Gadgetory

all right welcome back to the scene at stage live from CES 2015 I'm Brian Tong and joining me ooo is the RZA aka Bobby digital aka Prince Rakeem aka the scientist llaman aka aka a everything I mean you were already you were actually you know I was I was I'm sure the music guys in the back were flattered because you were like feeling that beat just then huh yeah I start the bus a quick Larry going you but uh you know no yeah maybe maybe maybe so welcome to CES this is you're actually your first year here that's what you told me back there yeah my first time here and I'm having a good time here man I mean so many gadgets so many cool people you know a lot of people don't know that a lot of what's hip hoppers got a nerd bone inside of us I mean I don't want to know if I I don't want to know if I want to know your nerd bone if you know what I mean well I got one nerd bone in me and when I came to CES it kind of got excited there's no now it's really fun they're having a great time in us and really I came out with all the comedy boom bollocks and we have this thing called the boombox Rex which I'm excited about because I think we discovered a new way to sell music and to get music back into the hands of the consumer you know I mean you know this is a bong bong goo goo baby the bomb booboo is that your name now over here we have the boom ba tech Rex Plus this was just announced as a waterproof Bluetooth speaker but we also have these two wu-tang 20th anniversary editions you talk about creating music and distribute it in a unique way one of these ways is packing them in a product like this right yeah so when you buy the UM the boombox Rex it already has the album embedded so usually when you you know you even if used to buy a CD you got to go home and put it in your car or something like that this is automatic pleasure you pull it out you hit the button Bongbong it comes on you hit play and party stars like bungbung on your bun exactly you know what makes this one cool oh I got it I gotta say this to you we was thinking about it was like would it be a great use I live in LA now you know a lot of beach parties and a lot of pool parties so this one is made to go underwater like three feet under line free underwater so you know you have two pool party and the girl want to jump in Shh and you go man I want to get into just jumping Shh and y'all could just get that party going underwater underwater video now you know another thing that is really intriguing is the fact that you have been working on this album six plus years right once upon a time in Shaolin wu-tang clan one of one album a lot of people that aren't fans or casual fans may not necessarily know about this but you kind of have a statement about music and the direction it's going by doing this one of one like there will be no other way to distribute it right yeah this that's to show you know music has been devalued and one thing I think we overlooked and I paint not the people here because I think here we got a lot of intellectuals but we overlook the artistic value of what music is and what art is if you look at something like the Mona Lisa it's only one or the sculpture of David it's only one so we're treating this album once upon a time and Shaolin like a piece of art it's not something that you know if you want to see the Mona Lisa you got to fly to France you know I mean so this would be a one piece of art that's a fingerprint of our Tom's a fingerprint of six years of work a fingerprint of other great artists coming together I mean we had people from I mean even cher came in Restless I mean I could keep going on and and even when we made the box we had a commission a guy who's usually only commissioned by the royal family of Saudi and he made the packaging for us and we all knew that this was going to be something that it's kind of like a heirloom you know I was in I was watching the news on the East Coast this winter and somebody in Boston found I guess the old time capsule that they think that Benedict one of the wandering one of the famous cars buried and he and he was gonna open it up on TV to find out what he was thinking and what was life like during that time to me the once upon a time is Shallon album is dad for our time so are you gonna be I mean there's a I've read and heard that people are actually bidding for this because like you said it's a one-of-a-kind piece of art from your mind from the wu-tang clan I mean this is no one no one's really done something like this you don't want to bury this though right I've read that you want to kind of put on an exhibition featuring some your other works and things like that now allow for the two around the world like how some art exhibits do we are there'll be a big announcement are gonna make I think January 28th what I can tell you today though is that there's an auction company known as paddle eight who actually want us over and there would be the one who will deal with the Occident and able to take it through the art world and go through the proper procedures so I want to say without the paddle way and I think being people that understand the concept I'm glad to have them on board with us now another thing that maybe you can kind of add on to that story is that we've heard that there were bids of two million even as high as 5 million initially for the album yeah so I mean has it reached higher than that or is it you know where is it out right now Waddell well powder weight is cooking it over since then so they will let us know you know what the final number is it's not just a it's really not just about the money I'm not making money from a lot of things I do you know I mean but it's really about that person who wants to possess this piece of history you know there's really no price you can put on it if I were to talk about the Wu Tang Gong Wu Tang forever which sold 4 million copies at $25 apiece that's a value of something I mean but I don't want to talk about the value of it you know I think that when the person gets that he will have something that's actually priceless yeah so stepping away from just the cost of everything what are you you've seen music from the from the start with hip hop but you've also seen how technology you know music digitally you know sent out to people iTunes now these music subscription services what are your thoughts on that is how it's changed the music game for good or for better you know from you I think it's a balance if you look at you know music subscription and people able to stream music and subscribe to same we subscribe to film it's something unique about that but we'll be doing with this here we're trying to put it back on your hand as well so I think that they need to in it there needs to be a balance it's okay to have your music streaming on your buddies or you and your car or whatever but what about if you in the woods wanna hang out by yourself and be your own man in your own world that's what is coming at so if if I think if other artists will take a look at the boombox and say to themselves you know this is gonna be part of my release you know you can put it on Spotify you can put it on iTunes you can put it on CD and even vinyl is making a comeback but also I want to put it on this bluetooth speaker device so this is gonna be I think a new way for people to release their music so your take is you're okay with all these different formats but you kind of also want to bring back that physical good to music right listen I'm okay look I I'm a producer so I make music with Ableton ProTools new window I got uh