Pump Up The Volume

TThe new Digital Media phenom, Jazzie Belle, knew at an early age that her life would somehow revolve around music and entertainment. Now how she would go about that would change a few times over the years. She grew up in a house that was dominated by masculine energy and during an era of hip-hop where women were telling the industry to After auditioning to be the replacement host on BET’s 106 and Park (after the years of AJ and Free), going into radio, and doing everything she could in the industry, Jazzie would still feel like she wasn’t gaining the ground she wanted. What do you do when everything that you try to do fails? It’s not that you are not able to accomplish anything, but when you approach specific goals in life, you find that the more you push for this “dream” the more you hear “no” or nothing at all.

In the movie Hustle & Flow, there’s one line that has always stuck out to me. DJ Qualls’s character (Shelby) and Terrance Howard’s character (DJay) were on the back porch talking about how hip-hop is just an evolution from the blues. Qualls told Howard, “You’ve got to get what you got to say out because you got to. Every man, you know what I’m saying? Every man has the right, the goddamn right ...to contribute a verse.” While this may seem far-fetched, it’s true. Some verses correlate with our lives and songs that we feel were written directly to us. That’s what makes Jazzie Belle’s book “48 Verses of Power”, that much more profound. These are 48 Verses that spoke to her life directly.

Jazzie started “Inside Hollywood” in the summer of 2020 as a means to encourage people to reach for their goals while taking the audience behind the curtain with some of Hollywood’s elite to converse about their rags to riches stories. Jazzie hopes to send a powerful message that the road to realizing your dreams comes with its adversity that you can push through!

I wanted to find out where that hustle from Jazzie started and how growing up as a child in Detroit helped influence her drive as an adult. There’s always a backstory. Today, we are sharing the Jazzie’s.

SUAVV: Okay. Did you, did you ever want to be a hip-hop artist? Like, was that ever in your mindset?

Jazzie Belle: It was. Early on while I was in Detroit, where I grew up, my love for hip hop came from watching the women do their thing.

The Lil’ Kim’s of the world, the Foxy Brown’s of the world, Queen Latifah, et cetera. It just resonated with me. Being one of 10 siblings (seven brothers and two sisters), being the youngest girl, and having to grow up in such a male-dominated household, hip-hop resonated with me seeing the women thrive and do their thing in a male-dominated field. So as I got older, I wanted to be a rapper.

SUAVV: Wait, let’s circle back...10 kids in the house? Now, I always say my house was LIVE because my younger cousins stayed with us for a while but at the height, there were 5 kids in the house and it was INTENSE. I can only imagine doubling that.

Jazzie Belle: It was really hella fun. It was great for me. I see children and they don’t have any siblings. Which means they have to have imaginary friends. I didn’t have to worry about having imaginary friends. I had nine other great friends that were in the household with me every single day, up until I moved out at 19. People can’t imagine it because they’re so used to their way and they either don’t have any siblings or one. They can only imagine it being noisy. It was very noisy, but it was always active. There was always something to do, you know? We all had our separate lives, as far as our friends. So when they would come to the house, it would just be fun on top of fun, people on top of people. So it was always something going on. That was our norm and I wouldn’t change it for the world. It was a blessing.

SUAVV: I will say, it was an amazing childhood and it teaches your how to deal with people and survive. This is also something that you had to do because when you decided to leave home at 19, you picked New York City to test your survival capabilities. I lived in Brooklyn when I was 26 (after taking a baby step stop in Philadelphia). What was New York like for you at 19?

