in it, I wind up staying in it for a calendar month," he says. "I become stuck in information technology. I'm in a very musical fashion right now, even today. I'm kind of fiending to make some music."
RZA'due south desire to push the envelope has made him no stranger to controversy — including the ongoing Martin Shkreli episode. To many fans' ire, Wu-Tang's last album, 2015'south Once Upon a Time in Shaolin, was auctioned off as a single copy for $2 million to the infamous chemist's executive, who was recently convicted for fraud and awaits sentencing in a New York jail.
Many fans were perplexed by why Wu-Tang created an album intended for a single listener — let alone a man who raised the cost of an AIDS drug from $13.fifty to $750 per pill.
"Correct hither, we're at the Asian Fine art Museum. Everything in here is singular," RZA explains. "And then the idea was that we were creating a piece of art, not something that could be mass-consumed. Nosotros also thought music was losing its value and we wanted to bring value back to it."
Shkreli recently put the anthology up for sale on eBay. The auction appeared to close at just over $1 meg, but the sale hasn't been finalized since Shkreli is currently behind bars.
"Out of all the bad things they say [Shkreli's] washed, he did one matter that was good, which was that he helped show the theory of the value of music — even by him putting it on eBay, which I'm pretty pissed off almost."
Its unclear whether the earth will ever hear One time Upon a Time in Shaolin, but afterwards Wu-Tang drops their next album, The Saga Continues, RZA says the group volition record one more final projection. He doesn't desire to tour into old historic period like B.B. Rex, he jokes afterwards during his artist talk with hip-hop historian Jeff Chang.
"I remember everything a man does, as he lives longer, he should evolve," he tells me. "Then I just proceed evolving, and I'm ready for the adjacent."
Source: https://www.kqed.org/arts/13809267/rza-on-his-collaboration-with-asian-art-museum-and-wu-tangs-new-album
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