Latest Release
- 19 APR 2024
- 1 Song
- Liquid Swords (Expanded Edition) · 1995
- Breaker Breaker (Remix) - Single · 2024
- I Told Them... · 2023
- FIFTY. 50. (1st Half) · 2023
- RAGE IS BACK [The Mixtape] · 2020
- Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts (Season 1 Mixtape) · 2020
- The Progressive Movement: Dantsha Kaloku · 2019
- Eve · 2019
- Of Mics and Men (Music from the Showtime Documentary Series) · 2019
Essential Albums
- For sheer lyrical density, there isn’t much in the Wu-Tang universe—or in ’90s hip-hop more generally—that matches Liquid Swords. Calling GZA the intellectual of the group gets it only partly right: Where Wu-Tang’s other MCs were exciting in part for the ways they exploded or lashed out, GZA could sail through metaphor after multisyllabic metaphor with the impassive grace of the B-movie samurai the group so beautifully mythologised. A portrait emerged: Where even a thoughtful rapper like Nas had moments of emotional outbursts, GZA remained stoic and inward as thought—the guy you fear the most in part because he says the least. “I ain’t particular, I bang like vehicular homicide on July Fourth from Bed-Stuy,” he raps on “Duel of the Iron Mic”, like a toothpick pulled clean out of a just-baked cake. He’s doing crime. Did you even notice? In a lot of ways, Liquid Swords is a relic: With the exception of Kendrick Lamar, rap—at least mainstream rap—stopped being as focused on lyricism and technical prowess, not to mention became a little less emotionally opaque. You can hear GZA’s legacy in underground rappers like Ka or even Earl Sweatshirt, whose introspective fragments used language like building materials in the construction of shelter from the outside world. Rakim had explored the metaphorical stars, and MCs like Big Daddy Kane—earthbound as he was in his appetites—took the details of street life to new narrative levels, but GZA made rap feel mystical. To use a potentially overused image, he wasn’t just rapping—he was making movies for your head.
Music Videos
Artist Playlists
- Check out these words from the Genius.
Singles & EPs
Appears On
- Killah Priest & John Lion
- Folk and Stress
- Ghostface Killah
About GZA
With his ineffable lyricism and insatiable intellectual curiosity, rapper and Wu-Tang Clan cofounder GZA is one of hip-hop’s all-time greatest MCs and thinkers. • In his youth, GZA performed alongside his cousins RZA and Ol’ Dirty Bastard in the rap trio Force of the Imperial Master, which later became All In Together Now. • GZA dropped out of high school to focus on music and eventually signed to Cold Chillin’ Records, through which he released his 1991 debut album, Words from the Genius, under the stage name The Genius. • The following year, GZA reunited with his cousins to form what soon became the nine-man Wu-Tang Clan. In 1993, they delivered their landmark debut album, Enter The Wu-Tang (36 Chambers). • In 1995, GZA released his most renowned body of work, Liquid Swords. The platinum-certified album is regarded as a hip-hop classic. • His 1999 album Beneath the Surface reached No. 1 on Billboard’s Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart. • In 2010, GZA began lecturing at universities on physics, space and hip-hop, appearing at Harvard, MIT and NYU. In 2012, he partnered with Columbia University and Genius to create a hip-hop–themed science program for students of colour. • GZA collaborated with NASA to release his 2016 space-themed single “The Spark”, a rhapsodic narration of the creation of the universe.
- HOMETOWN
- Brooklyn, NY, United States
- BORN
- 22 August 1966
- GENRE
- Hip-Hop/Rap