RZA: Wu-Tang Clan, Kung Fu, Chess, God, Life, and Death
音乐与艺术哲学与宗教生物与进化心理与人性技术与编程
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dongoingsaidgotfamilygodmanmothermoviefilmsomebodykungtangmoviesdidngreatestwisdomsayingsawguy
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🎙️ 完整对话（1832 条）
Lex Fridman (00:00.000)
The following is a conversation with RZA.
Lex Fridman (00:03.340)
The rapper, record producer, filmmaker, actor, writer,
Lex Fridman (00:06.740)
philosopher, Kung Fu scholar, and the mastermind
Lex Fridman (00:10.700)
of the legendary hip hop group Wu Tang Clan.
Lex Fridman (00:14.880)
This is the Lex Friedman podcast.
RZA (00:17.260)
To support it, please check out our sponsors
Lex Fridman (00:19.260)
in the description.
Lex Fridman (00:20.460)
And now, here's my conversation with RZA.
Lex Fridman (00:24.860)
In the Tao of Wu, you write,
RZA (00:27.140)
when my mother left the physical world, I lost one
Lex Fridman (00:30.100)
of my main links to the universe.
RZA (00:32.460)
They say that you have an umbilical cord
Lex Fridman (00:35.180)
and an etheric cord, which is the invisible cord
RZA (00:38.140)
that attaches you to your soul, your mother's soul
Lex Fridman (00:41.300)
and all other souls.
RZA (00:43.180)
When one passes away, you really lose something.
Lex Fridman (00:46.420)
It's physical and mental.
RZA (00:48.260)
It's real.
Lex Fridman (00:49.460)
Part of you dies.
Lex Fridman (00:52.420)
What have you learned about life from your mother?
Lex Fridman (00:54.860)
I mean, I learned life itself from my mother.
RZA (01:00.180)
You know, being one of 11 children
Lex Fridman (01:05.040)
and seeing the sacrifice that she gave to us,
RZA (01:10.340)
therefore given to life.
Lex Fridman (01:13.340)
It's really the greatest lesson of life.
RZA (01:16.760)
The thing that shook me as I wrote those words
Lex Fridman (01:21.340)
was coming up young with arrogance, confidence,
RZA (01:31.620)
knowledge of myself.
Lex Fridman (01:34.220)
They called me the scientist.
RZA (01:36.980)
We was taught you're the supreme being.
Lex Fridman (01:40.300)
In order to be the supreme being,
RZA (01:41.700)
you gotta be supreme amongst other beings.
Lex Fridman (01:47.140)
I understand that more now than I did then
RZA (01:50.100)
because then it was so literal.
Lex Fridman (01:53.100)
You know, the word God derived basically
RZA (01:57.260)
from the Greek language, as they say,
Lex Fridman (01:58.860)
and it meant wisdom, strength and beauty.
RZA (02:03.660)
Yeah, we could have that.
Lex Fridman (02:06.140)
But the power to control life and death
RZA (02:09.740)
is something that you would assume is a God trait.
Lex Fridman (02:14.240)
So now here you are saying that you're a God, right?
Lex Fridman (02:20.120)
And you're reading the Bible,
Lex Fridman (02:21.380)
how Jesus brought back Lazarus.
Lex Fridman (02:24.440)
And you know, now it's your turn to do something.
Lex Fridman (02:28.320)
And when my mother was laying there in the hospital bed
Lex Fridman (02:32.320)
and air was no longer coming out of her lungs
Lex Fridman (02:34.800)
and going into her lungs,
Lex Fridman (02:37.640)
where's my power to bring her back to life?
Lex Fridman (02:39.900)
Yeah, so you can't truly be God.
RZA (02:44.700)
You're powerless.
Lex Fridman (02:46.340)
Yeah, or God is not the definition
RZA (02:48.940)
that we need to use to describe it
Lex Fridman (02:51.580)
because it's a translation of wisdom, strength and beauty.
Lex Fridman (02:54.660)
So you could be that.
Lex Fridman (02:56.340)
But so I'm answering your question,
Lex Fridman (02:58.520)
what did my mother teach me about life?
Lex Fridman (03:00.020)
I learned that day on her physical passing,
RZA (03:03.740)
that okay, you know what I mean, there's a physical me.
Lex Fridman (03:07.800)
Do you think about her, do you miss her?
RZA (03:12.100)
Of course, I keep my mother in my prayer every day.
Lex Fridman (03:17.800)
And the thing I pray the most beyond giving thanks
RZA (03:23.460)
is I pray that her name is honored
Lex Fridman (03:27.420)
and remembered by my family.
Lex Fridman (03:30.300)
I don't know if the world's gonna remember that, right?
Lex Fridman (03:33.660)
Even though if you watch my movie, Love Beats Rhymes,
RZA (03:36.000)
I named the school in that movie after my mother
Lex Fridman (03:39.060)
just to leave it somewhere else.
RZA (03:41.700)
Yeah, in physical space.
Lex Fridman (03:43.940)
Yeah, exactly.
Lex Fridman (03:45.140)
But yeah, painful.
Lex Fridman (03:47.720)
The pain of my mother's passing is indescribable.
RZA (03:51.880)
Only until it happens to a person they know
Lex Fridman (03:55.380)
and then they won't describe it either.
RZA (03:56.880)
Only the people that lost their mother,
Lex Fridman (03:58.540)
they could look at each other and they got this nod.
Lex Fridman (04:00.820)
You know what I mean?
Lex Fridman (04:01.820)
But one other thing happened to me was the joy of life
RZA (04:07.580)
hit me differently.
Lex Fridman (04:10.860)
And I think it was the realization of my own mortality
RZA (04:17.860)
versus my immortality.
Lex Fridman (04:21.340)
It's a big, big thing.
Lex Fridman (04:22.620)
And I don't know if we'll get to expound on that,
Lex Fridman (04:25.060)
but there was a joy that overcame me
RZA (04:26.740)
because I was kind of free of a certain illusion
Lex Fridman (04:30.420)
about the immortality of my physical being
RZA (04:35.380)
versus the mortality of my physical being.
Lex Fridman (04:39.100)
And I was like, okay, wow, I understand.
Lex Fridman (04:42.180)
So that was the first or the hardest realization
Lex Fridman (04:45.860)
you've experienced that you're mortal.
RZA (04:48.740)
Yeah, that, yeah.
Lex Fridman (04:49.660)
And I'll say mortal and what you're looking at here
RZA (04:53.580)
physically, I won't say my soul is mortal.
Lex Fridman (04:58.180)
I'll say it's immortal because at the end of the day,
RZA (05:02.220)
it's just like I can sit here and I could just hum,
Lex Fridman (05:05.840)
please, please, please, by James Brown.
Lex Fridman (05:10.180)
But James Brown is not gonna come in here and do that.
Lex Fridman (05:16.460)
So in some sense, James Brown is still here.
RZA (05:18.380)
In another sense, he's gone.
Lex Fridman (05:19.220)
His soul is here.
RZA (05:20.420)
His soul is here.
Lex Fridman (05:22.420)
Well, it lives through you by you singing it.
RZA (05:25.580)
It lives through you by you listening to it, celebrating it.
Lex Fridman (05:28.820)
And the hope is that the human species continues
RZA (05:32.500)
to celebrate the great minds
Lex Fridman (05:34.900)
and the great creations of the past.
RZA (05:36.880)
I will add this to that equation.
Lex Fridman (05:41.460)
When I say it's immortal,
RZA (05:44.280)
I don't think it's not just only
Lex Fridman (05:45.860)
because somebody sings it, right?
Lex Fridman (05:48.340)
It's like, where's the fire at right now?
Lex Fridman (05:52.600)
It's in the air.
RZA (05:54.100)
You just gotta spark the spark.
Lex Fridman (05:56.260)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (05:58.820)
So it's always there.
Lex Fridman (06:01.620)
Are you afraid of death?
RZA (06:03.300)
Nah, I'm not afraid of death.
Lex Fridman (06:05.660)
I'm not trying to see it.
Lex Fridman (06:08.380)
I'm not watching that nowhere near me, right?
Lex Fridman (06:10.840)
Because all I know is life, right?
RZA (06:12.940)
My life is living.
Lex Fridman (06:15.880)
I read a lot of ancient texts,
RZA (06:17.460)
people probably know about me.
Lex Fridman (06:19.420)
I love one of the great teachers named Bodhidharma.
Lex Fridman (06:21.980)
And there was a thing written in one of the books of his
Lex Fridman (06:29.700)
or one of the teachings of his.
Lex Fridman (06:30.900)
And the question, somebody asked him similar question,
Lex Fridman (06:34.900)
you're scared of death or what are you gonna be
Lex Fridman (06:37.420)
after you die?
Lex Fridman (06:39.500)
And his answer was, I don't know.
RZA (06:41.500)
He had answers to everything.
Lex Fridman (06:43.800)
But he was like, I don't know.
RZA (06:44.640)
They said, oh, he doesn't know that.
Lex Fridman (06:46.580)
So yeah, because I haven't died yet.
RZA (06:48.340)
Yeah, well, the uncertainty to some people is terrifying.
Lex Fridman (06:52.100)
Not knowing what's on the other side of the door.
RZA (06:55.060)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (06:56.180)
I mean, especially when you're young.
RZA (06:58.140)
You know, as a kid, fear permeated my life.
Lex Fridman (07:03.560)
You know what I mean?
RZA (07:04.400)
You know, I was actually watching horror movies
Lex Fridman (07:06.420)
and I believed in all type of supernatural things
RZA (07:10.740)
that could or can happen.
Lex Fridman (07:12.060)
I thought I saw things as well.
Lex Fridman (07:14.460)
And you know, whether it was being projected
Lex Fridman (07:17.340)
in my own mind or whether it was there visible to me,
Lex Fridman (07:19.500)
I don't know, right?
Lex Fridman (07:22.340)
But life is beautiful and we have it.
Lex Fridman (07:28.200)
And we should use it all the way to the last drop.
Lex Fridman (07:32.860)
Realizing the mortality, the gift your mother gave to you
RZA (07:36.820)
is realizing the immortal.
Lex Fridman (07:38.900)
And in so doing, help you realize that life is beautiful.
RZA (07:42.620)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (07:43.820)
On this topic, Quincy Jones, I read, said to ODB and you,
RZA (07:48.580)
when it rains, get wet.
Lex Fridman (07:51.300)
What do these words mean to you?
RZA (07:54.820)
Well, I think what Quincy was saying at that time was,
Lex Fridman (07:58.020)
you know, I think I was more conservative,
RZA (08:02.100)
like as a person.
Lex Fridman (08:03.780)
And like, you know, I had money.
RZA (08:07.280)
Women wanted me.
Lex Fridman (08:09.060)
Anything I kind of wanted, I probably could have had.
Lex Fridman (08:13.740)
You know what I mean?
Lex Fridman (08:15.220)
And he was just saying, when it rains, get wet.
RZA (08:17.060)
Enjoy this, man.
Lex Fridman (08:18.220)
It's raining on you.
Lex Fridman (08:20.500)
You know what I mean?
Lex Fridman (08:21.340)
Don't put up the umbrella.
RZA (08:22.540)
Don't go back in the house.
Lex Fridman (08:24.900)
Get wet.
RZA (08:25.780)
Experience the moment.
Lex Fridman (08:27.080)
Yeah, and enjoy it.
Lex Fridman (08:28.420)
And I didn't take total heed to him at that time.
Lex Fridman (08:32.620)
A couple of years later, I took some heed.
Lex Fridman (08:35.300)
But at that time, I didn't take heed.
Lex Fridman (08:36.940)
And when I took heed,
RZA (08:39.400)
I think that I may have misinterpreted
Lex Fridman (08:46.080)
by looking at his example of getting wet
RZA (08:48.200)
versus my example of getting wet.
Lex Fridman (08:51.040)
And I can tell you right now,
RZA (08:52.520)
I'm getting wet right now in my way.
Lex Fridman (08:56.160)
In part, thanks to your mother.
Lex Fridman (08:57.520)
But overall, you just learned how to appreciate the rain,
Lex Fridman (09:01.600)
just like the experience of every moment.
RZA (09:04.740)
Yeah, and I'll share this with you
Lex Fridman (09:05.840)
because this is going to be a very open conversation
Lex Fridman (09:08.460)
and I haven't had this conversation.
Lex Fridman (09:09.960)
So definitely in part to my mother,
RZA (09:12.760)
then in part to my wife.
Lex Fridman (09:15.360)
I meet my wife, it's my second wife,
Lex Fridman (09:19.560)
but I met her after my mother passed.
Lex Fridman (09:22.360)
And she was just a friend.
RZA (09:23.920)
You know, some girl I met, I thought she was beautiful
Lex Fridman (09:27.120)
and actually built a friendship with her.
Lex Fridman (09:31.280)
But a few years later, when the relationship became like,
Lex Fridman (09:35.360)
you know, this is going to be my woman,
RZA (09:37.600)
it was actually when I was doing the middle of my divorce
Lex Fridman (09:42.040)
and I was like, you know, do I run wild and hey, hey, hey,
RZA (09:45.680)
you know, me and my wife already filed, we were separated.
Lex Fridman (09:48.880)
And do I run wild?
Lex Fridman (09:51.240)
And I didn't run wild, a little bit, but not too wild.
Lex Fridman (09:55.520)
And you know, I'm still a man, I'm a hip hop guy, so.
RZA (10:00.360)
I read you know how to party.
Lex Fridman (10:01.640)
Yeah, exactly.
Lex Fridman (10:02.880)
But the funny thing is that my wife now, her name is Talani,
Lex Fridman (10:08.440)
my uncle said, she reminds me of your mother.
RZA (10:15.080)
He knew my mother before I knew my mother.
Lex Fridman (10:18.920)
And he saw that and we ended up dating, got engaged
Lex Fridman (10:26.960)
and then her mother passes.
Lex Fridman (10:28.540)
And so now there's a total understanding of everything.
Lex Fridman (10:35.680)
And we actually help build each other back up.
Lex Fridman (10:38.600)
So of course I have to thank my mother for the awareness.
RZA (10:43.360)
Then I thank my wife for bringing that awareness
Lex Fridman (10:47.820)
to actual actualization, like to actually feel,
RZA (10:52.880)
I don't think I'll be talking to you right now
Lex Fridman (10:54.560)
and talking as much as I do these days,
RZA (10:56.760)
if it wasn't for the security and peace and harmony
Lex Fridman (11:00.000)
that I was able to gain at home, you know, so.
Lex Fridman (11:05.600)
And like you said, you now share that look
Lex Fridman (11:07.920)
of having both lost your, your mom.
Lex Fridman (11:13.980)
What have you learned from Quincy about music,
Lex Fridman (11:16.320)
about business, about life?
RZA (11:19.640)
Quincy Jones is a great mind, great artist, you know,
Lex Fridman (11:24.520)
a treasure in all reality.
RZA (11:27.040)
He seen it from when it was, he couldn't walk in this,
Lex Fridman (11:30.720)
he couldn't eat in the same places he played his music at
RZA (11:34.000)
to owning places bigger than ours.
Lex Fridman (11:36.840)
So what a beautiful life, you know?
