RZA Is Writing Ice Cream Jingles Now

The Wu-Tang hero is looking to "change the dynamics" of the traditional jingle's problematic history
RZA Is Writing Ice Cream Jingles Now
By Brock Thiessen
Published Aug 13, 2020
Always one willing to branch out, Wu-Tang Clan hero RZA is now getting into the jingle game. Specifically, he's teamed up with American ice cream company Good Humor to pen its newly shared jingle.

But while it's a bit amusing to think of RZA going from 36 Chambers to advertising jingles, the move actually comes from a much deeper place. In fact, RZA has pointed out that the popular ice cream truck jingle often heard from trucks has a history rooted in racism.

The famous melody is called "Turkey in the Straw," and as RZA explains in a video posted to his Twitter, it "has a problematic history."

"We come to find out it has racist roots," he says, explaining the song was popularized via minstrel shows "and some adaptations paired it with hateful, racist lyrics."
  To help remedy that, RZA and Good Humor joined forces to "change the dynamics" by creating a new ice cream jingle for "a new era."

You can check out RZA's jingle below.

The hope is the jingle will be adopted by ice cream truck drivers all over, so it's been made free to use. It will even be included as an industry-standard in ice cream truck music boxes.