RZA AKA THE ABBOTT On The Hour With George Stroumboulopoulos <-That was googled

[NotoriousTDA]

Heres the link:

http://www.cbc.ca/thehour/video.php?id=2015

Rza drops knowledge on all you suckas!

[Joe Bonanno]

i dont like george strombopulonopupos and i don't like his unassuming, well spoken canadian journalist approach to the wu tang clan. and i really dont like them playing wussy rock and roll in the background for a rza bio.

[Australian Bastard]

Word.

"I have given it much thought....it seems disaster must come, at best only postponed, Shaolin kung fu to survive must now be taught to more young men, we must expand, get more pupil, so that the knowledge will spread...."


<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/5iUMWy4hqAg" target="_blank" class="new_win">http://www.youtube.com/v/5iUMWy4hqAg</a>

[NotoriousTDA]

^ thats dope. Where can I find the Kung Fu movies the Wu-tang used for their intros n shit?


P.S. George is doin it BIG. Hes got his own show now and has some pretty crazy guests come down.

Rick the Temp cant touch that sheeit. ET Canada............

[es-jay]

thanks for the interview, RZA is one intelligent man. the Hip Hop Chess Federation thing sounds pretty interesting aswell.

[Australian Bastard]

^ thats dope. Where can I find the Kung Fu movies the Wu-tang used for their intros n shit?

MONKEY! Grew up on that...every saturday morning!

Monkey magic is an epic folk tale about the priest who carried Buddha's teachings along the Silk Road, from India to the East....most of these stories are originally folk tales adapted to films, media, etc...

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/i7hWMon59dQ&amp;hl=en" target="_blank" class="new_win">http://www.youtube.com/v/i7hWMon59dQ&amp;hl=en</a>

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/UdhRy7ME4l4&amp;hl=en" target="_blank" class="new_win">http://www.youtube.com/v/UdhRy7ME4l4&amp;hl=en</a>

A long time ago when men were all babes
There was a land of the free
Fantasy and dreams
Were its untouched wealth
And goodness and love were real

Each man desires to reach Gandhara
His very own utopia
In the striving, in the seeking soul
Man can see Gandhara

In Gandhara, Gandhara
They say it was in India
Gandhara, Gandhara
The place of light Gandhara



Episode 1, part 1/5:
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/-gmABsTi1-k&amp;hl=en" target="_blank" class="new_win">http://www.youtube.com/v/-gmABsTi1-k&amp;hl=en</a>
                                                  



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Heres an interview with RZA about the kung fu movie samples, which film they from and what song they on:
http://www.wired.com/entertainment/music/magazine/15-11/pl_music

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Also, real good interview, old but interesting:


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The RZA Revisited
By Chi Tung
9/22/2005


An arresting storyteller, philosopher and anthropologist, the RZA is at his best when he just riffs. Call it the RZA reel o’rama, if you wish. Or simply sit back, and let him kick some knowledge.

On the origins of the Wu Tang sword…

Shaolin fit in with the mental part of life; the Shaolin discipline was able to produce the Wu Tang sword. The person who invented the sword according to the history I read was a monk named Shien Tseng Fei. He was a great martial artist, but he wasn’t in depth into Buddhism; he actually had more Daoist thoughts in him. He ended up leaving Shaolin; some say he was exiled and expelled, some say he left on his own. But he walked to Wu Tang mountain, which was started by General Wu hundreds of years earlier and founded a place of peace, true enlightenment within himself.

On the parallels between Shaolin and Staten Island…

How it fits into the Wu Tang philosophy and the urban culture is that Staten island — where we grew up, were disciplined at, had our fights at — that’s Shaolin, but we’re the Wu Tang clan. Because the Shaolin monks were really good guys, but we weren’t good guys — we had good principles, but a lot of actions that weren’t considered good.

