The 54-year-old creator gave up red meat in the mid-1990s, then chicken, fish and finally dairy and eggs. He has since partnered with People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, launched a vegan clothing line, and appeared in a surreal series of videos with fellow Wu-Tang members to promote White Castle’s meat-free Impossible Sliders.
“There was a generation that grew up with bodybuilding. When you’re a bodybuilder, you need a lot of protein. The assumption was that the strongest source of protein came from the animal. This was spread through culture, it was spread through movies. We didn’t know in the 80s that there was another way”
In a recent interview, RZA, whose real name is Robert Fitzgerald Diggs, talked about why he went vegan, the cultural connections between masculinity and meat, and how going meatless just a few days a week would help the planet.
Here are excerpts from that conversation RZA had with the NYT and reporter Cara Buckley, slightly edited for clarity.
“We have been taught many myths”
“For me [ο λόγος που σταμάτησα να τρώω κρέας], was the awareness. It was just the awareness of life itself. It is almost absurd, almost immoral. Why must the animal die so I can live? And then I learned that our digestive system has a hard time digesting red meat. As I became more informed, I began to consume less and less and then there was no point in eating a dead bird. Not even to eat a dead fish.”
“Evidence shows that we destroy our own atmosphere just for the pleasure, not the need. Meat and beef and all those burgers are food for pleasure, and we prefer to destroy our environment for our pleasure, and that’s stupid of us.”
“We have been taught many myths. When I ate meat, I could eat twenty chicken wings. I could easily eat three pieces of steak. At the end of the day, it definitely had an effect on my personality. I was definitely more aggressive and more aggressive for no reason. We have a country that had to build soldiers and factory workers. We had to make sure our population was growing. I think meat is necessary in times of war. But now in our world, the necessity of hunting has been eliminated and reduced. I feel that I have evolved, and the proof of that is my children who grew up, most of their lives, never having eaten red meat, chicken, only two are pescatarian [τρώνε δηλαδή μόνο ψάρια]. They are healthy, very intelligent, very talented young people.”
“For the black community, health has been a problem”
Regarding the association between meat and masculinity the rapper responded:
“There was a generation that grew up with bodybuilding. When you’re a bodybuilder, you need a lot of protein. The assumption was that the strongest source of protein came from the animal. This was spread through culture, it was spread through movies. We didn’t know in the 80s that there was another way.”
Journalist Cara Buckley brought to the table the fact that a larger percentage of black people self-identify as vegan compared to the rest of the population and whether the effects of climate change were enough to decide to follow a meat-free life.
“For the black community, health has been an issue, from obesity, high blood pressure, diabetes, all these different issues that have plagued our community for a number of years. I think as the generations have continued to evolve, we’ve started to notice that we’ve been giving up on certain things,” RZA said of the vegan black community.
While on the impact of climate change he said: “Evidence shows that we are destroying our own atmosphere just for pleasure, not necessity. Meat and beef and all those burgers are food for pleasure, and we prefer to destroy our environment for our pleasure, and that’s stupid of us. We must escape our tendency to fulfill our immediate gratification and sacrifice our long-term benefits.”
*With information from: NYT | Main Theme Photo: RZA | Instagram
