RZA – Net Worth, Money and More
NET WORTH: $ 18 MILLION
SOURCE OF INCOME:
RZA has earned his net worth through his acting roles in films, as well as directing, and through his musical career as a solo performer and with other artists. He has also composed scores for movies.
BIRTH, CHILDHOOD AND EARLY LIFE:
RZA was born on July 5, 1969 in Brownsville, Brooklyn, New York, USA as Robert Fitzgerald Diggs to parents of 10 children including him. His family lived in poverty. He grew up in a single bedroom apartment. Until he was 7 years old, he lived in North Carolina with his uncle who encouraged him to read and study. He always wanted to be from his early childhood the best rapper this Earth has seen, ever since he heard hip-hop at a block party on Staten Island when he was just 8 years. He was later soon introduced to hip-hop music and by eleven, he started to compete in rap battles. He continued this saga of rap battles until he relocated in 1990 to Steubenville of Ohio. He lived with his mother there. During the weekends he would go to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania where his father ran a convenience store in the city’s Hill District.
CAREER IN MUSIC:
RZA started engaging himself with Hip-Hop music and started participating in rap battles and gradually climbed the ladder of success in the industry. During early 80′s he along with his cousins GZA and Ol’ Dirty Bastard formed a group by name “All In Together Now. He first started his official musical career with Tommy Boy Records in 1991 under the name Prince Rakeem with the Ooh I Love You Rakeem EP. He then started the Wu-Tang Clan and started producing nearly everything Wu-Tang released during 1994-1996. He became known for his skills of producing in both the hip-hop sense and in the wider music sense. He also released a hit single of his own, in the form of Wu-Wear: The Garment Renaissance. The song was featured on the High School High soundtrack, and was released to coincide with the Wu-Tang clothing brand. It peaked at #60 on the Billboard Hot 100, and #6 on the Hot Rap Singles chart.
RZA then in 1997 for the first time ever started delegating duties which offered other producers in the Wu-Tang camp to produce a small number of beats. The producers were True Master and Inspectah Deck. He then started composing film scores in 1999 and his first work was Jim Jarmurch’s Ghost Dog. He later has formed the band Achozen with team members comprising of Shavo Odadjian, Kinetic 9 and Reverend William Burke. Their music also appeared on Babylon AD, a major motion picture. Their song “Deuces” is heard blaring at the introduction of the film. The four principal members feel that their unique sound is not only spiritual in nature, but a new genre of “heavy hip hop”.
ACTING CAREER:
RZA was first offered with the role of “Brown” in the movie “The Departed” in 2006. Due to some scheduling conflicts he had to turn it down. He was busy with his musical projects at that time. But later he was cast into some cameo roles in films like Funny People, Due Date, Gospel Hill, Ghost Dog and Life Is Hot In Cracktown. But that’s not it! He even featured in a soundtrack Kill Bill. Later, in 2010, his fans could see him acting in a sciencr fiction action film “Repo Men”. He then also acted in select movies like Derailed, Coffee and Cigarattes, American Gangster and also went on to play the role of the Blacksmith in his own directorial “The Man With The Iron Fists”. He didn’t stop there. He went a long way ahead and acted in films like G.I. Joe: Retaliation, Tom Yum Goong 2 and also for a television series titled “Californication”. In GI Joe his role was of the Blind Master and in Tom Yum Goong 2, he was the deadly main villain “Mr. L.C”. He played the role of Samurai Apocalypse in 9 episodes for the TV series “Californication”.
DIRECTORIAL DEBUT:
RZA directed his first feature film, The Man with the Iron Fists, in 2011, from a script he wrote the previous year.
ACHIEVEMENTS:
RZA was in the number 4 position among the top 50 Hip-Hop Producers on About.com. He was placed in the list of twenty greatest producers during The Source’s twenty year history. Vibe made his “Elite 8″ in the search for The Greatest Hip-Hop Producer of All Time. He was also put in the 50 Greatest Producers Ever list created by NME.
MARRIED LIFE:
RZA was previously married to Eboni Mills since July 2000 and got divorced in 2006 after knowing that in 2005, Talani had given birth to RZA’s son. Talani was looking after his son with Eboni when a relationship grew between the both. Later on August 29, 2009 Talani Rabb and RZA got married to each other.
STYLE AND BELIEFS:
RZA is often seen wearing a pendant of the Universal Flag of Islam, the symbol of the Nation of Gods and Earths, around his neck. He usually talks about NGE Culture which includes the Supreme Mathematics and the Supreme Alphabet. He also considers his view points on Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism, Islam and Christianity. He is more often seen talking about expanding the spiritual growth in his book ‘The Wu-Tang Manual’. His favorite books include the Quran, the Bible and the Lotus Sutra as they contain enlightenment. He loves watching martial arts films and also known as an encyclopedia of martial arts films. Chess is what he is also well know about and he is a Director of Development and Champion of the Hip-Hop Chess Federation.