On brotherhood…

To me — being the abbot of Wu Tang, which was what they called me — the brotherhood in martial arts movies is almost unsurpassed. These days you can’t find movies like that while in those days, you’d see how a man would just give his life for another hero. Let’s say that you’re Fun Su Yi. [martial arts hero] I’ve never met you, but I’ve heard of you, and I know what you stand for. You get into a big fight, and I don’t know you, but I jump in and risk my life and possibly die so that Fun Su Yi can live another day and fight. To me that’s true brotherhood, honor, respect.

On Asians, Blacks, and Melanin…

When I was able to understand what the Asian brothers were talking about and also that Black and Asian history go way beyond what we all know … when you look at Buddha, genetically, he was considered what they would call in school, a Negroid. It shows that really all of us are melanated people; it’s a dominant element, but it’s a bio element that has a life to it. It seems to act intelligently and we all possess it heavily. We have it more than the Caucasian; we have it in our skin and our brain. So we’re all in sync with each other; the only one out of sync was the Caucasian and he had to become in sync through religion and the books we left for him.

On the history of Shaolin…

In 36 chambers, when I saw the monks fighting, defending, fighting oppression, learning philosophy, building their minds bodies — this was supposed to be 500-1500 years ago. I mean, this is the history from that part of the world that I didn’t even know happened. So then I started researching, led me to boundless amounts of truth, came back to Wu Tang, found out what it really meant. Man deservant to be God, trying to rise up to God’s level, and that’s exactly what we were trying to do in our own neighborhood.

On this generation…

This is a white country; we’ve added color to it over the years, but there’s still over 150 million white people in this country. Well you may say there’s 20 million Asian, 40-50 million Blacks, Latinos — can’t compare. And they’ve been running this country for over 200 years, this has been their spot; they’ve killed anyone who’s tried to take it from them. They’ve enslaved mentally, physically, economically anyone who came. But in this unique generation, we’re free, free in the mind — your parents came over as immigrants, but not you, you were born here. And the equilibrium is here, you’re part of this culture, American culture; hip-hop is an American thing. We’re all growing up, young white men growing up with us; before we weren’t in the same classes as each other, different classes, different neighborhoods.

On many faces, many styles…

I can vouch personally … some Asian dudes came to my studio recently. I met them at a Wu Tang show. They were cool kids, we smoked a little weed together, they had their own little zone: one guy did the beats, one guy the lyrics, one guy the art; they had talent, simple as that. And they were only 19 years old. It’s beautiful right now, look at the rock ‘n’ roll group with the Asian brother — Linkin Park. You’d watch them before you’d watch the Rolling Stones, because that’s the old America. With Linkin Park, you see the new America — many faces, many styles. That’ll eventually happen with hip-hop in this country.

On Asian cinema in America…

Look at Quentin Tarantino; he did a great job. I read the script for Kill Bill; he wrote in the fight scenes, he choreographed them straight from his mind. Then you look at The Matrix — both films had Yuen Woo Ping, the great choreographer — but the guys from The Matrix, they didn’t visualize. I think I’ve seen enough Asian movies, taken enough martial arts classes — I could make a movie equally good as a martial artist from Asia. The problem now is that martial artists aren’t making these movies anymore. You watch 36 Chambers and Lau Kar Leung who directed it. He was a martial artist. You look at Sammo Hung; he’s a martial artist. Nowadays, non-martial artists are making movies; no disrespect to Andy Lau, but look at House of Flying Daggers — he’s not a martial artist. Chow Yun Fat in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: he’s not a martial artist. It has to go back to letting the martial artists making the films, or at least someone engulfed in it — QT [Quentin Tarantino] is engulfed in it. I think I’m a good director for America, because one of the problems for Asian directors is that they usually go through Asian companies and subtitles and you may get the audience in there, you may not. If you can find somebody — Bruce Lee, for instance; Enter the Dragon was a blockbuster smash. But he was bilingual, educated in both worlds, translatable in both worlds. I think this generation will produce one; if not the RZA himself, someone else.

