I Interviewed GZA and All He Wanted To Talk About Was Chess

When it came to my attention that GZA, on the Melbourne arm of the Wu-Tang Clan’s Australian tour with Nas, would be playing a speed chess tournament in Fitzroy to celebrate the launch of local whiskey brand The Gospel’s new event series, The Fanatics, I said, what? 

GZA. The Genius. Credited as the spiritual leader and amalgamator of the Wu-Tang Clan. Lyrical God. Chess lover. It made some kind of sense.

The event was held at a community hall, or maybe a church – vaulted ceilings, lush carpets, and a big cream wall where the chess matches were projected for everyone to get a birds’ eye view of the game. A crowd gathered in front of the stage where GZA was seated, head down, playing his opponents in focused silence. Wu-Tang blared out from a single speaker, and every once in a while the crowd would erupt in cheers.

I was granted time for an interview. GZA, to me, had always seemed a profound, chill, smart guy. I was going to ask him for life advice. I was going to ask him his personal, greatest achievement, what his favourite beverage was, and what he thought of the state of modern hip-hop. I was going to ask him whether he ever listened to any young newcomers, and who his favourites were.

But, I was informed, GZA only wanted to talk about chess.

All good. I know nothing about chess. 

Almost nothing. I understand the basics – white plays first, knights, pawns, capture the queen, checkmate, et cetera. But, by some divine accident, I’ve never played.

I was already terrified to meet the Genius. I believe Liquid Swords is one of the greatest hip-hop albums of all time, and it’s definitely my personal favourite. But chess just happens to be one of the last subjects I could chat about with confidence.

I ran my questions past a tournament player I’d been introduced to, who, by some grace, just happened to have beaten GZA in a match. 

“Yeah, ask him his go-to opener, but then you won’t understand the answer,” he said.

“I won’t pretend to know, but I’ll just ask another question after that,” I said.

“That’s a good strategy.”

Strategy. Exactly. Chess is all about strategy. 

I was ready.

VICE: Hello GZA. How are you? You just played – what? 20 rounds of chess?

GZA: I feel good. Gotta take off this fuckin’ shoe – I’m sorry.

Please, get comfortable. Have you ever been chess-ed out before? Is there such a thing to you?

Like burnt out from playing? That usually probably happens online, you get tired. That’s the only burnt out I can think of. But, I love to play. Now, sometimes enough is enough. If I’m with a friend or a family member, we might play ten games and then aight, if either one of us is losing too much, it gets to the point: aight, I’m done. You get tired, at some point, if you’ve had enough for the day, and the next day you’re ready again.

That makes sense. I was curious, what are the biggest lessons you have learned about life through chess?

So many. It involves critical thinking, planning ahead, strategising – it’s very helpful, on many different levels, and sometimes I can be dealing with a situation, or… anything, and I would think of chess and relate whatever I was doing with the chess board – a certain opening, or a tactic.

Strategy is life.

Yeah. That’s just the way chess works. You may have to pick and choose between two jobs: Oooh should I work there? Should I work here? If I work here, they pay me more, or whatever. If I work there, it’s a closer commute. But over here, the health benefits are better, but over here, it’s not as…. So you weigh and judge, you pick and choose, and that’s chess.

I’m sure this is Googleable information but I didn’t Google it, have you played against any grandmasters?

I have.

Have you beaten any?

Of course not. Anything can happen in a chess match, but it would be extremely hard for me to beat a grandmaster [laughs]. The grandmaster would have to blunder, really blunder. Just totally fuck up. Maybe even two or three mistakes. To be a grandmaster, to even get to that level, is hours and hours of games and study. I’ve played two grandmasters. They played me blindfolded.

Bullshit.

Yeah. Blindfolded doesn’t necessarily mean they had something tied around their head. Their back was turned to the board, and they were just calling out the moves. And so they were playing in their head, and playing against me. One just last year.

Wow. Did you enjoy that experience?

I did. But it’s kind of – I don’t know if I would use this word – humiliating.

Right. But was it like, you would know what was going to happen but you do it anyway, for the experience?

I mean, it was a challenge. But, they didn’t have to move the pieces, they moved them in their mind. Someone was moving the pieces for them. And another time, when I was playing another grandmaster who’s a friend of mine, Maurice Ashley, he was in a laundromat one time, this was maybe like 15 years ago – yo tell these dudes to get –

[At this point we realise the odd scratching noise that’s been happening throughout the interview was caused by a gaggle of boys peeking in through the window behind me at GZA with hungry eyes, phones in hand, recording, probably. God knows how long they’d been there. GZA’s manager leapt up to close the blinds on them]

We pause to wonder if they’ve been there the whole time.