RZA (11:41.760)
He's the type of guy, if you spend one hour with him,
Lex Fridman (11:45.640)
you got a lifetime of information.
Lex Fridman (11:48.840)
And I was blessed to spend multiple hours with him
Lex Fridman (11:50.960)
and days with him.
RZA (11:51.800)
And, you know, there's a certain period of time
Lex Fridman (11:54.000)
where we came across each other and he was always
RZA (11:58.320)
there to share the knowledge.
Lex Fridman (11:59.560)
Like that's another thing about him that I think is special.
Lex Fridman (12:01.840)
And hopefully I picked that up,
Lex Fridman (12:04.960)
is that he's always willing to share,
RZA (12:09.240)
share with his experience, his knowledge.
Lex Fridman (12:12.120)
I mean, I think he'll even share his home
RZA (12:17.460)
to the right person if he feels that that's what they need
Lex Fridman (12:19.920)
to get back on their feet.
RZA (12:20.960)
He's a very beautiful man.
Lex Fridman (12:22.280)
So just the kindness, the goodness of the man
RZA (12:26.000)
is like the thing that really rubbed off on you.
Lex Fridman (12:28.820)
Yeah, I mean, minimum, right?
RZA (12:31.200)
I mean, Quincy Jones also in his fifties,
Lex Fridman (12:34.800)
as a producer, produced one of the greatest albums
RZA (12:38.600)
of all time and one of the greatest selling albums
Lex Fridman (12:41.420)
of all time.
RZA (12:42.260)
Not just great critically, economically great.
Lex Fridman (12:45.740)
And I mean, I think he did it at the age I am right now.
Lex Fridman (12:49.720)
So I might have a great year coming up.
Lex Fridman (12:51.520)
I don't know.
RZA (12:52.360)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (12:55.200)
Time and well, yeah.
Lex Fridman (12:57.320)
So now you got a taste of what greatness is.
Lex Fridman (13:00.160)
You get to see what greatness is.
Lex Fridman (13:01.680)
So you know what you need to do for yourself.
Lex Fridman (13:04.680)
Exactly, how to strive for yourself, yeah.
RZA (13:06.660)
You have a few people you've worked with
Lex Fridman (13:08.600)
who are fascinating like yourself.
RZA (13:10.640)
Quentin Tarantino, you worked with him.
Lex Fridman (13:14.040)
When somebody asked you to describe him with one word,
RZA (13:16.360)
you said encyclopedia.
Lex Fridman (13:18.480)
What have you learned from the guy
Lex Fridman (13:19.960)
about filmmaking and about life again?
Lex Fridman (13:22.720)
A very generous man with his knowledge.
Lex Fridman (13:25.040)
And for me, he shared it, I think,
Lex Fridman (13:27.840)
in a way that was unique in a sense of,
RZA (13:31.720)
you know, at a point in time,
Lex Fridman (13:34.000)
you know, we just was super duper tight.
RZA (13:35.820)
Like, you know, like I'm going to this crib
Lex Fridman (13:38.200)
and watching movies and just having long conversations
RZA (13:42.260)
about art and about life.
Lex Fridman (13:44.460)
You know what I mean?
Lex Fridman (13:46.720)
So I learned a lot.
Lex Fridman (13:48.000)
I consider him, you know,
RZA (13:49.920)
especially when it comes to anything cinematic in my life,
Lex Fridman (13:53.560)
I consider him the godfather of that for me.
RZA (13:56.320)
I think, you know, I humbly asked him to mentor me,
Lex Fridman (14:02.180)
which is a very humbling thing to do
RZA (14:04.560)
coming from my neighborhood, coming from who I am,
Lex Fridman (14:07.240)
coming from, I was already a multi platinum artist,
RZA (14:11.240)
you know, I mean, it was a year,
Lex Fridman (14:13.900)
it was past the year 2000 already.
Lex Fridman (14:16.120)
So like 2001, 2002 that I asked him to mentor me.
Lex Fridman (14:20.200)
So I was the wizard already, you know what I mean?
Lex Fridman (14:23.560)
But I humbled myself because I saw in him
Lex Fridman (14:28.440)
a craft of brain power that to me resonated with me,
Lex Fridman (14:34.200)
but I was just a Patamon at it, I was a novice at it
Lex Fridman (14:38.800)
because I was trying to make movies in my music,
RZA (14:42.200)
you know, trying to make videos.
Lex Fridman (14:44.240)
And here was a man who was a master of it
Lex Fridman (14:46.320)
and an encyclopedia of it as well.
Lex Fridman (14:50.360)
Like film history.
RZA (14:51.520)
Film history from whether it's the actor,
Lex Fridman (14:54.240)
the director, the cinematographer,
RZA (14:56.680)
maybe even the costume designer.
Lex Fridman (14:58.480)
He may know 50, 60,
RZA (15:00.280)
he may know the 50 greatest costume designers
Lex Fridman (15:02.560)
in his memory.
RZA (15:04.240)
Yeah, I mean, it's a guy's brain.
Lex Fridman (15:06.360)
Both of you have pretty good memory.
RZA (15:08.160)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (15:09.680)
I'd love to be a fly on the wall of that conversation.
Lex Fridman (15:12.720)
And kung fu movies, most of you guys want.
Lex Fridman (15:14.560)
We actually started,
RZA (15:16.240)
I think we started our relationship
Lex Fridman (15:19.720)
trying to outdo each other.
Lex Fridman (15:21.520)
Knowledge wise or what?
Lex Fridman (15:22.840)
Yeah, movie knowledge wise.
RZA (15:24.840)
Actually kung fu movie knowledge wise.
Lex Fridman (15:27.280)
And I think that, if it wasn't another category,
RZA (15:29.760)
I wouldn't have had a chance,
Lex Fridman (15:30.800)
but at least in that category,
RZA (15:33.240)
I was pretty holding my weight.
Lex Fridman (15:35.160)
For one.
Lex Fridman (15:36.200)
You know what?
Lex Fridman (15:37.440)
I'll be honest and say that I may have said a few,
RZA (15:42.080)
he didn't see, but Quentin is older than me.
Lex Fridman (15:44.920)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (15:45.760)
So he could go back.
Lex Fridman (15:47.320)
Farther.
RZA (15:48.160)
Yeah, he could go back to 72
Lex Fridman (15:50.240)
when I didn't see one yet.
Lex Fridman (15:51.320)
You know what I mean?
Lex Fridman (15:52.160)
Yeah.
RZA (15:53.000)
Well, he said Master of the Flying Gate Team
Lex Fridman (15:55.080)
that I got a chance to,
RZA (15:56.800)
that you commentated over today
Lex Fridman (15:58.160)
and I got a chance to see the screening of.
RZA (16:00.160)
He said that's one of his favorites.
Lex Fridman (16:03.760)
For you, the 36 Chamber of Shaolin,
RZA (16:08.000)
the Master Killer is your favorite.
Lex Fridman (16:10.080)
Best ever, would you say?
Lex Fridman (16:11.920)
That's the greatest Kung Fu movie ever?
Lex Fridman (16:15.680)
It's hard to say the greatest ever, right?
RZA (16:18.080)
Because somebody may make another one
Lex Fridman (16:20.160)
and it depends on your own phase of life.
Lex Fridman (16:22.600)
But I will put that first.
Lex Fridman (16:28.000)
If I want to introduce somebody to Kung Fu movies,
RZA (16:30.200)
that's a beautiful entry.
Lex Fridman (16:32.360)
You talk about knowledge, you talk about wisdom.
Lex Fridman (16:35.000)
What kind of wisdom do you draw from Kung Fu movies?
Lex Fridman (16:38.600)
The, you know what?
RZA (16:39.840)
The martial art itself and the movies.
Lex Fridman (16:42.520)
It's endless wisdom to be drawn and I draw it, you know?
RZA (16:47.600)
I draw it in a way, you know,
Lex Fridman (16:49.560)
that I could decipher it in my own life.
Lex Fridman (16:53.480)
So for instance, in the movie, Master Killer,
Lex Fridman (17:00.680)
he basically, when he does Kung Fu,
RZA (17:04.040)
he does it really a style called the Hung Ga technique.
Lex Fridman (17:08.000)
And the director of the movie
RZA (17:10.240)
is actually a Hung Ga expert who has a lineage
Lex Fridman (17:14.840)
that traces all the way back to Shaolin Temple.
Lex Fridman (17:17.120)
And this director always wanted to keep his movies pure
Lex Fridman (17:21.480)
and to bring Hung Ga to the world.
RZA (17:23.360)
It's like he wanted to show the world this lineage.
Lex Fridman (17:26.480)
In fact, you just said Master of the Flying Guillotine
RZA (17:29.560)
is Quentin's favorite movie.
Lex Fridman (17:30.840)
And we mentioned that 36 Chambers is my favorite movie,
Lex Fridman (17:33.120)
but the action director of Master of Flying Guillotine
Lex Fridman (17:36.840)
is the director of 36 Chambers of Shaolin.
Lex Fridman (17:40.720)
And some of the things that's happening
Lex Fridman (17:43.040)
in Master of the Flying Guillotine
RZA (17:45.760)
is really the infant stage
Lex Fridman (17:47.560)
of what this action director is going to learn
Lex Fridman (17:50.560)
and then use later on in his movies.
Lex Fridman (17:53.440)
So that's the beauty of it.
RZA (17:54.480)
It's almost like, you know,
Lex Fridman (17:57.240)
Quentin is seeing him in his generation.
Lex Fridman (17:59.840)
So Quentin might have been the same age I was
Lex Fridman (18:02.320)
watching that movie.
Lex Fridman (18:03.160)
And then when he becomes a director,
Lex Fridman (18:05.080)
I'm at Quentin's age and now I'm seeing his work.
Lex Fridman (18:08.000)
So some symbionic relationship there.
Lex Fridman (18:10.640)
And I'll end this question by saying,
RZA (18:14.480)
Hung Ga deals with the five animal technique,
Lex Fridman (18:18.200)
the tiger, the crane, the leopard, the snake, and a dragon.
RZA (18:24.560)
Those are the five, that's the five pattern.
Lex Fridman (18:26.400)
Some people go seven, some go 12,
Lex Fridman (18:27.840)
but it's a stick to the five pattern fist.
Lex Fridman (18:30.720)
How do a man emulate a tiger?
Lex Fridman (18:37.000)
And you see a tiger's fists.
Lex Fridman (18:40.400)
He curls before he spawns on you.
Lex Fridman (18:43.600)
How does a man emulate a snake?
Lex Fridman (18:47.720)
It doesn't have to be only in the Kung Fu move.
RZA (18:50.960)
It's in the ideology of the snake.
Lex Fridman (18:54.760)
It's in the agility of the crane.
RZA (18:58.480)
At any moment, sometimes punching a person
Lex Fridman (19:02.480)
is not going to work,
RZA (19:04.480)
as they would say in leopard fist or tiger paw.
Lex Fridman (19:07.240)
So sometimes you might have to poke them in the eye
RZA (19:10.840)
with the crane's beak.
Lex Fridman (19:12.800)
So having your mind able to adapt the instinct
RZA (19:17.280)
of the animal when you are being attacked
Lex Fridman (19:20.720)
or when you are being the aggressor,
RZA (19:24.120)
that's something that you don't need a form for.
Lex Fridman (19:26.600)
That's the mentality.
Lex Fridman (19:27.520)
So Kung Fu, like I said, it informs me endlessly
Lex Fridman (19:30.800)
because at first I was trying to learn how to hold my,
RZA (19:34.520)
like, I can't really hit you with that
Lex Fridman (19:35.960)
and really hurt you unless I've been banging my hand
RZA (19:37.840)
a thousand times on some bricks
Lex Fridman (19:39.760)
and made it so callous or muscles are so strong.
Lex Fridman (19:43.400)
But the idea that if me and you was to get into a fight
Lex Fridman (19:47.720)
and I'm going to tiger up on you and take that instinct
Lex Fridman (19:50.880)
and prance when I'm a prance,
Lex Fridman (19:53.280)
or fly away like the stork, you know what I mean?
RZA (19:58.240)
Like, yo, that's the mentality.
Lex Fridman (1:00:01.320)
put the emotion in it, right?
Lex Fridman (1:00:07.120)
So are you thinking there's an algorithm for emotion?
Lex Fridman (1:00:12.040)
Yes, but I think emotion isn't something
RZA (1:00:15.680)
that there's an algorithm for for a particular system,
Lex Fridman (1:00:19.480)
we create emotions together.
Lex Fridman (1:00:21.400)
So emotion is something like this conversation,
Lex Fridman (1:00:25.440)
it's like magic we create together.
Lex Fridman (1:00:27.560)
So I've worked with quite a few robots,
Lex Fridman (1:00:30.880)
I've a very simple version of that,
RZA (1:00:33.000)
I've had Roomba vacuum cleaners,
Lex Fridman (1:00:36.080)
I've had them make different sounds
Lex Fridman (1:00:37.680)
and one of them is like screaming in pain, like lightly,
Lex Fridman (1:00:41.160)
and just having them do that when you kick them
RZA (1:00:43.120)
or when they run into stuff,
Lex Fridman (1:00:44.520)
immediately I start to feel something for them.
Lex Fridman (1:00:47.800)
So the emotion, okay, so the emotion you're saying
Lex Fridman (1:00:50.360)
is imposed back on the human,
Lex Fridman (1:00:53.240)
but I'm asking, do you think there's an algorithm
Lex Fridman (1:00:55.440)
for the emotion to be imposed from machine to machine?
RZA (1:00:58.960)
Yeah, that's a really good way to ask it.
Lex Fridman (1:01:04.800)
It's difficult because I think ultimately
RZA (1:01:06.920)
I only know how to exist in the human world.
Lex Fridman (1:01:09.240)
So it's like, it's the question of
RZA (1:01:11.040)
if a tree falls in the forest, nobody's there to see it,
Lex Fridman (1:01:13.960)
does it still fall?
RZA (1:01:15.400)
I still think that ultimately machines will have to
Lex Fridman (1:01:20.760)
show emotion to other humans
Lex Fridman (1:01:22.640)
and that's when it becomes real.
Lex Fridman (1:01:24.280)
I've been thinking about this a lot too.
Lex Fridman (1:01:26.480)
And I just, okay.
Lex Fridman (1:01:31.360)
No, I'm not gonna hit you with this
RZA (1:01:32.200)
because I've been thinking about this
Lex Fridman (1:01:33.040)
and this is your field here.
Lex Fridman (1:01:36.680)
Well, do you think the emotion is wave?
Lex Fridman (1:01:38.720)
Like light is wave or do you think it's particle?
Lex Fridman (1:01:45.760)
So emotion is just a small,
Lex Fridman (1:01:47.640)
it's like a shadow of something bigger.
Lex Fridman (1:01:49.360)
And I think that bigger thing is consciousness.
Lex Fridman (1:01:52.000)
So emotion is just.
RZA (1:01:53.720)
I don't know if it's a wave or a particle.
Lex Fridman (1:01:55.280)
I haven't thought about that.
RZA (1:01:59.120)
I have thought about it, whether it's,
Lex Fridman (1:02:00.880)
there's something like whether consciousness
RZA (1:02:04.400)
or emotion is a law of physics.
Lex Fridman (1:02:06.640)
Like if it's that fundamental to the universe.
