WU-TANG's GZA raps and rhymes on StarTalk with Neil deGrasse Tyson

welcome to another edition of Star Talk radio I'm Neil degrass Tyson your host I'm an astrophysicist with the American Museum of Natural History and as is common I have with me my comedic co-host Chuck Nice hey Chucky baby how are you welcome back thank you my friend good to be back always good to be you know whatever my show is on you come in and mess with it or or mess it up we're not sure yet still out so uh this week we're gonna be talking about uh hip-hop music and we're gonna be featuring my interview with jiza jiza jiz in addition to you I got to share the stage with you here okay if you don't mind Christopher emden EMD i n that's correct you're uh assistant professor up in Columbia yes I am excellent and your title is what what they call Professor of Science Education Science Education director of secondary school initiatives in the urban Science Education Center nice nice so you care about just folks in the inner city getting educated uh that's the majority of my work yeah educated in science okay what do you do outside of the majority of the work well you know I uh listen to hip-hop okay all right and that keeps you so that flushes out your I mean most of it right listen to Hip Hop you know I you know I check out your YouTube videos you know I watch some HTV a little bit of everything and you learn how to tie a bow tie of course and that is tied that's not clip on no not at all let me check it nice now I got to readjust you know where the mirrors it looks good looks good yeah yeah so I mean this is cuz the Bai is the emergent style in hip-hop performers I'm told it it is it is in some you'd be surprised you'd be surprised is there a hip-hop artist that wears a bow tie I'm trying to think of one that you know they they you know they wear them on the award shows I was going to say fonsworth Bentley but he doesn't quite arti artist you know but the look is becoming more trendy so I might have to move to something else well I'm honor that you get so dressed up for this show so jizza founding member of the hip-hop group Wan woodan Clan right right and so Shin represent yeah well that's how that that's how that rolls and so you so you view used hip hop to to help educate people is that how you how you come at this yeah absolutely so research wise I you know I get into classrooms and my goal is to engage Urban Youth of color and Science and so that meant changing curriculum it meant training teachers it meant a whole bunch of different things and I wasn't getting the results that I wanted and I decided to sort of Step into the dimension of interrogating youth culture and that hip-hop just came out of it oh okay and so they were so deeply engaged in hip-hop culture so completely disengaged in science so I had to find a way where there was some intersections between hip hop and science so science it's not just learning it's science no science in particular so there's there's learning and that that learning part is powerful but the connections with science is even more powerful so there are connections between hip hop and science millions billions trillions like the Doppler effect of a speeding bullet that's a section oh really okay I'm ahead of myself it could be a lesson it could be a lesson L listen nothing nothing is sort of outside of the Realms of possibility here so if they know about bullets then you know hey we can have that conversation the Doppler effect there's a high pitch frequency shift as it comes towards you and then a low pitch uh shift as it emerges so it goes like that right unless you're hit then you only hear the first I'm just saying well well you know rappers rappers actually try to create so Kanye West has his verse where he was like you know I'm shooting and I'm like like he makes the sound got the Doppler effect in in the song without even knowing it and so those are the kind of things we explore right so I'm like Kanye West makes that noise that's that's the sound of a bullet does that connect to anything is that arbitrary and that becomes you know the way to spar conversation nice nice and we are celebrating my interview with jiza the uh hipop master jiza who founder of the wuang clan wuang Clan I get that my G in the right place there and I chatted with him about what role science might play as the muse of an artist in particular of a musician let's find out what he told what he told me you you you got my whole astrophysics vocabulary oozing out of your La rap rap lyrics and so how does how does that happen I love it I just want to understand it just an interest in science and planets and the universe and so and it's so well there's plenty people are interested in it but it doesn't it doesn't infiltrate well I'm a you know I'm an artist first I'm a writer I write mostly music I'm working on novels and scripts now really okay yes I am but um I always thought as an MC you know growing up it's always been about being lyrical for us where did you grow up I well I grew up in Brooklyn I'm born in Brooklyn lived in Staten Island I lived in all the Burrows okay and um Staten Island yes Staten Island shin we call it Shon Tang but um you know it started from back then we it was always about being lyrical and writing the tightest lyric and sharpest lyric and being witty and also