RZA explains why new personal ballet album is “right up my alley”
Following the latest announcement from Wu-Tang Clan star RZA about his plans to release an intimate classical-inspired ballet album, the rapper has explained why the score is anything but an unexpected move away from his usual rap terrain.
The new project sees RZA exploring notebooks he filled with song lyrics when he was younger and writing a symphonic ballet score based on his life and themes of love.
The score’s genesis sparked during the pandemic when the rapper discovered the notebooks in an old Tommy Hilfiger book bag. Filled with lyrics he wrote when he was 14, the notebooks emanated an intriguing story.
RZA, whose real name is Robert Diggs, grew up in Brownsville, Brooklyn, and later Staten Island. The lyrics he found revealed events and emotions he experienced growing up, and he felt the immediate need to transform the words into rap songs. However, it evolved into something more instrumental and compositional, partially due to his ongoing interest in virtuosic classical composers.
Recalling the transition he experienced after finding the notebooks, he told Sky News: “I started reading through these lyrics and I’m recalling all the young love, the young exploration.” Adding, “The first time you had a drink or smoke. All this is written in my lyrics, like a lyrical diary… at first I thought I should rap it, right. Because I’m known as a rapper. But then I said, no, I should just write music to it.”
The project, titled A Ballet Through Mud, navigates Diggs’ own coming-of-age story with notes and soundscapes that explore the nuances of love and relationships. It was first performed at a theatre school in Denver last year, but his plans to release it as his first-ever classical album came as a surprise move for fans of his more traditional rap material.
However, Diggs argues it’s less of a surprising move and more something that seems entirely fitting: “People would call it leftfield for me. But it’s not, it’s right in my alley,” he said. He also explained how his fascination with the likes of Mozart, Beethoven, Bach, and more urged him to learn “that you can take instruments and give them characters.”
Explaining the similarities between hip-hop and classical, he added: “If you listen to some of the Wu-Tang production you hear I bring in strings. You’ll hear some of my production has incorporated classical samples.”
The album will be available to stream from August 30th.