Wu-Tang Clan

[The NZA]

 

 

and thusly, describing the Afro Samurai game he worked on, RZA coins the highest level of cool, now known as shoobadoop.

 

Still waiting to hear if the rumored Ghost/Rae wu album, Wu Tang vs The RZA comes to light. they didnt say shit at rock the bells last year, but ive got hopes.

 

 

i cant post that image enough

[The NZA]

oh my fuck, how does RZA write another book and no one tells me.

 

 

from the CNN interview

 

The Wu-Tang Clan -- the New York hip-hop supergroup that spawned millions of album sales, nine solo acts and a few acting careers -- almost never was.

 

Method Man, the group's most recognizable voice, was nearly killed before the band formed, Wu-Tang's chief producer, RZA, writes in his forthcoming memoir.

 

Meth was walking to buy marijuana at 160 Park Hill Avenue in Staten Island -- the house in Wu-Tang's "Protect Ya Neck" video -- when RZA saw him across the street, he writes in the book.

 

"Come over here, yo!" RZA beckoned, according to "The Tao of Wu" (Riverhead). "He stopped and came running over. A few seconds later -- pow-pow-pow-pow-pow! -- a guy started shooting up the front of 160. A buddy of ours, Poppy, an innocent, school-going, nice guy -- he was shot and killed right there."

 

It wasn't the only close call RZA said could have snuffed the band that rewrote the rule book for hip-hop acts. The year before the group formed in 1993, RZA was acquitted on an attempted murder charge that could have put him behind bars for eight years, he writes in "The Tao of Wu," out Thursday.

 

Expanding on the book's anecdotes in an interview with CNN, RZA explained that if he had been imprisoned or if Method Man, aka Clifford Smith, had been killed, the band never would have come to fruition.

 

RZA, whose real name is Robert Diggs and whose stage name is pronounced "Rizza," also talked about his role in the death of his cousin, Russell Jones, better known as Ol' Dirty Bastard or ODB. Two days before his 36th birthday in 2004, ODB died in a New York recording studio from an overdose of cocaine and painkillers.

 

RZA writes in the book that he once witnessed ODB force his own son to watch him do drugs. RZA tried to leave, he writes, but ODB wouldn't let him. Now, RZA told CNN, he wishes he would've been tougher with ODB about his drug problem.

 

 

onto RZA's current efforts: youve got to hear my man on guitar.

shit blew my mind. @ said project:

 

Blakroc is a project by Dame Dash which features the music of The Black Keys and a grip of hip-hop artists (Mos Def, Q-Tip, RZA, Raekwon, Jim Jones, MOP, Monch, Luda and so on).

 

holy shit @ that lineup. i am all over this.

 

oh, and for posterity: here's the excellent bit from Coffee & Cigarettes with RZA, GZA and Bill Murray. so amazing.

 

 

alright, i cant stop. here's RZA freestyling at a chess tournament. dude's my hero.

 

 

where the hard rocks at, if the earth had no gats?/wu-tang'll conquer the whole planet with bats

you cant understand my impact on facts/not too long ago, you thought this planet was flat

[Dag]

I heard an interview with him on Marketplace Money and the guy really impressed me. It looks like a book with some positive philosophies.

[The NZA]

everything i read about says he's far more in depth than he was in the manual. I was initially wary of some of his stuff since he's heavy into the five percent nation of islam, which from what ive read of it lends itself heavily to conspiracy theory (shit throws me off when KRS-1 starts talking about how the gov't administered AIDS and blew up the towers etc), but he stays on a much more positive tip most times, just finding connections in all kinds of things - he can talk about five percent in one breath and Moon Knight the next, a quality that obviously keeps me on board, heh.

 

if you watch that Coffee & Cigarettes bit toward the end of my last post, youll see where he reminds me of you, he's also big on homeopathic/alternative medicine, diet and such. its seriously refreshing to hear one of the greats in the industry not constantly hating on shit.

 

so waiting to see where this auction goes before grabbing a copy off amazon or something.

[Reverend Jax]

if you watch that Coffee & Cigarettes bit toward the end of my last post, youll see where he reminds me of you, he's also big on homeopathic/alternative medicine, diet and such. its seriously refreshing to hear one of the greats in the industry not constantly hating on shit.

