  Robert 'RZA' Diggs, a.k.a. Bobby Digital of the influential Wu-Tang Clan. (File Photo) |
Fifteen years ago, Robert "RZA" Diggs masterminded Enter The Wu-Tang, an album that introduced the world to a New York-based crew whose members would for the next several years virtually define East Coast hip-hop.
By the late-1990s, Wu-Tang alumni had infiltrated every avenue of the music business, and the group's influence was everywhere.
And that, according to the man some call Bobby Digital, is when The RZA began to study music.
"I was approached by other musicians who told me what I was doing wasn't talent," the master of cut-and-paste sampling recalls. "They told me it wasn't right, because it put people out of jobs.
"You're using drum machines and samplers and you've got real musicians who went to school for 10 years and can't even get a gig anymore. And I sympathized; they were right about that."
The prolific producer and recording artist continues to employ samples. ("I've still gotta do what I've gotta do," he says.) But recent years have seen Diggs play a number of instruments on his recordings, and display an appreciation for organic sounds.
And, as his career continues to expand deeper into film soundtracks (as well as acting), Diggs feels other aspiring producers and DJs would do well to follow his lead.
"Does it display talent when you can drag and drop other musicians' work and make your own thing?" he asks. "It displays a sort of talent. But it's like putting together a puzzle. Did you just put together a puzzle, or did you paint the picture that the puzzle made?
"If you have 100 pieces in a box and a picture of it on the cover, you'll probably be able to make that puzzle come together. That's a good challenge, but how 'bout the guy who drew the picture? Can you do that?"
RZA, Wu-Tang founder and self-described "dictator," can.
It is, for the music man, all part of an ear-opening education that began when an ambitious 11-year-old New York City kid acquired a set of turntables from money earned selling newspapers.
By his early teens, Diggs had taken his natural talent for DJing and scratching to the next level, with a microphone and a drum machine.
"By the time Wu-Tang came," he notes, "I was 21 or 22 years old and had been through a lot of different machines. So by the time the world heard it, they heard it at a level of seven or eight year's experience."
That experience shone on the seminal Enter The Wu-Tang album, as it would continue to do on RZA-produced solo efforts from alumni Method Man, Ol' Dirty Bastard and Ghostface Killah. And Dibbs, a man not known for his modesty, is quick to detail the self-contained Wu-Tang unit's lasting influence on hip-hop.
"At one point," he asserts, "you couldn't see a black mother in a sweatshirt working in a music office. You couldn't see a black A&R director with dreads. You couldn't see guest artists on albums.
"We brought all that to the game, we opened up so many things like that. We brought the energy of new people and new ways of looking at things."
What they brought, in short, was an education. And with the return of his solo alter ego Bobby Digital, due to perform at the Capital Music Hall on Friday, Dibbs is still teaching.
And learning.
