TEC Innovation Award recipient RZA and TEC Awards host Jon Batiste. Batiste photo by: Justin French.
Producer and mastermind behind the influential hip-hop collective Wu-Tang Clan, RZA (Robert Diggs), will be presented with the TEC Innovation Award at The 2024 NAMM Show’s TEC Awards on Jan. 27. The ceremony will take place at the Anaheim Convention Center in Anaheim, California, and will be hosted by musician and Grammy award-winner Jon Batiste.
The 39th annual awards honor individuals who have set the highest standards of excellence in the creative application of recording technology.
“RZA’s formidable body of work and talent is unquestionable,” said John Mlynczak, NAMM president and CEO. “His legacy of accomplishments and lasting power on music inspires many music makers beyond hip-hop and he deserves this high recognition.”
Diggs is a trailblazer in culture and in hip-hop, having created the group’s widely imitated core sound consisting of stark, booming beats and chilling samples heavily drawing from vintage soul records as well as kung fu movies, which set the backdrop for the crew’s gritty narratives.
Diggs’ renaissance career has also reached beyond recording with ventures into the world of television and films, earning him acting, directing, scoring, and producing credits on several notable projects. Diggs scored Jim Jarmusch’s “Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai” and soundtracks for “Kill Bill Volume 1” and “Kill Bill: Volume 2.” He stars in the comedy film “Problemista,” which premiered at SXSW. He is also an Executive Producer for, and directed several episodes of, the original Hulu series honoring his group called “Wu-Tang: An American Saga.”