incorporating things around us and anything we can incorporate into music like I'm not a sports fan at all but I every now and then I always incorporate things about sports so it's it's you're you're reaching into pop culture and there it is and it's it's there for you yes so so all right but were your earliest songs that way some of some of the songs some of our lyrics We we went we went there uhhuh um years ago I remember one time R had this rhyme um it was about conception being born and it started it it was a line about um when my mind flashed back to a Eerie move when I was just a sperm cell in the fallopian tuol oh he he was about 13 that's a great that's a great very very and so so in in Brooklyn if you start taking an interest in the universe and there other rhymers rappers you had to be a little weird for doing that isn't that right normal it depends on well it's it comes off as not being normal to most but I wasn't normal doing it and I wasn't even a rapper well it dep well it depends on how you deliver it you know if I'm delivering it in a in a way where I'm like Earth is the third plan Planet okay and The Sun Shines light it's not no that that doesn't play not in Brooklyn not in okay but if it's in a way where you're saying my universe run like Clockworks forever my words will pulled together Sudden Change in the weather the nature and the scale of events don't make sense a storm with no one in you're drawn in by me Gravity that's going mad clouds are dust and debris moving at Colossal speeds they crushing MC so you speak about the universe in planets but you still incorporate the element of mcing and the mood and the feeling the feeling yes and so you've embraced the universe a lot of cool vocabulary there I I make a big deal of the fact that our vocabulary is very accessible Galaxy the dwarf black hole big bang and a lot of them even one syllables I'm guessing that that makes it easier to rhyme and easier to pulse into a lyric yes rather than the words of geologists or of course you know um rock Kim I usually quote him on some of his lyrics and he had this line years ago and this was in the 80s where he said I'm the creator of the alphabets now let's communicate when I translate the situation straight no dictionaries necessary to use big words do nothing but confusing to lose so there it is half short twice strong beautiful the only difference is if I use the word Nova I'll be speaking about a star unlike the average rapper who will probably be talking about a car I love that wow that's great that is fantastic from floian tubes to exploding star exploding star except you know the the the rhyme about the floian tomb that is an atopic pres pregnancy to be honest in phian tuo that's you don't really want that as a woman he was 13 I mean fact he was going there but he went from there to like you know basically Cosmic storms which a lot of people don't even realize that there areic storms there storms on on on Saturn on on Jupiter Jupiter has a big giant red spot it's a storm right you call it a red spot cuz that's what it looked like to the first people who named it but you look a little closer you study it it's a cyclone larger than the planet Earth raging on Jupiter for 300 years Mars has dust storms D dust storms kick up and you can't see what's happening on the surface look at that that's where the aliens can redistribute their their absolutely yes cover their track that's when they cover their tracks so this thing about science getting into pop culture leaders I'm I'm curious about that what have you seen that absolutely I mean you know I'm just I'm just like yes you seen it but have the little lesson you just described just now if you introduce that to a young person they would be like oh man I got I got to spit a verse about that and so so what what you say spit a verse spit a verse meaning I have to write a rhyme and then perform it to say spit a verse from someone wearing a bow tie I just have to you know I have to cover the bow ties so I can hear you correctly okay see now now you're forcing me to want to kick a rap you know spit a WAP on here I I may have to do that to prove myself just just to gain street cred here Street CED right but jiz made so many sort of insightful points in that clip and the first of which was you know a lot of people do hip-hop pedagogy or think that rap pedagogy is you know like kids like rap let's rap and they have the kids create raps or they perform ws and it doesn't work and the reason why it doesn't work is because it's and it's just like what goes in school already to rhyme right and that that doesn't work and so the distinction between you know saying something that rhymed and being a prolific MC which requires analogy metaphor drawing connections and it seems to be most cross reference which means you have to learn and know some knowledge here some knowledge here in order to access that to bring it together absolutely I mean I was I was working with a young person once and he you know we get into the classroom and I want him to learn about water he's like okay as you know I'm teaching a lesson he's like yeah your lesson is all right so I said you know what you're a rapper you know spit a rap about it so he he starts rapping and he's rapping about Everything But Water he's like I'm fly I'm sick I'm I'm like you you