RZA

The musical leader of the Wu-Tang Clan, RZA (Robert Fitzgerald Diggs) was born in Brooklyn, and spent his childhood moving with his family to North Carolina, Ohio and Pittsburgh. His teens were troubled and he dealt drugs, deciding to turn his life around after being acquitted of an attempted murder charge. He turned to rapping instead, forming a couple of formative groups with his cousins Russell Jones and Gary Grice (later known as Ol' Dirty Bastard and GZA).

RZA made his own debut as a soloist, under the name Prince Rakeem, with a 12-inch single "Ooh I Love You Rakeem" on Tommy Boy in 1991. However the murder charge got him dropped from the label, and RZA went to Staten Island with his cousins to regroup. Taking its name from a kung fu movie, the Wu Tang Clan (now up to seven members) made its debut with the next year's "Protect Ya Neck" single and the album Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers), which RZA produced.

A platinum-selling and widely influential album, it took rap in new directions both lyrically (through the members' flamboyant personalities) and sonically (with RZA's use of classic soul and B-movie samples). The album also launched a New York hip-hop renaissance during the heyday of L.A. gangsta rap. RZA was also the first to break outside the group, launching the horrorcore genre with fellow New York rapper Prince Paul in his group Gravediggaz.

The sophomore album Wu-Tang Forever was a double LP that outdid the debut in terms of multiplatinum sales, critical acclaim and musical ambition: The first single "Triumph" was nearly six minutes and had no chorus, but featured all nine rappers then in the lineup. RZA also teased his later work by playing more keyboards and using fewer samples. Following a second Gravediggaz album, RZA made his solo debut with RZA as Bobby Digital in Stereo, which included much of the Clan and was designed as the soundtrack to an unmade movie.

Soundtrack work would occupy much of his energy in the coming years, starting with Jim Jarmusch's "Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai" (1998), in which he also had a cameo role. After scoring or acting in a further dozen films, RZA made his own directorial debut with the martial-arts film "The Man With the Iron Fists" (2010), which the Los Angeles Times called "one of the best bad movies ever." RZA also acted in, but didn't direct the 2015 sequel. His second movie "Love Beats Rhymes," a coming-of-age drama set in the rap world and starring Azealia Banks, was released in 2017.

Though far less prolific in the 2010s, the Wu-Tang Clan survived the 2005 death of Ol' Dirty Bastard. In 2015 RZA coproduced their double album Once Upon a Time in Shaolin, which was limited to a single copy and sold for $2 million. When the buyer turned out to be the controversial businessman Martin Shkreli, they donated some of the take to charity.