 I was I was cautioned that these will pop if we get too close. Yeah. Yeah So, hey, welcome to summer in San Francisco Thanks for inviting me my pleasure to be here. Yeah, we're really glad to have you You've been living in LA for a couple of years But I know I and probably everybody else here thinks of you as a New York City guy So tell me how you're sort of adjusting to life in Los Angeles. I'm definitely a New Yorker to the to the grain but Sometimes I think you always got to change your polarity in life, you know, I mean, so I came out to California You know caught a nice vibe nice creative vibe and Got me a house in LA and so I be eyeing for at least five years doing to do in California. Yeah, you have a swimming pool All right, we're gonna get to the work you've been doing in LA the composing work for film and some of the acting a Little bit, but I just want to kind of start a little bit further back You came from a family of 11 11 kids, right? single mom Staten Island and by the time you were nine years old You were already on your own riding the subway to 42nd Street to see kung-fu movies And those apparently had a really profound Impression on you and and all the work you've done since then can you tell us about who that young Robert digs was and what that Whole experience was about well, I think being One of 11 children No, it's not a lot of attention you want to get on yourself So you got to find things to occupy yourself and keep yourself busy And I first started with comic books and things of that nature Or one of my cousins took me to 42nd Street and uh, showed me one of these kung-fu films Just blew my mind away and I wound up playing hooky to go see them and just really became infatuated with it And I think that um, you never know how your future going to turn out you just jump into things like and just try things but It happened to be something that seemed very negative at the time because I got caught by the chewing officer I got chased by the chewing officers and even you know locked up into the tension But um, I just had this Unsatchable urge to see these kung-fu films and I think that years later There are these same things that I lusted so much would eventually help You know my hobby would become my creative, you know output and Feed my family yo in all reality So, um, it was pretty pretty weird and pretty strange because in new york in those times It was like a lot of harrowing users and Glue sniffers and you're being a movie theater sitting beside, you know one guy nodding one guy sniffing Maybe one guy trying to you know have sex with a girl and I am not 10 years old Watching these watching these films and really exorbitant. What was it about the kung-fu movies that really Turned you on and made you Such a fan. What was it? I think the first thing was just to escape reality itself You know, I mean, you know the the things they were doing in those films that's jumping over buildings and You know fighting one man against 10 men and so much honor those things at first Just had had gave me a chance to escape reality And uh, you know, not, you know, I know it's a lot of poverty people in the world So, you know most cases than me, but we basically had two bedrooms You know, I mean my mom's room in the kids room And you got four kids in the bed and four kids in the bed and You know and so much struggling for attention and and certain things you look for escapism And so for a moment these things were escapism back then for a dollar fifty you could see three movies So maybe I would go to pathmark and pack out some bags and make make a diamond bag and eventually Pack up enough bags to make a dollar fifty cut school And go to movies, you know, I mean, um, which you know, I wouldn't want my son to do that at all Trust me, you know, I mean, but but for me, yo, it really it really paid off. Shall I say So you were already drinking smoking pot when you were that age nine. Yeah, I have my friends joining at the age of nine Uh, uh, in new york, we have a hispanic community. We call Puerto Ricans, right? And um, we've heard of that But a Puerto Rican girl, you know, it's just so pretty and so sexy and so like kind of leads you on and the type thing Oh, that's how it worked. It's like so hang with them and you know, just I just lost my mind. You know, I mean, yeah So when you first started sampling and mixing records a little bit later, you were a couple years, maybe 11 Where did the music come from? Was it your parents record collection? Where did you get the music and what kind of stuff were you working with? Oh when I first started on DJing I think first I started rapping first writing lyrics and things like that because I had a cousin named the jizza genius who um He spent a few years older than me. So he was already into hip-hop He'd been to the Bronx sound view projects He picked up the hip-hop trade he brought it back to Staten Island He showed me and I became infatuated with it But by the age of 11, we were selling newspapers and hustling and making our own money I'm called making my first 60 dollars and buying what is known as a technique straight on turntable ODB bought one I bought one and be stole a mixer ODB is your cousin Your cousin ODB old dirty bastard. Okay But um I mean the records will come from anywhere whether it's from your mom's collection the neighbor's collection Uh, if you could get money you save up you bought the break beats or the hip-hop records that was out that time we Know that that in those years it was more like a Expedition to get a sound. I mean you would travel from Staten Island to Brooklyn all the way to Queens Or anywhere where you had this record store had such a such a record, you know There was an old thing called a super disco breaks That uh, it's hard to find them but you may find them in stores like amoeba and things like that But we would travel from Staten Island to Manhattan to Queens. That's to find Volume one volume two You would just cut these records all day, you know, I mean and make your little demo tapes That was at the age of 11. Wow You know, there's a certain amount of freedom you had as a kid in new york as a subway system So great you could go everywhere. I think the subway system really uh Helped a lot of kids in new york get a chance to explore, you know things outside their community Um, I actually grew up in brooklyn first before I moved to Staten Island and make that clear Um, and brooklyn is definitely, you know, the subway trains run through the city like veins So you can reach any part you want but on Staten Island is more secluded There's no subway train. There's only the Staten Island February to get you across to Manhattan And when I moved out there, I became more and more isolated, you know, I mean from the rest of new york So it gave us a chance to kind of develop ourselves and the zone into our own cells And then you would take that ride across to Manhattan. It was a more of a harder trip at that time Jumping ahead to 1992 Not a good time for you. You were on trial for attempted murder You were looking at an eight year sentence and it seems like that was a real turning point in your life Um, it changed you that experience Tell us about that Well, definitely, um, you know, um, it was one of those years It's actually the they started about 91 where, you know, we just Kind of got heavy into the street game and kind of, you know, lost ourselves to The fast dollar shall we say? And uh, got just a alter altercation with some some young men, you know Over girls and things like that and just escalated itself up to a violent situation and um You know, I wound up, you know, having to go to jail for a little while Got myself out on bail, fortunately But uh wound up going to court going to trial and was facing eight years in prison Um, but at the same time I had a daughter Being, you know, in the womb about to be born And I just, you know, just took a look at myself like, yo, you know, I'm about to do the same thing that every other statistic Black man do which they say by the age of 25. We dead on jail I mean, so I must have been 21 About to go ahead to jail. Matter of fact, I may be even 20 years. I was about to, you know, make a record out of it, but um Um, you know, when I went to trial now, you know, it was it was a case of self-defense You know, it's five guys. They was really kind of aggressive and real egotistic and they wanted to do the do I was prepared for the do, you know, I mean defended myself And uh, when I went to trial, I won on self-defense It was a long shot, you know, I mean, I recalled uh, I recall the the da telling me um, you know If I plea plea out, you give me 60 days or 90 days or something