RZA (1:02:09.560)
I had a lyric that said this, it comes out.
Lex Fridman (1:02:14.240)
They did this documentary about the planet
Lex Fridman (1:02:15.760)
and I wrote a song, it's called The World of Confusion.
Lex Fridman (1:02:19.560)
And I'll try to paraphrase the lyric,
Lex Fridman (1:02:21.280)
but in the world of the confusion,
Lex Fridman (1:02:22.720)
where there's so much illusions,
RZA (1:02:23.960)
we suck the blood from the planet.
Lex Fridman (1:02:26.480)
Now it needs a transfusion
Lex Fridman (1:02:28.320)
and the redistribution of wealth,
Lex Fridman (1:02:31.520)
of health and wealth of self
Lex Fridman (1:02:35.320)
and a deeper understanding about mental health.
Lex Fridman (1:02:39.640)
The doctor prescribed the physical solution.
RZA (1:02:45.440)
The psychiatrist wants to build a bigger institution,
Lex Fridman (1:02:51.040)
but neither have the solution or the equation
RZA (1:02:56.200)
to make an instrument to measure
Lex Fridman (1:02:58.840)
the weight of the hate vibration.
Lex Fridman (1:03:02.200)
What is the weight of hate?
Lex Fridman (1:03:06.560)
Is it heavier than the weight of love?
Lex Fridman (1:03:10.400)
Is it heavier than the weight of lead inside of a slug?
Lex Fridman (1:03:15.320)
With just 10 milligrams, it's all it takes to kill a man.
Lex Fridman (1:03:19.080)
But anyways, do not go on from there.
Lex Fridman (1:03:20.560)
Damn, that's good.
Lex Fridman (1:03:21.800)
But the question, you see the question there, right?
Lex Fridman (1:03:23.920)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, can it be measured?
Lex Fridman (1:03:26.400)
Can that be measured?
Lex Fridman (1:03:27.560)
I think so, I think so.
RZA (1:03:29.480)
Just look at the instrument, yeah.
Lex Fridman (1:03:30.960)
Yeah, we're in the dark ages of that,
Lex Fridman (1:03:35.240)
but I think it could be measured.
Lex Fridman (1:03:36.360)
I think there's something physical,
RZA (1:03:39.120)
like something that connects us all this much.
Lex Fridman (1:03:42.200)
We tend to think we humans are distinct entities
Lex Fridman (1:03:44.920)
and we move about this world,
Lex Fridman (1:03:46.120)
but I think there's some deeper connection.
RZA (1:03:48.880)
And, but we're so, listen, science is in the,
Lex Fridman (1:03:53.320)
we just had a few breakthroughs in the past 100 years
RZA (1:03:55.920)
from Einstein on the theoretical physics side.
Lex Fridman (1:03:58.880)
We don't know anything about human psychology.
RZA (1:04:00.880)
We barely know much about human biology.
Lex Fridman (1:04:03.800)
We're trying to figure it all out.
RZA (1:04:05.720)
Yeah, I had another theory,
Lex Fridman (1:04:08.680)
because, you know, you think about quantum, right?
RZA (1:04:13.880)
As long as you say that there's an uncertainty
Lex Fridman (1:04:18.200)
and you have me believe there's an uncertainty,
RZA (1:04:20.280)
then there's an uncertainty.
Lex Fridman (1:04:22.200)
But if there's not an uncertainty, what happens?
Lex Fridman (1:04:26.400)
So I'm only saying that, it's not,
Lex Fridman (1:04:28.480)
because you look at quantum computers,
RZA (1:04:29.960)
they're gonna give you the O, the one,
Lex Fridman (1:04:32.760)
the one, the O, they're gonna take two things
Lex Fridman (1:04:35.440)
and make it eight things.
Lex Fridman (1:04:36.440)
And by the time you multiply four of those things together,
Lex Fridman (1:04:39.360)
it's like this chess board, right?
Lex Fridman (1:04:41.200)
The moves goes into the millions.
Lex Fridman (1:04:44.080)
But the thing that's introduced is the uncertainty, right?
Lex Fridman (1:04:51.320)
You're gonna make a move.
Lex Fridman (1:04:52.560)
You know this already, right?
Lex Fridman (1:05:00.920)
Because this has been played a thousand times,
Lex Fridman (1:05:04.040)
but sooner or later, something uncertain is gonna come in
Lex Fridman (1:05:06.600)
or make your next move.
RZA (1:05:13.960)
I like the weight of these.
Lex Fridman (1:05:15.920)
They add the certainty.
RZA (1:05:18.320)
I think just like what we were saying, unpredictable,
Lex Fridman (1:05:20.600)
there's something about us humans
RZA (1:05:22.800)
that really doesn't like everything to be fully predictable.
Lex Fridman (1:05:25.720)
I mean, chess too is perfectly solvable.
RZA (1:05:30.640)
There's nothing unpredictable about chess.
Lex Fridman (1:05:32.840)
Right, well, I could agree to that
RZA (1:05:34.440)
because Bobby Fischer said in one of his books,
Lex Fridman (1:05:39.680)
which I actually love what he said.
RZA (1:05:42.520)
He said, every game of chess is a draw.
Lex Fridman (1:05:48.360)
Yeah.
RZA (1:05:49.640)
The only way somebody win is when one of us makes a mistake.
Lex Fridman (1:05:54.880)
I mean, it doesn't get any better than that.
RZA (1:05:56.200)
Yeah, it doesn't.
Lex Fridman (1:05:57.200)
What is chess?
Lex Fridman (1:05:59.320)
Like, how do you think about chess?
Lex Fridman (1:06:00.520)
What's at the core of your interest in chess?
Lex Fridman (1:06:02.440)
Do you see Kung Fu, music, film, all of it, life,
Lex Fridman (1:06:07.720)
all just living through chess?
RZA (1:06:09.800)
Yeah, I see, it's the most stimulating passage of time
Lex Fridman (1:06:14.800)
for me that's also, it's like, it's a pastime
RZA (1:06:21.240)
that stimulates my mind, my music,
Lex Fridman (1:06:24.800)
my thoughts about life at the same time.
Lex Fridman (1:06:27.120)
So while some pastimes is like,
Lex Fridman (1:06:28.680)
say baseball is a pastime.
Lex Fridman (1:06:30.640)
And baseball could stimulate you
Lex Fridman (1:06:31.640)
depending on how you look at it, right?
Lex Fridman (1:06:32.880)
But most likely, you're not gonna get
Lex Fridman (1:06:36.000)
this much brain activation, this much calculation,
Lex Fridman (1:06:39.480)
and this much thinking about yourself
Lex Fridman (1:06:42.320)
in a game of baseball.
RZA (1:06:43.960)
I mean, the player maybe, but not the viewer.
Lex Fridman (1:06:47.640)
Chess is something that I can engage in too.
Lex Fridman (1:06:51.000)
And even though it's a pastime,
Lex Fridman (1:06:54.520)
it's given me all the stimulation of real time in my life.
RZA (1:06:59.120)
It's funny because it's also, it's a funny game
Lex Fridman (1:07:02.280)
because it's connected through centuries of play.
RZA (1:07:06.920)
Just some of the most interesting people
Lex Fridman (1:07:09.520)
in the history of the world have played this game
Lex Fridman (1:07:11.840)
and have struggled with whatever,
Lex Fridman (1:07:14.480)
have projected their struggles onto the chessboard
Lex Fridman (1:07:17.000)
and thought, and the nations have fought
Lex Fridman (1:07:19.080)
over the chessboard.
RZA (1:07:20.760)
The Soviet Union versus the United States,
Lex Fridman (1:07:22.520)
Bobby Fischer represented the United States.
RZA (1:07:24.520)
Spassky represented the Soviet Union.
Lex Fridman (1:07:26.360)
Yeah.
RZA (1:07:27.880)
I gotta, before I lose track of it,
Lex Fridman (1:07:30.520)
when we were talking about The Godfather,
RZA (1:07:32.440)
you were in American Gangster, great film.
Lex Fridman (1:07:35.960)
You said it's one of your favorites too.
RZA (1:07:37.440)
What, you were in it with Denzel Washington.
Lex Fridman (1:07:41.880)
What makes that movie meaningful to you?
Lex Fridman (1:07:44.200)
What was it like making that movie?
Lex Fridman (1:07:47.200)
Because it's a great, great American film.
RZA (1:07:49.360)
That was a great American film.
Lex Fridman (1:07:50.680)
It was so many things in that film.
RZA (1:07:52.360)
Being a part of that film was probably a blessing
Lex Fridman (1:07:55.560)
and a treasure, because even if I wasn't a part of it,
RZA (1:08:00.320)
it just caught such great filmmaking
Lex Fridman (1:08:02.800)
and to me, a really cool, great story.
RZA (1:08:07.920)
The thing that I love about it the most
Lex Fridman (1:08:12.720)
really is the process of it.
Lex Fridman (1:08:18.520)
Which part of the process?
Lex Fridman (1:08:19.360)
I wouldn't have known the process if I wasn't part of it.
Lex Fridman (1:08:22.560)
So as a film joy, it was a great film,
Lex Fridman (1:08:25.040)
but even the process of making it
RZA (1:08:27.960)
was like high level education for me on multiple levels.
Lex Fridman (1:08:32.560)
I'm working with Ridley Scott, which is,
Lex Fridman (1:08:36.320)
and this is a bold statement if I say this here,
Lex Fridman (1:08:38.600)
cause I got a lot of friends that's going to probably,
Lex Fridman (1:08:41.640)
but he's probably the best living director.
Lex Fridman (1:08:46.800)
Because watching him allowed me to understand
RZA (1:08:51.320)
a principle that I've coined to him
Lex Fridman (1:08:54.160)
and I don't know if people use it yet, called multi vision.
RZA (1:08:57.560)
He seems to have the capacity to see eight things
Lex Fridman (1:09:08.640)
at one time.
RZA (1:09:09.480)
I heard on Robin Hood, he had 18 cameras.
Lex Fridman (1:09:11.800)
I wasn't there for that.
Lex Fridman (1:09:13.320)
And you think he keeps them all in his mind, just seeing.
Lex Fridman (1:09:15.600)
I seen him do it when he went to the monitors
RZA (1:09:19.200)
with the video playback guy.
Lex Fridman (1:09:22.320)
I seen him bring everything back to a point,
Lex Fridman (1:09:26.480)
but nothing was the same on the frame.
Lex Fridman (1:09:30.080)
He was already there.
Lex Fridman (1:09:32.280)
And he knew if he had what he was or not.
Lex Fridman (1:09:36.360)
And he placed the cameras there.
Lex Fridman (1:09:39.840)
And he saw it in his own way.
Lex Fridman (1:09:43.200)
And I peeped it.
RZA (1:09:46.480)
I peeped it.
Lex Fridman (1:09:47.640)
And I said, yeah.
Lex Fridman (1:09:48.800)
And I just humbly asked him.
Lex Fridman (1:09:50.680)
He was gracious enough to speak to me and talk to me.
Lex Fridman (1:09:56.000)
And confirm what I thought I saw.
Lex Fridman (1:09:59.480)
He confirmed it.
RZA (1:10:00.280)
He confirmed it.
Lex Fridman (1:10:01.000)
And I was able to utilize it, as I'm a filmmaker now.
Lex Fridman (1:10:05.280)
And I see, I can at least see three or four things.
Lex Fridman (1:10:09.120)
I can't see eight yet.
RZA (1:10:10.280)
I'll be there though.
Lex Fridman (1:10:12.760)
But I could definitely, even right now,
Lex Fridman (1:10:15.920)
just I could go like this in the room, OK?
Lex Fridman (1:10:21.040)
I got it now.
RZA (1:10:22.320)
I got how to make this right here,
Lex Fridman (1:10:25.400)
which is just us all sitting.
Lex Fridman (1:10:27.000)
How do I make this dramatic?
Lex Fridman (1:10:28.240)
Look, boom.
RZA (1:10:31.280)
Come on on him.
Lex Fridman (1:10:31.920)
There's a story there.
RZA (1:10:32.880)
There's a story there.
Lex Fridman (1:10:34.000)
And I might just go off his hanging watch
RZA (1:10:36.320)
or his hanging wristband.
Lex Fridman (1:10:38.040)
Yeah.
RZA (1:10:38.840)
Because there's something else there too.
Lex Fridman (1:10:40.320)
Is he dead?
RZA (1:10:40.920)
We don't know.
Lex Fridman (1:10:41.520)
Exactly.
Lex Fridman (1:10:43.240)
So he has this.
Lex Fridman (1:10:45.800)
And even though this is the scene.
RZA (1:10:47.360)
Yeah, you keeping that in mind, all of this in mind.
Lex Fridman (1:10:50.640)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (1:10:51.520)
What about like, can you give an inkling
Lex Fridman (1:10:53.840)
of other parts of the process, like the editing?
Lex Fridman (1:10:56.640)
Like where does the magic happen?
Lex Fridman (1:10:58.120)
Another thing.
RZA (1:10:58.920)
Pedro, I don't pronounce Pedro last name right.
Lex Fridman (1:11:02.120)
He's a cool guy.
RZA (1:11:02.920)
I had a chance to play rugby with him.
Lex Fridman (1:11:04.680)
He was on, was he on my team?
RZA (1:11:06.160)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (1:11:06.960)
We were in both teams.
Lex Fridman (1:11:08.320)
But Pedro, the editor who edited many great films,
Lex Fridman (1:11:15.520)
once again, he has, I will call, deciphering power.
RZA (1:11:24.040)
A good editor is a decipher, almost like breaking
Lex Fridman (1:11:27.520)
the enigma, because he's dealing with thousands,
RZA (1:11:33.960)
or we'll call it a film, with millions of feet of film,
Lex Fridman (1:11:36.760)
at least a million feet of film.
RZA (1:11:38.000)
That's a lot of film for a feature.
Lex Fridman (1:11:40.600)
He's dealing with that.
Lex Fridman (1:11:42.920)
But he's dealing with multiple cameras.
Lex Fridman (1:11:47.080)
So it ain't like it's like two cameras.
RZA (1:11:48.720)
He got an A, B, and he could just go back.
Lex Fridman (1:11:50.840)
No.
RZA (1:11:51.880)
He may have six cameras, and he has to go back
Lex Fridman (1:11:54.480)
and deal with that process.
Lex Fridman (1:11:56.160)
And you know what?
Lex Fridman (1:11:58.480)
He knows how to tell the story again.
Lex Fridman (1:12:03.120)
And he proved it on American Gangster
Lex Fridman (1:12:06.000)
as me being a witness, because it's so much information.
RZA (1:12:11.200)
Even when the brothers all start getting their little business
Lex Fridman (1:12:14.280)
and then he put one in the Bronx,
RZA (1:12:16.240)
he just captured every neighborhood within one minute,
Lex Fridman (1:12:21.880)
and you knew what would happen.
RZA (1:12:23.320)
You knew it all.
Lex Fridman (1:12:24.400)
You saw the whole rise of fame.
RZA (1:12:26.560)
You watched the Palmer and Scarface,
Lex Fridman (1:12:29.240)
who does it in two minutes, but it's only one character.
Lex Fridman (1:12:34.200)
So you see him go to the bank.