Jazzie Belle: It was a culture shock, seriously. (both laughing) It was scary. It was scary. Coming from a very structured household, having both parents, and a bunch of siblings, to now being on your own at such an early age, I was very ambitious. Probably too ambitious. To be 19-years-old and think you have it all figured out and trying to take on the world; and not just a normal world, New York City. Being from Detroit, we didn’t have that many different cultures out there as far as ethnicities, you know? We had black and white, which was our norm. The Asian community is heavy out there, the Middle Eastern community is out there, but I didn’t know what a Dominican was. The only representation I knew for Puerto Rican was J-Lo on the sixth album and Big Pun. You meet someone and they say “I’m Trinidadian” and it was like, ‘What? Where is that?’ I was very ignorant to a lot. But, I’m a people person. I’m very social. So being able to have that experience and meet all of these different people... I was in awe of that. So I always say I was born and raised definitely in Detroit, but New York matured me. You know? It educated me a lot. That’s what I called my college. Like you went to college. Yeah, the streets of the hard-knock life of New York. I remember going out there with probably $5,000 that I saved and I just knew I was rich. I was like, ‘I’m out here, I’m lit.’ And it was like, you ain’t lit. That lasted maybe three months I was super broke (laughing). Five grand. It was a wake-up call. But, the people... still to this day, even though I’m in LA now, I miss the people. I miss the realness and the authenticity of the city and the people that come from there.

SUAVV: Yeah. I always say New York is the most REAL city I have ever lived in and it will make you mature very quickly. But it’s the same reason I would never want to raise my kids there. However, in the grind of NYC and the struggles that come with it, you start creating your career as a writer, as a media personality and then you launch this podcast with a dope concept that nobody else was tapped into.

Jazzie Belle: Speaker 1: For me to create a podcast called Women in Hip-Hop is so direct as to the mission, you know what I mean? But it spoke to me, it spoke to my heart. I had no clue that I would be interviewing Wendy Williams and then, later, her inviting me onto her show and seeing my Podcast logo, national TV. The only reason I’ve accomplished so much with the podcast is that there was love and passion behind it. It was something that spoke to me. I didn’t think about impressing anyone. I didn’t think about what would work or the strategic tip, as far as what the people want. You have to start with you because, at the end of the day, your project is your baby and your creation and you have to love it first before you worry about how to sell it to the people. Later, it will resonate with people, but it’s going to resonate with the people because it resonates with you so much. I try to just stay focused on that. If I’m not going to do something I am passionate about, I can do anything and just be famous and do it for the coins. But it has to fulfill me in some kind of way.

SUAVV: Absolutely. You have to have a passion for what you are doing. If not, once it’s hard, you’re going to give up. But anyway, your trajectory in moving is almost the same as mine, your, having a certain level of success in NYC but you decide to leave New York and end up across the country in Los Angeles. How did that happen?

Jazzie Belle: Initially, I came to Los Angeles for a fresh start and new beginnings. My mom just passed away from breast cancer and I just really wanted to make a shift and a change. I didn’t have any family in New York. I have a brother out here in Los Angeles and the rest of my siblings, that I talked about earlier, are all in Detroit. I refused to allow Detroit to be an option. I was already playing with the idea of Los Angeles before my mom passed away. So after she did, my brother told me, ‘If you want to, you can come out here and stay with me for a couple of months just to feel it out.’ And I did that. But at that time, I was really, really depressed. I was in a dark place...really, really, really dark. And I was just going down that rabbit hole of mourning. So to try to take myself out of that hole, I had to start creating something. I thrive and I feel alive when I’m working and creating. I was doing interviews in New York for my podcast, Women in Hip Hop, but, and I was doing that in conjunction with VIBE Magazine when they became an online magazine. So, with me trying to get back into the swing of things, I reached out to the editor-in-chief, over at VIBE and said, “I’m out here in LA. Now, if there’s anything you got going on out here or you need a correspondent for anything, just call me up.” He already knew what I was going through personally. And that’s what he did.

SUAVV: Depression and grief are REAL. So, I’m glad you were able to recognize that and find a way to adjust your life to process differently. I think it’s also important to recognize that relationships are important. You were able to make a connection with a former employer and re-enter the field that you enjoyed.

