Here are some bits of RZA’s interview with Scratch Magazine that were left out of the issue this month:
On his influences:
“You know Pete Rock for his horns. Dre is known for the bass and moods. Nobody really brought the strings in as much as me. I was heavy in strings in the first hundred songs.”
On his influence:
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“He started doing strings after Wu-Tang. Think of some Premier beats with strings. “Code of the Streets” came after Wu-Tang. (Laughs) Premier is my man, my nigga but I know when his music changed. I used to always come up to Premier. Premier was killing niggas but no one was chopping the way I was chopping son. Nobody was able to make three notes make the whole beat, like “Clan in Da Front.” I remember when Premier first heard that he was like, Yo man, son. He was in shock. He started chopping more. He was good for a good loop and a good scratch on top of the loop. Then it was a-boom, ching, jigga-jong. He never did that before. I introduced that mentality to people, to basically chop something beyond sample clearance. (Laughs) Chop it beyond compare. To me, sample clearance is already an illegal business. Because when you make a new derivative of a song then it’s called a new derivative. It should be a new copyright for it. Take the Method Man song, ‘All I Need.” The version I made for the video, it sounds nothing like Marvin Gaye’s song. The only part is when Mary Blige sings. It’s a whole different mentality. They claimed 90% of that song, as if they wrote it. It’s a criminal activity business going on with that. I think there should be some kind of statutory to it. I as chopping music down to the inch.