Lex Fridman (1:12:35.520)
He drops the money off.
RZA (1:12:36.560)
You see him buy the lion.
Lex Fridman (1:12:37.760)
You see him gets his wife, or the tiger.
RZA (1:12:39.920)
You see him gets his wife, you see all that.
Lex Fridman (1:12:41.840)
And then it ends on the big side of him in a big house
RZA (1:12:44.840)
with all the TV screens.
Lex Fridman (1:12:46.680)
And you seen him go through it, right?
Lex Fridman (1:12:49.160)
But in American Gangster, you're going
Lex Fridman (1:12:50.720)
to tell that story of rising, but you also got
RZA (1:12:53.360)
to include these five brothers.
Lex Fridman (1:12:54.920)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (1:12:56.360)
And that's all in the edit.
Lex Fridman (1:12:57.880)
Oh, man.
Lex Fridman (1:12:58.680)
But also all in the director knowing that as well.
Lex Fridman (1:13:02.560)
And you got to keep thinking about them, because that
RZA (1:13:05.200)
was a story right there.
Lex Fridman (1:13:06.520)
Yeah.
RZA (1:13:07.320)
While I was hearing it, I don't know
Lex Fridman (1:13:08.840)
if they was taking pictures of him,
RZA (1:13:10.200)
or they might have a little party over there.
Lex Fridman (1:13:12.920)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
RZA (1:13:13.720)
Chess, I think.
Lex Fridman (1:13:15.360)
Yeah, I like it.
RZA (1:13:16.760)
They're playing chess in the distance.
Lex Fridman (1:13:19.720)
This is great.
RZA (1:13:22.720)
You said that you were always an old soul
Lex Fridman (1:13:26.000)
and see the world as if you're 200 years old.
RZA (1:13:28.240)
I like this line.
Lex Fridman (1:13:29.480)
Because your creative vision allows
RZA (1:13:31.200)
you to see the final piece you've created,
Lex Fridman (1:13:33.800)
or you're creating very quickly, quicker than others.
RZA (1:13:38.400)
I heard that as if you've almost lived many lives.
Lex Fridman (1:13:42.280)
You have this experience that allows you to see the vision.
Lex Fridman (1:13:45.560)
So let me ask you on creativity, where
Lex Fridman (1:13:47.880)
does this creativity behind RZA come from,
Lex Fridman (1:13:51.080)
both musically and film wise?
Lex Fridman (1:13:54.600)
I don't know if I have the answer to that one, right?
Lex Fridman (1:13:57.520)
Seriously, where does it come from?
Lex Fridman (1:14:00.040)
Only thing I could say about that
RZA (1:14:02.080)
is that for some reason, it seems endless.
Lex Fridman (1:14:07.840)
And that's peculiar when I think about it myself,
RZA (1:14:13.680)
because I was taught a lot of things from the JZA.
Lex Fridman (1:14:20.040)
He introduced me to mathematics.
RZA (1:14:22.120)
He introduced me to hip hop itself, to break dancing.
Lex Fridman (1:14:27.120)
I got other cousins that introduced me to graffiti,
RZA (1:14:31.080)
cousins that introduced me to DJing.
Lex Fridman (1:14:34.240)
I realized that I had a lot of introductions,
Lex Fridman (1:14:37.000)
but the JZA definitely, my older cousin,
Lex Fridman (1:14:40.880)
gave me a lot of early inspirations.
Lex Fridman (1:14:44.440)
And not saying that he's not creative,
Lex Fridman (1:14:50.160)
as creative as he was then or now,
RZA (1:14:55.480)
the wide span of creativity, I don't see him doing that,
Lex Fridman (1:15:00.680)
right?
Lex Fridman (1:15:02.600)
And I don't see the cousins that taught me how to DJ.
Lex Fridman (1:15:06.960)
I didn't see them move from DJing to making the beats.
RZA (1:15:13.280)
My cousin who actually got me into instruments,
Lex Fridman (1:15:20.600)
I didn't see him leave funk and rock.
RZA (1:15:25.040)
I'm an orchestra composer now.
Lex Fridman (1:15:27.480)
So I just said to myself, I just accept myself as an artist,
RZA (1:15:35.840)
as a creative artist.
Lex Fridman (1:15:37.000)
That's what I am.
RZA (1:15:39.120)
I have to accept that.
Lex Fridman (1:15:40.400)
Now, where it comes from, I don't know.
RZA (1:15:43.120)
If I was to try to say where it comes from,
Lex Fridman (1:15:45.680)
like, hey, give me some type of answer,
RZA (1:15:48.520)
I would say from life itself.
Lex Fridman (1:15:50.680)
But what does it feel like?
RZA (1:15:51.640)
Because you mentioned during this pandemic,
Lex Fridman (1:15:53.520)
for example, for some reason, more
RZA (1:15:55.600)
came to you in terms of writing.
Lex Fridman (1:15:57.840)
And so do you feel like you're just receiving signals
RZA (1:16:00.800)
from elsewhere, or do you feel like it's hard work,
Lex Fridman (1:16:05.000)
or you're just waiting?
RZA (1:16:07.200)
Wow.
Lex Fridman (1:16:07.920)
It's not even waiting, nor is it hard work.
RZA (1:16:10.720)
It's almost like I said in one of my other lyrics,
Lex Fridman (1:16:13.600)
this is for the MC part of it.
RZA (1:16:15.560)
I said, MCing to me is easy as breathing.
Lex Fridman (1:16:19.720)
So it's like breathing.
RZA (1:16:20.920)
Yeah, it's just like, in fact, there's
Lex Fridman (1:16:23.960)
actually was a scientific thing I read about that.
RZA (1:16:26.400)
Now that you've said that.
Lex Fridman (1:16:28.000)
You heard this?
RZA (1:16:28.560)
I know you've had to hear this.
Lex Fridman (1:16:30.080)
They say that the atoms in our atmosphere, which
RZA (1:16:37.400)
seem to be infinite in number, are not infinite
Lex Fridman (1:16:41.760)
in the space they occupy.
RZA (1:16:44.560)
Because they're in our atmosphere.
Lex Fridman (1:16:48.200)
And so there's a chance that at least 1 million atoms
RZA (1:16:52.720)
that you breathe in your life was breathed by Galileo.
Lex Fridman (1:16:58.240)
You heard this before, right?
RZA (1:16:59.480)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (1:17:00.320)
OK.
RZA (1:17:02.840)
It's very accurate.
Lex Fridman (1:17:04.120)
OK.
Lex Fridman (1:17:05.120)
How does your body digest it?
Lex Fridman (1:17:10.640)
Oh, let's start at the fact that most of the atoms that we're
Lex Fridman (1:17:15.640)
made of is from stars, right?
Lex Fridman (1:17:18.440)
Stars burst.
Lex Fridman (1:17:19.080)
So we're all really connected fundamentally somehow.
Lex Fridman (1:17:22.640)
And then the atoms that make up our body come and leave.
Lex Fridman (1:17:25.960)
And the same with the cells that are in our body,
Lex Fridman (1:17:28.080)
they die and are reborn.
Lex Fridman (1:17:29.520)
And we don't pay attention to any of that.
Lex Fridman (1:17:31.520)
That all just goes through us.
RZA (1:17:33.320)
I don't know.
Lex Fridman (1:17:37.400)
That makes me feel like I'm not an individual.
RZA (1:17:41.960)
I'm just a finger of something much bigger,
Lex Fridman (1:17:45.600)
some much bigger organism.
Lex Fridman (1:17:47.560)
Well, because you're drinking the coffee there, right?
Lex Fridman (1:17:51.760)
You're going to digest that.
RZA (1:17:54.240)
You're going to digest those atoms,
Lex Fridman (1:17:56.880)
whether you're going to put them through the bowel
RZA (1:17:58.880)
or through the urination, it's coming out.
Lex Fridman (1:18:00.680)
Or maybe you'll sweat it out.
RZA (1:18:01.800)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (1:18:02.280)
You might sneeze it out.
RZA (1:18:03.360)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (1:18:04.040)
But they're going to make their way out.
Lex Fridman (1:18:05.640)
How do you digest the atoms if you just breathe in Galileo?
Lex Fridman (1:18:10.040)
Right?
Lex Fridman (1:18:11.400)
And that's what I think an artist does.
Lex Fridman (1:18:14.560)
I think something in the artist, it's
RZA (1:18:16.360)
like some people eat things and they're going to gain weight.
Lex Fridman (1:18:18.560)
Some people ain't going to gain weight.
RZA (1:18:19.680)
They're going to gain muscle.
Lex Fridman (1:18:22.240)
I'll just give you an analogy here.
RZA (1:18:23.640)
I'm thinking that the artist breathes in and translates it
Lex Fridman (1:18:28.800)
into the art.
RZA (1:18:29.680)
First, they got to hear it.
Lex Fridman (1:18:30.800)
I think most of us don't hear that.
RZA (1:18:33.960)
We receive it, but it just doesn't come out.
Lex Fridman (1:18:35.760)
Yeah, we not have the frequency.
RZA (1:18:37.640)
I said this to a lot of artists.
Lex Fridman (1:18:40.440)
And even we all can consider ourselves artists
RZA (1:18:42.800)
in a certain way.
Lex Fridman (1:18:44.960)
But let's just say there's only one million artists
RZA (1:18:50.240)
in the world.
Lex Fridman (1:18:51.920)
Good.
RZA (1:18:53.920)
Because it's probably 10.
Lex Fridman (1:18:57.520)
If you divide that into the population,
Lex Fridman (1:19:01.400)
what part of the table would it be?
Lex Fridman (1:19:03.200)
The tiny part.
Lex Fridman (1:19:04.160)
It might be that, right?
Lex Fridman (1:19:07.760)
And yet, it's that that inspires that.
Lex Fridman (1:19:11.880)
And you know what's so crazy about that, though?
Lex Fridman (1:19:13.960)
There's also a chance.
RZA (1:19:15.320)
I'm just going numbers and I'm just hypothesizing with you.
Lex Fridman (1:19:18.120)
But there's also a chance that all of this
RZA (1:19:22.440)
is actually informing that.
Lex Fridman (1:19:24.240)
Yeah.
RZA (1:19:26.680)
The artist is just watching this, all of this,
Lex Fridman (1:19:29.760)
all the chaos of this.
RZA (1:19:32.040)
Yeah, so it's hard to know where the beauty comes from.
Lex Fridman (1:19:34.600)
Is it the artist or the chaos from the?
Lex Fridman (1:19:36.680)
So I just say I don't have the answer.
Lex Fridman (1:19:39.240)
But if I was to be forced to say an answer,
Lex Fridman (1:19:41.960)
and you're not twisting my arm, but I'll say.
Lex Fridman (1:19:44.200)
I can if you want me to.
RZA (1:19:45.240)
No, thank you.
Lex Fridman (1:19:46.080)
I'll say life.
RZA (1:19:48.280)
Yeah, life.
Lex Fridman (1:19:51.480)
In Tao of Wu, you write something about confusion,
RZA (1:19:54.920)
which I really like.
Lex Fridman (1:19:56.120)
Confusion is a gift from God.
RZA (1:19:58.640)
Those times when you feel most desperate for a solution,
Lex Fridman (1:20:01.800)
sit, wait.
RZA (1:20:03.840)
The information will become clear.
Lex Fridman (1:20:06.040)
The confusion is there to guide you.
RZA (1:20:08.680)
Seek detachment and become the producer of your life.
Lex Fridman (1:20:12.480)
So I got to ask you advice.
RZA (1:20:15.560)
If a young person today in high school, college
Lex Fridman (1:20:20.000)
is looking for some advice, what advice
RZA (1:20:22.000)
could you give them to be a producer of a life
Lex Fridman (1:20:24.880)
that can be proud of?
RZA (1:20:26.080)
Read the Tao of Wu.
Lex Fridman (1:20:29.320)
Let's start with the Wu Tang manual first.
RZA (1:20:31.320)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (1:20:32.120)
No, you could do that second.
Lex Fridman (1:20:33.280)
Second?
Lex Fridman (1:20:34.080)
Yeah.
RZA (1:20:34.880)
I think you could read the Tao of Wu first
Lex Fridman (1:20:36.400)
and then do the manual.
RZA (1:20:37.800)
Because the manual is not to put the two books against each
Lex Fridman (1:20:41.600)
other, but the manual is talking about things
RZA (1:20:43.800)
that is so deeply connected to the music.
Lex Fridman (1:20:47.280)
And the people in the Tao of Wu goes beyond that.
Lex Fridman (1:20:51.200)
So I would actually start there, which is not normally
Lex Fridman (1:20:56.640)
what I would prescribe.
RZA (1:20:57.600)
I always tell people, start in knowledge, then go to wisdom.
Lex Fridman (1:21:00.360)
But since the Tao of Wu.
RZA (1:21:01.200)
Skip ahead to the wisdom.
Lex Fridman (1:21:02.240)
I like it.
RZA (1:21:03.040)
Yeah, I think for a young man in high school,
Lex Fridman (1:21:06.120)
go to the Tao of Wu and then go back.
RZA (1:21:08.960)
It's just like sometimes you have my son's generation,
Lex Fridman (1:21:13.520)
they have to watch the second round of Star Wars.
RZA (1:21:17.000)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (1:21:17.800)
And then they go back.
Lex Fridman (1:21:19.160)
You know what I mean?
Lex Fridman (1:21:19.960)
This generation is watching The Force Awakens.
Lex Fridman (1:21:22.600)
And then they go back.
Lex Fridman (1:21:23.400)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (1:21:24.200)
But what, because if you just look at your life as an example,
Lex Fridman (1:21:29.760)
that's one heck of a life.
RZA (1:21:31.840)
There's very few lives like it.
Lex Fridman (1:21:33.720)
You've created some of the most incredible things
RZA (1:21:36.160)
artistically in this world.
Lex Fridman (1:21:38.240)
Like if somebody, you talk about that like 1 million, right?
RZA (1:21:43.000)
At the corner of the table.
Lex Fridman (1:21:44.680)
If somebody wants, strives, dreams to become one of those,
Lex Fridman (1:21:49.040)
how do they do it?
Lex Fridman (1:21:50.480)
Well, the beautiful thing is that there
RZA (1:21:53.560)
are footprints left by those who've done it.
Lex Fridman (1:21:58.200)
And the best way is to study that.
RZA (1:22:02.400)
To study those who've already done what you want to do.
Lex Fridman (1:22:09.120)
We live on a civilization.
RZA (1:22:10.480)
As we said, this is the greatest country in the world.
Lex Fridman (1:22:13.280)
But our seal is a pyramid with an I on it.
Lex Fridman (1:22:17.160)
You know what I mean?
Lex Fridman (1:22:17.960)
Because they did it before.
Lex Fridman (1:22:19.640)
And they may have failed for some reason
Lex Fridman (1:22:22.400)
or something happens.
Lex Fridman (1:22:24.200)
But it was just a strong enough example to take us further.
Lex Fridman (1:22:29.000)
Elon Musk is sitting here trying to do better than what
RZA (1:22:31.840)
the rocket builders did before.
Lex Fridman (1:22:33.800)
He's not the first one to build the rocket.
RZA (1:22:36.200)
He's not the first guy to think of with the electric car.
