Although having executive produced Hulu’s series "Wu-Tang: An American Saga," directed a handful of successful films, and acted in films and television series, the multi-hyphenate and lyrical legend RZA was still unsure of his chops before the fourth film he directed, "One Spoon of Chocolate," debuted at the Tribeca Film Festival earlier this year. After making the film and premiering it, RZA is confident in his evolution as a filmmaker.

After finding success as the head of hip-hop's most talented rap group that included Method Man, Inspectah Deck, GZA, U-God, Ol’ Dirty Bastard, Ghostface Killah, Masta Killah, and Raekwon, RZA extended his talents to acting on the big screen in films such as "American Gangster" (2007), "G.I. Joe: Retaliation" (2013) and "Nobody" (2021). He has also donned the director’s hat three times with "The Man With the Iron Fists" in 2012, "Love Beats Rhymes in 2017," and "Cut Throat City" in 2020.

Described as a film that will blow you away by Blair Underwood, RZA's fourth and arguably most ambitious film, "One Spoon of Chocolate," starring Shameik Moore as Unique and RJ Cyler as Ramsey, depicts a military veteran and formerly convicted criminal who is making attempts to get his life on the right track in a small town. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the narrative’s antagonists are a bunch of racists townspeople who incidentally are also connected to the small town’s corrupt cops. Ultimately, the film becomes a revenge thriller when Unique ends up seeking justice after a killing at the hands of the racists.

In talking about the film’s cinematic nostalgia, coupled with the way the film's events mirror modern-day issues with the Hollywood Reporter, RZA had this to say:

“Art is always going to somehow imitate life and pull from reality even though it’s putting you into a fiction world. [The film is] fiction, but it’s inspired by true events, whether they be events that I personally experienced, like the corruption in the film. I’m a lyricist type of artist. You hear [Wu Tang] lyrics like: 'I grew up on the crime side, The New York Times side, staying alive was no jive,' there’s a lot of content in it and taking life and putting it into a story. This is what’s happened in this film. Our hero, who is looking to just live a normal life and get on his feet, he’s in a place where things are not normal.”

When discussing the actor who played Unique, Shameik Moore, the filmmaker described him as a sponge. “He’s not a street guy, and so he didn’t even know how to hold the gun. And I was like, ‘well, this is how you hold the gun. This is how you load it.’ And the next take he held it, loaded it. It looked real. He shot it, it looked real.” 

“He’s a sponge and for me as a director, and a writer, you wanna have an instrument that allows the music to flow through unintruded and uninterrupted, and he’s that kind of kid,” RZA continued.

RZA also discussed his challenges in blending genres and pulling off the film. “The challenge was cost and time, but creatively, no. I feel like as a filmmaker, this is my fourth film, I honestly feel like I have arrived. When I was making this one, I just felt my rhythm, my use of my days, there was not a lot of overtime days. My planning was better. Everything about me as a filmmaker, I think has evolved.”