The philosophy of Wu
Rapper RZA drops fashion collection, new track at Asian Art Museum.
Drop parties are a distinctly new millennium phenomenon, so setting one among the treasures of the ancient world may have been a 21st century first.
This release party, the final “takeover” event of 2017 at the Asian Art Museum on Sept. 21, did double duty as a drop for 36 Chambers, the Bay Area clothing line by Mustafa Shaikh and Wu-Tang Clan cofounder RZA. Also debuting that night: the first track from “Wu-Tang: The Saga Continues,” the new hip-hop album set for release Friday, Oct. 13.
The museum’s takeover series focuses on “how great minds think differently,” and Wu-Tang’s RZA (pronounced “Rizza”) certainly fits the description. The 48-year-old rapper, producer and fashion designer, whose birth name is Robert Fitzgerald Diggs, is known for his signature “chopped” beats, East-West crosspollinations (WuTang Clan is named for the 1983 Hong Kong movie “Shaolin and the Wu Tang”) and his many side projects. He appeared in Jim Jarmusch’s 2003 film “Coffee and Cigarettes,” wrote the 2004 book “The WuTang Manual,” and directed the 2012 martial arts film “The Man With the Iron Fists” starring Russell Crowe.
RZA and Shaikh founded the 36 Chambers lifestyle brand in 2016. The name comes from the 1993 debut Wu-Tang album “Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers).” “Wu-Tang: The Saga Continues” is the first music release from 36 Chambers ALC. Like Wu Tang Clan’s music, the 36 Chambers brand is a melange of Asian aesthetics, classic hip-hop influences and contemporary trends.
“We’re back at the Asian, where the inspiration began,” said RZA in the first of his two public conversations that night with Jeff Chang, the executive director of Stanford’s Institute for Diversity in the Arts.
The collection showcased at the Asian Art Museum was inspired by a visit by RZA and Shaikh to the 2016 exhibition “Emperors’ Treasures,” which featured rare Chinese art from the collections of nine rulers dating from the 12th through the 20th centuries. The collection’s fall 2017 lookbook was also shot at the Asian Art Museum.
“When I saw the show, I said, ‘Wow, this covers a lot of what 36 Chambers is,’ ” RZA said in an earlier interview. “For us to take it to that space and do fashion (with the art), we felt so lucky. It’s such a cool well of ideas to pull from.”
Shaikh added, “We created 36 Chambers very much on the Wu philosophy and with Asian influences like in the exhibition. We felt it was only right to present the collection at the Asian Art Museum. We like to go full circle.”
Here’s Style’s play-by-play of how the WuTang takeover went down.