Lex Fridman (1:22:39.000)
He's doing it better.
RZA (1:22:40.320)
He's advancing it to the point that whoever
Lex Fridman (1:22:43.760)
picks up after him, maybe they'll
RZA (1:22:45.560)
get to that flying car.
Lex Fridman (1:22:47.640)
So that's the beauty.
RZA (1:22:51.280)
There's a good verse.
Lex Fridman (1:22:52.440)
I love finding verses to say things to confirm.
RZA (1:22:55.360)
Because this way, people could take it verbally, physically,
Lex Fridman (1:22:59.440)
and then maybe even spiritually.
Lex Fridman (1:23:01.160)
But Christmas has said a verse.
Lex Fridman (1:23:02.560)
He said, the fastest way to heaven
RZA (1:23:05.920)
is by spending time or studying the wise people.
Lex Fridman (1:23:08.520)
Meaning the wise people who are living
Lex Fridman (1:23:10.360)
and those who live before you.
Lex Fridman (1:23:13.080)
Study the masters.
RZA (1:23:14.760)
Let me ask you a big, perhaps ridiculous question,
Lex Fridman (1:23:17.280)
but give it a shot.
Lex Fridman (1:23:18.680)
What is the meaning of this whole thing?
Lex Fridman (1:23:20.240)
What's the meaning of life?
RZA (1:23:23.240)
Big question.
Lex Fridman (1:23:24.280)
I'm not going to rush into the answer.
RZA (1:23:30.880)
I'm going to give you somebody else's answer first,
Lex Fridman (1:23:33.120)
and I'll give you my answer.
RZA (1:23:34.920)
I remember asking this when I was 15, 16 years old.
Lex Fridman (1:23:42.000)
One of the brothers was studying in mathematics.
Lex Fridman (1:23:45.960)
And the letter I itself means I Islam.
Lex Fridman (1:23:55.240)
I meaning the individual being in total accord with Islam.
Lex Fridman (1:24:02.920)
And let me finish this.
Lex Fridman (1:24:03.960)
Then they took the word Islam, and they
RZA (1:24:05.800)
defined it as Islam is an Arabic word for peace.
Lex Fridman (1:24:13.240)
Then they said, peace is the absence of confusion.
Lex Fridman (1:24:20.120)
OK?
Lex Fridman (1:24:21.560)
So then they took them.
RZA (1:24:23.840)
This is something that really hit me when I never forgot it.
Lex Fridman (1:24:26.560)
And I'm going to decipher it.
Lex Fridman (1:24:28.680)
But then they took the word Islam,
Lex Fridman (1:24:31.160)
and they broke it down by the letter into an acronym,
RZA (1:24:34.920)
like cash, with everything around me.
Lex Fridman (1:24:37.200)
And they broke it down to I stimulate light and matter.
Lex Fridman (1:24:45.840)
And I was like, what?
Lex Fridman (1:24:48.600)
Because what hit me is that if you're not here,
RZA (1:24:52.280)
then light and matter don't exist to you.
Lex Fridman (1:24:55.120)
So you're stimulating it, or it ain't here for you.
Lex Fridman (1:24:59.160)
So anyway, taking all that.
Lex Fridman (1:25:00.280)
But then I said, so what's the meaning of life?
Lex Fridman (1:25:03.840)
And the brothers just said, love Islam forever.
Lex Fridman (1:25:06.760)
Right?
RZA (1:25:07.560)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (1:25:08.360)
And I said, I ain't saying the religious point of it.
RZA (1:25:12.840)
I'm just saying all those other elements
Lex Fridman (1:25:14.400)
I just spoke about in front of it.
RZA (1:25:15.800)
I stimulate light and matter.
Lex Fridman (1:25:17.880)
I love that.
RZA (1:25:18.560)
That's powerful.
Lex Fridman (1:25:20.840)
And let me give you my definition of life.
RZA (1:25:24.960)
I think life is simply for each and every one of us
Lex Fridman (1:25:30.520)
to add on to.
RZA (1:25:33.440)
Build.
Lex Fridman (1:25:34.120)
Like you said, the masters.
RZA (1:25:36.320)
Build on top.
Lex Fridman (1:25:37.360)
Life gave you life.
RZA (1:25:38.520)
Give life back.
Lex Fridman (1:25:41.600)
I don't think there's a better way to end it than talking
RZA (1:25:43.720)
about the meaning of life.
Lex Fridman (1:25:44.800)
RZA, I'm a huge fan.
RZA (1:25:46.640)
It's such a huge honor that you spend your valuable time
Lex Fridman (1:25:48.800)
with me.
RZA (1:25:49.320)
Thank you so much.
Lex Fridman (1:25:50.120)
Thank you for inviting me.
RZA (1:25:50.920)
Peace.
Lex Fridman (1:25:52.400)
Thanks for listening to this conversation with RZA.
RZA (1:25:55.240)
To support this podcast, please check out our sponsors
Lex Fridman (1:25:58.000)
in the description.
Lex Fridman (1:25:59.440)
And now, let me leave you with some words from Plato.
Lex Fridman (1:26:03.160)
Poetry is nearer to vital truth than history.
RZA (1:26:08.240)
Thank you for listening, and hope to see you next time.
Lex Fridman (20:00.600)
It's much more than the technical moves.
RZA (20:02.800)
It's much deeper.
Lex Fridman (20:04.800)
Yeah.
RZA (20:06.640)
Yeah, it's interesting.
Lex Fridman (20:07.480)
I mean, when I see the Kung Fu movies,
RZA (20:08.880)
because I love martial arts, all martial arts,
Lex Fridman (20:11.880)
and competitive ones too,
RZA (20:13.000)
like the actual competitions and so on.
Lex Fridman (20:15.120)
It just seems like Kung Fu movies go much deeper
RZA (20:18.400)
than just like the techniques.
Lex Fridman (20:20.160)
Yeah, they start, I mean, if you see it, right,
RZA (20:23.240)
even I watched the great MMA fight recently,
Lex Fridman (20:27.080)
just interesting because he was on top of the guy,
Lex Fridman (20:32.560)
and the way he got from under him,
Lex Fridman (20:38.360)
it had to be his spirit got from under him.
RZA (20:42.200)
It's some like mixture of crane and whatever.
Lex Fridman (20:45.160)
Snake, ill, with the slippery ill technique.
RZA (20:48.920)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (20:49.760)
No, I love that when people become artists in the cage
RZA (20:52.920)
or that's much bigger than just like winning,
Lex Fridman (20:56.040)
much bigger than particular techniques.
RZA (20:57.800)
It's just art, especially at the highest level competition
Lex Fridman (21:00.640)
where millions of people are watching.
RZA (21:02.720)
Which is pressure within itself.
Lex Fridman (21:04.040)
Yeah, that's art under pressure
RZA (21:07.320)
is even more beautiful art.
Lex Fridman (21:10.160)
You know, you look at some of these fights
Lex Fridman (21:11.760)
and you wonder like why somebody wins and lose.
Lex Fridman (21:16.240)
And sometimes the less talent guy could win
RZA (21:19.280)
because he could deal with the pressure.
Lex Fridman (21:21.600)
But the other guy, he could have beat them
RZA (21:23.200)
if they were somewhere else, but not in this arena.
Lex Fridman (21:28.280)
So you're a scholar of history, including hip hop history.
RZA (21:33.200)
I've listened to so many of your interviews.
Lex Fridman (21:35.400)
You've spoken brilliantly about some of the big figures
RZA (21:38.480)
in hip hop history, Tupac, Biggie, Nas, many others.
Lex Fridman (21:44.360)
Maybe let's look at Tupac and Biggie.
Lex Fridman (21:47.200)
What made them special in the history of music?
Lex Fridman (21:49.880)
Mm, that's a good question.
Lex Fridman (21:52.880)
So I don't know if I'm the authority to answer it,
Lex Fridman (21:56.200)
but I'll just speak my piece on it.
Lex Fridman (21:58.840)
And maybe I could just add on.
Lex Fridman (22:00.720)
Cause I'm sure it's a lot of people
RZA (22:02.040)
that spent a lot of time with them that could speak on it.
Lex Fridman (22:05.320)
But just as a fellow artist,
RZA (22:09.560)
I think not only was B.I.G a dope lyricist,
Lex Fridman (22:14.480)
I think he had a voice that was really immaculate.
RZA (22:19.480)
In a sense that some rappers get on top of music
Lex Fridman (22:25.840)
and you gotta get used to them
RZA (22:27.200)
when you gotta vibe with them.
Lex Fridman (22:30.400)
But he make a record sounds like a record immediately.
RZA (22:37.880)
If you go back and listen to his music,
Lex Fridman (22:40.760)
you could take his voice and put it on anything.
Lex Fridman (22:43.120)
And for some reason, it sounds like a record.
Lex Fridman (22:47.280)
You know what I mean?
Lex Fridman (22:48.120)
You mean just like the raw voice of the man?
Lex Fridman (22:50.360)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (22:51.200)
So you could just listen to it raw
Lex Fridman (22:52.760)
and it sounds like a record.
RZA (22:54.200)
Yeah, but if you put a beat,
Lex Fridman (22:56.360)
take his voice and put it on any beat,
Lex Fridman (22:59.400)
he just has a voice, it's immaculate, you know?
Lex Fridman (23:04.160)
So his lyrical skills and all that was great.
Lex Fridman (23:07.760)
And you gotta think once again, he's doing all this,
Lex Fridman (23:11.320)
he's not even 25 years old.
RZA (23:12.880)
Yeah, yeah.
Lex Fridman (23:14.080)
And then you go to Pac, once again, immaculate voice.
Lex Fridman (23:18.840)
But what Pac had, I think,
Lex Fridman (23:22.520)
was a way of touching us on all of our emotions.
Lex Fridman (23:27.840)
And especially on, like Pac had the power
Lex Fridman (23:30.960)
to infuse your emotional thought.
RZA (23:33.800)
Like Brenda has a baby, their mama.
Lex Fridman (23:37.280)
But then he had the power to arouse the rebel in you.
Lex Fridman (23:41.600)
You know?
Lex Fridman (23:43.840)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (23:44.680)
And those two things, actually,
Lex Fridman (23:49.680)
he was probably more dangerous than Big, Notorious B.I.G.
RZA (23:56.480)
Like Notorious B.I.G., we could party with him.
Lex Fridman (23:59.360)
To this day, we are still,
Lex Fridman (24:01.360)
but Pac was probably going to a point,
Lex Fridman (24:04.440)
he was more going into the Malcolm X of things
Lex Fridman (24:07.800)
and society fears that.
Lex Fridman (24:12.200)
Yeah, so he was really good at communicating love
Lex Fridman (24:15.440)
and at starting revolutions.
Lex Fridman (24:18.960)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (24:20.080)
And that's dangerous.
Lex Fridman (24:21.040)
Very dangerous.
Lex Fridman (24:22.480)
And they communicated love,
Lex Fridman (24:24.720)
but he wasn't starting revolutions.
RZA (24:27.920)
Well, it's interesting to think about
Lex Fridman (24:29.920)
what the world would be like if they were still with us.
Lex Fridman (24:32.680)
But it's the way of the world.
Lex Fridman (24:35.360)
Hendrix, a lot of those guys just go too soon.
RZA (24:39.640)
Yeah, it's a peculiar thing.
Lex Fridman (24:41.480)
Now, you asked me earlier, am I scared of death?
Lex Fridman (24:47.280)
And I answered, you know, I'm not scared of death.
Lex Fridman (24:50.080)
I'm not trying to see it, though.
Lex Fridman (24:51.320)
You know what I mean?
Lex Fridman (24:52.680)
It's like, that was the block of death.
RZA (24:55.240)
It's like, I'm not really going right there right now.
Lex Fridman (24:57.640)
I'm making a left or right turn.
Lex Fridman (24:59.960)
You know what I mean?
Lex Fridman (25:00.960)
Unless it was mandatory for some greaterness, greater good.
RZA (25:05.080)
It's like, okay, I got to drive through that.
Lex Fridman (25:07.600)
You know what I mean?
RZA (25:08.440)
Yeah, but it can still happen.
Lex Fridman (25:09.880)
That's the meditation on death part,
RZA (25:11.760)
where you could die at the end of today.
Lex Fridman (25:14.320)
Yeah, you could die.
RZA (25:16.240)
Well, dying and death, I think,
Lex Fridman (25:17.760)
is two different things, personally.
Lex Fridman (25:21.080)
The process you mean of death or just?
Lex Fridman (25:23.240)
Yeah, I mean, you could die.
RZA (25:24.800)
Like I said, you could die every day.
Lex Fridman (25:26.600)
You could die and not be yourself.
Lex Fridman (25:29.800)
You know what I mean?
Lex Fridman (25:30.960)
Which is crazy.
Lex Fridman (25:32.760)
But to get to a point of no return,
Lex Fridman (25:35.800)
you know, that's a whole nother chamber.
RZA (25:38.280)
I mean, there's some sense in which
Lex Fridman (25:41.440)
RZA, the producer, becomes somebody else completely
RZA (25:46.120)
when you're making a film,
Lex Fridman (25:47.200)
becomes somebody else completely
RZA (25:49.040)
when you're, I don't know, playing chess,
Lex Fridman (25:51.760)
becomes completely something different
RZA (25:53.800)
when you do kung fu or watch kung fu
Lex Fridman (25:57.240)
or when you're a family man.
RZA (25:58.720)
All of those are little deaths
Lex Fridman (25:59.960)
when you transition from one place to another.
Lex Fridman (26:02.320)
So it's not like you're one being.
Lex Fridman (26:04.240)
You're many things.
RZA (26:06.520)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (26:07.400)
I would describe, now I would describe that
RZA (26:08.800)
as all life, dawg.
Lex Fridman (26:10.000)
Yeah, it's fun.
RZA (26:14.120)
Outside of you and anybody on Wu Tang,
Lex Fridman (26:18.200)
who is the greatest rapper from a lyrics,
RZA (26:21.960)
like a Wart Smith perspective in hip hop history
Lex Fridman (26:24.680)
or some of the greatest, maybe some candidates?
RZA (26:27.000)
Let's name a few.
Lex Fridman (26:28.600)
I mean, you're gonna have to start with Rakim.
Lex Fridman (26:31.440)
You know?
Lex Fridman (26:32.280)
You're gonna have to pick Coogee Rap in there.
Lex Fridman (26:34.640)
You know what I mean?
Lex Fridman (26:35.680)
So going back.
RZA (26:36.640)
Yeah, you're gonna have to pick up
Lex Fridman (26:37.960)
with those brothers first.
RZA (26:38.880)
You might have to, if you want to get,
Lex Fridman (26:41.120)
technically you might have to start with Grandmaster Cass.
Lex Fridman (26:43.840)
You know what I mean?
Lex Fridman (26:44.680)
Who you might not even heard of.
RZA (26:46.480)
Nope.
Lex Fridman (26:47.320)
You know what I mean?
Lex Fridman (26:48.160)
But you may have sung his lyrics
Lex Fridman (26:49.400)
every time you sang Sugar Hill, Rapper's Delight.
Lex Fridman (26:52.080)
That's his?
Lex Fridman (26:52.920)
Yeah, they copied his and they made it theirs.
RZA (26:56.760)
That's my point being made, but I'll name a couple more.
