GZA.

BOUNCING ACROSS HOLLYWOOD BLVD with the GZA, his Wu brother Masta Killa, DJ Mathematic, Pootie Tang, Wanda Sykes, Reemo, Shelbiack, GZA's Manager Angelie, and yours truly, Aki X. We pull up at the Knitting Factory to meet the hoards of Wu-Tang fans waiting outside trying to get into this sold out Hollywood show. GZA chills, talks to the fans for a minute and the posse posts up. A minute later the security guard leads us in through the back entrance and we hold up in the corridor backstage. All of a sudden the door opens and we hit the stage. GZA busts into Wu classics like "Cold World," "Investigative Reports," "Gold," "Killah Hills 10304," and "Shadowboxing." The crowd explodes. We are even on stage with the Wu-Tang Clan rockin' the "Don't Give a Fuck" Angel Biotek shirts. Sheiblack takes up position with the camera and gets biz-izzle. I break my neck with Pootie Tang, Wanda Sykes, Reemo, J Live and the rest of the Wu posse. Free 0DB. --Aki X

Tell us about the new album.

It's called Legend of the Liquid Sword. I got various producers and an all-star cast from the Wu-Tang Clan.

Who's on there from the Wu?

RZA, Masta Killa, Inspecta Deck, Ghostface. It's a high concepttype thing with banging lyrics.

Do you write everyday?

I don't write lyrics everyday, but I gather information and notes and write that down everyday in a notebook, like a writer. I am trying to write scripts now so I can broaden my lyrical ability. I think when I write lyrics it's visual enough anyway. I am good at stretching stuff; from a little bit I can get a lot.

What do you think gives you the edge with writing over a lot of other rappers?

I take my time. I am very critical, especially with myself. I'm like an editor, it never finishes like I start it. I put in temporary lines to build the structure and then replace it with other lines as I go on. I edit so much stuff.

You ever freestyle and lay it down like that?

I have but I don't like to freestyle. Sometimes you get nervous when you freestyle, and I like to take my time and sit down and write. In freestyle you're supposed to be able to mess up and make errors. I think Biz Mark was the best freestyler. I haven't really come across too many like Inspecta Deck who can freestyle like how it was written and have that same delivery. A lot of freestyle you can tell is freestyle, straight from the head. That's not me. The way the majority of them do it is I could do that all day and it wouldn't really mean much.

Is this new album carrying on from Liquid Swords?

I am not saying I am going back to that vibe. That was a good album, it had a good theme. Beneath the Surface didn't really have a good theme, it just had some good tracks on it. This time I went back to the theme. From the first album I had a young boy speaking about his father's swordplay. On this album I have my son speaking about my history with hip-hop. narrating the song.

Who did the dope animation of the cover of Liquid Swords?

That was DC Comics, Dennis Cowens. That cover was all different pieces on a chess board. The queen in the back was floating above the board. That concept came from an actual game of chess. Back in '93/94 I was playing a game of chess and I left the game as it ended in the same checkmate position. So I started sketching the board and the pieces--the positions they were in-- and I started to make the pieces look like figures. I imagined it was an actual war on a chessboard. It was like two years before I used it. I was thinking it would be a nice cover for the "Chessboxing" song off the Wu-Tang album.

What's up with Wu-Tang now? Is everyone just doing their solo projects now?

Wu-Tang is my family. I am Wu-Tang and I will always be like that. As far as where each individual player will take his career? I have no knowledge of that. I know we are all recording right now.

Solo?

Yeah. We are talking about doing another Wu-Tang album. I'm with it. We're all family.

We just talked with Raekwon and he apologized in the interview for promoting the bling-bling. He was like, "I got to make an apology for that. I am taking it back."

He said that?

Yeah.

Well, I never rhymed about "bling." I never rhyme about cars. I never rhyme about jewelry.

You don't even wear jewelry do you?

No. Even if I did I would never rhyme about it. Even if I wore a 100-thousand-dollar necklace I would never rhyme about it. There's more to rhyme about. I can't knock that, though; I think it's good to look dope and fresh. But there's more to life than life like that. I guess it was cool back in the day in the beginning when it first started popping off with that type of style and that type of music. But now everywhere you turn you see the same type of music, the same type of style. It's just becoming ridiculous.

I feel like a lot of that bling-bling don't relate to a lot of cats anymore as times are getting tougher again.

I think automatically if you wear a lot of bling you gonna be noticed for wearing your bling. So why do you have to rhyme about it? You're noticed already. For instance. Liberace. he wore a lot of diamonds right? He wore more diamonds than all these bling-blinging cats.

He was the ultimate bling-blinga?

Exactly. He had a piano with diamonds all around it. He didn't make songs about it though. He was on another level. He was caught up in the music. He wasn't caught up in all that, even though people recognized his bling-bling.

Liberace invented bling-bling?

Exactly. Myself, I can get caught up in anything. like I can get caught up in Shelby taking pictures. I could write a whole song about that; going through the process of being in the dark room, or however I want to lay it down, because there is so much you can touch. You can deal with the lens, the shutter, the flash. I can relate all that to hip-hop and you wouldn't really know. You will know but it won't be like today we gonna rhyme about the camera. It won't be simplistic like that. I will be talking about the process of taking photos and film development. Spark on that.

So you get inspired by the creative process of just writing the lyrics?

Yeah, life itself. There is so much to rap about. There is so much you can write about. I speak about many different things. Hip-hop is a way to get these things out. I always talk about chess and rhyming or sports, although I'm not a sports person. I relate all things to hip-hop because in life everything is connected, everything relates. So I can get sparked by many different things. Bling is not even on my mind when I am writing. You play chess, right?

Of course. I love chess.

Me too. Tell us about the skateboard video you did back in '99 that never came out?

The song was called "Crash Ya Crew." off the last album. Just off the title alone I wanted to have skateboarding involved with it. I focused on a few crashes in skateboarding, as a lot of times they fall. I wanted to use the raw essence of skateboarding. I can't do it personally, but I had a skateboard myself at a very young age. In the '70s it was all new to us. I went out and got footage of a whole bunch of street stuff as the video was looking kind of boring, because all I had was ramp stuff. So I went out and I gathered other footage and paid for it. They licensed it to us so I cut it up. It had some nice video shots, nice maneuvers in it.

There is definitely a vibe with street skating and hip-hop right now. Have you checked out Muskabeatz?

No, but I've felt for years that there's a vibe between those two things. A majority of my fans are skateboarders. That's the connection.

What hip-hop you banging now? Who you feelin'?

I bang a lot of the old stuff, '80s stuff. I like Dead Prez, anything conscious. I think they respect my work also. I can't really name names.

Time's up, we got to be on stage. Shouts?

Shout out to Wu-Tang, all the hip-hop nation, and the real underground cats.

Quick Wanda Sykes on-site skate report: How do you feel about skateboarders?

Wanda: I am always amazed by skateboarders and what skateboarders do. You watch that stuff and you're like, "Is that trick photography? Did he do that?" Amazing, riding them rails and stuff.

On that note we are out. Peace.