RZA Has More Freedom Solo

07/24/08 4:01pm

by Shehzaad Jiwani (CHARTattack)

Few figures in hip-hop command as much respect as RZA. For the past 15 years, the Abbott of the Wu-Tang Clan has maintained his reputation as an eclectic and enigmatic producer who far surpasses the Timbalands and Pharrells of the world.

On RZA's most recent album, Digi Snacks, he returns to the Bobby Digital character he created 10 years ago and expands on its cracked-out persona. The record outsources beats from unexpected collaborators like David Banner and is decidedly the most un-RZA-sounding collection of songs he's ever put out — and he seems to like it that way.

"I think I changed my sound a lot," RZA admits. "One thing I could say from previous Bobby Digital albums is this album is more focused.

"I wasn't sporadically making lyrics or making beats. I was making songs. I knew how they were going to be songs. It's some good beats, but more than anything, I think it's good songs."

Considering the amount of time that goes into Wu-Tang albums, it's surprising that Digi Snacks was released less than a year after the Clan's last album, 8 Diagrams. The producer maintains the writing process was a bit more convoluted than most would imagine.

"I really started work on it two years ago. I recorded some of those songs two years ago. I went back in and re-did it all over, just to change the songs. I went back and I made them better. That's why I feel it's more focused, because I did a process of pre-production, 'principal photography' as they'd call it, and post-production."

The Clan members take their comic-based alter-egos very seriously, and Bobby Digital is no exception. The well RZA draws from for Wu projects is a very different place from where he gets inspiration for his solo material.

"It's literally a different personality for me," he says. "As the Abbott, that's a different position I gotta play from Bobby Digital.

"With 8 Diagrams, it was a slow process, but that record wasn't about me. Doing Bobby Digital, I was selfish with it because I don't have to answer to nobody. Doing Wu-Tang, I do have to answer to people. I can't say stuff on Wu-Tang albums that I might want to say with Bobby Digital. On the [Wu-Tang] song called 'Unpredictable,' there was one line on the record that I changed maybe two weeks before we handed it in, like, 'I'm the one and the only with the dick of a pony/I love my bitch like Chachi love Joanie/Fuck too much pussy, but I still feel lonely.' See, I can't say that on Wu-Tang. I can say it on Bobby Digital.

"The difference between Wu-Tang and Bobby Digital is that Wu-Tang is sacred. Bobby Digital has more freedom."

Catch RZA when he performs with fellow Wu-Tang member GZA at Wakestock on Toronto Island on Saturday.