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Cart is a malcontent, posing as a student. He's really just a lout.
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| Articulate: An Angstlust Project |
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Daoism, Islam and the Wu-Tang Clan: Ghetto Theologians
by Cart
The grand ultimate supreme, no extremities
We use Tai Chi to deflect off our enemy
Five poisons, from the Clan there's no Remedy
We dispel the smell of wickedness in our vicinity
Bobby, the atomic, Islamic, bomb-droppin'
appear in your atmosphere like the comet
Heading to the Western Hemisphere, non-stoppin'
Strikin' the belly of the seed to make it vomit
Things of beings is unseen by men
in shapes and form, never been dreamed by men
The word of God, always intervene with sin
From insight, my inner-light beams within
Pin-point focus, move silently un-noticed
When you attack, I fall back in the wind like the lotus
Put the soul in the track like my name was Otis
The Rza, Chi Kung(1)
The Wu-Tang Clan, a group of nine MC’s from the New York area combined in the early 1990’s to become the most prominent hip-hop group of the coming decade. They used their talents of altering and manipulating language in accordance with one of the main pillars of the sect of Islam, which many of the members officially prescribe, The Five Percent Nation, to teach others about the world around them, to provide a voice for disenfranchised African Americans as well as the less altruistic pursuit of fame and fortune. This essay’s aim is to illustrate the influence of Islam and Daoism on the group, the convergence of these two religions to form one coherent ideal, as well as to decode some of the lyrics and rhetoric to reveal their true meaning and application towards the discussion of Daoism or Islam.
Before delving into the issues outlined in the introduction, a brief education regarding the most prominent slang of the Hip-Hop world in general is required. ‘MC’, traditionally meaning Master of Ceremonies is used in the Hip-Hop or Rap vocabulary to mean lyricist; a lyricists is essentially a poet. Unlike poetry however, the skill of an MC is not reflected solely in his prose. The method in which the MC recites his prose, essentially his/her meter (though the meter in any given verse can be altered) or his/her ‘flow’, also greatly influences the credibility afforded to that MC, though lyrics still remain the most important category to be judged upon. The most critically successful MC’s are those who balance excellent rhyming abilities while at the same time maintaining a flow complimentary to their voice and rhymes. Like poetry, an MC’s rhymes and flow are very personal, and unique to each artist. Conversely, like in most other forms music, the lyrical talent of any individual artist or group is best reflected by their musical accompaniment, a task in the Hip-Hop world given to DJ’s (Disc Jockey) and Producers. In the instance of Hip-Hop, the producer or producers is responsible for the creation of the musical accompaniment, an art form all it’s own in which arguably few are as successful as their MC counterparts. It is much more difficult to be a successful producer than a successful MC, especially in discussions involving groups, as the ‘track’ or ‘beat’ must compliment many different styles and ‘flows’ as opposed to a single style. In the specific example of the Wu-Tang Clan, The Rza (born Robert Diggs) is both a lyricist and producer while being regarded in the group as best in both categories.
Influenced by old Kung Fu movies they watched growing up in various slums and ‘ghetto’s’ in the New York area, the Wu-Tang Clan, named after a sword technique attributed to an invincible clan or warriors, formed in Staten Island, New York, which they would christen as ‘Shaolin’. A group of nine cousins, friends and acquaintances agreed to assemble under the tutelage of the group’s de-facto leader and visionary, The Rza, who’s moniker is derived from the sound created when the word ‘Razor’ is ‘scratched’ (a process of manipulating sound generated off of vinyl records by sliding the record against the needle) on a turntable. In 1993, they released the album Enter the Wu-Tang 36 Chambers to much critical acclaim. Though many previous rap artists such as Brand Nubian had previously rapped about afro centricity and the virtues of Islam, none had been perceived to subscribe to the teachings of the Far East, like Daoism.
“In the Daoist golden age,” writes Donald Lopez Jr., “society lacked distinctions based on class and human beings lived happily in what resembled primitive, small-scale agricultural collectives.”(2) Though the Rza is seen as the leader, an argument could be made that the Wu-Tang is a similar collective, in which each member is on equal footing with the other. All 9 MC’s could conceivably enjoyed solo success without the Wu-Tang Clan, but one would assume that success would not be near the same degree, nor was success certain. The Rza and Gza (Gza being the sound the word ‘Genius’ makes when scratched, cousin of the Rza) both released albums prior to the creation of the Wu-Tang Clan, with very discouraging results, so disappointing that the Rza was later released from his record label.
