Denied a future by the legacy of Western colonialism, this descendant of the Black Diaspora set out to form a mythological empire that would rattle the very foundations of the skyscraper that America built: advanced capitalism. The man the Wu-Tang Clan know as The Abbott has forged a career out of such brilliant self-transformations. At the heart of everything, though, lies raw, beautiful talent. As the millennium draws closer, RZA's Wu cosmos remains in a state of glorious flux. 'Everything is still migrating,' he declares. 'It's infiltrating the regular world.'

And all this ingenuity from the individual who claims to have thought up hip-hop's most oft-abused expression -- 'keep it real'.

The fourth of 11 children, Diggs was raised by his battling mother. Early in the piece, his family left Brooklyn for the notorious Killer Hill projects of New York's Staten Island. Like a ghetto Bronte, Diggs found escape in the fantasy worlds he created for himself, inspired by comic heroes, kung-fu flicks, hip-hop, whatever. It was his cousin, GZA, who introduced the pre-teen Robert to the life-changing Five Percent-derived Mathematics, a philosophy of empowerment. Born of the African-American urban experience, it essentially promotes both self-knowledge and the belief that the righteous God is manifest in every Black man. Still, Diggs spent his youth living precariously in the ghetto. But, eventually, this b-boy's own inventiveness, and socio-political consciousness, got the better of him.

In the early 90s, Diggs released his first record, "Ooh I Love You Rakeem", on Tommy Boy under the name Prince Rakeem. Without doubt, Rakeem was on some corny pre-playa shit. The joint even featured female singers on the chorus. And it did nothing. Rakeem put it all down to experience. He then formulated a plan that would forever change the face of hip-hop -- and with it popular culture.

Resurfacing as RZA (or The Rzarector), he pulled together a group of his homeboys from Shaolin (Staten Island). They called themselves the Wu-Tang Clan. Their raw first posse-cut, "Protect Ya Neck", was an underground hit when released independently. It represented the prototype for what RZA would later describe as his blunted soul. The Wu's debut album, "Enter The Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)", dropped on the fledgling Loud in 1993. "Enter" signalled the beginning of the first wave of The Wu Revolution. It blew up. In an unprecedented move, RZA negotiated solo deals for several of the Wu members (Method Man, Ol' Dirty Bastard, Chef Raekwon, GZA and Ghostface Killah). Each has enjoyed varying levels of pop success. For his own part, RZA joined forces with Prince Paul, Poetic and Frukwan to form the Gravediggaz. Last year, the Wu's soph, "Wu-Tang Forever", heralded the second wave. The Wu-Tang confirmed their status as one the most popular rap outfits ever. And so, in just five years the Wu have taken the old skool's indie entrepreneurialism to the next level. Theirs is the corporate model the Fugees are now emulating. As RZA himself once put it: 'We ain't coming in to be part of an industry. Wu-Tang is coming in to be the new industry.' Indeed, RZA's Wu enterprise today also encompasses the underground Wu-Tang Records (Killarmy), the larger scale Razor Sharp Records, (Ghostface), Wu-Tang Productions and the Wu-Wear apparel chain.

RZA has been alluding to his solo masterpiece ever since he inked a million dollar deal with the East Coast-based Gee Street about two years ago. But, flying in the face of expectations, the first fruit of this deal is a soundtrack project: "RZA As Bobby Digital In Stereo". Except that this is no ordinary OST

In recent times, Wu watchers have wondered if RZA isn't on the brink of burn-out. He's actually hinted at retiring from the studio. To this end, he has passed on his knowledge to novice producers (4th Disciple, True Master). Increasingly, the various Wu acts have been left to their own devices. RZA has proceeded to challenge himself by working more with outsiders: The Notorious BIG, Ras Kass, Charli Baltimore, Bjork, even Scottish rockers Texas. In fact, that other savant, Bjork, proved to be one of the most rewarding. 'It was a good experience with Bjork, because her appreciation of music was so similar to mine,' he enthuses. 'I also learned some things.' Rather than withdrawing from the studio, RZA now seems to be further developing his musicianship. ('I've become really good at the piano.') It's here that "Bobby Digital" enters the picture. With this project, RZA endeavours to reinvent the Shaolin sound, which he realises has been pillaged by a new generation of post-Wu beatmakers. He's using fewer samples in favour of his array of keyboards. What's more, he has effectively put the boogie into the Wu. 'There's upbeat, danceable tracks, but I've still got the slow tempo ones,' he says of the LP. 'I've always been into strange orchestrated music. This particular album is like a digital orchestra. And the digital orchestra is my attempt now to make music that can be written in notation and performed again by a live orchestra -- that's the basic sound of it. But it's also like a fusion of different forms of music. I used different drum templates than I usually use. I mean, I'm known for the boom-boom-bap, but now I have drum templates that are very awkward, and also my rhyme style fits the templates. Sometimes I was stuck with just the drum plates based on the artists that I was working with, or how they like to perform their lyrics, but now, at this level of the game, it's like there's no limitation, because it's me. And instead of me being someone who just makes beats as a beatmaker, I've become what is known as a songwriter. I would describe myself these days as a songwriter.'

