Early last year, I got invited down to a Brooklyn studio to do a story on the making of Ghostface Killah and Adrian Younge’s Twelve Reasons to Die album. Unfortunately, Ghostface never showed up, so the story never ran due to his lack of involvement (I ended up interviewing Ghost a couple months later for this though). But I did have the chance to sit down and speak with the RZA that night about his role working on the project, and our conversation veered into a discussion about which Wu members were considered the nicest in the Clan internally at different points in the group’s history. It wasn’t a full, comprehensive breakdown, but it’s a quote I always found very interesting, and with their new album A Better Tomorrow on the horizon, I thought now would be a good time to share it. Read below.
RZA: “Ghost is one of the best rappers in the world. At one point, he was the best rapper in the world. It’s waves. It’s like a boxing belt. Like Pacquiao, he WAS the best in the world. [Laughs.] But nah, [Ghost] will never go out like that. But it’s waves. At one point, GZA was the best. If you ask Ghost, he’ll say, ‘GZA is the best in the world.’ At one point, Killah Priest was the best. Right around that time period after Liquid Swords, Priest just went on it. He went retarded.
“I had to come back lyrically, not vocally or performance-wise, but lyric content on Wu-Tang Forever, and The Pick, the Sickle and the Shovel. I wrote my lyrics for those two at the same time. And when I would kick my lyrics, they’d be like, ‘He’s the best.’ Look at ‘Sunshower,’ ‘Impossible,’ ‘Twelve Jewelz,’ ‘The Night the Earth Cried,’ ‘What’s Goin’ On?’ That particular time it was like, ‘RZA’s the man.’ Now I had the scepter. It goes like that.
“But then when Ghost came back with [his ‘Impossible’ verse about Jamie], then it was a toss-up. Because GZA is the one who let us know. He’s the head of it. All of our lyrics started from his inspiration. He’s the one who inspired the most out of any other hip-hop artist that ever lived.”
It’s pretty ill how RZA said Wu affiliate Killah Priest at one point was the belt-holder amongst Clan members, and I gotta agree that during the era of Wu-Tang Forever and the second Gravediggaz album, RZA was on some shit. When it’s all said and done, Ghostface and Raekwon are probably my favorite Wu MCs of all-time. But what do you think? Do you have a favorite Wu-Tang Clan member, past and/or present? Who’s the nicest in the Clan right now?
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