Jazzie Belle: Absolutely. I was always told that you never burn bridges. He hit me up and told me about the Dolomite is My Name, red carpet, movie premiere. And that’s Eddie Murphy’s movie. And they reached out to him and said, “Do you have anybody out here in LA that could interview Eddie Murphy?” And he was like, “Hell yeah, I got somebody.” And then he called me, he was like, “Do you want to interview Eddie Murphy?” I’m like, “Hell yeah. (laughing) I want to interview him. Are you nuts?” Like, no one in their right mind would say no. That’s how I got into interviewing Hollywood A-list celebrities. And I still had my podcast going on. However, being in LA...being in Hollywood, it just made sense for that transition to happen the way that it did. And then that’s when the opportunities started to flow in from the movie studios and VIBE wanting the coverage and needing a correspondent. That’s where it all started.

SUAVV: Now you’re now doing your podcast, as well as the celebrity interviews, which you can

start pulling from the interviews into your podcast, everything starts clicking. What do you feel at that point?

Jazzie Belle: I feel alive. I feel like I’m slowly crawling out of that hole that I just described to you. I was starting to get my wings back and it felt good. Dolomite was in September 2019 and then Bad Boys for Life dropped in January 2020 and I got to interview Will Smith and Martin Lawrence and I’m such a huge fan of both of them. And I just remember thinking, wow, this is really happening. You know, I just really started to feel the wave and get into my vibration. And then COVID hit. (laughing) and I was like “NOOOO.” And as we know, COVID hit and lockdown down was in March. I said to myself, what you can’t do is go back into that dark place, like you can’t, you know what I mean? You have to stay consistent with what keeps you alive and what keeps you driving and what keeps you happy ultimately, you know? That’s when I created Inside Hollywood. My motto in life is CREATE, don’t wait, you know, that’s how I got to where I am in life.

SUAVV: When Covid hit. I was like “You’ve got to be kidding me… And we were like “Okay, we’ve got two weeks to just simmer down and then we can get back to it.” WRONG.

Jazzie Belle: (LAUGHING) RIGHT!!! And at first, it was a series that was living on Instagram Live or for Instagram TV series. And I remember reaching out to Bentley Kyle Evans, who’s the showrunner and executive producer of the Martin show. I met him on the carpet and slid in his DM. It wasn’t like we were friends or anything, but you know, you get familiar with these faces. We see them all the time and I’m like, “Hey, it’s COVID, everybody’s freaking bored, do you want to go on IG live and just talk to you about your career to motivate the people, to keep going. Cause everybody needs motivation right now. They need to be inspired. Just share your stories, your obstacles that you’ve overcome, because you’re still in the business doing your thing, and let’s go.” He was like, “let’s do it.” And a similar thing happened with the director From Dolomite is my Name and Coming Too America, Craig Brewer. We met on the red carpet of the premier and I was on the elevator in my building one day and he was there which was crazy because we lived in the same building at the time. So, I was like, “HEEEEEY, do you want to go on IG Live with me and we’ll talk about your, your coming to fame story or whatever, and motivate the people?” And he was like, “yeah, let’s do it.” I was getting these great guests and that’s something that I’m so proud of being able to create during a pandemic and giving these people the opportunity to share their story. I’m just happy to serve the people at some type of entertainment to give people some inspiration and you know, fulfill my creative juices and my peace. Like it really gives me joy to do what I do.

SUAVV: It’s just like you said, you, you have to go out and you’d have to just create your lane. And I think would happen as people get so sidetracked trying to get into someone else’s lane to try to fit in that lane. And it doesn’t work that way. This is a perfect segue into your book, 48 Bars of Power, Let Hip Hop Inspire You to Find Your Voice. What made you want to write that book?

Jazzie Belle: I wanted to inspire young black girls, honestly and truly. Not to say the young white girl can’t buy the book, please, please buy it and be inspired. But, it started with me wanting to inspire young black girls. And although the book is still, it’s not quite finished yet. It’s something like 80% done. It breaks down 48 of my favorite bars from my favorite female rappers or female rappers out there to help inspire people to get through adversity. 16 of the bars pertain to you dealing with self-esteem and your self-confidence. Then 16 of my favorite bars to relate to love and relationships. And rounded out with the final 16 bars to help relate to faith and spirituality.

