CMW Live: RZA @ the Phoenix THE PHOENIX – MARCH 9 - by Robert Lake - RZA is a producer more than he's a rapper. It's a fact. Even on stage he was constantly tweaking the levels: asking for the treble to be turned up on his mic, raising the master volume on the mixer himself and trading microphones with one of his back-up MCs to compensate for how he'd been leveled out of the mix (the back-up MC that is). That being said, as was pretty obvious that sound would be, from the beginning, the star of this show. The crowd wanted this show bad. They were going fucking mental the whole time. I give huge respect to the RZA for just how much hype he poured in there; it was totally against my expectations. At one point early in the show, he burst open a champagne bottle and soaked the whole front half of audience. General mayhem ensued throughout. The strongest moments, however, were when the RZA showed his intelligence and thoughtfulness both during and in between tracks, and in the way this contrasted with the madness of smoking joints, swigging wine, spraying champagne and ripping through his own vocal chords. A track delivered with as much soul and sincerity as "Grits," juxtaposed well against a death-obsessed classic like "1-800 Suicide Line." The lessons in early hip hop and the origin of Wu-Tang's Shaolin style rested perfectly between the monstrousness of speaker's on the verge of bursting open with bass and the 36-Chambers encore "Wu-Tang Clan Ain't Nothin to Fuck With." The whole way through, what really stood out about this show was the care the RZA clearly puts into crafting the perfect hip hop show: the talent he brings with him and gives fair chance to shine, the intensity he puts on like he was a hardcore lead MC and definitely not just a background producer, the hype he throws out like it was dollar bills, the meticulous tweaking and leveling of everything: the man from start to finish was producing the whole live experience.