Pivotal to this sonic experiment is RZA's latest persona, Bobby Digital, who could almost be seen as the original Prince Rakeem's nemesis. 'He's coming to bring the b-boy back to hip-hop -- like, hip-hop has been watered down again, even though Wu-Tang came and told them to keep it real, and came with the raw underground, and we brought the underground to the surface, it seems that they put more gravel on top of it, so Bobby Digital was the next attack against commercial hip-hop. He's the total b-boy.' Something like a character from a Blaxploitation comic strip, Bobby is also the penultimate playa, invested with supernatural powers and revealing a predilection for technological sorcery.

Likewise, Bobby Digital is the protagonist in RZA's first movie, which he also conceived, directed and produced (there was no script as such -- somewhat ingeniously, the dialogue was improvised, or to couch it in the hip-hop tongue, freestyled). And so RZA is joining other rap entrepreneurs (like Dr Dre, Master P and Jay-Z) who have made interesting forays into indie movie-making. 'The music itself is what sparked the idea to do the film,' RZA explains, 'whereas in most cases it would be a film that sparked the idea for a soundtrack.' He compares "Bobby Digital" to the classic 70s soundtracks such as Isaac Hayes' "Shaft" or Curtis Mayfield's "Superfly" or Marvin Gaye's "Trouble Man". 'It's all about Bobby Digital,' says RZA. 'It's all about his world.'

So where does RZA's comic strip b-boy spring from? 'You can't even trace his beginnings. Some say that he's a persona of RZA. Some say he's just a fragment of RZA's imagination. Some say he's a hallucination. Some say he came about when RZA developed a serum in his laboratory and separated him from something else. But Bobby Digital likes to think that he is his own man. So it's hard to say where he comes from.'

RZA insists that he needed to exorcise Bobby from his psyche before he could advance to his debut album proper, "The Cure", due next year. 'That's gonna be a very mature, spiritual, intimate album -- a lot of personal stuff. I think it will be a very striking album. It will definitely be one of the greatest albums of hip-hop. "Bobby Digital" itself is gonna be a great album for hip-hop and a great album for the b-boy, but the RZA's will not only be a great album for hip-hop, but I think it will also be a great album for the world, because the knowledge and the information that is being presented and the real intimate, humorous feeling of a man connected to his true self -- the connection of God with self -- is something that is really dear.'

As it turns out, RZA (who admires the directors Francis Ford Coppola, Oliver Stone and, naturally enough, John Woo) regards the "Bobby Digital" movie as his inevitable first assault on Hollywood. 'I laugh at the movie sometimes, only because I'm a virgin in the film world, and, being a virgin in the film world, I'm kinda nervous and shy,' he chuckles. 'It was like a childhood dream coming true . . . Truthfully, this film is something I really wanted to do to launch a film career. I think people will recognise me a little more in the film business.' Of course, what he is angling for is a big budget. It's long been RZA's desire to make a Wu-Tang movie, 'to help explain where we come from and how we think.'

In the interim, RZA continues to enlarge the Wu corporation, having just opened a new Wu-Tang Records office in Paris -- the Hip-Hop Nation's latest outpost. 'Hip-hop is expanding to be a worldwide thing, and Paris is definitely in love with the Wu-Tang sound. In fact, most of the artists sound like I made their music!'

RZA's long-term agenda is to gather together all the various Wu affiliates under his own corporate umbrella. This way the Wu will be more autonomous and RZA can exercise greater control over the marketing of each project. But he is realistic about such a manoeuvre. '[It will be] a very difficult task,' RZA laughs. 'The corporate world will not allow that, but I'm definitely attempting my best to do it, because, you know, some labels don't put enough love into my projects.' And with RZA, that is intrinsically what the Wu is all about: the love of hip-hop, family and life itself.

RZA As Bobby Digital In Stereo is out through V2.