And fuck the rest but I finally got to figure where the spoken word intro words to "Bring da Ruckus" came from, so that right there was my reason for reading the book.

RZA talks about his visit to Sifu in China, the original Shaolin Temple and the birthplace of kung fu. As RZA aka The Abbot, describes it, "The Abbot of the other Wu-Tang" gave him a tape of their music.

I don't listen to rap because I see myself there or want to be there or think I can flow. I just enjoy it, some of it - the music that's creative and isn't all about buying and collecting (although if it sounds good ... )

So since I consider my knowledge about the Wu-Tang Clan incomplete the introduction of a book, The WTC Manual offers to complete a circle of knowledge.

Like watching that obscure avant-garde play or a new creation by a favorite playwright; you know there's a plot, you hope something strange will make you look at the world in a different way, and no, you're not supposed to understand it completely.

The Wu-Tang Manual service is done best when RZA explains, throughout his longer term plan for the group, his five-year plan for marketing everything from Wu-wear to organizing the release dates and the labels for the solo records by the Clan performers.

It's a lesson:

(page 226)"Even before Wu-Tang was officially a group, I was the nucleus, because I'm the common denominator. Before they knew each other they all knew me. Once we all came together, I became the seven in the center of Wu-Tang. It was just my role - to be the source of energy for the rest of the band, the gravitational center that pulls everyone together.

People ask me how I can get all these different MCs - each one being so brilliant and unpredictable - to listen to me. It's hard for me to define how it works but it goes back a long way.

The common thread was Mathematics [the mechanics and measuring of the earth]. There's always one among us who's the best knower. Within the Wu-Tang Clan, that was me. I had the answers to the most questions at the time. And the truth is magnetic. It attracts everything to it. And that's what I was dealing with - with a true vision and a true past, and my own honesty, the way I dealt with equality.

At the same time, some brothers were still stuck out in the street, not living morally. I was already coming to an understanding of myself, but I also understood what they were going through. So I was able to deal with this equilibrium.

At the same time, I knew what I was doing, and I was very firm about it. I wasn't a pushover. I was more like, "This is where it is, this is how it is, and that's that." Brothers respected that. and they respected my judgment.

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