like that So I see I I plea out and I go to 60 days 90 days And then he changed his mind, you know, because he found out I was from New York He thought I was more like a some kind of king or whatever So he made his his he made his business to to nail me and it was his His dedication to destroy me that saved me Because he went he went through any means necessary to make me look like the kind of person that I really was an inside And the truth showed out that, you know, I was just a young guy in a bad situation made a couple of bad decisions But overall had a good heart had a had a had a brain on my head When I got a chance to know to speak to the jewelry and tell them my story, they understood the situation Let me go on and uh, my mom's looked me in my eyes. She said, um boy This show second chance Don't mess it up and don't turn back And I never turned back So so six months later was when you put together the Wu Tang Productions Which was remarkable for a lot of reasons and seems to have Drawn from so many influences and important things in your life starting with these kung fu movies the the Wu Tang The clan drew a lot from martial arts So tell us what it is from that discipline that kind of helped the Wu Tang clan come into being well, um at first, you know Um, you know, you watch the martial art films for the action for the maybe around 1989 or 88 shall I say I started watching them and like listening more and some of the things they were saying was very philosophical Very profound for instance, uh, the five tones deaf in every ear No, the five colors blind every eye No, when you first hear that it don't sound like nothing when you think about it It's like, you know, you take things on face value It's a therefore you can't see the inner meaning of things because we take it so much what we see openly and and what we hear audibly without thinking about the we'll produce that sound we'll produce that color No, there's no such thing as color actually. It's all one color, but it's broken down through the prism So those type of things started hitting me inside, you know, I mean started affecting my My whole psyche and when I and then the brotherhood that the that the martial art movies had the brotherhood of You know, if he if you know, he Sacrifices life If you were a better man, if your name was honk see kwan and you was a hero I seen movies where a god just met him never seen him in his life. Just met him heard his name honk see kwan I got it He'll fight the rest of the guys off and die And his wife would die So honk see kwan could live on another day to fight the government or fight oppression and help the people And those kind of morals wasn't really showed in black movies or black tv Or even white tv when it came to to me as a young man Only could get it through the asian cinema, you know, I mean and I just absorbed it when I took it to The rest of the wu-tang brothers and it was like yo, we the wu-tang clan I mean we well that was that's a sword actually wu-tang is a sword Yeah, but wu-tang is wu-tang is a um is a um it's a mountain in china Where um Where they develop internal martial art and their most famous style is their sport style And being that we were lyrical rappers and your tongue is like a devilish sword as we recall you go to the book of Revelation it says when jesus spoke out of his mouth came a devilish sword and with this sword he was smite the nations I just took that literal and applied it to myself and applied it to my crew And we felt we was the best lyricists in the world, you know, I mean and we felt we had our brother title We became the wu-tang clan But it wasn't easy a lot of guys and like, you know in stableton, which is a very very tough neighborhood in stan island Stapleton is known for stick ups like you go out there. You're going to get beat up robbed and sent back And paul kill was more known for Guys who dressed fly had valleys polo had cars, you know drug dealers type guys, right? But to come with wu-tang And not be oriental, you know, I had guys and they were like, you want that Chinese shit, man? You know what I'm saying? They was I was like now you don't understand. Yo, you know what I'm saying? It's all one culture. It's just separated over time So there was this heroic ideal and there was this idea of loyalty that was really profound And when did you start training with the chinese fighting monk the qigong training? Was that during this time? Or was that much later after actually met sifu xin yang ming in 1995? Oh much later after wu-tang had um already made it made made their name for themselves But me and him was like a vision and a dream come true because sifu xin yang ming if anybody heard of him He's the 34th generation Shaolin monk Whose life story is pretty ironic itself He was a young man who was about to die Very sick and his parents took him to a fortune teller and said yeah Your son would die that you take him to the temple So they took him to the temple at the age of six and they left him there And they were only about their lives, you know, I mean he grew up in this temple when he told me he slept on ropes You know, he did so many things that you know, we would take for granted He went through so much things to be the Shaolin monk and he studied so many different philosophies and trainings But um, he still felt that he was kind of suppressed also When he got his first chance to come to america He came to san francisco With the rest of the Shaolin monks and he looked around And he never went back. He he did what he did was known as defected. He defected from common to china And stay right here in san francisco in china town in somebody's uh restaurant in the basement for three months with no light And he finally got out by 93 made it to new york in 94 and I met him in 95 and we became Uh brothers from another mother, but he also became my sifu sifu teacher. Yeah sifu means teacher. Okay So martial arts because we're talking about sort of the formation of the wu tang clan The other the other uh inspiration it almost seems it odds with the martial arts and I want to hear you Sort of explain this came from organized crime The structure you actually modeled yourself after veto corleone and the godfather and I'm kind of going okay Martial arts here organized crime there. So tell us how that kind of works together Well, actually it's very similar. You look at somebody like veto corleone who was Different from the rest of them the mob bosses, you know, you watch the godfather and you watch this family Go through the things they go through. It was very inspirational to uh, to me ray kwan all my whole crew Because a veto was a man who had a good nature about himself And um, and you know, he did things that you know, he was a criminal, but he had a heart And and sometimes you got to do whatever you got to do to make a dollar and things like that But if you keep your morale straight, you know, so you can become a great man even in crime And so so, you know, we were street kids and we were Into crime criminal activities and doing a lot of wild things So the pot to to put ourselves at the veto corleone, you know, I mean was was a was a honor for us and a great thing to do So we incorporated the mafia philosophy, which is also brotherhood loyalty trust I mean if you talk, you know, you get whacked, you know, I mean you you can't mess with nobody else's wife To this day, you know To this day if I go to met the man's house, I don't even look his woman in the eyes because Because I wouldn't even disrespect him like that I'm saying and it's like so certain things, you know, these movies is still into us. I think was ready You know, very very powerful. I think could it help any young man and we just took it and meshed that all together Then you had the um five percent nation and the supreme mathematics and like this is something just a little bit of that I've learned reading about you in your background that we could talk about for the rest of the night But for those people here who don't know anything about that or what kind of um framework that provided for you Give us a little bit of Well information the mathematics As the as the five percent nation will call it when they say five percent, right The original meaning they had was that out of all the people in the world only five percent of the world knew the truth Live the truth teach the truth There's another 10 percent of the world who also knows the truth We use the truth against others and check knowledge and ways like that to manipulate the other 85 percent who are just sheep To be led this way led that way They say uh any given moment we could take a hundred people And it'll be far out