“Just flowed out of me”: Rapper and music producer RZA talks about his fourth film, One Spoon of Chocolate

Rapper and record producer RZA is back with another project. This time, it's a feature film, dubbed One Spoon of Chocolate. The film premiered at this year's Tribeca and is awaiting a theatrical release date. It's the fourth time RZA has worked on a feature-length production, which brings back familiar themes from his past work.

One Spoon of Chocolate is a revenge thriller, but the plot synopsis makes it clear that there's far more to it. Here's what it says,

"One Spoon Of Chocolate isn’t your average revenge thriller—it’s a bloody, unapologetic gut punch packed with purpose."

The project will bring back the Wu-Tang Clan members' love for martial arts, where kung-fu meets guns and roses. It's the kind of project that will get your juices flowing and blood boiling as the protagonist fights the bad guys in a bid for respect and survival. To write his tale, RZA followed a similar creative process as he did while writing rap lyrics.

"It came to me like, man, over the years. I mean, it was 13 years of getting to a point of finally having a screenplay that we could film. To be quite frank with you, the movie is like 100 pages of a 200-page story, and it came to me almost like how my lyrics come, not forced out of me, just flowed out of me," RZA told The Hollywood Reporter.

RZA's One Spoon of Chocolate isn't set in any particular time, and there's a reason for it

RZA's crime thriller stars the Spider-Verse star Shameik Moore as a military veteran leaving prison after being wrongfully accused of a crime. Usually, this is where a character finds a fresh start, but Unique (Moore's character) finds himself in yet another mess as the racists in his town of Karensville turn his life upside down.

To follow Unique's story, the rapper stayed conscious of the past and the present. It led him to not define what era the film is set in. He kept the time ambiguous, knowing that these things have happened and can still happen at any time.

"This could be happening right now, even though Karensville is a fictional place, the idea of what our hero is going to go through, that could happen tomorrow, in all reality," the rapper-filmmaker said.

This creative decision was also informed by his time on tour, where he stepped into towns that make you feel like you've stepped foot somewhere in the past.

"You end up stopping somewhere in a small town, and you’ll go ‘wow, this place, they’re 20 years behind us, 30 years behind us,’" he said.

While addressing themes of racism, RZA ensured that he introduced characters that would not align with those prejudices. Paris Jackson's character seemingly represented that.

"In our film, somebody says, ‘Oh, this is a racist town’ [about Karensville], but it’s not a racist town, it’s a town with racist people. And then Darla [Jackson’s character] will give you an example of that; she represents the new way that people will love our country to be," he said.

Despite these thematic complications, the filmmaker ensured that the movie is also entertaining and "makes you feel something." He was inspired by other filmmakers, including his past collaborators like Jim Jarmusch.

"I was just being conscious of all the things that I loved as a film watcher, all the things I love from the people who inspired me to make films, of course. John Wu, Jim Jarmusch, Quentin Tarantino, I always mentioned those three men as my first teachers in this world."

Yet, RZA didn't want it to go overboard with introducing every single thing he loves in this movie.

"I just wanted to put a spoonful of all of that into my story, but not overdo it. It’s not gumbo, but it is a stew."

As revealed earlier, RZA's One Spoon of Chocolate is yet to have its theatrical release date.

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