Features

GZA Still Loves Chess!

By Jo Fuertes-Knight

OK, deep breaths while you collectively cream your pants Wu Tang fans, but GZA is releasing an extra special edition of classic Liquid Swords with, wait for it, A MINI CHESS SET. Obviously, it will also include a remastered version of GZA's 1995 classic, an instrumental of the album and a 20-page book, with a collection of original album and single artwork, and blah, blah, blah... Who cares? It comes with a chess set! God Bless the GZA for making nerdery and chess cool, long before D'Angelo explained it in The Wire.

But, before I've even got my paws on it, here's a wild guess as to what a Wu Tang chess set might consist of:

PAWN: U-God

The first casualty of chess, pawns are always getting caught out. Or, in U-God's case, caught with a shit-ton of drugs and jailed before he could get a look-in on album 36 Chambers, otherwise known as the incredible record that made them all really famous. Poor U-God, he's destined never to reach the back of the board.

BISHOP: Raekwon

You always kinda forget about Bishops, until you suddenly see a diagonal race-track right up to the King, then it's BOOM straight across the board. Raekwon's one for keeping his head down between projects, but then he goes and releases another Cuban Linx levels classic, and has the rap world by it's balls all over again.

KNIGHT: Ghostface Killah

Look, you may be able to leap over other opponents when you feel like it, but you're difficult as shit to budge when you don't want to move. Ghost may have moments of brilliance like Supreme Clientele, that have you debating whether he's the greatest rapper going, but a lot of the time he's just sitting back twiddling his thumbs, or listlessly hawking t-shirts at an empty gig, while the rest of Wu are like, "WTF are you doing? Get back to work."

ROOK: Method Man

The rook's a very straightforward bro, who, like Meth, has a pretty solid standing. You just can rely on him to keep banging out anthems, without worrying if he's going to pull some weird shit like putting out a five-hour-long album of minimal house. Sometimes though he can get caught out with some pretty shocking moves.

QUEEN: RZA

Rapper, producer, screenwriter, composer, RZA is forever making power moves. And like the Queen, he's reached the point where he can do pretty much whatever he damn pleases. "Fancy being an author RZA?" "Yup, I'm gonna write a book on the motherfucking meaning of life."

KING: GZA

Because he's just released a frickin' chess set.