had one line he like you know I flow like water and by the way I'm fly and I'm sick you know and so I was like well you know this is not quite going to this not going to work go home he's not actually making it work he's not making it work so I said go home read the textbook come back and write a new rhyme he comes back in the morning he's like yo it's it's typ hard to spit a 16 about H2O right and and what what that means you know I'll interpret it means that it's challenging okay it's challenging for me to be able to write a rap about water if I'm really going to understand the concept of water so I need at least a week to do it justice or in other words he need a week to learn enough about water to then know how to reach in and and and pull out pull out the themes out of it to really to really make it a real WRA when water gets cold it gets less dense when you freeze it it floats on the water it was was you got I would kick you out of my C for that for uh you know in my interview with jiza because I had him here in studio I I wanted to know the history of the wuang clan and cuz he's one of the founding members let's find out what he tells us about that tell me about the the a little bit of history of the wuang clan wuang is a grou mostly from Staten Island well Staten Island base group some of us are from Brooklyn and we put our album out in 93 called Enter the 36 Chambers wuang and nine members at the time some of us had solo careers prior to that so you were assembled out of the musical e assembled yeah many of us childhood friends and tell me about its influence very strong influence very how do you account for that other than just your great performers is there some there got to be something else going on there well nine individuals cuz it affected nine different personalities culture of course as though hip-hop took a turn well every now and then you know history takes its turn you know you have conscious rap at some point then you have party rap then you have re I every rap then it comes back around again conscious party and you would characterize well Tang was just this group that was just you you couldn't resist at the time nine members nine individuals different personalities great music we all had solo careers also I mean albums that were charting four or five albums on the charts at the same time big explosion this big bang and um the influences so how would you say rap and hipop differed emerging on the other side of the wuan clang compared to before that's a portal that the genre passed through I I think it's forever going through portals it's forever changing um well if it's not going through portals it means people aren't as creative as they as they ought to be or they just going into certain areas they they've never been and don't know anything about you know but um it's it's I mean it's forever changing musically um far as corporate wise I mean it's on a whole another level as far as the money the business side but I think lyrically it's regressed what do you mean I mean as far as the lyrical side of it I mean if you think of if you take hip hop from the 80s or this Golden Era even in the '90s and the majority of the MC's that were that were out there they were mostly lyrical even my first trip I made to the Bronx one of my first trips to the South Bronx from Staten Island born and raised in the Bronx at um it was around 11 and we had two MC's and our whole bur was Staten Island and when I got to the Bronx a whole bunch of MC's you know I I have this line where I say um I was born with the mic in my hand and I took it from Brooklyn to the SI land I pulled up on a block got out the truck it was the first of pit stops the error of the spinning top around the birth of Hip Hop that was something I had identified with so I made it my point to exploit this fly gift and me and the Rizza made trips to the BX a mass of ferocious M seeds town of T-Rex Giants in every ways rat flows for every day we knew we would get a reward with a price to pay the basic training was beyond entertaining just a Cadence of verbal expression self-explaining so those are my early days of traveling to the Bronx but they had this mass of ferocious and seeds and everyone was so lyrically good that it only made us sharpen our sort nowadays it's not like that I mean I I hear stuff you hear so they're not as literate that's what you're saying at all do they still have ideas they just don't know how to express it or they just I think many imaginations are sterile at the time why at because you're not producing anything new like it's they don't have a muse it's the same thing the universe is talking to you and you're responding yes they've nothing talking to them but they just no they don't hear you know when your parents say you're not listening to me you know you know they're speaking you hear the sound you feel the vibration but it's not resonating that doesn't doesn't get in there no so the universe is talking to you every day of course now not only the universe the Earth people planets objects beings I'm I'm inspired by all you know I once said you know in a lecture when I was speaking about Inspirations I can can be inspired by the by the spider because his web is 50 times or 20 times stronger than Ste so that's amazing in itself and and I'm inspired by that and I can write so