Austinist Show Preview: RZA @ Emo's

“I Can’t Go To Sleep,” off Wu-Tang Clan’s The W, is one of RZA’s least-produced songs, technically speaking. He simply loops the intro to Issac Hayes’s “Walk On By” a few times, making no attempt to mask the sample with a snare or keyboard stab of his own. Yet it is one of his best, the sort of production that they’ll play at his Kennedy Center Honors someday. The song works because of the success of the whole formula – the yearning sample, Ghostface’s extended opening verse, Hayes’s own guest-spot on the bridge, and then RZA’s closing remarks. The bare sample plays perfectly against Ghost and RZA’s choked-up pleas – another layer would be too heavy, and RZA no doubt knew this.

Always more of a collagist than a pure creator of sound (like Dr. Dre or Timbaland), RZA’s understanding that A + the snare from B + Inspectah Deck = classic is what carried the Wu to prominence in the '90s. His grasp of tone and sequence and balance is also why he is slowly and successfully transitioning out of beats 24/7 and into movie scores and acting and directing.

Because of this, Digi Snax, his forthcoming album under the Bobby Digital moniker, looks to be one of the last largely-RZA-produced track-lists for a while. “You Can’t Stop Me Now,” the first single, is much more revelatory and autobiographical than previous material from Bobby Digital, who started off as an indulgent alter-ego; it certainly sounds like a hanging-up-the-hat-type jam, even if he is rumored to have one more album in the works. Most of the rest of Digi Snax remains pretty under wraps for now, unless you show at one of his pre-release engagements. Backing him is the live band Stone Mecca, which might sound nonsensical (since he’s a sample-first producer). But it seems to work. A + B + C + D…