SUAVV: That’s dope! I think people outside of hip hop don’t necessarily give hip hop the credit that it deserves when it comes to relating to people’s lives. There are so many lessons and truth and mental evolutions that are spoken to and grown through hip-hop. It’s like someone is speaking to you directly. And when you find those artists that connect with you, it’s more of a, “someone who understands me” or “They put how I feel into a melody” kind of a moment.

Jazzie Belle: And that’s exactly what it was. And that’s why it was so important for me because I grew up with self-esteem issues and feeling insecure because of the societal standards of what beauty is. That whole “European standard of beauty” was instilled in us so early on in life and things that we were taught in school, wasn’t the truth just about who we were as a people. It’s just not talked about enough. And fortunately for me, I grew up with a father who didn’t play that. I grew up watching Farrakhan’s lectures listening to his tapes. I grew up in a public school where a teacher took the history book, threw it out the window, and said, “This is bullshit. Christopher Columbus didn’t discover shit. I’m going to tell you the truth about yourself, your people, and where you’re from. I’ve taught what you have to know from that book, but we are going to tell the truth about what history is. You guys are descendants of Kings and Queens. This is your people. This is where you come from. You guys are royalty. You guys built pyramids. This is really what it is. And I was blown away like, “Wait, you mean to tell me we weren’t created with shackles around our ankles and wrists.” That’s just what they told us in school. Like you guys were slave period. Then from there, y’all made it happen. It was like, what? So that when you get to the things that are inside the book, and you start with this Black Queen Revolutionary moment and Queen Latifah is demanding your respect, it makes sense. But I’m also balanced because my favorite male rapper growing up was Snoop Dogg. Literally, the antithesis of what Queen Latifah is talking about, “don’t be calling me no Bitches,” and I’m over here singing “Bitches ain’t shit but hoes and tricks,” I’m singing all of that. But it’s like, whoa, the rebuttal is over here and it sounds good and it feels good and I’m with it. She’s talking about domestic violence, relationships, respect, and how I’m not your punching bag. Then when Lil’ Kim came with the whole sexuality-infused music. It made it even greater for me because it showed that there’s not just one way you can do this, you know? Yes. I was a fan of MC Lyte and Queen Latifah, but I was also a fan of Salt and Pepa. When Lil’ Kim came wearing a skirt, demanding respect in a different way, she just wearing heels with it, you know? No woman is one-dimensional. I may want to rock sneakers one minute and want to wear heels the next. So, when I say 48 Bars of Power, what I do, with each bar, is give a personal experience of mine that relates to that bar. It’s my story. This is how this bar, came alive in my life. That’s personal to me to let you women know that this is what I’ve been through. This is probably what you’re going through, and this is how I got out of it, or this is how I dealt with it. And maybe you can deal with it that way too. And maybe this book or one of these 48 bars can help you because they helped me.

Words By Rashod Davenport

Anthony Dalton didn’t have the aspiration to be an actor. Like most of us 80’s babies, he had a streetlight curfew and like most boys growing up in the inner-city, he was focused on sports. Indiana, at that time, was an area where the crime was big, his mom just wanted him to do something bigger. He was the only boy in the house and his mother decided that she was going to wear him out with activities so that he didn’t have the energy to get in trouble. Football became his passion. He would play football through college and was doing great. However, there would a shift in his life that would bring acting to the forefront.

As a communications major, he talked to his sister’s friend who was working in the broadcasting department for the Cleveland Browns. The friend told Anthony that he had 3 NFL Superbowl rings and never took a single hit. Anthony thought that would be a pretty cool career and started taking broadcast communications classes. After sitting through a series of courses and not seeing the fruition of the plan, he started focusing on his minor, theater. Soon after, he would step on stage for his first play, August Wilson’s “Fences”. Being on stage with a professional actor who confessed that he didn’t know who Anthony was, but he was extremely gifted in the craft.