The area to find the majority of their representation of religious belief’s however, is in their spoken lyrics. Often, it takes a certain level of decoding to fully understand their lyrics, which is itself [the manipulation of language], a pedagogy of the Five Percent Nation and Nation of Islam. In the song ‘Gold’ the Gza writes:
About to set off something more deep than a misdemeanor.
In this instance, the ‘Medina’ of mention is not specifically the Medina of Saudi Arabia, the city which Muhammad first ruled as a prophet of God, and used as his staging area for the march on Mecca, it is a combination of two descriptions. The Gza is acknowledging his faith in Islam by referencing Medina, but what he, and the rest of the Wu-Tang Clan refer to Medina is actually Harlem, New York, the birth place of The Five Percent Nation, and the roots of the Nation of Islam. ‘In the heart of Medina’ signifies his familiarity and sentimentality to the area, while at the same time, using it as an object of status, describing it divinely as opposed to the common stereotype of Harlem, that of a poor, rugged area. Harlem is the new staging ground for the new prophets, according to the Gza, and the people of Harlem, the people who are guided by the Nation of Islam and the Five Percent Nation are the new people of Medina, and in the eyes of the Gza (as well as the rest of the Wu-Tang Clan) should be seen as a status symbol, a type of black empowerment often associated with the militancy of the Nation of Islam and Black Panthers, also products of the Harlem area of the 1950’s and 1960’s. Their alias’s represent this idea, for example, the Rza is also known as ‘The Scientist’ or ‘Rzarecta’ (using his rhymes to awaken the ignorant or ‘mentally deceased’), Ol’ Dirty Bastard, ‘The Professor’ and the Gza ‘Allah Justice’.
His mention of Medina is not the sole mention of Medina by the Wu-Tang Clan. Medina, among other colourful descriptions appears throughout their group and solo catalogues. Nor is it the only inference of their deeper-than-most study of Islam. Throughout Wu-Tang member’s lyrics, are constant references to each other as ‘God’, even going as far as the Rza proclaiming himself ‘Ruler Zig Zag Zig Allah.’ These allusions would conceivably bring the ire of religious leaders as ‘blasphemous’, however that is not the case. “Clarence 13X [the founder of Five Percent Nation] began to teach that the black man collectively was God,” according to Ted Swedenburg.(3) Conversely, the infiltration of Islamic and Five Percent vocabularies into popular discourse are due primarily due to Hip-Hop achieving, “achieved such common currency within the hip-hop community that they have lost their original resonance.” Prime examples of this terminology are the terms ‘G’, ‘word’ and ‘break it down’.(4) Other explanations exist for these terms, such as G being an abbreviation for Gangster, though that is primarily associated with the rap enclaves of other regions of the United States such as the West coast, at one point in a very public ‘feud’ with East coast rappers and record labels. Because of the origins of Hip-Hop being in the East as well as the first primary users of the term were affiliated in some way with Islam, whether it be the Nation of Islam, Five Percent Nation or in the case of the term ‘peace’ the Moorish Science Temple, it is a safe assumption that the original meaning of the term ‘G’ was to signify the seventh letter of the Alphabet (important in the ‘supreme science’ of Five Percenters) also signifying the person labeled as ‘G’ to be of equal footing as a believer and part of everything which makes up Allah.
Within the Wu-Tang’s belief in the Five Percent numerology, we see a deep convergence of Islam and Daoism. Allah for instance being an acronym of Arm-Leg-Leg-Arm-Head, or essentially the embodiment of Allah, that everything is Allah. Within this Arm-Leg-Leg-Arm-Head however, is the explanation for the album name ’36 Chambers’, a quasi-Daoist concept explained through numerology. As the Rza explains in The Wu-Tang Manual, “there’s nine members of the Wu-Tang Clan. Each member of Wu-Tang has four chambers of the heart. And what’s nine times four? Thirty-six.” Another explanation, following the kung-fu theme, “There are thirty-six fatal points on the body, and that times ten degrees of separation between each point equals 360 degrees. Therefore, the Wu-Tang Clan is a perfect circle.”(5) Though which members represent the Yin and which represent the Yang has yet to be revealed.
