Wu-Tang Clan leader RZA has signed with WME in all areas, The Hollywood Reporter and Billboard have exclusively learned. He was previously at CAA.
WME will also represent the Wu-Tang brand, which RZA solely owns and whose apparel collection is a top seller worldwide for Live Nation Merchandise. RZA produced the Wu-Tang Clan’s seven studio albums, of which more than 40 million copies have been sold worldwide. This includes the 1993 debut Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers), considered one of the greatest hip hop albums of all time, its 1997 quadruple-platinum follow-up Wu-Tang Forever and 2015’s Once Upon a Time in Shaolin, of which only one copy was pressed and sold.
RZA made his directorial debut with 2012’s The Man With the Iron Fists, in which he starred as the title character and penned the script alongside producer Eli Roth. He is in post-production on his directorial follow-up, the Lionsgate rap and poetry drama Coco, starring Azealia Banks, Common, Jill Scott and Lorraine Toussaint.
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RZA’s acting credits include Paul Walker’s final film Brick Mansions, Fox’s Gang Related (as a series regular) and Ridley Scott’s American Gangster, for which he shared a SAG nomination with the rest of the cast.
As a composer, RZA, who received a BAFTA nomination for Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill: Vol. 1, was invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ music branch this year. He has contributed original music to several films, television shows and video games, and is partnering with Atari to record an album inspired by iconic sounds from the video game publisher’s library.
RZA has partnered with Interpol frontman Paul Banks to form musical duo Banks & Steelz, which released their debut collaborative album Anything But Words in August. And finally, as an author RZA penned 2005’s The Wu-Tang Manual, the definitive compendium of all things related to the legendary hip hop group, as well as 2009’s The Tao of Wu, which focuses on his personal journey.
RZA continues to be represented by attorney Joe Carlone at King Holmes.