Ghostface-to-Face

The most prolific member of Wu-Tang blows spots like Waco, Texas. Or, in this case, a cramped greenroom after a recent show.

By Jordan Burchette
Maxim.com

So, who's tending the Wu Mansion? Is there still a Wu Mansion?

No, there's no Wu Mansion.

Where'd it go?!

We let RZA keep that mansion. And whatever he done with the mansion, he do with the mansion.

So guess now it's the RZA Mansion?

Yeah, that's his bat cave.

How do you still keep it gully after a decade as a successful artist?

Just stayin' true to my roots in hip-hop, man. And never forgetting where I came from, and where the music came from. And I try not to let new things influence me and take me out of my realm. I always try to stay up-to-date, but back when it was real, you know?

It's hard though, right?

No, I just don't listen to a lot of radio and a lot of other stuff. Like I said, I'm an old-school cat. I like a lot of old soul music, so I listen to the old stuff.

Guess making music at this level doesn't allow you to be a fan of anyone else's music, huh?

It's hard to be a fan of other people's music if it's not in that [old soul] realm. There might be a few brothers that come around, but I just gotta do me for right now, so the people can get used to me. These next three albums of my solo project, I'm gonna do it. I think you're going to see a whole new, different Ghost than you've seen before.

You just dropped Fishscale—you have three more albums mapped out already?

Yeah.

Well, now that there's some historical perspective, who do you think Wu-Tang's equivalent was when you were growing up?

It's a lot of groups back then, man. [With Wu-Tang,] you got a whole bunch of different characters balled up all in one. You got the RZA, which is like a doctor, he's like a wizard when it comes to, like, medicine and science. Then you got Genius, which is the Genius, you know what I mean? Method Man was just a witty, unpredictable cat. He had 36 styles. Deck was the Inspectah. Dirty was the old soul of it, like the dusty boot. Then you got me and Rae[kwon], which is street.

But if you take Marvin Gaye, mixed with Stylistics and Blue Magic and Curtis Mayfield and some Otis Redding here... Clarence Carter... and I've even seen the CD with Dirt. He had the Beatles and even Bruce Springsteen in some of his stuff. So when you add up all of those into one, I think that's what you've got [in Wu-Tang].

Ha ha. Tricked you into doing the Wu Tang intro. Does your challenge to Osama bin Laden still stand?

[laughs] From the Wu-Tang album, right? ["Rules," Iron Flag] It's all good now. I'm learning more about my country and the thing is, we ain't so good, either. A lot of things that we don't know that's hidden in the dark that stem from things where it's deeper then we look. You might get killed for talking about certain things, depending on who's around you.