Lex Fridman (27:02.640)
I gotta pick Nas in that category.
RZA (27:05.680)
You know, we got a chess board in front of us
Lex Fridman (27:07.440)
and one of the greatest chess players,
RZA (27:10.400)
the youngest Grandmaster, you know, before I think Carlson,
Lex Fridman (27:16.520)
was Bobby Fisher.
RZA (27:21.640)
All right, so let's use Bobby Fisher as American.
Lex Fridman (27:23.480)
One of the greatest American chess players.
RZA (27:25.160)
Of course, Susan Polgar may have tied his record
Lex Fridman (27:27.720)
as the youngest Grandmaster
Lex Fridman (27:29.920)
and she's the youngest female Grandmaster, I think to date.
Lex Fridman (27:32.920)
But he was a master at what, 14?
RZA (27:37.520)
Yeah, something like that.
Lex Fridman (27:38.640)
Right?
Lex Fridman (27:39.520)
So now to me, I met Nas when he was 15.
Lex Fridman (27:44.640)
He was already a master lyricist.
RZA (27:46.840)
It takes about 10 years to become a master lyricist.
Lex Fridman (27:49.280)
So by the time the world heard Wu Tang,
RZA (27:52.800)
most of us had 10 years of rapping in us already.
Lex Fridman (27:55.960)
So that's why you met us at mastery level.
RZA (27:58.920)
The Jizzer was already a master when Nas was a master,
Lex Fridman (28:02.320)
but Jizzer was 21, Nas was 15.
RZA (28:06.880)
Nas is like the Mozart of rap.
Lex Fridman (28:09.600)
Or the Bobby Fisher.
RZA (28:10.800)
Just Bobby Fisher, just born something in him.
Lex Fridman (28:13.680)
Or maybe those early years,
RZA (28:15.280)
just because he's not just good at the lyrics.
Lex Fridman (28:20.040)
He's also, he goes deep with it.
RZA (28:22.680)
Just like you.
Lex Fridman (28:23.520)
So he's like, there's depth.
RZA (28:25.320)
It's not just like mastery of the word smithing.
Lex Fridman (28:30.960)
It's just the message you actually get sent across.
RZA (28:34.880)
It's information.
Lex Fridman (28:35.720)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (28:36.560)
Into a small phrase, right?
Lex Fridman (28:40.680)
That's the whole thing of energy.
Lex Fridman (28:42.160)
How do we condense all that energy into this
Lex Fridman (28:46.720)
so that it could fuel that?
Lex Fridman (28:49.040)
And he's definitely one of those artists,
Lex Fridman (28:52.400)
MCs that does that.
Lex Fridman (28:54.200)
And he was doing it at 15.
Lex Fridman (28:56.480)
Like I said, I think I'm five years
RZA (28:58.120)
or four or five years older than Nas.
Lex Fridman (29:00.360)
So I was always feeling my confidence
RZA (29:03.240)
of what I was doing.
Lex Fridman (29:04.080)
But I was like, this kid is only 15.
RZA (29:07.840)
I gotta step up my game.
Lex Fridman (29:09.720)
When he turned 19, then we got Illmatic.
RZA (29:12.960)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (29:15.200)
From you, what are the best and most memorable lyrics
Lex Fridman (29:18.880)
you've ever written?
Lex Fridman (29:22.120)
Well, that's a hard question for me.
Lex Fridman (29:24.160)
The stuff stand out?
Lex Fridman (29:25.240)
Like stuff you're really proud of
Lex Fridman (29:26.560)
that was like important in your career?
Lex Fridman (29:29.520)
Yeah, I mean, I think I did a song called Sunshower.
RZA (29:35.720)
I don't know if we put it on the Wu Tang Forever double CD,
Lex Fridman (29:38.440)
but only on the international version.
Lex Fridman (29:42.120)
But if anybody could go get those lyrics
Lex Fridman (29:44.560)
and write those lyrics down,
RZA (29:46.040)
you could just put that in your pocket.
Lex Fridman (29:47.440)
And I'm sure that it'll answer at least about 25%
RZA (29:50.080)
of your life's problems.
Lex Fridman (29:52.960)
Well, that's a good one.
RZA (29:53.960)
Sunshine, where you talk about religion and God,
Lex Fridman (29:56.840)
that's good.
RZA (29:58.440)
I think it's on A Diagram.
Lex Fridman (30:01.680)
I'm not a record guy.
RZA (30:02.720)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (30:03.560)
I'm a song guy.
RZA (30:04.400)
Might have been A Diagram.
Lex Fridman (30:05.240)
Do you have a lyric from it?
RZA (30:06.520)
Yeah, the answer to all questions.
Lex Fridman (30:09.000)
You're talking about God.
RZA (30:10.040)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (30:11.040)
The spark of all suggestions, of righteousness,
RZA (30:14.160)
the pathway to the road of perfection,
Lex Fridman (30:16.320)
who gives you all and never asks more of you,
RZA (30:19.120)
the faithful companion that fights every war with you.
Lex Fridman (30:22.320)
Before the mortal view of the prehistorical historical,
RZA (30:25.560)
he's the all in all you searching for the oracle.
Lex Fridman (30:28.440)
That's a good line, man.
RZA (30:29.960)
This is so good.
Lex Fridman (30:31.720)
A mission impossible is purely philosophical,
Lex Fridman (30:33.960)
but you can call on your deathbed
Lex Fridman (30:36.360)
when you're laying in the hospital.
RZA (30:37.800)
You will call on your deathbed.
Lex Fridman (30:39.440)
I had a big, I have a scientist friend.
RZA (30:42.880)
Well, my wife's best friend, Rebecca,
Lex Fridman (30:47.160)
she married a scientist.
RZA (30:48.400)
They both scientists.
Lex Fridman (30:49.200)
They both were scientists, and she married Dr. Neil.
RZA (30:53.800)
I ain't going to say their last names.
Lex Fridman (30:55.680)
But Neil and Rebecca, my wife's best friend, so they come over.
Lex Fridman (31:00.640)
And me and Neil, we go through the longest debates
Lex Fridman (31:05.280)
of science and religion.
RZA (31:07.080)
We just go.
Lex Fridman (31:08.320)
We could go break day with it.
Lex Fridman (31:10.240)
And before he had a child, he was more adamant.
Lex Fridman (31:18.360)
And I don't believe in God.
Lex Fridman (31:22.080)
You know what I mean?
Lex Fridman (31:23.280)
After a child, he still kept his thing.
Lex Fridman (31:25.920)
But I just hit him with the question.
Lex Fridman (31:27.400)
If you was about to die, because now you
Lex Fridman (31:29.560)
got a child to think about, right?
Lex Fridman (31:31.120)
It's different when you're thinking about yourself.
RZA (31:33.440)
If you was about to die, you don't
Lex Fridman (31:35.640)
think you're going to make that call.
RZA (31:37.120)
He's like, I'll make that call.
Lex Fridman (31:40.400)
And it kind of inspired my lyric, because it was like,
RZA (31:43.240)
yeah, you're going to.
Lex Fridman (31:45.840)
And I just want to say, as far as you mentioned lyrics,
RZA (31:48.080)
that is one of my favorite lyrics.
Lex Fridman (31:49.560)
But that's part two to Sunshower was the prequel to Sunshine.
Lex Fridman (31:57.240)
So if you ever get a chance to check out Sunshower,
Lex Fridman (32:00.720)
start us off with, trouble follows a wicked mind.
RZA (32:04.120)
2020 vision of the prism of life,
Lex Fridman (32:07.800)
but still blind because you lack the inner.
Lex Fridman (32:11.160)
So every sinner could end up in the everlasting winter
Lex Fridman (32:14.440)
of hellfire.
Lex Fridman (32:16.840)
But thorns and splinters prick your eye out.
Lex Fridman (32:19.560)
You cry out.
RZA (32:20.440)
Your words fly out.
Lex Fridman (32:22.160)
You remain unheard.
RZA (32:24.160)
Suffering internal and external,
Lex Fridman (32:28.320)
along with the wicked fraternal of genitals and kernels,
RZA (32:31.480)
letting off thermal nuclear heat that burns you firmly
Lex Fridman (32:34.400)
and permanently upon the journey through the journal
RZA (32:37.800)
of the book of life.
Lex Fridman (32:39.480)
For those who took a life without justice
RZA (32:41.880)
will become just ice.
Lex Fridman (32:44.800)
It's been taught your worst enemy couldn't harm you
RZA (32:47.800)
as much as your own wicked thoughts.
Lex Fridman (32:51.960)
But people ought to be not unless in war.
Lex Fridman (32:55.400)
So they find themselves persecuted
Lex Fridman (32:57.000)
inside their own universal court.
Lex Fridman (33:00.480)
So it's a long one.
Lex Fridman (33:02.160)
It's like a three pager.
RZA (33:03.720)
Wow, that is about life.
Lex Fridman (33:05.080)
That's like character integrity, how to be in this world.
Lex Fridman (33:10.320)
And that ultimately connects to God.
Lex Fridman (33:12.400)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (33:13.720)
Who's God to you?
Lex Fridman (33:15.480)
I'm glad you just asked that question because I actually,
RZA (33:19.680)
I'm going to have to make a distinguishable separation here.
Lex Fridman (33:23.680)
All right.
Lex Fridman (33:24.200)
And it's funny because I heard recently,
Lex Fridman (33:28.560)
I heard a rabbi was debating with this historian, Dr. Ben.
RZA (33:35.480)
I can't pronounce Dr. Ben name, but it was debating.
Lex Fridman (33:38.480)
And in the debate, they started going back
RZA (33:42.080)
through the etymology.
Lex Fridman (33:44.760)
They went way back beyond antiquity
RZA (33:47.520)
because they was debating.
Lex Fridman (33:48.640)
And so there was some things that was going deep.
Lex Fridman (33:52.280)
And they really went far, far back to kind
Lex Fridman (33:54.920)
of the first word of God.
Lex Fridman (33:58.680)
And when they pronounced it on this particular debate,
Lex Fridman (34:01.880)
it was Allah.
Lex Fridman (34:04.040)
And they said from that, they got Elohim.
Lex Fridman (34:07.920)
I've already agreed in my heart and my life
RZA (34:11.760)
that the father of this universe, proper name is Allah.
Lex Fridman (34:18.320)
And of course, in Allah, I get all.
Lex Fridman (34:23.200)
And I don't think that God is the same as that.
Lex Fridman (34:28.640)
I think Allah gives birth to God.
RZA (34:33.200)
In fact, if you take the word Allah, A L L A H,
Lex Fridman (34:37.440)
and you take it through numerology or numbers,
RZA (34:40.120)
the number letter A being 1, L being 12,
Lex Fridman (34:44.240)
and you add it all up to the last denominator,
RZA (34:49.760)
you're going to get the number 7.
Lex Fridman (34:51.800)
And the number 7 is going to bring you right back
RZA (34:53.640)
to that letter G. So Allah borns God,
Lex Fridman (34:57.000)
but God don't born Allah.
Lex Fridman (34:59.160)
How does that guy, how does Allah,
Lex Fridman (35:01.480)
connect to the oracle that you're
Lex Fridman (35:05.560)
going to be calling for when you're laying in the hospital?
Lex Fridman (35:08.320)
Well, what I was saying in that particular verse was that we're
RZA (35:11.240)
looking for the oracle.
Lex Fridman (35:12.240)
We're looking for somebody else or something
RZA (35:13.960)
to help us that nobody can really help you
Lex Fridman (35:16.520)
at the end of the day.
Lex Fridman (35:21.800)
So now that we, I don't want to say we're speaking on religion,
Lex Fridman (35:24.480)
but we're speaking on a way of life and a way of thinking.
Lex Fridman (35:29.400)
And I've read many books, of course.
Lex Fridman (35:32.200)
And I could say there's no book that my,
RZA (35:36.240)
the book that is the most strongest book I've ever read
Lex Fridman (35:38.520)
is actually the Holy Quran.
RZA (35:40.320)
It's stronger to me than the Bible, which I've read.
Lex Fridman (35:43.640)
It's stronger than quantum physics, which I've read.
RZA (35:46.720)
It's stronger than the Bhagavad Gita.
Lex Fridman (35:48.600)
It's just, and I read once a British scholar
RZA (35:52.880)
said it's the most stupidest book ever written.
Lex Fridman (35:56.040)
And it doesn't make sense.
Lex Fridman (35:59.640)
And so I said, oh, I see why he says that.
Lex Fridman (36:02.240)
I understand exactly why he said that as well.
Lex Fridman (36:04.520)
Why is that?
Lex Fridman (36:05.840)
Because the structure of the words are just, it's peculiar.
Lex Fridman (36:13.280)
You know what I mean?
Lex Fridman (36:14.200)
But it's almost like how some people's songs,
RZA (36:16.440)
you don't really know exactly what
Lex Fridman (36:18.400)
they say until years later.
RZA (36:22.760)
Yeah, you have, actually with Joe Rogan,
Lex Fridman (36:24.720)
I think you talked about how a joke of Dave Chappelle's
RZA (36:28.040)
hit you like a long time after this.
Lex Fridman (36:30.680)
So this is kind of like the Quran.
RZA (36:33.720)
I tend to believe that we human beings cannot possibly
Lex Fridman (36:38.760)
understand anything as big as these ideas.
Lex Fridman (36:41.760)
So just, I don't know.
Lex Fridman (36:44.680)
Did you think that, like are you humble in the face
Lex Fridman (36:48.440)
of just the immensity of it?
Lex Fridman (36:51.440)
To be honest, yes.
RZA (36:53.840)
I'm humble in the face of the, if you could say the word
Lex Fridman (36:57.080)
again, I pronounce words funny.
RZA (36:58.800)
The omnipotence, the omnescence, the magnitude,
Lex Fridman (37:04.480)
I'm humble in the face of Allah.
RZA (37:07.480)
The problem that I may have had was
Lex Fridman (37:09.760)
that I wasn't humble in the face of God
RZA (37:12.000)
because it's just a definable thing.
Lex Fridman (37:15.960)
And that's why I think a lot of us, and I'm not saying that,
RZA (37:18.640)
you know, I know when we say God we're trying to say Allah.
Lex Fridman (37:22.120)
Like people are saying that, but you're actually
RZA (37:24.880)
not saying the same thing because you're actually
Lex Fridman (37:27.680)
putting something beside him.
Lex Fridman (37:31.080)
And that's the reason why you can have as many gods.
Lex Fridman (37:37.640)
You can find a whole bunch of them, you know what I mean?
Lex Fridman (37:41.040)
But you're not going to find many.
Lex Fridman (37:42.320)
There's no body beside Allah.
RZA (37:45.080)
Allah is one.
Lex Fridman (37:45.800)
So I know it's a whole thing, but that's my heart is there.
RZA (37:50.000)
I'm humbled by it.
Lex Fridman (37:51.880)
I'm at peace with it.
Lex Fridman (37:54.320)
And it doesn't take nothing or demerit anything from myself.
Lex Fridman (37:59.160)
That's the beauty of it.
RZA (38:00.320)
It doesn't take nothing from me from being who I feel.
Lex Fridman (38:03.360)
So if I say, if somebody woke up, yo, peace, God.
