WU-TANG'S RZA ANNOUNCES WUCHESS.COM + BOBBY DIGITAL ALBUM

By Randy Harward

We all know that “Wu-Tang Clan ain’t nothin’ to fuck wit!,” but although de facto Wu leader the RZA espouses peace and intellectual edification, one would assume they mean to not fuck wit them in the hip-hop game. Not chess. And yet, this:

WuChess.com is the world’s first online chess and hip-hop community letting users play live chess with people from all over the world. WuChess.com lets players get knowledge from real chess masters online, or train in chambers against the computer to refine their skills. At Wuchess.com, subscribers can log on to watch chess clans do battle on and check out exhibition matches with RZA, other Wu-Tang members and stars from across the planet.

Aaaahhhhh! That’s GZA to Ghostface 6, bitch! Check-fuckin’-mate. That’s the Zig-Zag-Zig, right there! Now you gotta smoke this blunt and recite the Supreme Alphabet. That is, if you down. Is you?

Naw, I’m just playin’.

RZA says of WuChess.com, “[it’s] a great platform for the digital world... a whole new world of myth and reality where people can come talk about chess and challenge the Wu members in our chambers." A video game, a comic book and a film are all in development and all mostly focusing on the story of RZA’s alter-ego Bobby Digital, a digital superhero who "transforms into a powerful being that struggles with the good and evil inside himself by saving the lives of others."

Today RZA commences a tour supporting the third Bobby Digital album, Digi Snacks, due June 24 on Koch Records. The jaunt will be his first ever live band tour with backing band Stone Mecca.

Digi Snacks finds RZA fleshing out the Bobby Digital character’s identity and story (in the songs and the apt added-value: a comic book), which parallel RZA’s own. “This is the snack pack, showin’ you some sides of him,” he tells BLURT. “It includes songs that’s life-related; it includes songs that are totally like science fiction.” The line between the two is hard to differentiate, and RZA alludes to his own promiscuity and bad deeds—ostensibly, when he shot that dude in 1993. It’s nothing if not perfect superhero lore.

“[Bobby Digital]’s still strugglin’ with his sex—tryin’ not to be so promiscuous,” he chuckles. “His growth is basically at that point right before I started Wu-Tang Clan. Right before I started Wu-Tang Clan, I was at that point where… I had demons inside myself. And it took a tragedy for me to snap out of it.”

Read more from this interview in the July BLURT.