Wu-Tang Clan

From the personal archives of John "Mook" Gibbons, CEO Wu-Tang Management

Gross, Jason. "RZA's Edge: The RZA's Guide to Kung-Fu Films." Film Comment, May-June 2008. https://www.filmcomment.com/article/rzas-edge-the-rzas-guide-to-kung-fu-films/.

Co-produced by Clan members RZA and Ol' Dirty Bastard, "Da Mystery of Chessboxin'" is sixth track off the Wu-Tang Clan's 1993 debut, Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers).

In 1979, a ten-year-old Robert Diggs was introduced to kung-fu movies in a theater on 42nd street by an older cousin. Leaving the screening for Chang Cheh's Five Deadly Venoms, the future de-fact leader of the Wu-Tang Clan was "totally geeked out," transformed into a life-long kung-fu fanatic (Film Comment). Through adolescence, RZA's kung fu obsession quickly merged with his passion for music:

"Early on, Ol’ Dirty Bastard and I used to watch kung fu movies, leave the theater, do some kung fu fighting, get on the train, keep fighting, and then run into MCs and musically battle them like it was a kung fu fight. That was my weekend habit."

By the time the scrappy cinephile turned producer had assembled his Shaolin-born crew of M.C.'s in 1993 to cut Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers), RZA's vision was clear:

"My fantasy was to make a one-hour movie that people were just going to listen to. They would hear my movie and see it in their minds."

36 Chambers—an album defined by it's unprecedented use of samples from the Clan's favorite kung-fu classics—brought RZA's fantasy to life, with the music video for "Da Mystery of Chessboxin'" becoming the first visual examples of the RZA's interdisciplinary approach to production. Named for the 1979 independent film Mystery of Chessboxing (Ghostface Killah's moniker would also be derived from this film), both the song itself and the music video feature a high concentration of references to the RZA's favorite films of the era: Shaolin and Wu-Tang (1983), Five Deadly Venoms (1978), and of course the 1979 from which track gains its title directed by Joseph Kuo. Including official lyrics and the original video treatment, the present lot—RZA's original video production book from Liberty Studios where "Da Mystery of Chessboxin'" was shot in 1993—is a look behind-the-scenes of one of the golden age of Hip Hop's most innovative contributions to the world of music videos.