Bobby Digital in Stereo

Bobby Digital in Stereo is the solo debut album of RZA, well-known for his prominence in the Wu-Tang Clan. It was released on November 24, 1998, and was certified Gold on February 5, 1999, by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). Regarded as an experimental album, it is based on a story featuring him rhyming as a hedonistic, fun-loving alter-ego named Bobby Digital and showcasing a unique keyboard-driven sound (rather than samples) that the RZA called digital orchestra.

RZA explained the origin of Bobby Digital:

It came from a really good bag of weed one day, right? I was in my studio. My birth name is Bobby Diggs. So at the time, creatively, I felt like I was in a digital frame. I felt like I was in high-speed, where everything was digital, in numbers, mathematics. I said to myself at the same time that as Bobby Digital, I could use a character to describe some of the earlier days of my own life. Partying, bullshitting, going crazy, chasing women, taking drugs. At the same time, I would mix in my love for comic books. It was a mixture of fiction and reality together to make a character I thought would be entertaining, and I could utilize that character to get fans into me as an MC, as a lyricist, and also following the path of my life. It’s like pre-RZA. It’s what The RZA struggles not to be, in a way, you know what I mean? – RZA in 2003 interview