the the native instruments maschine but at the same time I got a real piano I got a real good song I got a real set of drums so some things of course I want to bang on my drum machine you know if I'm flying thirty thousand miles in the sky and I'm warmin able channel market on my laptop that's fun but when I'm living in this burg in something or my friends come over to have a good time we pull our guitars out we get a bottle of wine and we have a physical time so I think you got to have both sides covered all right well let's um shift gears a little bit you're here at CES and one of the themes here is wearables right there putting Fitness and sensors I would like people to see your wearable that you have right now if we can bring the camera up on this I mean this is definitely a one of a kind wu-tang blank watch now would you there's so much out there about an Apple watch I mean to me a watch is so personal and it's a fashion piece what are your thoughts on this whole Smart Watch push that a lot of companies are putting out no I actually dig it because you know we think about you know you know almost Ebony's baby so that's when the spies and James Bond and everybody was out and we always wanted to have a phone in our watch you know Matt Helm so for us to see that some of that imagination has become a reality up in that's very cool you know I've been thinking about something called cosmetic electronics for a long time anyway you know I mean I'm happy that other companies and people are adventuring down that way there's more things I think we could do you know they make it wearable because it is like I'm looking at your little style right here see you got your cool whites on what you walking though and you I like the place that you got right there got to got some bracelet style here now wouldn't that have another another thing that you know another option to it like if it was this cool and yet it still took your pulse and kept you your daily you know these statistics going it'd be cool I mean I'm okay with that I think for me just it's weird right I cover technology every day I'm all about tech but sometimes there are times where I actually want to step away from it personally and so if my wrist is buzzing and blinging every day I don't know if I want that right with your lady and you love and your wrist is the one buzzing know what's gonna happen to you that's funny because after a while after the buzzing of your wrist and then you're gonna take it off and you're gonna take your wrist it's buzzing but it's gonna be not like it's on you hear your phone ringing but it don't be ringing roast the ghost vibration in your pocket the ghost population you don't know what to do for you let's do it I'm gonna say this to you you better off being Johnny Malkovich before you bout with this alchemist I'll attach a Falcon claw to the tip of the iron fist and I'll pulverize MCS brains out the wu-tang gets out like a ranked attains out the cage with a 12-gauge flame is out dr. Phil can't remedy my dosage of explosive corrosives metamorphic oracle vocalist liver cool till planets backwards then i backflip backwards to a name of an unnamed actress this is microbe addict tactics my rappin is like Eskimo in Alaska snow fish trapping I'll make you sleep with the colony of ants in your pants I caused your body physiology to stop and dance the abbot with the tablets and rap tips I vote with the wu-tang clan non men who I laugh with and use the bus caps with there we go there we go boom drop the wound like that yeah anyway anyway yeah that's what's so cool about the phones you know I got like like 30 roms in my phone ways let's go to another one notes on the fly you just put them on there put them in right in there right yeah now also you know you do a lot of acting you know directing and producing screenwriting you know I watched a few episodes of gang-related even you know before I even knew you were a part of that show that was a cool show how the cool was a cool show and unfortunately it did you know people it didn't stick its it came out for season 1 but we also have things like Netflix right that can sometimes bring shows back to life or introduce them to new audiences how do you see digital working you know in that way how do you how do you see that no I think that's a great additive to our industry I mean I actually thought that game believe it would be more of a Netflix type of show you know you know I was very surprised that Fox actually took a risk with such a show that was so gritty multi-ethnic sin it and uh in a subject matter was crazy so the good thing is to see TV realizing the competition is growing around them and they're wanting to adapt to fit the competition but the second thing is that you have formats like Netflix and Roku and Honolulu and all these guys who are who are making content and their content is specific to certain things but there's an audience out there for it you know I watch the lr8 Network now I don't know if you know this network but you gotta check out the ELMO network y'all on Saturdays afternoon they show kung fu movies we know you love your kung fu flicks Oh Thursday they got kungfu Thursdays only for Christmas this year they had all the Godzilla movies it's playing all the kaiju films or the kaiju but then also they showed you rare films that inspired other directors you know whether they had to roll on they have 20 no one there John Carpenter one of course Bobby and yours and there's a network there for me it's the film makers Network because you get to watch the films that inspired the people who are the elite in our business so I think the the way that the the way that technology is changing our world whether you know some right now they got the apps you could have TV on your phone so your cake could be in the backseat like this yes spongebob you know I mean but these things have their benefits of course then they have their downfalls as well but I'm enjoying the benefits of it right now and is there one thing that from when you started that has really surprised you the most is there any kind of single piece of technology that you've been like wow I can't imagine I could have never imagined that I could do that today how is Ted kind of wild you that's good but well one thing that impressed me I'm going on a music level is uh they have figured out a way to turn audio to MIDI I always wanted to do that you know that means that you could take a song you like and change it to a MIDI file and then manipulate it and then every instrument inside your computer will relate to that MIDI file that has never been done I mean for years you know if you want to take like it saved you got a person like yourself and you want to make the beat but you might make a make a nigga be yeah he cut me off but the cool thing is that now they could take that data and a drum machine will play it back for you and you could build the track from that and so I remember one day I heard Pharrell in uh Kanye on a radio station hot 97 in New York and they were saying like yeah we start all our beats when I'm doing it with the beatbox we do it I'm out first and then they gotta sit there and try to hit the pads on the drum machine now they could just do it with their mouths and the computer will do it for you that's a great improvement in technology and a great improvement for producing music alright well there you have it RZA thank you so much for coming out we appreciate a man bomp bomp thank you for having me all right thanks so much stay tuned more for CSC es in death we'll be right back