RZA just did an interview with the New York Times magazine in which he discussed his film career, the mysterious Wu-Tang album Once Upon a Time in Shaolin and Capadonna's other career as a cab driver.
It's a fascinating and relatively quick read, but there was one part of the the interview that really stuck out. According to RZA, he will personally lose about a $500,000 on A Better Tomorrow, which drops on Dec. 2.
You’re paying for a lot of this record out of pocket, right? Studio time, musicians, everything? Everything. And I won’t recoup. I’m already overbudget. Maybe I’ll net out a half-million-dollar loss. Some people with half a million dollars, they buy themselves two fancy cars, or maybe a house. What did you buy yourself for half a million dollars? I invested in the album. Look, if I never did anything again in music, it wouldn’t affect my life materially. I live a very satisfying life. Not because I’ve made a few dollars, but because I have a wife who loves me and children who wait for me to come home. And that is beautiful. I think that’s the American dream: to be at peace at home.What do you think about RZA sacrificing so much of his own dime to make an album? Is it noble? Or is it a case of vanity trumping good business sense?