you have to know enough about the spiders web to even be inspired by it yes but you have to be willing to you got to be curious right right you know right so there's a whole community of rappers who have lost their sources of creativity that's got to be it yeah and everyone is following majority is following if it's 99 follow only one raps in his own voice so everyone is following so it's the same thing over and over and so we got to spread this this uh and it's not really the story you're telling is how you tell the story it's how you tell the story you know I think being in a club can be interesting depending on what what you're talking about your specialty is exploring how to bring science to the inner city in ways that are culturally relevant and and that's that's awesome just give me an example of that I mean you know I'm just basing this on this the last clip we heard from jiz this infatuation in Hip Hop with sort of completion and circular motion is it's really really intriguing the fact that when rappers get together they engage with each other they do so in what they call a cipher and a cipher means that we have to position ourselves in a circle and this notion of completion within our modes of communication and also you know completion and circle emotion in the universe in an outer space some of this sounds kind of new Agy well it is it is new aging but but but that that's how scientific thought is developed right isn't it you know you get to a point where you need a fresh idea take you to a new place exactly and and that's what we're doing in a your plane has to land from that I mean you got to land somewhere with that all right well you know you land you land you got to land on a curriculum you land just enough to make some sense of what's just happened and then you take off once more oh okay all right that can work and so this when does The Layover happen depends on who you flying with so in my interviews with jizo we talked about the the role certainly the role that media thinks violence plays in hip-hop and it's always played up perhaps more than it actually uh needs to be or should be or is perhaps it's not even representative of most of the hip-hop that's out there it just makes a better headline I all this up with jiza and I wanted to get his reaction to this because that's like the you can't just sweep that under the rug it's out there right and let's find out what uh J's reaction to when I brought up violence in Hip Hop so then there's all the songs that R violence is a is is a part of it is there something missing in The uninitiated Listener they think it's just all violence but of course there's somebody trying to emote in those lyrics right well it yeah it depends on how you interpret the lyric I mean sometimes I run into people say well um 36 Chambers got me through school and then I go back and listen to the album I can't really I don't see how I mean I know it's it's great music you know according to fans and those whove listened to Wu Tang for years but I don't see what they're saying so it all depends on how you interpret the message well good art allows The Listener the viewer to personalize what they hear or see right I mean because you can't just take a you know I look at it like this sometimes if they say um wuang is got me through school and then automatically it pops in my head wuang Clan Ain't Nothing fwh how did that get you through school you know sometimes get them to explain maybe I mean maybe they it was an escape but it was a c you know the timing and all that when the album came out whatever they were going through they were able to relate to the majority of the songs anyway so as a whole okay it was the total philosophy and package that that represented personally I don't I'm not with the schools of thought that say people got violent because they listened to a song People violent they're violent right right exact right but still it's nice to have some hope in your art and if the art is only about violence I don't where am I going to what do I reach for you reach for the peace you reach for the music without the violence and like I said I don't think it's it's just the whole thing about violence it's just the way you're talking or telling your story because most rappers have this thing where they're from the streets and they're telling their story and this is how I grew up and everything I say is real and I'm not a fake drug dealer I actually sold drugs and this is what I'm giving you but it's the same story it's like watching the same movie over and over and over and over and over you don't want to to see it anymore you don't want to hear it story's been told story's been told in that in that way in that way cuz you're not you've spoken of violence in your right songs right oh yeah definitely and what does that do what role does that play it's just part of the story it's just part of the story to get your point across but it's not violence in a way where you know it's gory or I got to speak about you know the screwdriver pulling your brains out and Landing all on the back seat it would probably be done in a way where you don't see the screwdriver you don't see the brains you just see blood coming through the door and you know very Hitchcock try your own imagination Hitchcock forces you to fill in the blanks shows you the