GZA @ Marquee Theatre

Space is the place. It is the (claimed) birthplace of legendary jazz composer Sun Ra, it's where Captain James T. Kirk boldly traveled, and it was there to give Cold War strategists something else to think about as people raced for the moon. It's also where acclaimed hip-hop artist and...

By Glenn BurnSilver

September 27, 2012

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Space is the place. It is the (claimed) birthplace of legendary jazz composer Sun Ra, it's where Captain James T. Kirk boldly traveled, and it was there to give Cold War strategists something else to think about as people raced for the moon. It's also where acclaimed hip-hop artist and founding Wu-Tang Clan member GZA is gathering inspiration for his upcoming album, Dark Matter. An avid fan of science and the cosmos, in particular, GZA — real name Gary Grice — first conceived the concept to lay out the Big Bang in rap form after expounding on the notion that Saturn's rings were actually a record. "God put the needle on the disc of Saturn / The record he played revealed blueprints and patterns," GZA raps on the album, which he's called "cosmological." A high school dropout, the rapper also known as The Genius always has been guided by his curiosity, and the mysteries of science hold great interest. Dark Matter, which he claims is "clean" since denouncing profanity in rap music, is designed to promote science to school children and, at the very least, get adults to wonder about that giant turntable in the sky.

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