RZA

There appeared to be light at the end of the tunnel in mid-2004 for increasingly impatient Wu-Tang fans awaiting this release when RZA authorized the limited release of the mixtape Formula For The Cure which was intended to build anticipation for the finished article. This was followed by the release of a self-titled album (Smash Mouth) and then a fourth album, Get the Picture?, in 2003. RZA has been promising for many years to release The Cure, said to be an epic concept album containing collaborations with high-profile artists such as Stevie Wonder, to be mostly in the wordy, Five Percent Nation-influenced style of Wu-Tang tracks such as Sunshower. In 2001 Smash Mouth covered "I'm A Believer" by The Monkees, and it was featured on the soundtrack to the movie Shrek. RZA also appeared alongside fellow Wu-Tang member GZA in one segment of Jarmusch's Coffee and Cigarettes opposite Bill Murray. He was replaced by studio drummer Michael Urbano, who recorded on all of their following albums. He also created and produced the original music for the Quentin Tarantino film Kill Bill. After the release of Astro Lounge, Kevin Koleman quit the band due to lower back problems.

More recently he has moved into composing film scores, earning praise for his hip-hop score to Jim Jarmusch's Ghost Dog - The Way of the Samurai, and appearing for a brief cameo in the film itself. The Astro Lounge single "All Star" was a popular hit in mid-1999, and it was featured on the soundtracks for the movies Mystery Men and later Rat Race; "All Star" was followed by a second single, "Then the Morning Comes". In 2003 he also released an album of collaborations with international rap and R&B musicians (including France's Saļan Supa Crew and Germany's Xavier Naidoo) entitled The World According to RZA, which was successful in many countries, despite not being sold in the USA. Although it presented new, innovative sounds, the album still proved catchy and listenable, and was a big hit with younger fans. Both Digital Bullet and Birth Of A Prince received mixed reviews from the press and fans. Much more laid-back, mature, and retro-sounding than Fush Yu Mang, Astro Lounge proved that the band had matured as musicians. Birth Of A Prince spawned the hit single We Pop, and featured a mix of lighthearted Bobby Digital tracks and more lyrically high-browed RZA tracks. In 1999 Smash Mouth released their second album, Astro Lounge.

After another Wu-Tang group album, RZA released another Bobby Digital album, 2001's Digital Bullet, and in 2003 released Birth of a Prince, his first album released as The RZA. A few other songs, such as "Disconnect the Dots" and "Nervous in the Alley", the latter of which was released as a cut for airplay, revealed a more distressed side. In 1998, after the second Wu-Tang Clan album Wu-Tang Forever, RZA released his first solo effort titled RZA as Bobby Digital in Stereo, an experimental concept album featuring him rapping as his alter-ego Bobby Digital, which received mixed reviews. It was filled with songs suggesting a hard-partying, beer-and-gambling image combined with some connoisseurial cultural tastes, like "Let's Rock", "Heave-ho", "Beer Goggles" and "Padrino". He also took part in the Gravediggaz, an off-and-on rap supergroup including Frukwan of Stetsasonic and Prince Paul. The single was a kicker for their album entitled Fush Yu Mang, whose title was written in a font suggesting Oriental characters. While continuing with the Wu-Tang Clan, RZA produced many of their solo albums, for Ghostface Killah, GZA, Ol' Dirty Bastard and Method Man. Its retro style just in time for the thirtieth anniversary of the Summer of Love and well-written rhymes such as "This is a love attack/I know 't went out but it's back/It's just like any fad/It retracts before impact" helped garner it a lot of airplay.

The album was incredibly successful, revolutionizing hip hop; one of the major reasons was RZA's sparse, lean production that made the sound distinctive. It presented a Generation X view about the decade that brought us the hippie movement and the movement's later abandonment by the generation that had brought it about. Once this acclaimed local band dissolved, then-Prince Rakeem started going by RZA (pronounced "the rizza") and joined the Wu-Tang Clan for their debut, Enter the Wu-Tang: 36 Chambers. Smash Mouth first broke out into popularity in 1997 after releasing their single "Walkin' on the Sun", a song loosely based on a relatively obscure song from 1966, "Swan's Splashdown" by Perrey and Kingsley. He got his start in the late 1980s and early 1990s as a member of the All in Together Now Crew along with future Wu-Tang members GZA and Ol' Dirty Bastard. Greg Camp is the guitarist/songwriter, while Paul De Lisle is the bassist and Kevin Coleman is the drummer. He is also known as Prince Rakeem, Bobby Steels, the Abbott, the Rzarector, Ruler Zig-Zag-Zig-Allah and Bobby Digital, but best known as the RZA. The band is headed by vocalist Steven Harwell.

Robert Diggs (born July 5, 1969) is the record producer and a leader in the hip hop crew the Wu-Tang Clan. The band adopts retro styles that actually cover several decades of popular music, as well as performing remakes of several blasts from the past such as "I'm a Believer" and "Why Can't We Be Friends". For help, see How to Edit a Page and the Style and How-to Directory. Their genre of music is sometimes called "neo-ska". After the article has been cleaned up, you may remove this message. Smash Mouth is an alternative band from San Jose, California that formed in 1994. This article needs to be cleaned up to conform to a higher standard of article quality. Get the Picture? (2003).

Smash Mouth (2001). The East Bay Session - collection of early material (1999). Astro Lounge (1999)