Perhaps one of the most iconic pieces of Hip Hop art comes from the comic book cover art of GZA’s seminal Liquid Swords. Now, in a recent interview with the Bishop Chronicles podcast, the Genius explains the origins of the artwork.
GZA explained that the image first came to his mind while playing a heated chess series against fellow Wu-Tang Clan alum Masta Killa. He said that the two had played upwards of 30 games while smoking weed when the vision of the chess pieces coming to life and battling one another first came to him. He added that he was thinking about propositioning it for the single art for “Da Mystery of Chessboxing,” but decided to save it for Liquid Swords.
“That [cover art] was something that I came up with, that was in 1992 – that was three years before the album,” recalled GZA. “I was actually playing Masta Killa in a game of chess, and around that time, he used to beat up on me a lot ‘cus I had just started playing again. I learned how to play when I was younger, then I didn’t start playing again until around that time [in] the early days of Wu. I would play with Killa, Jeru the Damaja, Afu-Ra, and all the brothers from East New York from Killa’s neighborhood. We were playing a game, and we may have played like 30 games that night, and the game was still in a checkmate position…and I was smoking weed, and you know how you smoke weed, you start really get[ting] all these thoughts and you start analyzing shit, and I started drawing the pieces how they were on the board like in that position…then I just started imagining how, ‘What if this knight had a guillotine in his hand? What if this person had this sword swinging?’ And I just thought of this whole war scene on the chessboard.”
He added, “I actually thought about presenting it for the ‘Chessboxing’ [single] cover…and then I thought like it was bigger than a single, so we used it for [Liquid Swords].”
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props too a legend i remember buying this album on tape an beeing blown away by the artwork..i think a dc comics artists brought his thoughts to life
“Then I just started imagining how, ‘What if this night had a guillotine in his hand? What if this person had this sword swinging?’ And I just thought of this whole war scene on the chessboard.”
Night= Knight.
Typical HipHopDX work. Can I get a job there? I mean, can I get a job they’re?
nice
A genius for real
Dopest album cover ever. Violent By Design and OB4CL… come close though.
GZA and Inspectah are slept on greats in the WuTang…
No Masta Killa?
Shut up GZA and release and album with production only from TRU, Math, Bronz and RZA.
stop begging hoe
Gza the greatest MC in Wu Tang Period
the single was called shadowboxing
get your facts straight
tell gza that, he says “chessboxin” in the podcast dummy
yo… its shadowboxing
funny how his tryin to change it tho
mystery of chessboxin is a single off enter the wu tang
so get your facts straight smart ass
You idiot GZA’s talking about the song The Mystery of Chessboxin from the Wu-Tang album, not shadowboxing
hire me i wont make mistakes
yup weed could make u think of crazy shit like that
cool story tho
Afu-ra!
Afu-ra!
.
Body of the Life Force = most slept on
“Picture bloodbaths and elevator shafts
Like these murderous rhymes tight from genuine craft
Check the print, it’s where veterans spark the letterings
Slow moving MC’s is waitin for the editin
The liquid soluble that made up the chemistry
A gaseous element, that burned down your ministry
Herbal vapors, and biblical papers
Smokin Exodus, every square yard is plush
Fuck the screw-faced photo sessions facial expression
leaves impressions, try to keep the sharp nigga guessin
Give crazy shouts son here’s the outcome
Cut across the semi-gloss rhymes with floss
Shit is outdated, just like neckloads of Sterlings
Suede-fronts, bell-bottoms, and tri-colored Shearlings
I ain’t particular, I bang like vehicular homicides
on July 4th in Bed-Stuy
But money don’t grown on trees and there’s thievin MC’s
Who cut-throat to rake leaves
They can’t breathe, blood splash, rushin fast
like runnin rivers, I be that whiskey in your liver”
defo a classic piece of cover artwork, to match a REAL classic album.
Dopest cover ever!
This reminds me, back in the early PC days (end 80s-early 90s) there was a chess game where the pieces were like real knights and when they “engaged in combat”, there was a lot of slashing, hacking and blood-spraying going on. There’s bound to be similar versions around nowadays, only with much nicer graphics
Greatest album of all time!
Illmatic?
shout out to Denys Cowan, who did the art duties for the cover.
As a white boy hip hop fan, this hurt my feelings a little bit as kid back in the day. The brothers hacking up the white boys with machetes seemed a little much. I remember reading that GZA had said that the white dudes were supposed to represent the A&R’s that fumbled his initial pre-Wu-tang tape Words from the Genius (which I owned– albeit dubbed). Funny how it isn’t even mentioned by anyone. Those were different times. The pro-black movement was in full swing and it was reflected in the music (think PE, X-Clan, etc.), that said I still felt like the cover was a low blow to some of the people that supported the Wu, like myself. This comment is coming from the heart and isn’t meant to spark a bunch of name calling and stuff. I love rap. I love the Wu. Thought the cover crossed the line though.
The fuck? Nah man the dude getting chopped on the cover is black hes just light skinned. Not even about race a little bit dawg, listen to GZA’s lyrics. The head’s he’s chopping are phonies, not real mother fuckers. There are real ones out there and fake, you hit the fake with the guillotine sword. Protect Ya Neck son.
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