Björk Says She Once Made A ‘Punk’ Collaboration With Wu-Tang Clan That Was ‘Better As An Idea’

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In a new interview with Fact magazine, Bjork revealed that while working on her album Homogenic, she tapped RZA for a few beats and wound up working a several songs with the whole Wu-Tang Clan. Check out the excerpt below.

Homogenic recently celebrated its 20th anniversary. Here’s something I’ve always wondered about that era in your career, as a big Wu-Tang fan: RZA is said to have recorded with you around that time, but the sessions never saw the light of day. What happened?

Ha! You know… I don’t know! I think what happened was… I wanted these kinda Icelandic, volcanic beats, and I was kind of struggling with it. I had done beats on my albums, but it takes me a long time to make them. And sometimes I get impatient and I want other people to do it, so I sit there and describe to them what I want them to do. So, I was in Spain, and Wu-Tang Clan were supposed to come to Spain. RZA was supposed to come. But then months passed. Then the album got finished and I delivered it. Then RZA was like, “I’m ready! Shall I come to Spain?”

Instead, I went to New York. We wrote a couple of songs together. And I just felt… sometimes when you do things and you don’t plan them it’s magic. And I really think what we made was magic. But I think because it wasn’t part of the whole Homogenic thing and it wasn’t part of what Wu-Tang were doing at the time, it was better as an idea, if that makes any sense?

We met a few times though – my favourite moment was when I did an in-store at Tower Records. I’d never done anything like that before. I turned up – and seven of the Wu-Tang Clan turned up to, like, protect me! I was signing books for an hour, and they sent some of their team, standing there with me. That was one of my all-time favourite moments: I had been on my own, so when they turned up I felt very protected. It was magic. In my eyes, they’re punk. We are definitely [similar] – we do things in, like, a ritual way. The good thing was that I got to hang out with them. I got to see Wu-Tang’s version of New York. Which was pretty cool. A very specific angle on that city that I feel very blessed to have experienced.

Bjork’s latest album, Utopia, is out today.

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