 

I hate to be both off-topic and also contrary to your spirit of celebrating not hating shit, but Homeopathy is bullshit.

[The NZA]

go watch Coffee & Cigarettes again. Dr RZA can perform a certain ancient healing technique with an electric drillgun. Can Rand do that? no, he's just old and behind a podium and shit. he does not know what is up.

[Dag]

After hearing another interview with the RZA on the radio and also hearing him do a reading from the book, I went out and purchased it.

 

I'm going to read it at the beginning of class to my students for fifteen minutes and have them respond in their journals. When we finish the book, I think I'm going to have each student write a letter to the RZA and I'll send the box to his agent (with pictures of the classes included). I've done this before with a bestselling author and it worked out rather well.

[The NZA]

holy shit, that's an awesome idea. considering how much is last album plays up him being the abbot, i think that's a great way to illicit a response.

 

im only holding off on the book because i lost the auction on the autographed copy for $50, was debating it but now the seller wants $100. goddammit.

[Senshik]

For the nick.

 

 

From here

 

 

The Wu-Tang Clan is one of the most successful and influential acts in the history of hip-hop. Over the years, member Robert Diggs, far better known as RZA (pronounced riz-za), found success outside hip-hop while still acting as a booster for the culture. He now holds credits as a music producer, rapper, screenwriter, actor and director, as well as author of his second book, The Tao of Wu. He recently sat down with NPR's Guy Raz.

 

Though still a young man at 40, RZA finds himself in a position to reflect on his success. When did he first want to become an artist?

 

"At a very young age, 9 years old, actually," he says. "And at first, it was just wanting to be rapping to be cool, or break-dancing to be cool, and expressing myself. But during the teenage years, DJ-ing and everything, and battling, it was more like some kind of lust or urge to become the world supreme master at a craft. And I would go around the city battling DJs. At the same time, I wanted to be the best MC, walking around, battling MCs who had the best lyrics."

 

But the ego-driven dreams didn't last long.

 

"As I grew older, and got into the late teens and early 20s, I wanted to be a voice of the people," RZA says. "You know, getting locked up all the time, and going through so much oppression and seeing it all around myself, I wanted to be a voice for it. And also to have a knowledge of myself, I realized that the word was powerful, and I could use this power to help enlighten others."

 

Wu Wisdom

 

The new book is a series of seven lessons that RZA learned along his journey in life. He talks about his childhood in a two-bedroom apartment, sometimes shared with as many as 19 people. He says he had a tough life as a kid in the projects, but that he learned valuable lessons in the process.

 

"Well, beyond, 'Make sure you eat first...' " RZA says with a laugh. "No, I learned a lot from hardship. I guess the hardship and taking the goodness out of it."

 

Upon hearing "Triumph," an early hit for The Wu-Tang Clan, RZA still seems excited by music he helped create nearly two decades ago.

 

"Oh, man, this song right here takes me back ... to the good times of me and brothers running around the world performing in front of 30,000 kids with Rage Against the Machine, and getting a chance to spread out hip-hop culture and knowledge out there," he says. "Also, you hear some of the illest lyrics ever written."

[The NZA]

nice! he's not overexagerating about Triumph's lyrics. still some of Wu's finest overall.

 

I enjoyed Chamber Music (latest album) for what it was, kinda sad it was missing Meth & GZA, but it gave U-god and a few guys a chance to shine. Rae & Ghost were both good but theyre still putting out albums at the moment as well, i mostly dug INS/inspectah deck's contributions. RZA's "digi snacks", which im also finally getting around to, is solid. im liking it more than Bobby Digital so far.

[Senshik]

My ears and my mind are looking forward to this album (the one you mentioned with him playing the acoustic guitar).

Edited October 26, 2009 by Senshik

[Dag]

Still reading The Tao of Wu with my class. I find that I have to clarify and add commentary to much of the information. He talks an awful lot about the Nation and the Five Percenters. He doesn't really talk much about the groups background so I've had to lecture for short periods on them and let my classes know that their are some racist undertones (or overtones depending on your point of view) to these cults. It did give me a good opportunity to discuss the two basic factions in Civil Rights Movement though (The By Any Means Necessary Side [Violence] vs. Non-Violent Civil Disobedience) and how Malcolm X let the Nation right before he was murdered.

