RZA Talks Wu-Tang, ODB, Ice Cube, Blondie & More [Video]

RZA joins Matt Wilkinson for Apple Music’s “Five Best Songs” series, reflecting on Wu-Tang history, ODB, Ice Cube, Blondie, Wizkid, Tems, and his new film One Spoon of Chocolate.

His “Five Best Songs” picks say plenty about how wide his ear still is. Instead of keeping the conversation locked inside Wu-Tang history, he moves through country writing, New York rap, West Coast storytelling, punk-era crossover energy, and Afrobeats warmth—with every pick tied back to memory, craft, or his new film One Spoon of Chocolate.

The list opens with Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit’s “Cast Iron Skillet,” a song RZA connects to the kind of character-driven storytelling he looks for in cinema. From there, the conversation shifts into Wu territory with Ol’ Dirty Bastard’s “Brooklyn Zoo,” where RZA reflects on ODB’s unpredictability, his raw confidence, and the way his presence helped open doors for artists who bent rap’s rules instead of polishing themselves into something safer.

Ice Cube’s “It Was a Good Day” brings another layer into focus. RZA talks about Cube as an artist who could represent the West Coast while still being embraced in New York, praising the writing, the perspective, and the way Cube later helped show rappers what a move into film could look like. Blondie’s “Rapture” opens up a different New York memory, tracing the overlap between punk, hip-hop, CBGB, Fab Five Freddy, and the city’s strange ability to make clashing scenes speak to each other. By the time he gets to Wizkid and Tems’ “Essence,” RZA is thinking about youth, movement, and how the right song can remove a timestamp from a film scene.

Across the interview, RZA also touches on crate digging in Europe, the early discipline behind Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers), the creative purity of that first Wu-Tang run, and the way music and film now feed into the same artistic language for him.

Watch the full conversation below.