The production style of the Rza could be aptly described as being Daoist in approach. Aside from the sampling of old Kung-Fu movies, the Rza’s style of production is very raw, unforced, with an easy jazz-like flow. Many point to the Rza’s production success as not altering the integrity of the MC’s for his beat, a main teaching of Daoism. According to the teachings of Chuang-Tse as they appear in Benjamin Hoff’s book, The Tao of Pooh, “You complain that your tree is not valuable as lumber [a particularly knotted tree unusable for construction]. But you could make use of the shade it provides, rest under its sheltering branches, and stroll beneath it, admiring its character and appearance. Since it would not be endangered by an axe, what could threaten its existence? It is useless to you only because you want to make it into something else, and do not use it in its proper way.”(6) This is the very essence not only of the Rza’s approach to production, but to the Wu-Tang’s approach to Hip-Hop in general. Listening to the song Triumph in which eight of the Wu-Tang’s members recite lyrics (it should be noted that in no single song to all nine members appear with their own verse), with an introduction by Ol’ Dirty Bastard, one begins to understand how different each lyricist is, and how in no way does the group dynamic influence them to change their respective sounds, that each is accepted as is, and that that diversity is what contributes to the greatness of the group.
The aim of this essay was to illustrate the influence of Islam and Daoism on the group, the convergence of these two religions to form one coherent ideal, as well as to decode some of the lyrics and rhetoric to reveal their true meaning and application towards the discussion of Daoism or Islam, and I believe the essay has fulfilled the requirement of its introduction. The influence of Daoism and Islam on the Wu-Tang Clan is clear, from the lyrical sphere to the personal sphere, each member is undoubtedly touched by both cultures and religious practices, though for the sake of brevity a member by member examination is not could not be accomplished. Though no member can be seen to be orthodox Muslim or Taoist, for instance the promotion of taking drugs and imbibing alcohol, their schooling and education is clearly as a result of the teachings in the Holy Quran as well as those of various Taoist philosophers, whether promoted through Hong Kong cinema or not.
Footnotes
(1) Chi Kung. New York: Wu Records/Sanctuary Records. Catalogue #: SANCD 231.
(2) Donald S. Lopez Jr. Religions of Asia in Practice. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002. p.299
(3) Ted Swedenburg, “Islam in the Mix: Lessons of the Five Percent” (Paper presented at the Anthropology Colloquium, University of Arkansas, February 19, 1997). Available online: http://comp.uark.edu/~tsweden/5per.html
(4) Ted Swedenburg, “Islam in the Mix: Lessons of the Five Percent” (Paper presented at the Anthropology Colloquium, University of Arkansas, February 19, 1997). Available online: http://comp.uark.edu/~tsweden/5per.html
(5) RZA, The Wu-Tang Manual. (New York: Riverhead Books, 2005)
(6) Benjamin Hoff, The Tao of Pooh. (New York: Penguin Books, 1982)
Bibliography
Cited Footnotes:
Chi Kung. New York: Wu Records/Sanctuary Records. Catalogue #: SANCD 231
Lopez, Donald S. Jr,. Religions of Asia in Practice. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002.
Swedenburg, Ted. “Islam in the Mix: Lessons of the Five Percent” (Paper presented at the Anthropology Colloquium, University of Arkansas, February 19, 1997). Available online: http://comp.uark.edu/~tsweden/5per.html
RZA, The Wu-Tang Manual. New York: Riverhead Books, 2005.
Hoff, Benjamin. The Tao of Pooh. New York: Penguin Books, 1982.
Doniger, Wendy. Splitting the Difference. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999.
Un-cited Reference:
(The Following resources were not used for quote or idea citation and therefore do not receive any in-text citation, however they served as historical reference and should be noted bibliographically)
O’Connor, Kathleen Malone. “The Islamic Jesus: Messiahhood and Human Divinity in African American Muslim Exegesis”. Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Vol.66, No. 3 (Autumn 1998), 493-532
Also available online: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0002-7189%28199823%2966%3A3%3C493%3ATIJMAH%3E2.0.C0%3B2-D
Decker, Jeffrey Louis. “The State of Rap: Time and Place in Hip Hop Nationalism. Social Text, No. 34 (1993)
Also available online: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0614-2472%281993%290%3A34%3C53%3ATSORTA%3E2.0.C0%3B2-Y
Sanneh, Kelefa. “Believe the Hype”. Transition, No. 80 (1999)
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