edges of the violence that's how it should be do you think there's a cultural bias against rap that you don't find against other expressions of violence in the American culture like evening television like everything else I I I think that certainly does exist and I think that in response to that rappers pick up on what is sensationalized and realize that that's what gets attention and so what could normally be a thin slice of the culture becomes exaggerated you know I'm curious about Role Models because you can I think the concept of role model is overrated personally but cuz you can be in inspired by anything whether or not it's a human being and nor should you be so invested in individual that you're committed to everything they do spread it out do it allart is how I think about it I spoke with jiz about what does it mean does because he clearly is a role model to some people just how does he react to that check it out I'm going to read you uh posting on our on our Facebook page Michael rafales if I pronounce that right as a teenager we solicited inquiries cuz they they knew you were going to be on Star talk as a teenager it was not my school but it was wuang who taught me the idea of knowledge wisdom and understanding it was because of this idea that I went into physics I'm now a high school science teacher with a passion for sharing my love of Science and improving science literacy wow that's great with that going on I'm I I'm not even necessary let's do more of that what what do we need me for if you can sing you could your influence does this this is all we're trying to do here I think that's one of the unique things about being an artist is that you have a voice that people hear and listen to so it's important to say something that's important how many artists don't 99 out of 100 so so if your audience are not just move into the bead they're being philosophically schooled schooled in a good way not in the abusive way right you got schooled philosophically schooled that's an whole other understanding of the role music can play in our lives isn't it I mean think about it most music nobody's saying I'm want to play this so that I can my mind can be in a new academic place that doesn't happen well I think some musicians think like that well they can be in a new musical place but but in in a in a scholarly place right the person here telling me he's a he's a physics teacher in high school because he listens to W Wang I don't know anyone who's listened to any other performer who could make that claim no one said Elvis you know I became a science teacher because I listened to your song this this just doesn't happen so have have you fully embraced the power over over life's trajectories that you might actually be wielding yes I have I mean that's just one story out of many I mean I've heard I've heard several several stories throughout the years just about the influence that wuang has had on two generations now of people people that started with us grew with us and then their children or their nephews or nieces so it's like a whole another generation of kids that's listening and um I'm honored to be part of that that's a great thing wow so I I have to tell you before I might began my interview with jiza I had no understanding of the magnitude of their influence and like I said if it's one thing to say oh I was inspired to stay in love or to break up or to be happy today because of a song I listen to nobody talks about pop music as something that sends them back to school right so how do you you that must make you feel good as absolutely it educator it affirms everything I believe in right everything yeah but it makes sense because if you think about it kids when they listen to hip-hop they listen to it over and over and over and over again and as they start to do that they start to recognize what these words are saying and therein lies the inspiration right particularly if a young person is listening to a rapper who is pulling from different spaces and so I'm you know it forces people to want to study you know if you if you listen to a jiza and he's talking about the cosmos and he's talking about stars he's talking about the universe right I'm memorizing the lyrics and all of a sudden I want to understand it so it's inspiration to then learn more absolutely there it goes what I know as a scientist and what I think some people also know is that the the universe can serve as a muse for scientist because there's a lot of information out there that is still in need of connectivity right I still need it I still want it and so I spoke with jiza about you know how science factors in to his creativity what's your favorite science concept that that keeps coming back to you when you're Penning lyrics could be an idea or an object or a thing it's just how everything is connected cuz we are connected yes I mean it's all amazing and I me so it it inspires you because so see see here it's amazing and so it inspires you so now I worry that if you learn so much about it that it's no longer amazing will it stop inspiring you I don't think I can ever learn so much about it I mean because we learning every day even with physicist yall discover new things yeah every day all the time you you crazy stuff too build stronger more powerful telescopes and you're going further back and particle