Wu-Tang Clan’s GZA recently shared a new collaborative single, The Mexican, with Rage Against the Machine’s Tom Morello and together they performed the track on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, with a little help from house band The Roots, and a pair of breakdancers.
The track is actually a cover of British rockers Babe Ruth’s 1972 single – one that has often been sampled in hip hop tracks. On this live revamp of the song, GZA spits out some vicious rhymes while Morello breaks it down with some signature solos on the Spanish-flavoured riffs.
The pair are also helped along by singer Kara Lane of K.I.D., a pair of dancers including legendary breakdancer Crazy Legs and fantastic house band The Roots. Interestingly, the studio version of the song actually features Unknown Mortal Orchestra’s guitarist Ruban Nielson. Watch the epic Fallon performance below.
The collab follows Morello’s joint venture with System Of A Down frontman Serj Tankian. They recently released a blistering new cover of the Ozzy Osbourne classic Crazy Train, in tribute to legendary guitarist Randy Rhoads.
It’s also been a big week for the Wu-Tang Clan, after they recently debuted a 13-minute snippet of their one-copy-only album Once Upon a Time in Shaolin – which might not be heard by the public for another 88 years.
GZA’s also been working on a solo album, Dark Matter, inspired by quantum physics and all things space-related. It’s expected to be released some time this year but, reports Pitchfork, The Mexican will not be an album track.
