Rap has always been a dangerous game.
As legends like 2Pac and Biggie found out.
But the violence has been turned up to 11 over the past couple of years, with rappers getting knocked off at an unprecedented rate.
Part of the issue is YouTube and Soundcloud have expanded the definition of who a notable "rapper" is. Another part is murder is up among the general public.
But RZA doesn't think that's the whole story. In an interview with the Financial Times, he said he believes things have changed for the worst since Wu-Tang were coming on the scene.
“Growing up in the golden age of Hip Hop, we lost maybe like a couple of artists but not a dozen artists or more. “Sometimes Hip Hop music glamorizes certain things. It glamorizes prison life, it glamorizes gangsters and thugs. I understand that, because I grew out of that," RZA said. “But it doesn’t give you the total tragedy of what that can end up being, nor are we being represented with a lot of alternatives. The point being made is there was more bounce, there was more substance. Hip Hop has become one-sided.”