Short but funny interview with Rza regarding the new album. Link
Was there ever a time when you had to tell someone their verse needed work in the studio while working on 8 Diagram?
On this album, Raekwon took on the personal duty of being the bad guy. He was shooting down a lot of verses. The motherfucker who got shot down would come in the next day and say, “What happened to my verse?” I be like, “Yo…” and he’d say, “Oh, you let fat boy tell you about it, huh? Fuck that shit!” Rae did that to me on one song too, he said, “That song ain’t for you right there, that’s for the guerrillas.”
Does that kind of thing still get to you at this point?
It still gets to you as an MC. The reason why it gets to you is because over time you come to find your own crew don’t know why your fans like you. Who knows why all the girls wanna fuck Meth? You never see what make a nigga so popular and powerful. So since everybody’s comfortable in themselves it’s hard for a person to hear “that verse ain’t no good.” It’s like, “You don’t know what you’re talking about because my fans love my shit.” There was one song we was doing … I made this beat in California, I was in the studio with a whole bunch of people from Dre’s camp and they were like, “That shit is phat, yo.” So I presented it to the Wu. Boom: U-God jumps right on it, he can’t resist it. Then Meth jumps on but while Meth is on it Rae enters the studio. Meth’s doing his verse, mind you. Rae’s like, “What’s that shit, that’s some Black Eyed Peas shit!” And I’m like, “Yo, this nigga’s on some funny shit.” I was like, “Black Eyes Peas sold three million, son! You better hope you on some Black Eyed Peas shit if you trying to get it crackin’!”