His mother, 100-year-old grandmother, and aunts showed up to support his play. While she knew he was a silly kid, she didn’t know he could act. After she finished watching her son perform on stage, she told him, “You’re going to make more money from acting than football.” At the time he thought his mom was all talk but later realized that she was speaking life into his mission. He switched his major of communi-

While watching a documentary on tight rope walkers, Anthony was captivated by a man who was practicing with a net under him. He would be focused, wobble, and fall. He did this over and over again. But by the night of the show, they took the net away. The man was not only focused but determined. He knew that if he fell, it may be death. He made it across that rope and to the other platform. Anthony associated that documentary with life. He knew that in order to be successful, he would have to lose the net. He dropped the communications minor and put all of his energy into acting.

After graduating from college, Anthony took a turn and became a high school teacher. Something that we laughed about for about 5 minutes. While he knew he would be a great teacher, (it’s in his lineage) it was the 15-year-olds that were making comments that made him double-take at the career choice. Nonetheless, he buckled down and kept pushing for his dream while educating tomorrow’s leaders. He took a bold move and told the kids his dream and encouraged them to find and pursue their own. When he finally made it on his first television appearance, the kids called him cheering him on.

“I saw people getting degrees in things that they hate,” Anthony says as we talk via ZOOM, even though we are both in Atlanta (I mean it is still a social distancing situation).”You might as well get a job that you love instead of chasing money. Because Sallie Mae wants their money regardless.”

Anthony’s dream became his reality. There were tests and trials along the way, but a conversation with his mom led him to Atlanta when he is now the star of Tyler Perry’s SISTAS. Dreams can come true when you start pursuing them with the understanding that hard work will get you there.

As the leader of the legendary multi-platinum selling rap group, The Wu-Tang Clan, RZA, or Bobby, as he is known to close friends and colleagues, had a particular way of putting beats to razor-sharp lyrics that made you feel part of a song’s creative process. Fans feel RZA’s music, both from Wu-Tang and his solo and collaborative efforts, on a cellular level.

An urban-bred intellectual who expresses through a mic or camera lens, RZA is considered prophetic to his community and perhaps a unicorn to mainstream culture. With a penchant for Eastern philosophy as is evident in the name Wu-Tang Clan and lyrical nods to Shaolin Kung Fu, RZA shared, “One thing I’m looking forward to doing in the near future… I’ve never been to India, and I have to check that one-off,” referring to the top item on his bucket list. I recommended he connect with Indian author and yogi, Jaggi Vasudev, also known as Sadhguru, when he makes the trip. RZA is so well-read and well-versed, it felt novel giving him someone and something beyond his scope to Google.

As a film director, RZA paints complex portraits with colorful multi-faceted characters that inspire engagement and empathy. His latest directorial effort, the allegorical Cut Throat City (streaming on Netflix) features an all-star cast and examines the lives of people living in New Orleans’ economically depressed Lower Ninth Ward in the aftermath of 2005’s Hurricane Katrina. The historically disastrous storm broke through poorly constructed levees, flooding out the city’s most vulnerable residents, and leaving them with little hope or help from FEMA. Much like our current pandemic, Katrina shone a light on shameful racial and economic inequities. Though the film’s story is a sobering one and the lead character’s decisions are morally ambiguous, he insists the film portrays “a story of redemption,” with parallels to his own life.

“No one [in this film] is completely bad, and no one is completely good. They were all flawed. It exemplified their humanity and it comes down to a choice. The theme of [Cut Throat City] examines the importance of dreams against a backdrop of survival.”

Reflecting on his early days in the spotlight, RZA denounces some of his youthful bravadoes as he recites a trademark Wu-Tang lyric for me, “Wu-Tang Clan ain’t nuthing ta fuck wit,” and laughs out loud at an ego-driven existence that took center stage early on. It’s now tempered, he says, by a need to serve something greater than himself. Throughout our conversation, RZA’s words are prophetic, culturally provocative, and spiritually centered. We talked about a life lived outside the matrix of material trappings; a topic initiated by him and encouraged by me. RZA: Wow, that’s a strong question. I think that persistence overcomes resistance. Therefore, every possibility is actually expressed in our children’s wishes. The things we wish for as young minds and things we thrive in our spirits for, I think they make that which seems impossible, possible. The whole Greek study of Icarus and the idea of men flying… that seems like it would be magic or some other thing. We fly every day now in many different variations of flight, for example, flights that leave our basic atmosphere and travel across the whole world. So, what seems impossible, I think positivity and possibilities are probably boundless.

