Strong momentum for Hip Hop Chess

RZA vs. GZA

The Galleria at the San Francisco Design Center is a cavernous, chic industrial space with a brightly lit atrium, retractable skylight, gleaming glass elevators, and no discernable purpose other than to host events like the Hip Hop Chess Federation 1st Annual Chess Kings Invitational.

Which is to say – when I walk into the HHCF Invitational on Saturday, in this space made for events like this, everything is unnervingly just so. The tables are tablecloth-ed, the high school chess teams tucked neatly into the upper balconies, and the corporate sponsors given ample room to vend their wares, among them a chess game for Nintendo DS and a scary purple soda called the Jimi Hendrix Liquid Experience Energy Drink. Immediately left of the entrance, servers in black vests sell small bags of Doritos and $2 bottles of water and, on stage, the chairs are delicately wrapped in sheer fabric and tied with white satin ribbon.

But the concept, the lineup, the greater purpose – all so promising! Eight rappers and martial artists would go “head-to-head” in chess, flanked by tables of high school students doing the same. RZA, GZA, Q-bert, and Josh Waitzkin, of Searching for Bobby Fischer, would be in attendance. Some lucky kid would win $1,500 (and an iPod!). Wisdom would be dispensed, battles won and lost, vengeance had, limbs severed! And if the chess didn’t come to that, well, then, we’d still be treated to RZA words. My lingering shock at Jimi Hendrix rising from the dead to endorse energy drinks (jeez, Jimi) would subside. I would begin to feel less like I was at a wedding.

HHCF co-founder and panel leader Adisa Banjoko gets everyone quiet and in their seats with the news that Q-bert was involved in an accident en route and is not be coming. Boo. A prayer is called for and then – on with the Life Strategies panel. Josh Waitzkin, RZA, Dr. Daaim Shabazz, and Rakaa pass around a microphone, dissecting:

1) the intersection of hip hop, chess, and martial arts (RZA: all are paths to enlightenment)
2) chess as the game of life (Rakaa: we all find a way to apply the principles of chess)
3) learning (Waitzkin: “It’s not the discipline itself that is going to be a magic pill”)

At some point Waitzkin claims he reads an opponent best when seeing him or her caught in the rain and Dr. Shabazz describes chess as spilling his emotions and passion onto the board. Rakaa warns that in martial arts, a lot of people’s belts just hold their pants up. It’s pretty good stuff.

But really, we are all waiting for RZA to speak. He tells stories of visiting the Shaolin monastery and Wu Tang mountain in China, of meeting a Chinese abbot who declared Mike Tyson and Evander Holyfield his favorite warriors, of the moment he discovered the kung-fu culture and history, and of the freedom those discoveries afforded him. He says chess is war. Then he says:

“When you defeat somebody, you’re not really defeating them, they’re defeating themselves.” And I clap like a maniac with everyone else.

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