( Source: Getty Images North America
*RZA says Wu-Tang Clan should be in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, considering the group has been eligible for induction since 2017.
Artists are eligible for inclusion 25 years after the release of their first record, Rolling Stone notes.
Speaking to the publication, RZA explained why the Wu deserves the honor.
“I think we should [get in], and I do care,” he said. “It may take some time to get in there. I think it’s good for us and I think it’s good for rock and roll because hip-hop is a form of music that grabs from every genre, but definitely grabs from rock and roll.”
He then noted the similarities between rock music and hip-hop, saying: “Rock and roll has a certain spirit; it was the spirit of the sixties and seventies youth. “Hip-hop is the eighties, nineties, up to now – the youth. It’s called hip-hop, but it’s in the same spirit of rock & roll at the end of the day. Lyrical stories, music, unorthodox, dissonant sometimes, energetic – all the things that rock is and was hip-hop embodies.”
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We are coming Home. #WuTang pic.twitter.com/zA1iI3LrC4
— Wu Tang Clan (@WuTangClan) March 25, 2019
RZA pointed to Wu-Tang’s classic single ‘Bring Da Ruckus,’ which he said highlights those similarities. The rapper said that while he “thought he was making hip-hop shit”, he was actually producing a track with a “mother*cking rock and roll groove.”
“I don’t know how the fuck I did that,” he said. “I go back and listen to some of The Beatles’ progressions and some of Zeppelin’s progressions and movements, like, okay, I was on some shit, though.”
The 2019 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction is scheduled to go down Friday (March 27) at Barclays Center in New York. Radiohead, Def Leppard, Janet Jackson, The Zombies, The Cure, Stevie Nicks, and Roxy Music are reportedly all set to be inducted.
In related news, iconic indie filmmaker Jim Jarmusch has cast RZA in his upcoming zombie pic “The Dead Don’t Die,” which features an all-star cast including Bill Murray, Tilda Swinton, Iggy Pop, RZA, Tom Waits, Selena Gomez, Adam Driver, Chloë Sevigny, Steve Buscemi, Sturgill Simpson, Danny Glover, Caleb Landry Jones, Rosie Perez, Sara Driver, and Carol Kane, per nme.com.
RZA previously scored and appeared in Jarmusch’s 1999 film, “Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai.”