of that hundred that's going to really be pure people Maybe the other 10 are wise, but they're using their wisdom to make customs off it Um, that was the original meaning of it. What it did for me is call getting knowledge of yourself And getting knowledge of yourself is the key to life and a man don't know itself He can't know nobody else a man don't respect himself. He can't respect nobody else When it came to the supreme mathematics the first thing they told us was knowledge Which is one and that means to look listen observe and respect no matter what you do You walk in any room you do the knowledge you look you listen you observe you respect where you at Then you act upon it, which is wisdom. Wisdom is just the manifestation of knowledge. It's just The action of knowledge, but knowledge is what's contained within you. So those principles actually Save my life Dozens and dozens of times because I'm able to take a look first or listen first if I just jump out there, you know, I mean Most people especially young urban people in our community. We do things first and find out later, you know For kid new for kid new the results of his crime or the results of his actions ahead of time or we knew that 20 years of smoking weed He's gonna cut your life 20 years short, you know, I mean you may not do the same thing You know, I mean so knowledge is very essential and very important and we learned that From nation of Islam which brings us right directly to chess because you're describing chess Which is planning ahead and not jumping in and that's Fits into the mix as well. In fact, you were talking about it before we came on stage See and the beautiful thing about chess that um, I learned this time went on That chess is based on the 64 squares And you go back and study the e-chain Which is basically the diagram of the universe that the chinese had developed over 4 000 years ago is based on 64 Tri-ground the 64 symbols with these 64 symbols able to calculate a man's destiny Destiny of the universe in fact, whether it's the earth atmosphere the weather They able to do these things by knowing that things change based on certain times So so this 64 number on the on the on the chess set became more and more important to me over the years And I think that chess is one of those games that if anybody who plays it They they become a little more smarter than somebody who don't play because they they plot in the head You know I'm saying whether it's maliciously or whether it's beneficial way for everybody else It's still a plot ahead. So you still play regularly. Yeah, I just played yesterday. Yeah, and got beat by the jizzle, but I still go at it. Well, we got to get back to the music because that's why everybody here knows you You sold your first million records You say this before you became a musician and then Started studying musical theory and learning to read music and all of that which is pretty remarkable So tell us about that journey and how that happened Yeah, I mean starting off as a new york city dj and having a lot of Break records and records that was rare and people wasn't into it no more No, and now and having this eski 1200 sampler and this asr sampler I was able to just to take bits of sounds To um to make my own music. I think I was one of the first people To um, you know, a lot of guys were sampling music and making loops, but I was taking one noise Spreading across the whole keyboard and then playing that one note because I didn't know what a C note was But I would take one sound and uh And spread it across the keyboard and just make all these different sounds come together And that formed the root tank sound But as I became a platinum selling artist and you know, you could travel around the world you meet people you meet musicians And a lot of musicians would come to me like yo, we're destroying music. It's like a drum machine I mean the drummer can't get a job When you sample the beat you sample the bass line mean the bass player can't get a job So you guys ain't real musicians. You just destroying music and there was really You know against against what I was doing and I and I'm a type of person that I love You know to to be right. I love to be real and right And so therefore I was like, you know what I'm gonna take this sound to study music I'm not going to be able to I'm not going to go to another musician And disrespect this trade like that because it is a trade when a man takes five to 10 years the master instrument And he can't get a job but here go a guy. I don't know nothing about the instrument making millions of dollars. You know, I mean That could hurt so what I did You know, I'm saying I pay respect to the music I went back and studied the theories of music went back and taught myself piano I'm teaching myself guitar now I'm taught myself the percussions and things of that nature And that helped increase my sound when I made the album called Wu-Tang Forever Um, that was the first example of me knowing exactly what I wanted to do You know, I mean and it was and it was like this on some critics that went up and down But it was me Paying homage back to musicians and showing them that yo look I'm a musician as well And I respect this craft, but you say so I learned music, but that's a long road. I mean, you know just Learned music. It takes a long time to learn music theory and to read music and particularly to write music Yeah, it took it took a very long. I mean to write it. I just started probably writing two years ago Um far as writing to where somebody else can read it. I mean legible but um Yeah, it's a serious thing. Yo, um, but with the knowledge of music and the kind of producer that I am It took is it helped me go to even more heights to the degree to where as now I could add to my resume a composer Because I know how to compose music now. I know how music flows. Um, I studied peter in the work for instance I first did the movie ghost dog I wrote a score for ghost dog But I studied peter in the work and when I studied that study that uh, sweet they would call it You know, he took every instrument and he applied an instrument to a character So when the birds came he played the flute when the wolf came you're like wrong He threw the trombone in there when you watch ghost dog when the movie first come on the bird is flying You hear my drum padding with a flute on top of it So so I took the time to study those things and also to intervene them or intertwine them to my own style When did you first start using the detune piano? Oh, I think I started using the detune piano in 93 because I didn't know what the tune was You know, I mean it was more like I stumbled across that But I liked it so much. There's there's a great musician I'm quite sure any musician would know named the loneliest monk. Oh, yeah And there's a film he got called straight no chaser And I searched for that film for three years. Um from 1992 I found the 1995 in Chicago. I found it and um I actually had collected the loneliest mark music in 92. I bought everything he made On from blue notes, shall I say and then I maybe paid 500 dollars for all this music and I was just Listen to this guy listen to him listen to him listen to him And I was like, man, this guy is crazy. And also there's another great pianist named bill evans as well Who also I studied under I studied his music shall I say But when I saw the film straight no chasing I seen how this man was smoking cigarette Hit the cheese walk away from the cheap piano Get a drink maybe come back and still be on beat, you know, I mean still be in his zone I mean, I kind of felt like okay. He understands what I understand about music. There's no form to it I said music is like more like a pulse and when you got a post You could change the post based on what the vibration is going with it So you listen to old routine music like method man, which is going down there on there on there It's just a basic four notes on the same post but the drums Are changing so with the change of the drum it changed the pulse or vibration of the key And that's how I think I was able to make these sounds come a little different that attracted fans I want to talk for a minute about your identities because you've had a lot of them. You were born robert diggs You're the RZA You were prince rakeem. You were bobby digital so Let's just let's take bobby digital. I knew you knew I'd say that didn't you So you you you were on top in 1997, right? You had that was wu tang forever and um I've heard you describe this as a time in your life where you got into the ego thing And it seems like a lot of that discipline that you developed and created slid away Yeah, put it to the side shall I