Allison Kugel: What lessons can be learned from poverty, and what lessons can be learned from wealth?

RZA: Poverty and wealth are two very different circumstances, but those are physical circumstances. I think we have to be conscious to not have the physical circumstance truly shake our spiritual and our personality. I grew up in poverty, but I was never unhappy. Joy and love were in our household. My mother was a single mother, but joy and love made up for the lack of food and shelter. The point I make in saying that is, of course, in a capitalist society our freedoms are compartmentalized. Therefore, you could be physically free and not spiritually free. You can be spiritually and physically free, and not economically free. Since economic freedom is a requirement for proper food, clothing, and shelter, it can become something that transcends the physical, and bleeds into the spiritual. If life was simple, everything we want is already provided for us by the planet. There is nothing on this planet that we eat, ingest, take, dance with, fly with, that is not from the planet. It’s just that when you are dealing with certain [economic] systems, they take control over us. Even in some religious traditions, they have ways of controlling what is naturally ours. I’m out here in New Jersey in the woods right now, and I just saw some deer walk by. A whole family [of deer] eating whatever they ate and they keep walking.

Allison Kugel: I had a similar moment when I looked at a family of birds outside my house, and they don’t need anything. They’ve figured all of it out for free, on their own.

RZA: Yes! There is a beautiful verse in the Holy Quran that speaks on that. I’ll paraphrase it. It says something like, “The birds and the bees are taking care of every day with no worries. Do you think Allah would do less for man, his greatest creation?” Everything they have access to, we have access to. It’s that we grabbed control over it and denied access to certain people. That’s playing into the theme of my film (RZA’s latest directorial effort, Cut Throat City, streaming on Netflix).

Allison Kugel: Yup! That’s why I’m asking about it…

RZA: One of the biggest issues of the situation in this film that I hope the audience catches is that Blink (played by Shameik Moore) goes in with his wife (played by Kat Graham) and child for help from FEMA and they ask, “What is your salary?” She says, “About $32,000.” Not a bad salary and not a great salary…

Allison Kugel: It’s a hard salary. It’s a salary that would be very challenging to raise a family on. Would you agree? RZA: Yes, I would agree. And within that salary, she’s paying a third of that in taxes. Her tax money is paid into a system to protect her when the time comes that you need the protection. Now here it is, I’m in need of what I paid into and I’m being denied because of my community or because of my race. That is the equation we overlook in our capitalist society. The money that they spend every year is not their money, it’s our money that they are controlling.

Allison Kugel: After watching your film, Cut Throat City, which depicts the lives of people living in New Orleans’ Lower Ninth Ward in 2005, post-Hurricane Katrina, I researched and read that in 1965 there was also a catastrophic hurricane in the area. The same thing happened, where the levees were not maintained properly and they broke. They already knew there was a strong possibility it could happen again, and yet they did nothing to protect these people.

RZA: The line that Ethan Hawke gives in the film, talks about how it also happened in the early 1900s, but it was more intentional. They let the levees break so the water could flood the lower land and it wouldn’t spread up to the white districts. The thing about separation of people who are of color or [lower] economics, has existed for a long time in our country and there is no relief and no delivery from the situation. Even if the Lower Ninth was built to be low income, as your city is growing and your tax dollars are coming into your city, those resources should be used to ensure everyone’s safety and security. At the beginning of the city’s history, I understand. I started in a small apartment when I left my house. I was nineteen years old and my mother said the time had come to go. I started in a small apartment and (Wu-Tang Clan member) Ghostface [Killah] was my roommate. We had another roommate, my cousin Rob. We lived there, three guys in a one-bedroom, and we stayed there until we raised enough money to get a two-bedroom (laugh). You know what I mean?

Allison Kugel: (Laughs) Yes! I do know what you mean.

