RUSSELL CROWE - CROWE + RZA COLLABORATION NIXED BY FILM BOSSES

CROWE + RZA COLLABORATION NIXED BY FILM BOSSES

Studio executives have robbed music fans of an odd collaboration between RUSSELL CROWE and rapper RZA after declaring their jamming demo wasn't good enough for the soundtrack of the pair's new film. Oscar winner Crowe, who fronts his own band The Ordinary Fear Of God, and the Wu-Tang Clan star bided their time between takes on American Gangster performing and teaching each various music skills. But when RZA - real name Robert Diggs - presented producers with rough cuts of songs the pair had come up with, they opted not to include the duo on the soundtrack. RZA says, "On some songs we had a little bit of a groove going on throughout the movie and we tried to suggest some of those songs to Universal but the ideas never stuck. "Me and Russell jammed. He's a better guitar player than me. I actually picked up a few tips from him. He's so sincere with his lyrics." And Crowe was stunned when he discovered the words to one of his songs had helped the rapper end a feud with his partner. The Gladiator star explains, "I have a song called Weight Of The Man and it's a huge compliment that he would be into the song. "He was having an argument with his girlfriend and she was demanding some sort of explanation from him. He listened to the song he told me the next day how he was on the phone saying, 'Baby, it's just the weight of a man,' and it got him off the hook."