On fetishization…

The problem with Americans getting ahold of the Asian culture is that they aren’t showing total respect for it. It’s a fetish; they think it’s funny, they think that true art is being displayed comedically. It’s nothing to laugh at — it’s thousands of years of tradition. You don’t bring a culture here and exploit it and water it down because when people see it, they’ll believe that’s what it really is.

On the samurai…

The first samurai film i saw was a Lone Wolf movie. I realized that the Japanese samurai, they don’t play that shit. With Chinese kung-fu movies, they get up there and kick, scream, block, might last ten minutes before someone dies. I see Shogun Assassin, soon as you move, you’re dead. That brought me to a whole different level of respect.

On Shaolin versus the ninja…

They made a movie called Shaolin challenges the Ninja where Gordon Liu fights the karata; it’s the Wu Tang sword versus the ninja sword. Wu Tang sword wins because the Japanese thrust is a thrust; in kung-fu your mind must follow your energy, your energy must follow your blow. So when you strike a hard blow and you miss, your energy is over there. Whereas the Wu Tang sword is the wrist to the tip, it’s like a whip, even if you miss, you’re still right here. I think that means something.

On John Woo and Donnie Yen…

John Woo’s a master. He’s still being copied and duplicated in every movie almost. I feel like his last few movies have been him making American movies; he’s had big budgets and big opportunities, but while he’s been doing that, young filmmakers are making his movies. I think Donny Yen is one of the best choreographers and directors out there; the TV series he produced for AZN TV called Fists of Fury — same story as Chinese Connection — it’s a mini-series, about six hours. Incredible. I’m talking about one of the best martial arts ever filmed. For some reason, Donnie Yen’s the unsung hero. He’s like Inspectah Deck in Wu-Tang Clan.

On Wu-Tang presenting kung-fu flicks…

We didn’t get a chance to choose every film. It was what was available. People came at us with certain titles. You had to go to hell to come up with a good kung-fu flick or even a copy of one, but they started resubmerging after the first Wu-Tang platinum album. But by the time Wu-Tang had become hip-hop icons, people were starting to put out titles with false titles, taking titles from our songs. For instance, there’s a movie called Poisonous Darts — there’s never been a movie called Poisonous Darts, that’s just a title of our song. Mr. Digital –they took an old movie and changed the title and put them all out. People who were doing that, with the Brooklyn Zoo collection, the Wu-Tang collection, with their scrawny, ugly, fake Wu Tang W — I was like yo, we gotta get to these boys, get in touch with them. So we did and told them they were disrespecting the whole game of it. They were smart businessmen — if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em, right? — so they made a deal, sold us about 20-30 titles; we put it together, put some movies out.

One reason why i did it; personally I’m the kind of guy who likes the world how I want to enjoy it. If i want to find a manga tape of Ninja Scroll, I don’t wanna have to go two, three hours to find it; I wanna go to Blockbuster where i get everything else at. I don’t get any reward for doing this — no money, at least — but I get the satisfaction that the world’s a better place for me.

On Chinese literature…

I read The Five Chinese Brothers when I was a kid; that’s an old folktale, it sticks in your head, it was a great story. It helped my imagination; when I saw the 5 Deadly Venoms, that was the first thing I reflected back upon. You gotta give a lot of respect to the Asian world; Confucious who believed in ethics, etiquette, those codes of conduct have survived. Like, my shi fu, he’s the nicest guy, he could kill you with one punch, but he’s the nicest guy. The prophet Mohammed, he wouldn’t even spit without covering his mouth; he didn’t want you to see that. The Asian people kept such a great etiquette about that — that fascinated my life. You wanna talk about literature, you talk about the Dao De Ching, the I-Ching. Or the Heart Sutra; a lot of great things written by great men — Mencius a well. Also, the things Lao Tzu and Sun Tzu wrote on how you should act in government, at home, how kids should act with their parents. Most American folk stories would end up with Hansel and Gretel, but with Chinese folk stories, you’re catchin’ proverb after proverb. I think that’s better for children. I have two books of ancient folktales from China; I let my kids read them, they’re able to use all that.