RZA: We kept going, and it even got to the point where one of us could move out and one of us still stayed, and that lasted until we hit it big. The point is, it’s okay to start at the

bottom and struggle, but when there is no relief from the struggle, that is when it becomes insidious, evil, and oppressive. Like I said, the money that FEMA was giving in 2005 for Hurricane Katrina Relief was the money that came from the people. It wasn’t [FEMA’s] money.

Allison Kugel: I’m assuming you spent time in New Orleans prior to directing Cut Throat City?

RZA: I traveled there many times and spent three weeks studying the city. This film wasn’t just about these four guys in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. It was the fact that this was a story about what happens when your aspirations turn into desperation. That I know, that I’ve felt, and that I’ve lived. I come from a single mother household and so does my whole crew. Seven of the nine members [of Wu-Tang Clan] are that. In this film, Blink (the film’s lead character) was a nerd, in all reality. He was an academic and went to college. He had a talent, you know?

Allison Kugel: That is what is so heartbreaking about this story. Here is a guy who went to Tulane University, who has an extraordinary talent for drawing and storytelling, and it’s wasted talent. It’s a squandered life. But then at the end of the film, there are two different endings. Explain that…

RZA: A lot of people have been tweeting about that and asking what’s going on. The artist in me left it up for interpretation. If you go back and look at the film closely, you’ll see that there is an egg in there that should answer the questions. Maybe people missed it, but the reason why I did that is because, in life, very few of us get second chances. But, what happens if you give a man a second chance? I, myself, am a second chance-er. When I read this story,

I felt the character Blink all in my system. I felt his pain. Then I realized I actually was an artist and a smart guy who got caught up in gangs, in the streets, and ended up facing eight years in jail, but I won my trial. When I won my trial, I changed my life. I focused on study and making myself better, looking at my creativity, and I formed The Wu-Tang Clan. I became a success story, because I was given a second chance. RZA: And I wasn’t bad. A lot of people are not bad, they just made a bad decision. [I wish] the criminal justice system could look at it that way. Most of the guys in the Wu were the same. We were all arrested felons or something like that, and we had a second chance. I wanted to express that in this film. In the original screenplay, though, I have to be honest, he dies. But as a director, I get to tell the story and I get to shape it. I wanted to shape it with optimism. I said, “I’m going to leave some optimism there and let the people who watch it decide, which pill would they take?” In the film, the detective tells him, “A pen will get you further than a gun.” I’m living proof. It was a pen that got me further than anytime I was trying to do something foolish with a gun.

Allison Kugel: Speaking of which pill to take. You strike me as a guy who operates outside the matrix. I know you’re part of the Five Percent Nation. Do you sometimes feel like you don’t quite sync up with the everyday person?

RZA: No. I don’t feel like I don’t sync up. I feel blessed that I see the beauty of what I see. Whether anybody else sees it or not, it’s okay. It’s not like, “Man, wow, they’re missing it.” Even as a vegan and never having a yearning for steak, never having the idea in the back of my head of the pain I’m inflicting on someone else; it’s a very liberating feeling to not be the cause of pain and turmoil to any living thing. I actually feel more required to do what I’m supposed to do, so that if there is positivity in what I’m doing, may others see it. They’ll see it in their own given time, and I’m okay with that.

Allison Kugel: Do you want to explain what the Five Percent Nation is?

RZA: I’m going to tell you something they taught us in studying the lessons of The Five Percent, and it is sometimes misunderstood. What they are trying to say when they say, “Five Percent,” is they took a number of 100% and they separated it into the different types of people in the world. They say that 10% of the people know the same things that the five percent know, but the 10% use it to control other people. They know that there’s falsehood. They know it’s a game, they know the rules of the game. They aren’t playing it, but they’re making everybody else play it. They say 85% of people are easily led in the wrong direction. The 10% will lead them in the wrong direction even though they know the right direction. Then there’s 5% of the people who know the right direction and they strive to teach it. Scientists who deal with quantum physics and the measurement of space, they say all the atoms in the entire universe only represent five percent of the universe.

