Video Interview: The Rza For MTV.com

So, yeah, you knew this was coming after Jay Electronica took issue with a few comments Rza made years ago, publicly decrying the Abbot in an interview with SpineTV early last month...

Today, Rza got his Skype on and conversed with Sway about what he actually was speaking on back when he did the interview wih Rap Pages and even further expounded upon his statements.

Keeping it 100% respectful (except for admitting that he wasn't aware of who Jay was exactly, lol) Mr. Diggs schooled Sway on how in his view, the South, in just being the south, is repressive of black folks and does not provide too many outlets for any minority to truly discover knowledge of self. Referencing the very real fact that on the streets of Harlem you practically can bump into essential, enlightening reading documents like "The Isis Papers" and "Stolen Legacy" that exposed him to a new and much more efficient way of thinking, Rza makes a ton of valid points....

Sorry, I love my southern Hip-Hop counterparts but like Rza said, "truth is truth". The southern United States has time and again proven to be a place where people of color must put forth twice and three times as much effort to become aware of themselves. More often than not the artistic contributions that southern Hip-Hop artists have profited off of don't deal, in large part, with anything of substance or deep thought. LOL, not to say that any other region is incapable of reproducing the same kind of ignorance, but no region has been more devoid of aesthetic lyricism for the past 15 years than the south. Of course you must not include acts like Goodie Mob, Killer Mike, Outkast, Scarface, Little Brother, Supastition and Cuninlynguists--all of whom are just as worthwhile and self-aware as any of their contemporaries and have long been the beacon of hope for southern progression.

In a nutshell, to the south, we love ya'll, but ya'll gotta do better man...snap and crunk music is the height of what you contributed to the game and really that type of imprint isn't one your gonna wanna have ownership of 20 yrs. down the line. Wouldn't you rather be remembered for stylizations that are firmly rooted in art? Like east coast boom bap, or west coast G funk? Even better, what about the mid-western offerings of souled out, stuttery goodness that Dilla gave us? Think long and hard southerners, you should want to write a better page in Hip-Hop history and I think ya'll still have time to do so, but ya gotta start now. Ya'll gotta grow now...

-BIG D O