Showing posts with label hip hop. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hip hop. Show all posts

40% Off Discounts: Best Price Decoded Review

Decoded

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Decoded Review


Bedford Stuyvesant was his country, and Brooklyn was his planet. With these words we are led into a world that you cannot imagine, that no film can do justice to. It requires hundreds of pages to absorb, and with each page you become further and further immersed. The graphic work accompanying the printed message is among the best I have ever seen, and it will help you to understand this very special person. Somewhere in every person's life if you can experience transformation from where you were born to what your soul intended you to become, there is always a MENTOR figure. Sometimes it is a teacher, a relative, or a friend, but always someone. For Jay-Z it was Slate, who was among the first street rappers, before they even put a name on the movement. He would stand in a circle; he could go 30 minutes just rhyming, as though he was trained for it. The young Jay-Z would stand and just be mesmerized by Slate, who seemed like an ordinary fellow until he stepped into the circle, and Jay-Z would transform himself by uttering the words, I can do that. And therein begins a WILD RIDE, from the Marcy Projects in Brooklyn to king of the hip hop movement. He would go from drug dealing and drug running to a billion dollar self created empire that would be the envy of any businessman. Years later, Russell Simmons another hip hop master, and mentor to Jay-Z would say, that one grows up wanting to wear a suit, but hip-hop would mean never having to grow up and instead one would wear sneakers to the board room.

Jay-Z Decoded will have an interesting audience. Yes there will the kids who will own it and never read it, but for those of us, who read this book cover to cover, I promise you that you will not put this book back on the shelf without being affected by it. You will understand the hopelessness of ghetto life, of thousands upon thousands of young people who get destroyed before having a change to figure out what they are even involved with. Only a small number will come through the funnel to survive and thrive, and occasionally break out. Jay-Z is one who broke out, and every aspect of this life biography is fascinating to the uninitiated. Here's why?*The money is not in the singing, it's in the producing, owning the company.*Kids treated automatic weapons like clothing, they would wear them the way they would wear their sneakers.*In the hood, it was life during wartime.*Rap is the story of the hustler, and it is the story of the rapper himself.*Jay-Z starts wearing clothes designed by Iceberg, a European Sportswear designer. Upon meeting the designer, they offer him free clothing. The rap star walks away and builds a billion dollar clothing company from scratch. The story is all here and like the rest of the book, it's a page turner. *His views on politics will grip you. He meets Obama the candidate, and astutely figures out that the most important thing the future President brings to the table is that he will help millions of black kids realize that they can aspire to something other than being drug dealers.

*He tells the future President that in one moment we will go from centuries of invisibility to the most visible position in the world. *From housing projects designed to warehouse lives, to knowing that the truth will always be relevant, he will tell you that it's not about brainpower but stamina, self-motivation, willpower, and standing up to the mental and physical challenge of meeting life head-on. CONCLUSION:I came to this book with an open mind, and I could not have been more pleased with it. From the discussions about Quincy Jones who revolutionized musical arrangements in his lifetime, to Bono and his commitment to use his celebrity and money to transform society, the whole book was an exercise in literary pleasure. It is a demonstration that Dag Hammarskjold the UN Secretary General who gave his life for peace was right when he wrote the following. "It is more noble to give yourself completely to one individual than to labor diligently for the salvation of the masses". Thank you for reading this review.Richard C. Stoyeck

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60% Off Discounts: Best Price The Tao of Wu Review

The Tao of Wu

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The Tao of Wu Review

Originally posted on my blog, Hip Hop Is Read (Oct. 13, 2009):
On "Uzi (Pinky Ring)" from the Iron Flag album, The RZA said something about a "Wu Library". Was this what he had in mind?
Behind the allure of their esoteric lyricism and imagery, there's vast depth behind the Wu-Tang Clan's interest in kung fu films, chess and comic books, as well as their ties to the Five-Percent Nation, Eastern philosophy and the boroughs of New York from which they hail. There's nothing kitschy about these now hipster-standard cultural elements that were once an avant-garde, new angle to the hip hop world and, especially, mainstream America. If textbook rules applied, the Wu-Tang Clan would have either dissolved into the depths of underground obscurity or retooled their image to satisfy commercial norms. Through The RZA's vision, however, the Clan held steadfast to their distinctiveness and stormed through the industry with a divide and conquer strategy.
RZA's new book, The Tao of Wu, discusses the various steps and influences that paved his road to success (in music and in life), the roadblocks that tested his discipline, and the jewels of knowledge he's gathered along the way. Loaded with the terminology and precepts of The Universal Language, The Tao of Wu is definitely intended for Wu-Tang fans and folks familiar with the concepts of the Five-Percenters; but anybody with an interest in music and the game of life, eccentric as RZA's story may seem, can glean much from The Tao of Wu.
As the book's jacket suggests, The Tao of Wu bares resemblance to Hermann Hesse's cult classic Siddhartha. RZA's tales, much like those of the young Siddhartha, are framed as a coming of age story with key parables and glimpses of enlightenment. RZA's narrative, of course, is nonfictional; thus The Tao of Wu is part Wu-Tang fact book and, mostly, part memoir. RZA retraces the roots that led him to music and philosophy all the way back to his early years. It was his days as a child in North Carolina after all - with his Mother Goose rhyme-reciting uncle Hollis - that cultivated the inspiration behind the Gravediggaz and 6 Feet Deep.
Even the most well-versed of Wu-Tang fans will appreciate The Tao of Wu's trove of never-before-told tales. RZA digs deep into Supreme Mathematics and the sutras of Buddhist scripture, establishing his pillars of wisdom; he equates the historic destruction of the Shaolin monastery with the 1996 flood that wrecked his 36 Chambers studio in Staten Island (a.k.a. Shaolin), an incident that caused Ghostface's Iron Man album to sound different from Only Built 4 Cuban Linx and Liquid Swords (a fact that never occurred to me until I read this book); he recounts both the weapons charge case he faced and Method Man's near-death experience, both of which could have easily wiped out the Wu-Tang Clan from existence; he picks out various hip hop phrases like "get in where you fit in" and "it's all good" and traces their Buddhist origins (seriously). RZA even cites Malcolm Gladwell's `10,000 Hour Rule', the point at which mastery in any field is presumably attained, and identifies the moment when he reached this peak in his quest to perfect his production skills.
The Wu-Tang Manual, The RZA's previous book and first in this series of Wu-literature, was a valuable collection of facts - a primer on the foundation of the Clan. The Tao of Wu, however, goes deeper into the brain of The RZA and as such is a more absorbing reading experience. If you liked The Wu-Tang Manual, you'll really enjoy The RZA's follow-up. (Even Cornel West gives it a thumbs-up!) The Tao of Wu is written in a conversational style that's both easy to digest but difficult to put down. It's a light read, but the more spiritual-based aspects of the book may take you some time to reflect. The section on Ol' Dirty Bastard's passing was particularly stirring. In reading The Tao of Wu, I gained a better appreciation for RZA's work - specifically the depth of his lyricism. And if you ever had a doubt as to why The RZA, aside from being the Wu-Tang Clan's chief producer, is heralded as the group's leader, The Tao of Wu will make that unmistakably clear. I highly recommend The Tao of Wu to Wu-Tang fans and the uninitiated alike. Bong, bong!

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