accelerator yeah exploring new things so I don't think I can ever learn so the universe is your Muse I love it as as as I think the universe has been for many artists of late I get a phone call every couple of weeks there's an artist who's designing a sculpture for a city and they want to line it with the sun it was a star and they're feeling the universe and there was a day when artists there was other things inspiring artists but not science so do you think it's because science is more accessible today that it's reaching into the soul of the artist I think it's more accessible I also think that um people are learning more and more about themselves and their connection with the universe so J is a deep guy much deeper I I'd known only very little about him I read his bio before I started the interview and I came out saying wow if every artist were this moved and inspired right by what they want to by the messages they want to deliver there' be a lot less crap on the radio that's definitely true or not right or maybe there'll just be more intelligent crap thank you there it is because I I think about it I say look at all the ways a person someone growing up they're exposed to advertising they exposed to TV they're exposed to movies they're exposed to and if everybody had a mission statement that we want to be more educated at the end of your day that's a whole different world we're talking about yeah and but you're at the pulse of that right and and that's what I find Most Fascinating about you wrote a book what's the title that book again Urban Science Education for the hip-hop generation Urban Science Education for the hip-hop generation so that's for I guess other Educators it it it's for educators it's it's for anybody who's intrigued about how what connections are there between hip-hop culture and science CU they're going to presume none up front absolutely I always get that what the the heck are you doing life makes no sense you I get that you're actually promoting this right my God man well okay so maybe the next book would be um promoting science in in country western music Don't Stop in Hip Hop I mean you know I think there but the thing about hip-hop is that it's so deeply connected I find I mean youth who are immersed in hip-hop culture you know we we having this conversation about jiz and how insightful he is and and how deep he is and I go to Urban Public Schools every week and I meet at least five jizz every week people who young people who have the potential to have that type of deep Insight um and and that I think is what's Most Fascinating that by by virtue of being a piece of hip-hop culture they they develop a way of thinking and knowing and looking at the world that can very easily be align so your job is to alert that teacher to take note of that if they see this evence yeah watch that look look at that don't miss that don't beat that out of that person you know because if you do that then see the thing about schooling as we know it often times is that it it just doesn't Foster the creative mind it's the Einstein story all over again a million times over you know the most brilliant scientist of our time you know darn darn flunking out and that model continues today and I mean look at jizza and I hate to bring up a story in detail this a guy brilliant intelligent right didn't get an opportunity to complete school why that's not a ver a function of his intelligence it's a function of the inability motivation motivation is a function of the in ability for the school system to Foster it so what you're saying is our school systems are failing I mean I hate to sum it up like that but but our school system is failing and but but if it focuses more explicitly on culture there a there a is a is a there's possibilities for us to reframe it I like it that was good that that that works so you got a quick something here I got 30 seconds you 30 seconds um spit I'm a physicist Lyricist spit Ridiculousness a witness the ignorance I dismiss um I have to do that first so people know I can rap then I can then I can get into the top then you can talk to some authenticity right so um um I love Newton and plus Einstein I like Einstein because Einstein's mind is like mine his formula was E equals MC squ which is weird because me is your favorite MC squared and so what I did there is like I I Einstein the formula but if I just said that it would make no sense so I have to make a connection between the Formula E equals MC s to the fact that me is your favorite MC s and I can say you know ease energy M's Mass EAS the speed of light which is a conent if I were MC I would so be MC squar there you go we got to wrap this up Chuck thanks for being again on another episode of Star Talk pleasure thanks Chris for coming down from columia thanks so much for having uh you've been listening to Star Talk radio find us on the web at Star talkradio.net we also tweet at Star talkradio Star Talk is brought to you in part by a grant from the National Science Foundation uh

Channel: Nerdist

Views: 686,427

Keywords: deGrasse Tyson, Chris Hardwick, Astrophysics, Science, Nerdist Channel, Wu Tang, Hip Hop, Wu-Tang Clan (Musical Group), Neil deGrasse Tyson, Nerdist, Gza, Music, StarTalk, Rap

Id: vHfdd-PQVwo

Length: 34min 1sec (2041 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 13 2012