The bizarre place RZA recorded Wu-Tang Clan’s ‘Bring da Ruckus’
‘Bring da Ruckus’ holds a special place in musical history. As the opening song of Enter the Wu-Tang: 36 Chambers, it serves as an introduction to the entire, sprawling story of the Wu-Tang Clan, and, as such, it needed to sound good.
The beat to ‘Bring da Ruckus’ hits especially hard, which, naturally, is down to the genius of producer RZA. He was the musical mastermind behind all the tracks on 36 Chambers, which went on to have a huge influence on the broader sound of hip-hop thereafter. Countless producers are indebted to RZA’s beats on the album.
In 2017 RZA played a part in a promo campaign for a music tech company called ROLI. He was interviewed on camera for it, reflecting on the various factors that formed his musical sensibility as a young artist. As he explained, the experience of growing up in New York and his love of movies were central.
“The cool thing about sound,” he said, “is that many artists find their sounds from different walks. Me, I found my sound from living in New York City. From riding in the subway trains and watching old kung fu movies.”
RZA claimed that “grit of New York in the ’80s and ’90s” had “something special about it,” and it was this grit that he attempted to capture in his music. But he also admitted that life in New York could be tough, so, seeking respite, he would retreat into the fantasies depicted by those kung fu movies that he loved so much.
Spending a lot of time in movie theatres transported RZA “to a new location,” which helped him “to escape my poverty, the hardships of the city.” But those kung fu films he watched, as is evident within the sound of the Wu-Tang Clan, also inspired him as a musician.
The specific sounds that he heard in kung fu movies really affected the young RZA. He realised their power, and he incorporated them into the music he was beginning to make. He learned how to manipulate sound in clever, distinctive ways, which is what helped to create the Wu-Tang sound.
For ‘Bring da Ruckus’ specifically, RZA sampled the drums from a song called ‘Synthetic Substitution’ by Melvin Bliss. The beat he constructed out of that sample was great, but it nonetheless needed something extra. That required RZA to think a bit creatively.
When you listen to the song now, you can hear a big crashing sound in the beat. That crash was achieved in a clever yet simple way, as RZA explained. “When we was making a song called ‘Bring Da Ruckus,’” he said, “we took the snare and we put it in an elevator shaft and recorded it. And that gave us that [crash].”