GZA: It’s ok, it’s ok. They probably saw me rubbing my foot.

But, yeah, he was playing and I was moving pieces for him, because he didn’t have a board, the board was in his mind. The algebraic notation of the board, the letters, and the numbers. I was defeated. But if you think about it, for a grandmaster, or any chess player to be able to play in their head like that, there’s so much study in that, hours required, to get to that level.

Who would you most like to play chess with, dead or alive?

Bobby Fischer, I’d like to play him. He’s one of the greats. There’s so many good grandmasters. If you play chess, and you’re at a certain level, and you read books, you know a lot of names of grandmasters and all that. But if you do not…. Let me give an example. Like Kasparov. So many people know him, people that don’t even play chess. He was the champion for many years. And so his name is synonymous with chess. But some people outside that world would probably know his name, because of his political standpoint, things that happened in Russia, and being in exile. Bobby Fischer, he had a movie, Searching for Bobby Fischer. Although it was about another chess player. He had some interesting documentaries.

So for you, it’s like, you want to be challenged by the best grandmasters that have been?

I mean, it wouldn’t really be a challenge for them. It’d be a challenge for me.

Right. You are about the challenge, to challenge yourself?

Yeah.

So you wouldn’t wanna play against someone… random?

I do. I play online, with randoms, from all different countries, on chess.com. I was playing with randoms tonight. How do you mean random, because random sounds…

Yeah. My bad, I meant more so ‘random’ in the sense that they’re a celebrity, or someone who isn’t necessarily a chess player, who you’d like to play against. But then I couldn’t think of any examples so I said ‘random’…

I wouldn’t mind playing with a celebrity. There are a lot of celebrities who play chess, especially in the music world. I think Jay Z plays, maybe Jamie Foxx, Derrick Rose. So many entertainers play chess. Derrick Rose is having a celebrity chess match, some sort of celebrity chess festival…

[Manager chimes in]: Chesstival.

VICE: Chesstival?

GZA: Yeah Chesstival. Like festival?

[I’m laughing] Sounds great. Wonderful information. I think that’s the thing. Chess is played by smart people everywhere, no matter your profession, or what you’re up to. There are great chess players everywhere.

Yeah, I mean, chess is amazing. Monopoly doesn’t compare. Checkers is not in its league. And more and more people are becoming interested in chess. I mean, since The Queen’s Gambit… Have you watched that?

I haven’t watched it myself.

Oh you gotta watch Queen’s Gambit. Amazing. After that was released, at one time, chess sales went up 400 per cent. 

That’s incredible. What influence… [struggling not to overshare that an ex made me watch the first episode and so I haven’t returned to it as it is tainted]

Yeah. Really good show. It’s focused on chess, but they had underlying things going on.

Is it your favourite piece of chess media?

Chess media. Hmm…

[To manager, who is making eye contact] What, you wanna tell me something?

Manager: It’d probably be your favourite TV series period, right?

GZA: Yeah. That would be it for me. But I’m thinking outside of the movies and stories. The Flipboard app has a chess section in it that’s really, really good. I have it on my iPad. They have science, sports, fashion. So, they have one called ‘the mine of chess’, I think, or ‘chess mine’. And it’s really good, because they don’t really talk about the moves or strategies of the game. It speaks about the importance of the game. 

That’s cool. I like that. I have a question. Do you have a go-to first move in chess?

Yeah. E4. Or D4. Those two are usually the first. Every game I played tonight was E4 or D4.

And do you have a preferred colour?

No. Either or. But I play with white more than I play with black. As with tonight, I was playing white most of the time.

Yeah, I noticed that. 

Every now and then I’ll give the opponent an option to choose white or black. Sometimes I give them an option. Because you have to learn how to play both sides. In a game of baseball, basketball or football, you’re not only playing defence, you’re playing offence. 

That’s all my questions. Did you have anything else you wanted to say?

No. I just go with the flow.

Cool, that’s great. Thank you so much for your time, I really appreciate it.

Thank you.

Oh, what chess piece are you?

The king.

Of course [everybody laughs]

*The original version of this article referencing the great chess player “Casper Robb” has been corrected.

Photos by Jordan Coles.

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