RZA (38:06.720)
I could take that because they're telling me that, yo,
Lex Fridman (38:09.120)
I'm a man of wisdom.
RZA (38:10.200)
I'm a man of strength.
Lex Fridman (38:11.640)
I'm a man of beauty.
Lex Fridman (38:13.800)
Or some attribute of that, you know what I mean?
Lex Fridman (38:15.760)
So Wu Tang, they the gods of rap.
RZA (38:17.760)
There's wisdom there.
Lex Fridman (38:18.640)
There's strength there.
RZA (38:19.320)
There's beauty.
Lex Fridman (38:19.840)
They will take that.
RZA (38:21.160)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (38:23.240)
So Wu Tang is one of the greatest
RZA (38:25.160)
musical, artistic, philosophical groups ever.
Lex Fridman (38:29.520)
Let's look hundreds of years from now
RZA (38:31.480)
when humans or robots or aliens or whatever that's left here,
Lex Fridman (38:34.320)
they look back.
Lex Fridman (38:35.720)
What do you hope they remember about Wu Tang?
Lex Fridman (38:37.600)
What do you hope the legacy is?
RZA (38:40.520)
Well, even if it's thousands of years,
Lex Fridman (38:43.080)
I hope we don't get rid of the humans.
Lex Fridman (38:45.720)
But you know, look, whatever happens is going to happen.
Lex Fridman (38:48.040)
But I think that my philosophy on it
RZA (38:51.600)
is that we're going to continue to advance and continue
Lex Fridman (38:59.680)
to advance things around us.
Lex Fridman (39:01.960)
But I don't see us becoming extinct.
Lex Fridman (39:04.600)
Well, I mean, the reason I bring up Wu Tang in that context,
Lex Fridman (39:08.080)
and this is a special moment in human history.
Lex Fridman (39:11.120)
It's like 100 years, and we've created all of this music.
RZA (39:13.840)
Just if you think of all the richness of music that's
Lex Fridman (39:16.400)
been created over 100 years, it's
RZA (39:18.960)
not obvious to me that that's not going to stop.
Lex Fridman (39:21.840)
There's a flourishing here.
Lex Fridman (39:23.720)
So it's funny because I could see
Lex Fridman (39:25.960)
where the book of human history is written.
RZA (39:29.480)
There's a chapter on this period of time.
Lex Fridman (39:32.120)
And one of the things we did well is
RZA (39:34.680)
all the technological innovation with the rockets
Lex Fridman (39:39.400)
and with the internet.
Lex Fridman (39:40.720)
But then there's also the musical innovation
Lex Fridman (39:42.520)
and film innovation.
RZA (39:44.000)
Just so much art that's being created.
Lex Fridman (39:45.760)
And Wu Tang's a huge part of that.
Lex Fridman (39:47.960)
So I just wonder if there's a few sentences written
Lex Fridman (39:50.360)
about Wu Tang, it just makes me wonder how they remember.
RZA (39:56.760)
I would hope that people, no matter how many years,
Lex Fridman (40:00.520)
are inspired by us.
Lex Fridman (40:02.480)
But I will say, if I could just use Wu Tang as itself.
Lex Fridman (40:07.240)
So we first started off the witty, unpredictable talent
Lex Fridman (40:15.360)
and natural game.
Lex Fridman (40:16.880)
Natural game meaning natural wordplay.
Lex Fridman (40:19.600)
And then we went to the wisdom of the universe,
Lex Fridman (40:27.080)
the truth of Allah for a nation of God.
RZA (40:34.400)
Wisdom, universal, truth, Allah, nation, God.
Lex Fridman (40:39.280)
So let's just go back to a nation of God.
RZA (40:41.400)
Let's just take the last two letters.
Lex Fridman (40:44.680)
A nation of wisdom, strength, and beauty.
Lex Fridman (40:50.920)
And I'm going a little political here, but not going political.
Lex Fridman (40:53.600)
As we'll say, we're the greatest country in the world.
Lex Fridman (40:56.040)
What makes us the greatest?
Lex Fridman (40:58.400)
That should be a question we ask.
Lex Fridman (40:59.760)
Is it our wisdom?
Lex Fridman (41:01.760)
Is it our strength?
Lex Fridman (41:03.560)
Is it our beauty?
Lex Fridman (41:04.800)
Now, let's just say, off the easiest answer,
RZA (41:07.520)
you know it's our strength.
Lex Fridman (41:09.400)
We got the nukes.
RZA (41:11.720)
Nobody can really, between America and Russia,
Lex Fridman (41:14.800)
they say, that's the argument.
Lex Fridman (41:17.040)
Who could beat them?
Lex Fridman (41:18.800)
But where's the wisdom?
RZA (41:21.080)
Then they can argue, well, we got the technology.
Lex Fridman (41:24.680)
But then where's the beauty when there's
Lex Fridman (41:26.200)
so much suffering in the people?
Lex Fridman (41:29.480)
So it's not complete.
RZA (41:30.600)
The hope is that the wisdom is in the founding documents,
Lex Fridman (41:33.360)
in the imperfect but wise founding documents
RZA (41:37.600)
that celebrated freedom, that celebrated all the ideas,
Lex Fridman (41:41.760)
sort of having a lot of nukes, having a lot of airplanes
Lex Fridman (41:45.520)
and tanks.
Lex Fridman (41:49.480)
That's not important.
Lex Fridman (41:50.320)
And the hope is whatever we're doing here with this, quote,
Lex Fridman (41:53.800)
greatest country on Earth, that we preserve the ideas
Lex Fridman (41:56.680)
and help them flourish, just like you said.
Lex Fridman (41:59.120)
Well, that's what I mean.
Lex Fridman (42:00.680)
So if you go back to the Wu Tang,
Lex Fridman (42:03.080)
that's what we're striving for.
RZA (42:05.680)
We're striving for that.
Lex Fridman (42:07.480)
But you started unpredictable and just like, yeah.
Lex Fridman (42:12.240)
But got deep pretty quick.
Lex Fridman (42:16.600)
I got to talk to you about Bruce Lee.
Lex Fridman (42:19.520)
Who's Bruce Lee to you?
Lex Fridman (42:20.800)
Who is he to the world?
Lex Fridman (42:22.000)
What ideas of his were interesting to you?
Lex Fridman (42:27.440)
You talk about Hendrix and music.
RZA (42:29.680)
Bruce Lee is that in martial arts.
Lex Fridman (42:31.280)
He just seems to have changed the game.
RZA (42:36.920)
I don't know if the word bold is the right word to say,
Lex Fridman (42:39.080)
but I wouldn't as bold as to say that he was a minor prophet.
Lex Fridman (42:44.800)
And I got that concept from the Holy Quran
Lex Fridman (42:47.120)
where it says that we send prophets
RZA (42:49.040)
to every nation, every village.
Lex Fridman (42:52.200)
We don't let nobody not hear the word in some form
RZA (42:55.320)
because it won't be fair.
Lex Fridman (42:57.080)
And so if a law is merciful, even a man who's deaf
RZA (43:01.960)
has to somehow get a sign.
Lex Fridman (43:03.480)
I don't know if Moses saw a burning bush.
RZA (43:05.480)
There was nobody else to talk to,
Lex Fridman (43:06.920)
so he had to talk to the bush.
RZA (43:08.280)
I don't know.
Lex Fridman (43:09.160)
It could have been the bush this way too, right?
Lex Fridman (43:11.520)
But point being made, it says that they are minor prophets.
Lex Fridman (43:15.040)
And I see Bruce Lee as one of them
RZA (43:17.560)
because what he brought to the world through martial art
Lex Fridman (43:22.840)
was a whole shift in the dynamic of thinking.
Lex Fridman (43:27.080)
And that happens when certain entities are born.
Lex Fridman (43:30.640)
But he didn't do it only in a physical sense.
RZA (43:36.600)
He was also for the philosophizing
Lex Fridman (43:38.560)
in the same process.
Lex Fridman (43:41.680)
And he was also striving to be the best of himself.
Lex Fridman (43:45.960)
So you got three things going on.
RZA (43:48.720)
I studied Bruce Lee multiple times.
Lex Fridman (43:54.120)
And first, of course, when I saw my first Kung Fu movie,
RZA (44:00.920)
it wasn't really Bruce Lee.
Lex Fridman (44:03.440)
It was a few Green Hornet clips cut together.
Lex Fridman (44:07.480)
And then I saw Black Samurai.
Lex Fridman (44:08.960)
Then my following Kung Fu movies was like Fearless Fighters,
RZA (44:13.400)
the Ghostly Face, the Fist of Double K.
Lex Fridman (44:17.320)
But basically, in Fearless Fighters,
RZA (44:19.800)
the lady put the little kid on her back
Lex Fridman (44:21.480)
and flew across the ocean, across the lake, right?
Lex Fridman (44:25.880)
So Bruce wasn't doing that.
Lex Fridman (44:28.000)
And then I went on to Five Deadly Venoms, and Spearman,
Lex Fridman (44:31.680)
and 36 Chambers.
Lex Fridman (44:32.720)
And these movies are beautiful, and yet they're all heightened.
RZA (44:39.800)
Bruce, they're heightened beyond doable.
Lex Fridman (44:42.960)
You're not going to.
RZA (44:43.760)
Yeah, it's surreal.
Lex Fridman (44:44.640)
They play with the world that's not of this world.
RZA (44:47.480)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (44:48.880)
Bruce played with this world.
Lex Fridman (44:51.200)
So when I first saw Bruce, I actually
Lex Fridman (44:55.600)
didn't think he was as good as these guys.
RZA (44:57.840)
He can't fly.
Lex Fridman (45:00.520)
He's not flying in the movies, right?
Lex Fridman (45:03.760)
But then when I saw, because the first one I saw
Lex Fridman (45:07.080)
was The Big Boss, which they retitled Fist of Fury.
Lex Fridman (45:11.240)
But then when I saw Chinese Connection, which
Lex Fridman (45:15.160)
is the real Fist of Fury, right?
RZA (45:19.280)
I saw something different there.
Lex Fridman (45:21.280)
And I got enamored.
Lex Fridman (45:24.280)
And then, of course, Enter the Dragon, right?
Lex Fridman (45:26.400)
Just really complete.
RZA (45:28.080)
That's why my first album was Enter the Wu Tang,
Lex Fridman (45:32.080)
36 Chambers of Shaolin.
Lex Fridman (45:33.520)
So it's Enter the Dragon and 36 put together,
Lex Fridman (45:35.560)
because those are the two epitomes.
Lex Fridman (45:38.320)
So what happened is that's young me.
Lex Fridman (45:40.280)
Then teenage me studies him again.
Lex Fridman (45:43.320)
And I realized, wow, look at his physicality.
Lex Fridman (45:46.760)
Look how he's really moving for real.
Lex Fridman (45:50.840)
And then I studied him again.
Lex Fridman (45:52.360)
Wow, look at what he's saying.
RZA (45:55.000)
Then I studied him again.
Lex Fridman (45:56.000)
Wow, look at what he stands for.
RZA (45:59.800)
Which do you like in the realm of martial arts, the real
Lex Fridman (46:04.640)
or the surreal, or the dance between the two?
RZA (46:07.800)
Yeah, I like the dance between the two,
Lex Fridman (46:09.320)
because a movie, to me, is to entertain you.
Lex Fridman (46:15.640)
So I'm cool with Obi Wan Kenobi disappearing out of the cloak
Lex Fridman (46:23.480)
when Vader strikes him down.
Lex Fridman (46:25.960)
And then I'm like, yo, what happened?
Lex Fridman (46:27.560)
And he's like, run, Luke, run.
Lex Fridman (46:30.280)
I'm cool with that, right?
Lex Fridman (46:31.840)
Because that's the imagination.
Lex Fridman (46:34.120)
And the imagination gets stimulated to the point
Lex Fridman (46:36.520)
to where as things that we saw imagined by an artist,
RZA (46:40.200)
we strive to create in our real world.
Lex Fridman (46:42.280)
Thus, Star Trek, to me, is just a precursor to our cell phones.
Lex Fridman (46:47.720)
So for me, I like to mix the two.
Lex Fridman (46:51.880)
Yeah, it's funny how science fiction pushing
RZA (46:54.360)
into the impossible actually makes it realize eventually.
Lex Fridman (46:57.640)
We humans, once we see an idea on screen,
RZA (47:00.520)
no matter how wild it is, we're trying to make it.
Lex Fridman (47:02.920)
Yeah, we're trying to make it.
RZA (47:04.040)
Some weird young kid, he gets inspired and watch that.
Lex Fridman (47:06.680)
Be like, I'm going to build that.
RZA (47:08.280)
Exactly.
Lex Fridman (47:09.040)
So I don't know who's going to come with the Back
RZA (47:11.600)
to the Future time machine.
Lex Fridman (47:13.040)
But do you have any classmates that you think
Lex Fridman (47:15.440)
this is going to be a time machine?
Lex Fridman (47:17.880)
I thought you were going to Back to the Future, like the,
Lex Fridman (47:20.360)
what is it, the hoverboard?
Lex Fridman (47:24.000)
Or like the, uh?
RZA (47:25.000)
Yeah, at least.
Lex Fridman (47:26.520)
Somebody, they got, you see the one on the water?
RZA (47:29.600)
No.
Lex Fridman (47:30.240)
No, you know the surf hover?
RZA (47:33.200)
It's dope.
Lex Fridman (47:34.400)
Nice.
RZA (47:35.200)
It's dope.
Lex Fridman (47:36.000)
It actually, if you are a Back to the Future fan,
RZA (47:40.200)
you feel like you made it to, you made it there.
Lex Fridman (47:43.040)
Yeah.
RZA (47:43.840)
Well, now we just got to work on the time trial.
Lex Fridman (47:46.160)
And it was cool to hear you talk about the Master of the Flying
RZA (47:49.960)
Gaijin today, that that inspired the lyric for the Wu Tang
Lex Fridman (47:57.040)
client, Nothing to F with.
RZA (47:58.800)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (48:00.000)
How does that go again?
Lex Fridman (48:02.240)
What, the curse word or the lyric?
Lex Fridman (48:03.640)
Nothing.
RZA (48:04.440)
OK.
Lex Fridman (48:05.240)
No, I remember the curse.
RZA (48:06.280)
I am Russian, but the lyric.
Lex Fridman (48:09.800)
I said, I be tossing and forcing.
RZA (48:12.480)
My style is awesome.
Lex Fridman (48:13.840)
I'm causing more family feuds than Richard Dawson.
Lex Fridman (48:17.200)
And the survey said, you're dead.
Lex Fridman (48:20.080)
The fatal flying guillotine chops off your head.
RZA (48:23.400)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (48:24.200)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (48:25.000)
And it was interesting to see the guillotine in the movie
Lex Fridman (48:27.760)
today, how, I don't know.
Lex Fridman (48:32.040)
That's surreal, right?
Lex Fridman (48:33.720)
But it's not.
RZA (48:34.520)
It's like, it's engineering.
Lex Fridman (48:36.640)
It's both surreal and it just, and it adds this chaos
RZA (48:42.360)
into this real world that, and then challenges everybody
Lex Fridman (48:44.920)
to think what you're going to do with that.
RZA (48:46.520)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (48:46.840)
How are you going to beat it?
