In a new interview, Wu-Tang’s RZA has spoken about why hip-hop is a “one-sided” business.
RZA is an artist that has been in the middle of the hip-hop game for decades, and he’s noticed a dark change in the last few years. While the rapper admits that glamourisation of the gangster life has always been a part of the genre, he believes this is now the only story they tell and its having repercussions.
“We’ve lost more hip-hop artists in the last few years than ever before,” he told the FT. “Growing up in the golden age of hip-hop, we lost maybe like a couple of artists, but not a dozen artists or more.”
He continued: “Sometimes hip-hop music glamorises certain things. It glamorises prison life, it glamorises gangsters and thugs. I understand that, because I grew out of that.”
The Wu-Tang man believes that while rappers celebrate the exciting nature of living life in the fast lane, they don’t tell the whole story and discuss the potential suffering.
RZA added: “But it doesn’t give you the total tragedy of what that can end up being, nor are we being represented with a lot of alternatives. The point being made is there was more bounce, there was more substance. Hip-hop has become one-sided.”