Allison Kugel: And the rest is space.

RZA: The rest is space. It’s a mathematical equation. They taught us that we should all strive for the Twelve Jewels of Life which are: knowledge, wisdom, understanding, freedom, justice, equality, food, clothing, shelter, love, peace, and happiness. If you have that, you’re rich. I honestly feel I have that, and to me, that is more valuable than anything that is out there. In my art, I try to express those qualities. Allison Kugel: In the film who would you say was the most fun to direct, who was the most challenging, and who did you vibe with artistically?

RZA: Wow, it’s hard to separate such a great cast and great talents. Every one of us had our moments, like an all-star team. I can say that Kat Graham really shows that it’s not just beauty in her, but it’s her strength and expression. I’m glad that she became the anchor of that family, and she did it beautifully. She could have played it pretty and sexy. Even though she was beautiful on screen, it was natural. She was strong to go and fight for her man. Ethan Hawke, I felt like we were on a natural high working together with the way the ideas were flowing back and forth, and his choices of emotions. And as a fan, it was a joy to have Terrence Howard, Wesley Snipes, and Isaiah Washington come and work in my film.

Allison Kugel: Did you originally think Kat Graham was too pretty for this role?

RZA: No, that wasn’t a thought. I got lucky to get Kat. We had developed her role for another actress who became unavailable about two weeks before we were shooting. Then our agent said that Kat Graham read the script and was interested, and would I be interested to talk with her? We did a FaceTime call and she said exactly what I needed to hear.

Allison Kugel: Which was?

RZA: She said to me, “The strength of this woman is in the pages, Bobby, and I want to bring you that strength.” It wasn’t about bringing beauty; it was about bringing me strength. Then when you look at T.I., he totally shocked me and blew my mind. T.I. also came into the cast late. I had been developing the film for five years, and I always wanted Method Man to play the role of Cousin, but he told me he wasn’t into the bad guy roles right now.

Allison Kugel: What do you want people to take away from the film, Cut Throat City, beyond being entertained?

RZA: I would like to think the people who see these four main characters in the film as criminals can now understand that they are a victim of circumstance. If we can walk away and understand that some people who are in bad situations are victims of circumstances, we can prevent the circumstances. I don’t know if that makes sense to you.

Allison Kugel: That makes sense.

RZA: How do we prevent the circumstances? Before I started the movie, I met with a guy who was locked up and he told me he read an article about me and he agreed with what he read about me. I asked him, “Which article was that?” He said it was an article where I said I was a nerd. And I was like, “Yes, I am. I like comic books. I like video games. I like chess.” He said, “I loved reading that about you because I’m a nerd too!” This guy was serving 15 years for armed robbery. He was saying that really, he is also a creator, but there was no outlet for him. So he got caught up in a hustle. There was another guy that was in the cell with him who ended up fixing all the computers inside the jail, but he’s in for murder. I’m not justifying a murder, but he said that he was bullied and bullied and bullied. He was forced to fight, and once he fought it was like he became a cowboy.

Allison Kugel: Here is the question I ask everybody. What do you think you came into this world to learn, and what do you think you came here to teach in this lifetime?

RZA: Wow, that is a beautiful question. What did I come to learn? One thing I am learning is humility. Even though I may appear, on the surface, to have it, it was something that I think I lacked. I was pretty conceited, really coming up. If you listen to my old music, I acted like, “I’m the greatest and everybody else is beneath me (laughs).”

Allison Kugel: Well, you were in your twenties, right? RZA: Exactly. But it’s good to understand that there is a universe out there. You can be a sun, but there’s other suns. But I do think what I’m destined to teach, if anything, is that you can be a living example of your own ideas. Through my art, I’ll be able to inspire and that’s the best thing. I think I was brought her to inspire. I was born to inspire.

RZA Photos Courtesy of CAA, Film Stills Courtesy of Well Go USA Entertainment/Netflix

Cut Throat City is currently streaming on Netflix. Follow RZA on Facebook and Instagram.