GZA & Tom Morello Bring Their Rap-Rock Collaboration to Late Night TV

GZA, the Wu-Tang capo and Tom Morello, the legendary Rage Against the Machine guitarist, took to The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon to perform their newest collaboration, a rap-rock hybrid that pays tribute to the “best of both worlds” collaborations of days gone by.

As we all know, this isn’t the first-ever rap-rock collaboration to ever hit the airwaves: as far back as the 1980’s, Run-DMC were teaming up with Aerosmith to bring the two seemingly-disparate worlds together (in fact, it was the Run-DMC version of Aerosmith’s rock classic “Walk This Way” that revitalized a once-dead-in-the-water Aerosmith). But in terms of “recent memory,” we’re a good ten years removed from Limp Bizkit’s collaboration with Method Man (oh Meth — why did you degrade yourself so?) — and no, Lil’Wayne’s half-baked guitar playing doesn’t count.

Those of us in the know took special note of the song the duo chose to cover. “The Mexican,” which was originally done by Babe Ruth back in the 1970s, certainly has its history in the hip-hop pantheon as well. Eagle-eared listeners will remember that the song was sampled first by Afrika Bambaataa in 1982 (for his groundbreaking song “Planet Rock”) and, a year later, by Funky 4 + 1 for their song “Feel It.”

With a little help from their friends in The Roots, GZA and Morello tore the late night house down. Check out a special appearance by legendary Rock Steady Crew B-Boy Crazy Legs, too. It’s always great to see respect paid to that element of hip hop, especially on such a large platform! Keep up the good work Jimmy!