say What happened? I think what happened to me personally was this yo when I first made wu tang clan in 93 You know, you know, I'm crowned the abbot of wu tang. I mean and that's and you tell them what I You know, not just the eight members of the group who the world knows but All their homeboys as well. I mean maybe hundreds of kids I'm brothers. I mean that look up to me like yo, that's the abbot. You know, I mean And so I never got it, you know, I kind of like didn't finish doing it doing my thing You know, I mean, so when wu tang became famous You know, everybody know they go on the road guys was having fun drinking smoking just really having a real party And me I was more like very solid to myself very solid to very observant More like applying wisdom studying wisdom. I was more into like studying and things like that and And then after that it was more success for the cuban link the liquids was return to the 36 chambers I basically lived in the basement for three years straight. I didn't even know I was a millionaire until 1997 was the first year that I came outside We actually came to california, you know, I mean I was hanging with all kind of movie stars and The women was just bonk bonk bonk so You know I'm saying and it's kind of funny because I was more like The type of person that never never never uh, that were infidelity never No girls on the road. I didn't touch no girls for maybe three or four years of my first career But you see guys coming out three or four with the odb five girls tonight, you know, I mean I was more like No, rubby contain um And um, and I said I would share this I didn't share this in my book, but I'll share this with this audience In 97 the love of my life actually forsake me And uh, that was like man Very very puzzling, you know, I mean especially when I'm being righteous and I'm trying to do the right thing So once I was forsaken I was like man party. You want to see who could party? You know what I'm saying? I will never forget the day um that I walked out the house I caught a flight to la And from that day on I was on a mission and bobby digital was born out of that How long that last that lasted for about two and a half maybe three years went through a little money Yeah, man. I went through a lot of money, yo I know I ain't nothing to brag about though because you know, I mean foolish It's not never to brag about foolish things. I mean you young you gotta experiment you gotta have fun You gotta zone in But um, you know, I could have fed a lot of other people with that money I fed down with trump because I stayed in the trump plaza for like Months with a whole bunch of homeboys and we turned the we we turned we turned the trump plaza to a project building I promise you One day, this is true. This is true story one day Taylor bell was going in And it's four of us on the stoop or the trump plaza were 40 ounces Oh, that would make a great ad So the other thing that you did that was so extraordinary was create this business model and again It hadn't been done before all of your um, Wu Tang clan members signed with one label and then you allowed all the individuals To sign with the other label other labels plural Which was kind of a brilliant strategy because you were all competing against each other And selling more records selling more music. Yeah, my idea at that time is this is before Bobby digital my idea was um To have the industry work for me Because I had a bad experience in the music industry back in 1989 With the Prince Joachim and the Tommy boy thing because you know, it's always whoever's hot record company wonder kind of model you towards that person 1990 1991 who was the hottest artist in the world? M.C. Hammer young mc those type of guys and I'm from New York and we more like we not like that, you know, I mean Can't dance I can't dance a leg yo but um But we're not so when I came with a whole crazy album of you know of hardcore music Now I made one song for the girls was just oh, we love you I came based based on my own things I was going through couldn't choose between some women I was dealing with so I wrote the song and Tommy boy. We love this song. This is the song And they're gonna pitch you in a tuxedo and you're gonna pitch you out there like that And I was like, you know anything to get on you don't care, you know 19 years old. You're like, okay, cool. Yo Let's do it. And um It was it was a bad decision and at the same time the juzza who was my teacher Was facing the same dilemma over at cold chillin cold chillin got big daddy came cool G rap there's marky and they know us from the streets They're like, oh, that's the only governor for y'all don't And then put out just to put out a song called come do me Which was the R&B R&B song that had nothing to do with this whole movement This whole sound was just record company bureaucracy And we basically put us back a couple years to where as you know, who wasn't successful at it Because you are going to be successful. Let you be yourself But even even if you are successful by not being yourself You won't enjoy your success because yourself will be knocking at your door and so um And so things so things didn't work out. So when I came back in 1992 93 and my own idea I understood how the game worked. I've been around a lot of rappers just from being in the industry I've been around people from care. That's one the Chuck D To daddy came all of I seen all of them. I seen the egos that came with it. I seen him in town. He's also seen the um The mistakes they was making I had a friend of mine's named prince paul Who um one of the best producers of our time Who was the only person who took the time To talk to me work with me And show me things right and tell me information I need to know and I mean it was this information That that told me that you know what? I'm gonna try it this way I'm gonna switch it up So when I finally did sign moutain clan a lot of records I was thinking in my mind like yo We want we want to give you the groove but you can have the individuals because now I explained it to him It will be hard for him personally You know these guys that come up here and tell this office up because if I end up money for everybody So let us just do our thing you do your thing and we'll go and it's going to help you It's going to help us and we're going to help everybody My plan was to get the industry to work for me to have you know Def jam who was the competition with lyre records who was the competition with electric records and gaffing records To all work for the sound of routine work for hip hop And eventually work together because no they don't work together for some reason. It's all like who got the bigger balls and um One year they all did work together the first year that they all worked together on the campaign was in 1995 all four major labels Combined and formed the boutang family tree and put in all the retail stores across the country And each label doubled their sales And even for the first album called uh into the 36 chamber, which was two or three years old Had a 40 to 60 spike in sales Based on that move. And so that was my goal. I achieved it. I think Did anybody copy that I think nowadays is copies in his own way, you know in his own way, you know You know everything you're saying to me from the very beginning where After you got off the murder rap and formed wu tang clan You had this tremendous authority and this tremendous power and this tremendous ability to control other people and to organize and um The the it seems the one thing in your life as I read the book and and thought about the things you'd done That you weren't able to control was what happened with odb and odb being your cousin who Who died of a was it a drug overdose? Was that what it was or basically basically Basically, you know, it's body definitely abused his body to the point of no return So my impression is that that's something that's really Stayed with you as just a source of pain and frustration And I wonder where you are with that now and how you've kind of worked that through Yeah, I'm gonna speak when I'm gonna speak twice on that and that was a second blow really The first thing that kind of you know that you know that I guess, you know To snap me back down in reality and that's the cause Bobby digital to kind of disappear What's my mother passed away in the year 2000? And uh, I think anybody can identify your mother is like Definitely your reflection or source of life When your moms go you're kind of like wait a minute You definitely know you're gonna die because that's what you came from You know a lot of us don't feel like we're gonna never die probably, you know You feel like yo, you