RZA discusses One Spoon of Chocolate, Quentin Tarantino, and managing a video rental store.

      Before he became the mastermind of the Wu-Tang Clan, RZA ran a video store in Ohio.

      While the hip-hop group is primarily linked to Staten Island, Robert Fitzgerald Diggs, who was born in Brooklyn, spent a brief period in the early '90s living in Steubenville, Ohio. He had experienced some success as a solo artist under the name Prince Rakeem. However, life in New York was becoming overwhelming, prompting him to move in with his mother in Steubenville, where he converted a former hair salon into a video store.

      “There was a place called Bay Video in Staten Island where I frequently rented, and I told the owner, ‘Yo, I want to start a store in Ohio.’ He allowed me to purchase tapes from him and others,” RZA recalls. "I ended up acquiring thousands of VHS tapes and went for it. Unfortunately, it lasted only about two months. I lost the store but kept all the videos."

      He explains that the store's brief existence was due to being “too split.” This is a humble admission of the fact that he was in the midst of moving back to New York, adopting the RZA name, and starting to form one of hip-hop's most legendary groups. In 1993, Wu-Tang Clan released “Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers),” which drew inspiration from martial arts films like the 1983 Shaolin and Wu Tang and included samples from kung-fu classics.

      RZA also ventured into acting in films like Jim Jarmusch’s 1999 Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai and 2003 Coffee and Cigarettes, Ridley Scott’s 2007 American Gangster, Judd Apatow’s 2009 Funny People, Todd Phillips’ 2010 Due Date, and the two Nobody films, where he portrayed the adopted brother of Bob Odenkirk’s ex-assassin character. Additionally, he composed music for films including Kill Bill.

      RZA has guided many aspiring musicians — as explored in the recent Sundance documentary The Disciple that follows one of his students — but he regards Kill Bill director Quentin Tarantino as his filmmaking mentor. He traveled to China and Mexico to observe Tarantino's process while shooting Kill Bill, and later cast Kill Bill actress Lucy Liu in his own debut as a writer-director, 2012’s The Man With the Iron Fists, co-written with Eli Roth.

      His directorial projects include the 2017 musical drama Love Beats Rhymes, the 2020 heist film Cut Throat City, and episodes of Hulu’s Wu-Tang: An American Saga, which he co-created and which chronicles the rise of his group.

      RZA returns to writing and directing with his latest film, One Spoon of Chocolate, which reunites him with Cut Throat City and Wu-Tang: An American Saga star Shameik Moore, along with Tarantino, who signed on as the film’s presenter. One Spoon of Chocolate focuses on a man named Unique (Moore) who moves to a small Ohio town seeking a new beginning.

      Unfortunately, that town is ominously named Karensville, where many locals from the white population are unfriendly. After attempting to steer clear of violence, Unique finds himself compelled to fight back. The action thriller features inventive needle drops, sharp fight scenes, and a nod to the top smokes in the Tarantino universe.

      In our latest installment of Things I’ve Learned from a Moviemaker, RZA shared insights about the filmmaking process.—M.M.

      One Spoon of Chocolate Director RZA: Insights I’ve Gained as a Filmmaker

      RZA directs Shameik Moore and RJ Cyler in a scene from One Spoon of Chocolate.

      1. I didn’t attend college to learn filmmaking. My education comes from watching cinema. The theater is my classroom, my VHS tapes are my learning tools, and sharing time with other talented filmmakers has been my apprenticeship. Others may have attended NYU or UCLA and learned the craft formally.

      I had the opportunity to meet one of Ryan Coogler’s professors, who provided insights on what kind of student he was— a very good one, of course. That’s his methodology. But people like my mentor, Quentin Tarantino, and I, we both came from video-store backgrounds. Aside from my wife and perhaps my younger brothers during my early years, Tarantino is the person I’ve watched the most films with.

      2. The most valuable advice he imparted about filmmaking was the importance of writing my own material. This fundamentally shifted my viewpoint. At one time, I was focused on remaking existing works. But when he pointed out that I could create my own story based on my collection of experiences and insights, it clicked for me that I could approach filmmaking with a hip-hop mentality.

      In hip-hop, we sample music or sounds from previously existing records or films, combining them to create a new piece. That approach is