News recently broke that Wu-Tang Clan’sRZAwas tackling a new form of music for an important reason. As addressed bya Good Humor Instagram postin June, a number of common ice cream truck jingles, like “Turkey in the Straw,” have racist origins, and the company vowed to do something to change that. How they were going about making that change was unveiled last week when news broke that the company was teaming with RZA to craft a new jingle.
While chatting with The RZA for the release of this new film,Cut Throat City, I couldn’t let the interview end without putting the spotlight on this initiative. Check out what he had to say about the process of landing on the right version to best suit Good Humor’s goals for this new jingle:
“The most important thing was to end on something that could somehow have a spark of joy in it. That was made in a home with my wife, my son and it was just made with purity. And I just kept going! I ended up sending them three different ones. And according to Good Humor feedback, one sounded very joyful, but it sounded more Christmas. The other sounded very joyful, but it sounded lullaby. And the one we landed on sounded joyful but it still had a little RZA in it, at least a spoonful of that Wu in it, they say. [Laughs] They wanted joy but they still wanted to have a stamp on it.”
While it is unfortunate jingles with such a history exist to begin with, The RZA had a mighty positive spin on the matter that could inspire change for the better well beyond this specific endeavor:
“For me the most important thing was to instill joy, especially when I heard that the old jingle had a negative energy to it. And not intentionally, I think. Nobody knew when it happened. But, the beauty about life, if you get a chance, if you can replace something negative with something positive - bah-bum.”
If you want to hear that batch of joy with a spoonful of Wu,click hereto give the new jingle a listen. And if you’re looking for more from The RZA on his journey in Hollywood, learning from icons likeQuentin TarantinoandJim Jarmusch, makingCut Throat Cityand so much more,click hereto check out his full episode of Collider Connected!