RZA (48:47.680)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (48:48.000)
How are you going to beat it?
RZA (48:48.720)
Both when you have like the good and the evil
Lex Fridman (48:51.440)
and the mix of the bad guys and good guys
Lex Fridman (48:54.280)
and you're not sure who the bad guys are.
Lex Fridman (48:56.120)
It's the old question of good versus evil, right?
RZA (48:58.520)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (48:59.240)
Like you said, then the question of who was good, who was evil.
Lex Fridman (49:03.080)
But they all had a similar problem when the guillotine came.
Lex Fridman (49:07.560)
But in terms of the real, you mentioned The Godfather,
RZA (49:11.000)
good and evil.
Lex Fridman (49:12.280)
That's your favorite movie.
RZA (49:13.600)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (49:14.640)
What makes it great, do you think?
RZA (49:16.120)
The characters, the study of family, of justice, of power.
Lex Fridman (49:20.360)
What connects with you?
RZA (49:21.280)
Oh, oh, I mean, every one of those themes
Lex Fridman (49:25.160)
connects in the real and it connects in a cinematic way
RZA (49:29.960)
as well.
Lex Fridman (49:31.760)
The difference, I think, with me and The Godfather
RZA (49:34.360)
was I've seen it during a period of time
Lex Fridman (49:36.320)
when my father was absent.
Lex Fridman (49:38.720)
And therefore, family structure and family values
Lex Fridman (49:44.160)
was actually adopted in my family because of that.
RZA (49:49.200)
Me and my brother Devon, we actually
Lex Fridman (49:54.480)
took so much heed to that movie and our family life.
Lex Fridman (49:59.040)
And we kind of mimic that family in its structure of somebody
Lex Fridman (50:08.040)
has to be the leader of the family,
RZA (50:10.280)
even if it was the younger.
Lex Fridman (50:11.320)
Michael was younger than Sonny and Fragile.
Lex Fridman (50:14.960)
You know what I mean?
Lex Fridman (50:15.760)
But he was worthy.
Lex Fridman (50:17.360)
And my brother Devon is older than me.
Lex Fridman (50:19.240)
My brother King is older than me.
Lex Fridman (50:20.800)
And it's funny, sometimes Devon calls King Fragile.
Lex Fridman (50:23.400)
And I know King wants to.
RZA (50:24.760)
King was actually, he actually was,
Lex Fridman (50:26.960)
he said he could beat our ass, to use my language.
Lex Fridman (50:30.320)
But you're Michael.
Lex Fridman (50:31.440)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (50:32.640)
And not by choice, just by definition of that's what I am.
Lex Fridman (50:38.720)
You know what I mean?
Lex Fridman (50:40.480)
And it's just a blessing for me to have my older sister,
Lex Fridman (50:44.920)
my older brothers, and my younger brothers look to me as,
RZA (50:52.760)
just as a good light in the family.
Lex Fridman (50:55.520)
And like I said, that movie helped us.
RZA (50:57.920)
My sisters, too, we, the cool thing about my family,
Lex Fridman (51:01.120)
I don't know if I share this a lot,
RZA (51:02.960)
it's a big, we all watched these movies together.
Lex Fridman (51:05.720)
And so the A Diagram, Pole Fighter, Master Killer,
RZA (51:10.080)
Five Deadly Venoms, my family knows these movies.
Lex Fridman (51:12.400)
It's not just I know them.
Lex Fridman (51:15.800)
And then you extend it further, my friends know them, too.
Lex Fridman (51:19.920)
So there's a language that we all can have that actually film
RZA (51:26.160)
has informed our communication.
Lex Fridman (51:29.080)
So The Godfather, which also is still a fictitional story
RZA (51:34.600)
of something, but since it was based in reality,
Lex Fridman (51:39.880)
based on something real, and it was human,
RZA (51:42.680)
it wasn't so heightened, I think the purity of it resonates.
Lex Fridman (51:48.120)
And the purity of it is something
RZA (51:50.160)
that resonates with me.
Lex Fridman (51:53.000)
You got to plan ahead.
RZA (51:56.240)
He didn't want to deal with the drugs,
Lex Fridman (51:58.960)
but that time of business was upon him.
RZA (52:02.240)
It's like, it's almost like, this is a tough one,
Lex Fridman (52:05.320)
like sometimes when the Muslim brothers come from the Middle
RZA (52:08.200)
East to America and they open up delis, they would sell ham.
Lex Fridman (52:14.440)
And we would go in there and complain to them,
Lex Fridman (52:17.160)
and make them like, they used to get mad at us
Lex Fridman (52:19.760)
when we came in.
Lex Fridman (52:20.920)
But that's as a kid.
Lex Fridman (52:22.360)
But as a man, I'm like, yo, he's here to sell.
RZA (52:25.600)
Now, he still don't have to sell to him.
Lex Fridman (52:28.360)
Vito Corleone didn't want to sell the drugs.
RZA (52:32.280)
He didn't have to do it.
Lex Fridman (52:33.320)
He didn't do it.
Lex Fridman (52:34.560)
And it cost him some bullets to eventually,
Lex Fridman (52:37.000)
somebody in the family ended up doing it.
Lex Fridman (52:42.000)
What about this idea that it's family before everything else?
Lex Fridman (52:45.880)
So there's different laws you live according to in this world,
Lex Fridman (52:52.120)
and family is first.
Lex Fridman (52:54.080)
Yeah.
RZA (52:55.240)
That's mathematically correct.
Lex Fridman (52:59.720)
I like that.
RZA (53:01.280)
I mean, there's a certain sense of you look at powerful people.
Lex Fridman (53:06.800)
You look at Putin.
RZA (53:08.360)
There's a certain sense in which the people who
Lex Fridman (53:10.920)
are in the inner circle, that's who you take care of.
RZA (53:13.680)
That's family.
Lex Fridman (53:14.880)
And anyone else that crosses you,
RZA (53:18.080)
that there's a different set of ethics under which you
Lex Fridman (53:21.840)
operate for those people.
RZA (53:23.760)
Well, Jesus said the same thing.
Lex Fridman (53:28.440)
When he said, love thy neighbor and thy brother,
RZA (53:30.440)
he was talking about that community.
Lex Fridman (53:32.680)
When that other lady, the Samaritan, say, hey, Jesus,
RZA (53:37.720)
my brother not feeling so well, and he said,
Lex Fridman (53:39.840)
give not that which is holy unto the dogs.
RZA (53:42.400)
If you're going to tell a woman, give not
Lex Fridman (53:46.200)
that which is holy unto the dogs.
Lex Fridman (53:48.760)
And she's a woman.
Lex Fridman (53:49.520)
He just called her a dog.
RZA (53:51.760)
If I translate that into hip hop, she's a female.
Lex Fridman (53:55.680)
He called her a dog.
RZA (53:57.160)
I know how that goes.
Lex Fridman (53:58.840)
But she said to him, but even a dog
RZA (54:02.360)
is allowed to eat the crumbs that
Lex Fridman (54:04.560)
falls from the master's table.
Lex Fridman (54:07.960)
And he went and helped.
Lex Fridman (54:09.520)
He helped her.
RZA (54:10.160)
Now, let's go back to what you just said about Putin
Lex Fridman (54:12.560)
or Vito Corleone or myself and my family.
RZA (54:15.400)
Of course, the family is first.
Lex Fridman (54:17.760)
But once the family is good, it has
RZA (54:20.680)
to then spread to the community, then
Lex Fridman (54:23.320)
to the state, country, world.
RZA (54:27.800)
The problem we have sometimes is that,
Lex Fridman (54:29.600)
and this is the reason why a lot of powerful families
RZA (54:31.800)
was overthrown, like why do they behead
Lex Fridman (54:33.920)
their own king with the guillotine, right?
RZA (54:36.440)
Because once the family was strong,
Lex Fridman (54:40.400)
they didn't let the wealth, the opportunity expand out.
RZA (54:48.640)
You look at Wu Tang, yes, our family was made strong first.
Lex Fridman (54:53.400)
But then all the Wu members were able to form
RZA (54:56.280)
their own corporations.
Lex Fridman (54:57.840)
And they had their own subfamilies.
RZA (55:00.320)
It has to grow out.
Lex Fridman (55:01.400)
And they took over the world.
RZA (55:03.120)
You've talked about being vegan.
Lex Fridman (55:05.960)
I don't think I heard you explain this,
RZA (55:09.640)
because it connects somehow about how you think about life.
Lex Fridman (55:14.800)
So you talk about when your family's good,
RZA (55:16.880)
you grow that circle of empathy.
Lex Fridman (55:19.240)
You grow the community.
RZA (55:21.280)
Is that how you think about being vegan,
Lex Fridman (55:24.720)
that just the capacity of living beings on Earth to suffer,
Lex Fridman (55:29.720)
that you just don't want to add suffering to them?
Lex Fridman (55:33.400)
Yeah, I mean, you said it clear.
RZA (55:36.360)
It's like nothing, in all reality,
Lex Fridman (55:40.800)
I came to a realization that nothing really
RZA (55:42.880)
has to die for me to live.
Lex Fridman (55:46.160)
No animal.
Lex Fridman (55:47.120)
The plants themselves, right?
Lex Fridman (55:49.520)
So let's just say you want a steak, which is probably
RZA (55:53.960)
the most, I don't know, the most expensive piece of meat.
Lex Fridman (55:57.280)
But let's just say the steak is top of the line, nice steak.
Lex Fridman (56:01.360)
And you're eating the steak for the protein to help
Lex Fridman (56:03.560)
build your muscle.
Lex Fridman (56:05.200)
And I don't know if you got it from a cow or a bull,
Lex Fridman (56:07.640)
but whether it's a cow or a bull,
RZA (56:09.480)
they grow to about 1,500 pounds.
Lex Fridman (56:11.920)
And if it's a bull, it's all muscly muscle.
Lex Fridman (56:16.520)
And it's only eating grass.
Lex Fridman (56:20.920)
Yeah.
RZA (56:22.040)
Yeah, it's possible to, both as an athlete
Lex Fridman (56:26.760)
and just as a human being, to perform well
RZA (56:28.880)
without eating meat.
Lex Fridman (56:29.880)
That's something, especially in the way
RZA (56:32.520)
we're treating animals, to deliver that meat to the plate.
Lex Fridman (56:37.600)
I think about that a lot.
Lex Fridman (56:38.600)
So I do, I'm a robotics person, AI person.
Lex Fridman (56:42.120)
And I think a lot about, I don't know if you think
RZA (56:44.800)
about this kind of stuff, but building AI systems
Lex Fridman (56:47.320)
as they become more and more humanlike,
Lex Fridman (56:49.880)
you start to ask the question of, are we okay?
Lex Fridman (56:55.360)
If we give the capacity for AI systems to suffer,
RZA (56:59.000)
first to feel, but then to suffer,
Lex Fridman (57:02.440)
to hate and to love, to feel emotion,
Lex Fridman (57:05.760)
how do we deal with that?
Lex Fridman (57:07.560)
It starts asking the same question as you ask of animals.
Lex Fridman (57:11.000)
Are we okay adding that suffering to the world?
Lex Fridman (57:14.560)
Right.
Lex Fridman (57:15.720)
And I don't think we should add the suffering
Lex Fridman (57:17.520)
because it's not necessary.
RZA (57:19.400)
Like, look, if it's necessary, right,
Lex Fridman (57:22.400)
because we're survival or the first law of nature,
RZA (57:25.400)
self preservation, if you are in a desert
Lex Fridman (57:28.840)
and there's nothing else to eat,
Lex Fridman (57:30.120)
but that lizard, yeah, okay, you gotta do what you gotta do.
Lex Fridman (57:33.640)
Lizard's gotta go.
RZA (57:34.680)
Yeah, you gotta go, you gotta do what you gotta do.
Lex Fridman (57:36.400)
Because at the end of the day, man is,
RZA (57:38.840)
when they say man has dominion over these things,
Lex Fridman (57:41.800)
his dominion is almost like a caretaker.
RZA (57:45.520)
The way we do our dominion, we dominate it,
Lex Fridman (57:48.080)
eat it, cook it.
Lex Fridman (57:49.760)
Like who's the first guy that looked at the lobster?
Lex Fridman (57:53.760)
He was like, I'm gonna eat this thing.
RZA (57:56.400)
Like, first of all, it's hard to eat it.
Lex Fridman (57:59.000)
You gotta go through a process to get that.
RZA (58:01.480)
A crab, I remember we used to eat crabs when we was kids
Lex Fridman (58:04.440)
and I didn't know why I was always getting itchy throats
Lex Fridman (58:06.720)
and all that, you know, you don't know, just eat.
Lex Fridman (58:09.000)
But at the end of the day, a crab didn't provide
RZA (58:11.800)
no more than a finger worth of meat maybe.
Lex Fridman (58:15.680)
And it was hell getting that thing, getting it out.
RZA (58:18.760)
It's like, it's not worth it in all reality.
Lex Fridman (58:20.880)
You could have gave me a banana
Lex Fridman (58:25.960)
and did better for my body and my appetite
Lex Fridman (58:30.760)
and my being fulfilled as full.
Lex Fridman (58:33.840)
Like, look at the blessings of life, right?
Lex Fridman (58:38.880)
If you take a seed or you get an apple and you eat it,
RZA (58:45.480)
in that apple is multiple seeds in it.
Lex Fridman (58:49.240)
If you plant that seed, it'll give you a whole tree
RZA (58:53.040)
with a whole bunch of apples with all multiple seeds.
Lex Fridman (58:56.760)
But if you kill a fish, it can't reproduce, it's done.
RZA (59:02.120)
If you kill a, it's done, it's nothing coming back.
Lex Fridman (59:04.840)
But when you deal with the plants,
RZA (59:07.000)
even after you eat the apple and then you defecate,
Lex Fridman (59:11.760)
your defecation is what feeds the ground
RZA (59:14.400)
to cause the apple to grow more.
Lex Fridman (59:16.200)
Yeah, it's a circle of life.
Lex Fridman (59:18.000)
And especially there's a guy named David Foster Wallace,
Lex Fridman (59:21.280)
he wrote a short story called Consider the Lobster.
RZA (59:24.560)
If you actually think philosophically about what,
Lex Fridman (59:27.800)
from a perspective of a lobster,
RZA (59:30.680)
that's like symbolic of something
Lex Fridman (59:32.240)
because you're basically put in the water, like cold water,
Lex Fridman (59:36.880)
and then it heats up slowly until it's no more.
Lex Fridman (59:41.160)
It's torture, yeah, it must have been like,
Lex Fridman (59:43.040)
do you think they started eating lobsters
Lex Fridman (59:44.440)
in the Inquisition?
RZA (59:45.840)
Yeah, they just enjoy,
Lex Fridman (59:47.920)
they would probably enjoy torturing animals
Lex Fridman (59:50.040)
and they realize they're also delicious
Lex Fridman (59:51.600)
after the torture is finished,
RZA (59:52.840)
that's probably how they discovered it.
Lex Fridman (59:54.880)
Let me ask you a question,
RZA (59:55.840)
I know you're asking me the questions,
Lex Fridman (59:56.960)
but I just wanna talk a little bit about the AI,
Lex Fridman (59:58.920)
and you said something about trying to
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