know, you don't know that day is gonna come But when it happens to something that close to you, it really humbles you You know what I'm saying it snaps you out of whatever world you went And uh, and it's not not gonna do about it You know, I mean it was one of the saddest things I've ever felt in my life because I actually try to breathe back into my mouth I mean because my you know my ego and my Assurity of the power of myself, you know, I mean it's like it was super hot You know, I mean it's like man, I might make the moon jump, you know, I mean But when you realize that yo, you know That we all got our physical limitations and the physical You know definitely got gotta suffer his death. The mental is eternal. It's never gonna die And I mean we talking about Jesus 2000 years later So the mental was forever, but the physical is going to slip out of here and that Revolving that revelation for me in the year 2000 You know walk me back down to the earth and have me just go back into my studies and just go back to try to Help people minds as much as I can not to take my whole path like this or not to take that path like that and then with odb who who basically I looked at as an invincible man as well I mean I knew him my whole life and I seen him escape Or what you would call death 50 times or more I mean, he's was shot point blank by 357. No problem Shop point blank by 45 No problem two shots Point blank goes to the hospital Climbs out the window I pick him up in the van he gets in the van Check it out. He gets in the van And he has staples From here all the way up to as close to his heart staples not stitches staples I'm like, man, he's like, man And we actually just drove for days went down to Virginia Beach and just you know I just want to get him out of New York and just try to get him back From the things he was doing because he definitely was you know, he felt very invincible He felt, you know, nothing could take him out of here And when he did finally start saying to me like, yo, I don't got that much longer. I didn't believe him I mean, I was like, nah son, you good. I'm gonna go before you. Nobody can kill you You like, you know, you sound special about you And the day that you know, you passed away Man, yo, I mean like that was so crazy because it's like, uh You know, I was there, you know And I had to leave to go do an interview for the one hour one hour I'm doing the interview come back to the studio And that's Well, well We're gonna move on to a couple questions about your new career in Los Angeles But in the meantime, anybody who has questions For riza, there's a microphone here a microphone here Please just line up and we will switch back and forth and Take questions. Don't be shy because you're going to go home tonight And I think you wish you asked the question. So please Come on up to the microphones and uh, we'll start right in with you here. Yeah, my name's Malik. Yeah, respect Malik I have a lot of questions, but I'll just narrow it down to um I read your book Pardon a read your book. That's right And uh, it was beautiful As far as the songs you put the lyrics I forgot which chapter it was but I agreed with I think you had two songs per album pretty much. That was the formula Gotcha, because I know you could put more on but you had to Streamline it but anyway, uh the iron flag You chose what was it? Uh rules I understand why you chose pink or oozy pink ring But um, I kind of wanted to for you to expand on um why you chose rules say over babies Because that had potent lyrics I think rules was one of those songs that um A lot I was up tempo You know I'm saying and that's actually a song I didn't produce it was produced by mathematics and far as me having so much, uh No, I got I was already you know, I'm diverse. I'm always famous mathematics is not famous yet I'm a type of person that was shared. You know, I mean, so I was like, yo, let's Focus on him. Let them let people know what he could do people know what I could do So that that's that was something for me to let mathematics get this time to shine, you know, I mean Real quick second question because we have a lot of folks and if everybody else could just One that'd be good. All right. I'll make it quick. So 1997 you did say it was a crucial year. It wasn't my life as well. That's when I got married Uh, the the thing I noticed though was, you know, how you produced all the tracks from interdict 36 chambers All the way to Wu-Tang forever except for fish I'm gonna go right right Every album I'll probably give somebody one track. Gotcha. One of my students one track now as soon as I bought that tape I think it was uh june 3rd 97 i'm listening to a double cd jizza I think he was on five songs. Yeah, and then I remember reading an article where you said He was smoking a lot of weed and to hear that coming from you He was kind of profound, you know, no disrespect No, he's smoking a lot of weed and he has hatred in his heart And I don't know if that's true or not because I um, I don't know if I said he had hatred in his heart But um, that's in 97 jizza, you know It's just like you're the type of person he writes in his house by itself He don't write rhymes. That's like studio rhymes. I mean he he likes to sit He may take him a month to write a rhyme because when you listen to his lyrics One sentence is a whole book sometimes, you know, I mean so But when you're working on an album in a project, you know, I mean you got to be ready You got to put that energy stronger and uh doing Wu-Tang forever, you know, he was in the studio a lot But you know, it's more than we plan to show it's showing and um end up on that. Thanks. Thank you Yeah, go ahead. How you doing Riza? I was wondering if you had any advice for upcoming producers who are trying to bring that creative aspect of classic era hip hop to the mainstream And um, and what kind of advice would you have to producers who are who are just getting into the industry But want to maintain that that original creative vibe of in hip hop But still keep the djs and the promoters Happy happy Well, it's like yo, you gotta stay true to yourself regardless because No, everything got a season And so so we just talked about earlier how mc hammer had a season I'm quite sure you're not producing mc hammer type sounds But it worked for him, you know, I mean it took him to the moon So everything gonna have a season I think the best thing a producer should do is stick to your guns, yo And when your time come you're gonna have the abundance To dominate the times you look at somebody like swiss beats or like ferrell when they got their turn to burn They didn't stop, yo And whether some people know some hardcore hip hop guys like I don't like that whatever What do you like to do not when he got his time to shine? He didn't stop when I got my time to shine I didn't stop the only difference I can say between me and him was that when I got my time to shine I was struck with a flood People to her with a lot of the music that we have before the flood You know, maybe boot tank would even stress it out a little further, you know what I'm saying But bottom line is stay true to yourself, yo regardless of what's going on So I mean because only you know you you know, I mean only you know what you're trying to achieve Let the rest of the world catch up jimmy hinders a great example Thank you Next question. Yeah How you doing? Um, I'm sorry. Uh, this is kind of on the same tangent. Um I haven't been around for long and I haven't heard a lot a lot of hip hop But how I see it now is the music is being devoured by Bitches bling money weed and um I mean only a few cats are really keeping it real with themselves. You got your Kanye West here You got your nose here on his good days when he's not smoking weed. Um So I was wondering what you were doing to contribute uh to bring back You know that that old hip hop style, you know, bring back the days when people just like They battle with with break dancing. I mean because because like now it's like hip hop it's just Putting into the kids into the youth the fact that you ain't gotta know your brother's name, you know I mean just call him nigger And uh, I'm just it's it's sick and it's tiring, you know So what are you doing to bring back to old school people just party just get down and actually know each other's names there's a lot of there's a lot of Young guys in my crew, you know, I mean that that um that we always Got him in the studio working keeping the keeping that raw sound, you know, I mean, but like we said, it's a cycle So right now we're going through the cycle to as We could say ignorant hip hop is dominating the airways and dominating the record