[The NZA]

yeah, not sure how familiar you were with the 5% nation beforehand, their ideology lends itself very well/comfortably to conspiracy theory, comes up a lot, im sure you've seen some of that. RZA likes personal amalgams of ideas too, so when reading his stuff on the 12 jewels and such, i try not to imagine its necessarily the idea's traditional form (though he often cites well).

 

and this book was to be the more in-depth one, the setup one about the group's origins, their individual backgrounds, all of that was the the Wu-Tang manual, i get the impression they were companion pieces but again i havent got to read the new book just yet.

[The NZA]

 

Beatles + Wu mash-up. the world is truly magical.

[Mr. Hakujin]

I'm listening now as I DL from piratebay. Yes, magical.

[Dag]

I'm not into hip-hop, but I enjoyed listening for a good 45 minutes.

[The NZA]

Rae, Ghost, GZA, Deck + Meth =

 

dont know why i slept on Only Built 4 Cuban Linx 2 for so long. i keep looping that track; that's what they need to be doing more of, tight rhymes over some 5 Deadly Venoms shit.

[The NZA]

 

mach 30th - damn, chris bachalo needs to do more wu covers.

 

i know there's been rumblings of beef with RZA, im guessing 8 diagrams didnt come out how some of em wanted to the RZA vs Wu thing might be on hold. was talking on another board @ how RZA supposedly used to take 50% for his production early on, and there was other talk about how that's not uncommon for the amount of work he did - i only know so much about the industry's financial end, but they've all argued before, just looking forward to the next joint effort.

 

meantime, the 3 of them being on this prompted every dumbass magazine to ask if this was a new group, causing meth to have to say the most obvious shit:

 

"People wanted to see it so we gave it to them. By no means are we trying to start a group, that's why I was mad as hell that people was jumping the gun and shit, asking us to name our group and all that. What the fuck we look like making a new group?"

[Mr. Hakujin]

ha! i literally just read about this in RS! agreed, that bachalo cover is tight like long dreads. now, here's the real question, nZa: will you buy or DL?

[The NZA]

depending on quality: prolly both. i tend to DL wu albums, then buy a physical copy i never play unless there's bonus materials. i gotta support m'boys.

[The NZA]

[The NZA]

ok, so when meeting/talking Wu with any other fans, we usually have to establish which albums are the absolute classics, and that often gets right into the solo efforts. the ones i think are untouchable:

 

GZA - Liquid Swords

Method Man - Tical

Ghosface Killah - Ironman

Raekwon - Only Built 4 Cuban Linx 1 (2 is debatable; i thought it was the best Wu album in years, personally)

Ol' Dirty - Return to the 36 Chambers (i've gotten some static on this one, but i still think it's 1st class)

 

on the next tier, i personally put:

 

Ghost - Supreme Clientele, Fishscale

Meth - Judgment 2000, Blackout!! (w/Redman)

a number of RZA's solo efforts...Bobby Digital is still growing on me.

GZA - Beneath the Surface

Masta Killa - No Said Date

 

that last one get slept on a lot, here's why that shouldn't be:

 

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i'm forgetting stuff here, but wanted to put this out there.

[Panch]

Production is there, but I've never been a huge fan of Masta Killa's flow. He says all the same thing they all say, but maybe I don't like the his voice. Don't know. Most people say the same thing about U-God, but I like him better.

[The NZA]

yeah, i know he's not for everybody - i dug his flow since B.I.B.L.E. is the thing, but some friends have pushed Cappadonna's "The Pillage" and Killah Priest's "Black August" (some Killarmy shit too), none of which have i been able to get into. check out the 2nd one i put up though, "School" - i love RZA's verse there.

 

U-God surprises me with his verses on wu efforts, pulls shit outta nowhere:

 

You don't want no drama, I'm flaming fast

that nigga jumped up and did the damon dash...

 

but when i try his solo stuff like Dopium or U-Godzilla, i dont get into it, either. its kinda like Inspectah Deck, i'm all about his openers when there's like 5 members after him, but ive got 2 of his solo albums and i cant even think of a track offhand to link to up here.

[Panch]

RZA verses are sick. He's like a reverse ODB (I LOVE ODB! Don't take it the wrong way!). While ODB's verses are simplistic and raw, RZA's are intelligent and clean. Where they're the same is that they have that flow that isn't (to the Layperson) that inviting to listen to.