On going to China…

One word to describe it: enlightening. I got a chance to consolidate a lot of ideas I had in my head, to clean out a lot of falsehoods, movie magic. I thought the White Lotus god existed. But that’s actually from some Chinese literature, a series of books that mentioned the Shaolin temple, but the characters were just used fictiously. For instance, if you watch a movie about the Civil War, like Cold Mountain, the events are real, but the characters are just characters. I met the abbot of the Wu tang, I’m like, what’s up with the Shaolin-Wu Tang beef? It’s not as bad as you would believe when you watch the movies.

Also, with the Asiatic thing, as I talk about this, it’s sometimes uncomfortable, the Black man is looked at the lowest man in our society, but to go over there, and see the Black man’s influence of peace around the world, even in the middle mountainous areas of China. When I see the Wu Tang mountains, I saw the temple built for Jennifer Wu, I went to General Wu’s temple of the purple clouds, you see all these statues, all these Asian people, and you get to General Wu: he’s a black guy amidst all these Asian people. At first I was like um, I didn’t know what to think, the abbot didn’t even know what to tell me. He said maybe it was just the artist wanting to separate the people. But then there’s one more temple higher up; in Chinese culture, the mother and father are higher than the king. So I go up those stairs, then I see a bunch of Asian statues here, a bunch there; then in the middle, a black man, black woman, black child.

It’s like you look at someone like Buddha and you can see that he risked his life for the world and I know the benevolence my people have is inherent. Benevolent people, we’re born naturally benevolent, you just wanna share it with the world. The same thing about Bodhiyana; he migrated from Africa to South India to start a kingdom; Buddhism is in China, but there were only about 2000 temples in the beginning. By the time he left, 35,000, and when he got there, what did they say to him? He’s tall, he’s dark — they discriminated on him. But he changed their whole world. We all start from one man, and that man was righteous, and whoever can uphold that righteousness, he must share with the world.

On geopolitics…

I don’t mean to separate them, but I don’t understand why Taiwan ain’t China. Politically, I understand. But how can you have North Korea and South Korea; that’s stupid. Only one who benefits then is the ones who separated y’all, and that’s stupid. I hope no one gets mad about it, but we discriminate against ourselves. Like Jamaicans; how are they different? Why cause he talk like Marley, why cause they dropped you off on that island, they dropped me off on this island? Gets to the point where East Coast and West coast are beefin; it’s just stupid.

On Asian culture in society today…

Elijah Mohammed said that Chinese people were ordained by God to preserve all this history for everybody to enjoy in their last days. If the Chinese people weren’t like this, the world wouldn’t know it, if the world didn’t know it, there would be no help for this world. When you look at the influx of Buddhism, yoga, martial arts in our society, getting everybody in society to calm down. That’s why I’m not ashamed to be like, Wu Tang. Brothas told me to get off that Chinese shit. Like, what? You act like they ain’t my brothers, they my brothers. We’ve got our own problems. You really wanna take the history of it, if Buddha gave it back to them, it’s only right that they give it back to us. You’ve gotta admit it too, since the Wu era and martial arts, a lot of the homeboys check out the Asian sisters, a lot of the Asian brothers gettin the hot black sisters. I see an Asian brother chillin with dreds; it’s a better world. It’s mostly the hip-hop community, but it’s a better world.

On his first film…

The movie’s gonna be called The Man with the Iron Fist. I’m looking forward to making a classic, for it to go on the shelf with the old classics. I’m taking a modern approach to it but at the same time, to pay homage. Lau Kar Leung is 70 years old, has cancer; I wish I could meet him, I have great respect for him and his art. I think The Man with the Iron Fist will pay homage back to the Asian culture; I consider it my culture, one culture, whoever feels different argue to yourself. This movie will pay homage to it. I know there ain’t a whole lot of people out there like me, so when you see the movie, you won’t see a whole lot of people like me in it.
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