cells But at the same time though, you know, I mean, it's just like anybody who eats, uh, um unhealthy food McDonald's it's fast food on me You can eat it all day But like the guy showed you in that movie 30 days later. He almost died from that, you know, I'm saying so Eventually you're gonna have to get some nutrition You know, I mean when it's time for you to decide to get nutrition or the world want nutrition We got we got an abundance of that waiting for them. Let's take a question over there. Yeah. Sorry for neglecting you Uh, that's okay. Uh, I just want to say thank you first and foremost because I'm Yeah I just I just remember in uh in 93 my my older brother pushing me the tape to Wu 10 forever And I was thinking like I was just like really not liking that first And then I eventually got to hear it more and more and it became y'all became my favorite group So I just want to just say thank you But um, I was at the rock the bells where ghost and ray was at just over here in san francisco the other day And I know you was at the la one Um, they was talking about cuba links too. I was wondering how um, uh, how much you are involved with that If you're doing the production or Yeah, we actually may be one but in the studio for the last 30 days Um, put a lot of music together for cuba links, too Uh, this this is the 10th year anniversary of cuba links and if uh if time and Politics do things right it will be a cuba link to release this year and I will do a lot of production on it Let's take another question there. Yeah Thank you. Um I got to admit uh before tonight you could have walked in my living room and I would have had no idea who you were So I appreciate uh, this has been fascinating and I've always wanted to ask a big star this um I assume a lot of your early work. I mean when you're young and hungry and the things we talked about earlier It all stems from passion and just hunger and wanting to make it to the top and it's and and And your your art is coming. I mean, it's just so real How do you maintain your credibility and your connection with your audience now? I'm assuming you're Have a lot of money now and and all that and um, I mean, how do you how do you quote unquote? Keep it real and and and maintain your credibility and and your connection with your audience. Well, first of all, um Coming from where I come from you never got enough money because it's I come from a big family of poor people, you know I mean, so man I'm it's my nickname is western union but no I stay hungry y'all because Because what I have in me is more like a swordsman approach to music and a swordsman approach to hip hop And when you got a samurai approach, you want to be the best regardless and and and and there's a famous, uh samurai Bong bong All right, you know I'm saying that yo, you know Take years to go study by yourself You know I'm saying to perfect this thing and then bring it to the world So so so you may not always be on top in the spotlight, you know I'm saying and for me You don't have to be in the spotlight. I stay hungry. I stay wanting to show what I have inside of me Show what I've experienced and to share it with My what's with my fans or just with my family, you know, I'm saying first and foremost And eventually your fans can become your family when they really understand what you're about I stay hungry son and right now trying to you know, I'm trying to do movies and direct and all that So I'm on a mission yo for real So you hear from your family a lot, huh? Oh man All right right here, basically I I want to say thank you too I want to let you know I came from nowhere a broken home your music in general before like right as Into the 36 chambers came out man. I was uh, you know I was doing a lot of drugs doing a lot of stuff hustling doing shit I shouldn't have been doing and you your lyrics and all the woo basically brought me out of my you know my rut So I want to know, uh, you know from one emcee to another You know, what do you feel about the white boy rhetoric of like emceeing and like, you know What well think about you know, whatever let me say I don't I don't I never heard the term white boy rhetoric But far as like far as um white emcees one thing people gotta recognize I think we don't recognize right because of the white black Spanish Hip hop is an american music homie When you go back to some of the founding fathers of hip hop the most favorite earlier groups Let's take one dmcl who's a who produced it rig Rubin All right then so hip hop has always been a black white latin thing Benny Medina from cold children records invested a lot of money into it You go back to the cold crush, uh, not the cold crush. Um, even the cold crush that dj was Puerto Rican the fantastic five Um, Grand Wizard Theodore those it's it's always been all of us You know saying it's just that you know, it kind of got separated at a certain year But far as the story of the of the white youth in america It gotta be expressed homie You know saying then we gonna find our common trace If we don't find our common trace, we can always be like this It's it's those common denominators that make us be like, yo, that's my that yo like right now white weather It's my nigga. That's my nigga bong bong. It's the common trace that we have, you know, I mean So I don't think none is wrong with with with no kind of emcee. I mean We recently met some emcees out of uh, south america venezuela. You know what I'm saying down hard to the core Down to the core whole different culture though, you know, I'm saying whole different world Poverty-stricken speaking their word yo, so it's universal. We gotta get this guy into politics Wizard for president over here. Yeah What's happening? Yeah, first thing, uh, first question like, how do you like my coat? That's a classic one right there. Yeah. Yeah, it's classic man from to bed to bed in yaks Right on but uh, first of all man coming from like a Generation who's like parents who had to watch their parents walk around like the living dead on crack cocaine You know, I was blessed to come to islam in 1995 and so Trying to listen to the radios nothing but a bunch of cars Holes, you know money and stuff like that, but I'm trying to maintain my peace And so the wu-tang provided that alternative that helped me maintain that peace at the same time helped relate to the struggle I was going through, you know, where the father was trying to recover from that addiction So, um, I know you derive a lot of your your philosophies in the wu-tang from different sources So how did like islam and the principles of islam and like the life example of problem Muhammad helped enhance you as an artist or as a person Well, first of all, um, islam is an Arabic word. It's called islam. It means the peace I'm saying and you must have peace within yourself Then you can share peace with others. So and islam also is a way of life I'm saying I know today is considered as a religion and you know, you got moslems muslims and shunis and shinaitis Know that but it's a way of life. It's the islam is actually The way of life that planet earth lived by So you look at the planets and you look at mars and the moon they look ageless Because they always submit to the will of god regardless It happened. You don't see nobody's they don't go against only man takes himself out of that So for me islam and in the prophet Muhammad I don't know who knows how many people in the audience know about the prophet Muhammad But they consider him a perfect man in islam and when you read you read about this man I just I just read um his his life story about Last year on my birthday. Actually, I read his life story Man, what a beautiful man because here. There's a man who couldn't read or write Um, no knowledge of himself or whatever but always showed the most humility The most humbleness they said that he wouldn't even spit on the ground He spit in his own napkin so nobody else would see it, you know, I mean the b is peaceful and righteous as him Is a beautiful strive and so when I read his life story It changed my life as well, you know, I'm saying and even in the past before I knew his life story Just islam itself and and knowing that I must always stay at peace prepared for war You know, I mean I think it helped me in every walk of my life, yo I first heard about islam when I was 11 years old and I and I'm super fortunate to get it that that young I'm going to be able to zoop into my life, y'all. Thank you for that right here All right, Riza. My name is k. I'm from berkeley's I like your hat mong mong First of all, I wanted to say thank you because you've been a major inspiration in my life And my question is um, I was wondering what