RZA On "The Brotherhood, The Loyalty, The Fight Against Oppression"

These past few years, Wu-Tang Clan’s RZA, aka Robert Diggs — MC/producer/mogul — has been diverted by Hollywood. Diggs scored Jim Jarmusch’s Ghost Dog: The Way Of The Samurai and has had acting roles in Coffee & Cigarettes, Derailed and Brick Mansions, as well as TV’s Californication. Encouraged by “Mr [Quentin] Tarantino,” he made his directorial debut with 2012’s cult The Man With The Iron Fists, a homage to martial arts flicks. Diggs also starred in that movie as Thaddeus, a slave who, having fled America for China, becomes a mystical village blacksmith, opposite Russell Crowe’s opium-addled British soldier Jack Knife.

“The first attraction of martial arts was the action, of course, but then it became the mythology"

TMWTIF2 picks up Thaddeus’ story five years after the events of the first chapter. Alone and wounded, he seeks solace in the spiritual life. “He’s tired of killing – even as a hero.” Yet, inevitably, Thaddeus feels compelled to join local miners combat malevolent forces.

Anyone familiar with the Wu will know of Diggs’ lifelong love of martial arts movies, the clique’s Enter The Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) referencing a Shaw Brothers classic. For a young disadvantaged African-American, the Wuxia world symbolised empowerment. “The first attraction of martial arts was the action, of course, but then it became the mythology – it became the brotherhood, the loyalty, the fight against oppression.” Diggs even developed an interest in Buddhist philosophy. He found a fellow disciple in his cousin, Russell Jones, aka the Wu’s eccentric Ol’ Dirty Bastard, who died in 2004. “I’ll never forget me and Ol’ Dirty Bastard going to Chinatown in NYC, down to Canal St, to get kung fu books and movies and sticks and nunchaku and all these things – we really became obsessed with it!”

Crowe may not appear in TMWTIF2 but they remain tight. Diggs describes our Rusty as “a really cool, unique inspiration in my life.”

That Diggs now focuses much of his time on film occasionally frustrates Wu devotees. However, he sees creativity as a continuum, approaching features like albums. Diggs is infectiously excited by moviedom’s fresh opportunities. “I’m striving to become better and better. I think music has led me to this. I wouldn’t have known early on that film was a medium that would allow almost all of my creative energies to be put into one package.”