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Gary Grice, AKA the GZA, was born August 22, 1966, inBrooklyn, New York. As he grew up, his family continuously moved around NewYork City, so he was exposed to living in every borough. As a child he wasintroduced to wordplay and rhyming through the Mother Goose collection ofbooks, like Little miss Muppet, and ole king Cole. He memorized all these poemsas a child, and was fascinated by rhyming, changing the songs and creating hisown renditions.
His family moved to Staten Island in1976. This borough was his home and is often referenced in his raps by the nameof Shaolin. As he was reaching adolescence he began spending time with hiscousins Robert Diggs and Russell Jones, who became known later as the RZA andOl’ Dirty Bastard respectively. In New York, the beginnings of hip hop werefirst emerging, so he and his cousins found a lot of interest in hip hop musicand rapping by to block parties and hearing it on the street. Gary and hiscousins would walk from borough to borough in the late 70s, listening to hiphop on the streets and exchanging raps with other MCs, especially in theSoundview Projects of the Bronx where hip hop was emerging faster than anywhereelse. At an early age, the GZA was hesitant about reciting raps, as he hadn’tfinished puberty and was unsatisfied with his voice, but as he grew older hebecame more confident with his rapping. The hip hop movement also attracted himto break dancing and graffiti art, but gave it up when rapping became moreaccessible to him. By experiencing different flavors and styles of hip hop andmusic around New York City, the GZA was influenced by all sorts of musicalstyles, influencing and shaping his own. From these experiences he and hiscousins began writing raps and using them to battle other MCs in the city thatthey came across, from the ferry to Manhattan to the streets of Staten Island.
During this time him and his cousinswere exposed to the culture of Black Muslims, and became associated with areligious group called the Five Percent Nation. He changed his birth name toJustice, and the Muslim community gave him access to books, learning, andopportunities. The Ansar Ru community associated with the 5 percent nation wasa place he began performing and rapping. It was there that he had a rap battlewith a young Jay-Z. After becoming immersed in Hip Hop, a goal was quicklyformed to try to create rap albums, which hadn’t been accomplished by thattime. Him and his cousins officially formed a rap group in the early 80s,called All in Together Now, and moved to Brooklyn to find a more fluid hip hopmovement. They began making demotapes, and ended up doing so with many people who became famous New Yorkrappers like Russell Simmons. They all adopted rap aliases. Digg’s became theScientist, Jones, the professor, and the GZA was dubbed the Genius. He wasresponsible for most of the lyrics and writing, so that became his forte in thehip-hop group. The nicknames were not meant to be permanent, but in the endpeople began calling him the Genius, and the name stuck.
All in Together now preformed and created underground buzz in New YorkCity, creating demo tape music until eventually he was recognized enough to besigned onto a major label, Cold Chillin Records in 1990. He was introduced tothe manager Easy Moe Bee, and created his first album, “Words from the genius”,which was released in 1991. While pursuing his solo career, Diggs had done thesame. His experiences with cold Chillin exposed him to the corporate side ofthe hip-hop industry, and a new slew of artists that were rapping for money.Because Cold Chillin Records had so many artists signed and they didn’t givehim very much attention, The GZA appreciated the opportunity, but resented thathe wasn’t being exploited, considering his lyrical talent far exceeded that ofthe other rappers. His album was not a success, and a death in the familyfinally made him fed up with his record label. He walked in with a crew of many300 plus pound crewmembers and got himself off Cold Chillin Records. Althoughhe left the company, he still did his first tour with the Cold Chillin rappers,which continued to open his eyes to the world of professional rapping.
With Diggs also being equally as disillusioned with the corporate worldof hip hop music, after the failure of his own album, they decided to create amovement of their own. They wanted to create music of their choosing, in whichthey could maintain creative control. As kids, the three harvested afascination with Kung Fu movies. Starting with Bruce Lee films, they began toinvestigate the genre until Asian culture and kung fu movies became ingrainedin their identity. After seeing the movie, Shaolin and the Wu Tang, theyadopted, “The Wu Tang Clan” as the name for their rap group. They started withJones, Diggs, and Grice, but expanded the group to a total of nine members, ofother rappers from around Staten Island and friends and associates. At thistime, the Genius changed his rap name to the GZA. The GZA is the sound fromGenius scratched on a turntable. Diggs, whose Muslim name was Prince Rakeem,took the name RZA, which was Rakeem scratched, and Jones took the name Ol’Dirty Bastard, from the kung fu movie “Ol Dirty and the Bastard”. The word wutang became an acronym for Witty Unpredictable Talent and Natural Game. Anotheran acronym that is famous is Cream, which means money since it spells out Cashrules everything around me. The GZA started creating double meanings in many ofhis associations, and this was the beginning of his layering of meanings insongs. In 1993, The Wu Tang’s first album, Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) wasreleased. It was produced entirely by the RZA. It had influences from streetimagery that they had all grown up with, as well as Kung Fu references, and evenraps about chess strategy. Many of The Wu Tang, including GZA, began playingchess on a regular basis, and its strategy influenced his mindset and rappingstyle. (Song the Mystery of chessboxin’).
After the success of the Wu Tang Album, every member spun off to do soloalbums, as was the economic strategy devised by the RZA. They would all joinseparate labels of their choice while maintaining their relationship with Wutang. From the hype he received from the Wu Tang Album, he signed a deal with GeffenRecords and in 1995 released Liquid Swords. The title was a metaphor for awitty tongue, which in his opinion was the tool of the rapper, and rap battlesbecame metaphors for battles of swords, rapping being swordplay. He gained alot of acclaim for his lyrics, and the album became a classic, going platinum. As Wu Tangcontinued to release albums, like Wu Tang Forever, W, and Iron Flag, hecontinued to be featured on all of them as a part of the Clan. In 1999, hereleased Beneath the Surface (a metaphor for his underground statute), anothersuccessful album going gold, but wasn’t as well critiqued as Liquid Swords. It was more of a mash upof good songs, while Liquid Swords was a unilateral piece of collage, a unity of songs creating a single image of the album. In 2002, he released hisfourth album, Legend of The liquid sword, which was seen as a strongcontinuation of his wordplay and rap abilities. Since then he has beencontinuously touring with the Clan and as a solo act. He was featured with theRZA in the movie Coffee and Cigarettes with bill Murray. In 2005, he releasedan album with DJ Muggs called Grandmasters (meaning both the highest placementof an MC and a chess player). He has continued working on music projects onother Clan member’s albums, and has developed an album with his son, who hasbeen on tour with him many times, named Young Justice. Wu Tang released anotheralbum in 2007 called 8 diagrams, which he was also featured on. Since then,he’s been working on music, screenplays, a graphic novel called advanced knights,and continuing the reign of Wu Tang.
The GZA has a unique style that takes influences from anywhereavailable. A main point of his lyrics is integrity, and he will puzzle overrhymes and beats until he is finally satisfied with his work. He meshes factand fiction, by taking things he sees, such as shows on discovery and thehistory channel, and putting it together with his own experiences to createunique rap songs. The GZA uses many metaphors, and many of his songs havemultiple meanings or multiple directions, in whole and for each line. He hasstated that he is disillusioned with the current rap game, because he spends somuch time maintaining integrity and creating meaningful lyrics, and rappers canmake millions for unintelligent and uncreative raps. He creates vivid imageryat the same time of nature, warfare, and anything that, and compresses his rapsinto strong sentences that make songs shorter because he puts more raps per barthan usual. He is truly a genius of hip hop and rap.
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