your favorite stream of cannabis was My favorite hold bowl county That's everybody hold both. I got I got that my new rap, yo Homeboat county kush. All right Yeah, man How you doing? I uh, I grew up in a house with a lot of Beatles and Rolling Stones and uh, Peter Paul and Mary and uh, I started listening to hip hop about 20 years ago and it led me through All different kinds of music into jazz and funk and soul and things I had no first-hand knowledge of And uh, it it led me to a lot of records. I would have never heard before had they not been sampled And uh, I've gone deep and I'm I'm always wondering What you're listening to and and so I'm wondering if you could tell me, you know Top five or even top two top two jazz top two soul albums for you um It's hard for me to like the classify people because I because I'm a music as a music lover You know one minute you could be Into into one album in the next minute into the next album. So it's you know, it's hard for me to say what's the top But um, I will say something that something that hasn't been exploited and I don't know if it will be exploited But when I'm listening to right now and you might laugh, yo I'm listening to Dean Martin In Frank Sinatra right now. I've been listening to that right now studying Because if you look at Frank Sinatra and they did their music with an orchestra You know I'm saying and and and you know, we do our music You know, you know, soul music was maybe three or four pieces. Maybe five pieces and hip hop is basically electronic sampler So being there I'm into composing the things I'm studying Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin right now So maybe I'll sample through those things and maybe I'll make a pop hit out of one of those things And maybe somebody else will though Hey, thanks for coming out to the city. I just uh back to the mcdonalds and back to politics So no all I hear on the radio all you hear is the mcdonalds type of music It feels like the clear channel type things taken over so where can I What do you recommend or how can you uh, you know explain to me and us how we can get that to change How we can get clear channel how we can get Real music back out on the airways to get rid of that mcdonalds crap Well, there's a couple of things I think that's going on that we all know about first You know the internet has definitely become a strong source of music going back and forth You know, you can find a lot of things you never heard before you can hear your new artist But I think public television and public radio has also been going back to giving real music I don't know far as real hip hop because hip hop is such a hard music to classify for adults You know I'm saying so maybe until We really get into that full blown adult age to as we make more decisions and I'll vote count more and we start Utilizing our vote maybe until then, you know, I'm saying, you know We just got to take was take us out there Yo and look and look in magazines or look to the streets and just try to find the stuff that you doing on the radio Because you're not going to get it from the radio. You're not going to get it over here Nobody oh, okay Well, you go get to the microphone. You don't get to the microphone. We won't be able to hear you It's right back there. Okay And you know what it's it's about time we heard from a woman. So why don't you get up there and ask your question I'm a oh woman um I teach art in the in juvenile hall And so I had to learn about some music Because you know, I'm from sugar pie honey bunch You know twist and twist and shout easily brothers twist and shout But there was so many things I wanted to say First thing I want to tell you I'm really proud of you and I feel that I can say that because I'm I'm older than I appear But I'm really proud of you I did not know I knew some of your music because I'm always on a quest Because I teach music appreciation and so In part. I mean I teach painting. I teach music. I teach whatever I can however can how can I reach you? How can I get you to tell your story? So they want to tell hip-hop stories So I'm trying to ask them and they say okay get this record But of course it has the b-word and being the ho and the you know And then I have to clutch my pearls and act all offended about that but But I heard you on the radio. So I knew of your music So I brought some of your music in and then we talk about what does this mean? What does this mean? What is you know, what is he talking about here? So we do that But I heard you on the radio heard you on npr And I thought listen to that brilliant man And I was so proud of you. I had to call all of my relatives. I'm from chicago I had to call them I had to call the ones in la and say you have to listen to this man and they said you are so late We have all You are so late, but then I went to new york and I met sifu. I went looking for you there I didn't know you were in la who knew who knew but anyway, I'm just really I'm pleased to see you And you're so brilliant And I just love that. I love the way You are speaking the truth. Thank you for that. Thank you From Wu Tang Corp. And I was wondering, um, can I record this for them? Pardon me? Can I record this for Wu Tang Corp? Go for it. I just want to know what your ultimate goal is in life Like when will you be satisfied? man, yo I don't say I don't think I got the answer to that question. But I think you know I got personal goals, you know, I mean that you know, which is my art and creativity and things like that My ultimate goal, you know, I have to say that no, that's God He drives that, you know, I'm saying so, you know, I always feel like I didn't do do do do what I was here to do I felt like music and and art is so much fun and so much joy That it can't be my goal, you know, I mean, but I don't I can't really put my finger on it But I do have one Determined idea inside myself and I shared with you You know I'm saying I want to give I want to leave something on this world You know I'm saying that could really be useful For man forever I'm saying same way how homie left the wheel, you know, I'm saying the wheel is forever useful the light bulb is forever useful You know I'm saying I actually want to maybe in the scientific world, you know, I'm saying which I always read a study and I got this thing called SAI wrote called the degree of light which I think Scientists is overlooking certain things about light and magnetism I want to leave something special like that that could really help the world for real Yo, so if I get the chance to do that, I will if not maybe this idea in this dream Will go to my son because my father looked me in my eye and we came to my house and was like Boy, you're living my dream So maybe my son will do it. You know, I mean, but that's that's what I really want to do. Yo, so Can't beat that yo Before we um, we'll take a couple more questions But I don't want to leave without you telling us a little bit about this current chapter of your life Which is Hollywood which is composing music which is acting in movies the movie coming out derailed with jennifer aniston You're in it. Jim jarmusch's movie so The answer to the last question leads me to believe this might just be This phase of your life and you might move from this through to something entirely different But tell us a little bit about this and what you're doing and where you're going with it Well, right now I think I'm in a real real exciting part of my life personally I mean for the personal things that I'm aiming for and I'm aiming to you know to be a successful director You know successful actor anything to do with art that I can express I just got an unsatiable burn to do it, you know, I mean from clothing You see I got on woolwear pants woolwear jackets. Just I just I can't stop, you know, I mean So um right now I've been fortunate to meet some great people in hollywood Some great directors some great producers and I'm getting some opportunities and um, I'm really enjoying it Yo, you know, you can see me um in the movie called derail coming out As you can see I wrote the routine manual these type of things There's all artistic things and they they burn to me with a passion You know what I'm saying? I want to relate with the brother sir earlier He said about the prophet mohammed and also the prophet moses both both men who are admired greatly But they didn't find the true meaning of their life until the age of 40 And so I'm patiently waiting. I mean another five six years, you know, I mean You maybe hit that degree and maybe find that meaning right now I'm really enjoying the art and the things I've learned artistically and expressing them. Okay Hey, where's how