Spring Fling artist GZA and his cousin RZA have taken their longtime love of chess online.
On wuchess.com, you can “play live chess with people from all over the world and get your learn on. Create your own chess clans to see who can build the highest ranking. Play in tournaments for prizes, or just for the joy of flexin’ ya mentals.”
According to the NYTimes:
RZA, 38, learned the game when he was 11, from a girl who, as he writes in the manual, also took his virginity. Though he and his cousin GZA, another founder of the group, both love chess, they did not play much when they were younger because, GZA said, they were too poor to own a board.
Now they play chess almost every day, and RZA, holder of the Hip-Hop Chess Federation belt — a trophy he picked up last fall at a tournament in San Francisco that featured rappers and martial-arts experts — is turning his interest into a business. On Monday he started WuChess, a Web site where fans can play chess online, chat, see scores of their games and other personal information, and get news about RZA and Wu-Tang.
Finally, the gangsta credibility chess has always needed. Although it might be an uncomfortably short step from the WuMasters’ endorsements of the game to a Tip Drill treatment.