The Wu-Tang Clan and RZA: A Trip Through Hip Hop’s 36 Chambers
Leave a commentThe Wu-Tang Clan and RZA: A Trip Through Hip Hop’s 36 Chambers (2011; 240 pages)
“The Wu-Tang Clan and RZA: A Trip Inside the 36 Chambers” chronicles the rise of the Wu-Tang Clan from an underground supergroup to a globally recognized musical conglomerate. Enhanced by the author’s one-on-one interviews with group members, this book covers the entire Wu-Tang Clan catalog of studio albums, as well as albums that were produced or heavily influenced by producer/rapper RZA. Wu-Tang Clan’s albums are analyzed and discussed in terms of their artistry as well as in terms of their critical, cultural, and commercial impact. By delving into the motivation behind the creation of pivotal songs and albums and mining their dense metaphor and wordplay, this book provides an understanding of what made a team of nine friends and relatives from Staten Island with a love of Kung Fu movies into not just a music group, but a powerful cultural movement.
The Wu-Tang Clan is one of the greatest hip hop groups of all time, with six platinum albums, more than 40 million records sold, and extensive influence on both the music business and their fellow artists. Notwithstanding their success, the group’s language and the mythology that guides it have both been difficult to understand—until now.
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More Wu Tang Books:
The Tao of Wu by The RZA; 224 pages, 2010 – The RZA, founder of the Wu-Tang Clan, imparts the lessons he’s learned on his journey from the Staten Island projects to international superstardom. A devout student of knowledge in every form in which he’s found it, he distills here the wisdom he’s acquired into seven “pillars,” each based on a formative event in his life-from the moment he first heard the call of hip-hop to the death of his cousin and Clan- mate, Russell Jones, aka ODB. Delivered in RZA’s unmistakable style, at once surprising, profound, and provocative, The Tao of Wu is a spiritual memoir the world has never seen before, and will never see again. A nonfiction Siddhartha for the hip-hop generation from the author of The Wu-Tang Manual, it will enlighten, entertain, and inspire.
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European readers get it here
The Wu-Tang Manual; 256 pages, 2005 – Long awaited and much anticipated, The Wu-Tang Manual is The RZA’s first written introduction to the philosophy and history of Hip-Hop’s original Dynasty, the Wu-Tang Clan. Since the release of the revolutionary Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) — over the course of four seminal group albums and a multitude of ambitious side projects — the Wu-Tang Clan has constantly redefined what hip-hop can do and where hip-hop can go. Now, after a decade of dark beats and mysterious lyrics hinting at a larger whole, the RZA, the abbot of the legendary Staten Island hip-hop collective, fully reveals, for the first time, the complex, multilayered Wu-Tang Universe in The Wu-Tang Manual.
US readers get it here
Dedicated To Real Hip Hop. 