you doing? My name's jovi. What's up, Joe? You work with shack on no hooks. Yeah Are you Are you gonna work with him again or any other like stars outside of the rap industry? Um, I don't know if shack is making any more albums, but we definitely No, but we we became homies though We became homes we became friends and I know some of his family members You know some of my family members and you know, he's just all around super duper super cool dude, you know, I mean So What's up with the cure? It's it's it's written, but as it been spoken, you know, I mean, um, actually we was in the studio um less last week and uh Pulled the page out from the cure To record it on cuban link for rake ones album as an interlude just to show people with my head was that and uh and rake one was like Man, you're trying to make it rain. You know, I mean, but um, so just so on rake ones next album I have a have a taste of that, you know what I'm saying, but I got that written I don't know no that's time go on. I'm thinking I was talking to my manager about this Maybe the cure should be a book You know, maybe it's not something that I wrap out, you know, I mean because It's uh, it's very no it's just kind of intricate, you know, I mean if you don't know if you don't listen close to it It's like It's not useful. So maybe to read it. Maybe better. I'm debating that I'm debating that I haven't I haven't found the right music for yet You know, I mean haven't found the yeah, I've been looking forward for over seven years Haven't found the right music. So maybe it's not meant for me to say it Thanks for acting that question. No, yeah Um, last year at the rock the bells in San Bernardino. Uh, that was the only time I ever remember you. Yeah, I was in the front Like at the end of the set You was just saying like who here would like to hear another boutang album And I know since the passing of odb like things may not look so likely, but is there still plans for that? Definitely plans for that even though Um, odb passed before he passed he still has verses and everything like yeah, not not just that He was one of the biggest Advocators Really, we gotta do a boutang album. You gotta do a man. Fuck off. Excuse my language Fuck all that shit drop everything and do that god. I'm telling you I'm telling you and um, and invite when I was listening You know Time time time came and showed me that yo, you know, you gotta do things in season You know, I mean or your missed opportunity But fortunately, uh, I could tell you right now There's six members in california right now. They came to visit me for the month of jiladi been out there for a few weeks We have been in the studio and maybe that'll be the result of it Thanks, two more questions. I'm sorry and let me just say that Riza will be signing books He does have to make a plane back to la tonight if he doesn't get to sign your books He has pre-signed lots of books Please don't rush him when he leaves the stage We will have an escort take him back to the table right there where books being sold And we'd love to answer every question, but let's go for two more. Yeah Yeah, how you doing? I was uh, I went to rock the bells last year too with my friend there And you saw him so yeah, it was like you were explaining how uh, Finding good hip-hop is like a like a Like you're exploring something right and then we drove all the way here from san francisco Just to see that san francino concert And that was probably the last full set of wu tang members in the concert And I was I was wondering how you were feeling about that like right after the concert because we were there We were waiting for you for hours and we were sweating sticking to each other. You know what I'm saying? So we're wondering um What did you feel like right after as a group like stepping off that stage and how you feel now that you can't like Recreate that moment. So well one thing I did say on the dvd when we interviewed about it This is prior. It's before we lost um osiris. I was like this ain't only just Something for for me. This is a piece of history. I think that that concert was a piece of history anybody was there became part of a piece of history because um, you know that that can never happen again, yo But it did happen And we and for some reason we did document it and we do have it on dvd So, you know, I'm just I'm just grateful for that But you write that can never happen again, yo, and I kind of felt that when it happened though I didn't feel it to this capacity far as Losing a member. I just felt like it was such a hard thing getting everybody to come do that concert It's never gonna happen again, but now it can happen again. I'm glad I'll just say one thing about that night You know odb was in the hotel that night And he refused to come to the show because he had a couple of girls and he got tired. He drained himself Guys, I'm not rapping this for shit tonight And I was like, man, come on $10,000 kids waiting for you I was on the phone coaching him out for like 30 minutes and he was like, I'm not I don't give a fuck. I'm not coming I'm tired man. I'm not rhyming today. I'm getting pussy. I'm like, yo I'm like, excuse me, but he was this this is how it really is. You know what I'm saying? And we sent four of our other I sent for my cousins who's his cousins To get them and that's and they got him and bought him in and he lived it out He was happy he did it and and I'm happy that I because I usually be like I don't care don't come. Yeah, you know me but I really put put put a voice on that and and we got that piece of history So and I'm glad you was there to witness it. Appreciate that. Thanks last question there Yeah, I was just wondering like Coming up in your childhood you had to do what you had to do to survive I was just wondering like when you were trying to make a Chains or go through that transition in order to get the Wu Tang clan started like how did you meet the demands of Feeding yourself and surviving but at the same time coming up with the financial means to further your Production company like how are we able to cope with that? Well, like I said in the beginning, you know, we you know in the beginning before I formed the production company I just came out of a tragic situation a very confusing situation and that situation that I came out of Was part of me dealing with the negative world You know I'm saying and when um, I did have a little bit of uh Substance to maintain myself for a minute You know I mean and it was that little bit of substance and that maintained myself and the bail money that I got back You know I'm saying Helped me down for basically almost a year. You know I'm saying and and the Wu Tang brothers and everybody in the crew You know I'm saying we'll do anything to make this happen. You know I'm saying you got uh, there's a guy in a group named A guy named power who you may have seen in the movie called black and white Uh, he was a guy who was you know, he sold his car He sold his car and bought me $28,000 and dropped it on my living room floor I was like, yo, let's do this and he became the president of Wu where he might have making $5 million on $28,000 investment So it's not only what you could do sometime. It's the people's around you You know I'm saying people who believe in you and and and if you got an opportunity or a great idea inside your mind It's like a corporation. Sometimes it's good to go share with other people When I found when I formed Wu Tang production. I didn't just form it for myself I went to so many different people in neighborhoods even even the guy who I Shot you know disrespect who I defended myself. I went to him and his boys. It's like, yo I'm telling you I got it. It was like Yo, just $2,000 I had a company I had I had shares I had the shares and everything y'all like I signed over shares right now. Yo And they didn't believe you know, I mean a lot of people didn't believe you know what I'm saying But my man power who did believe Sold his car my brother the varn who was still ceo Wu Tang production sold everything he had You know I'm saying and and my dj skein, you know chipped in a couple of grand people was helping out And they they got rewarded in return as well And and continue to get rewarded off what we did So it was it was it was a collaboration for us when it came to the economic show Well, riza, I want to thank you. What you don't know is he's expecting another child Any day now so Thank you Yeah, thank you for getting on a plane and coming up to san francisco Thanks to all of you who came thank you for coming out I really appreciate it. I forgot and friends of the san francisco public library. Good night Did you have to sign me good