Life according to the Wu-Tang Clan

The RZA imparts the lessons he’s learned in his unique journey How you, too, can ‘see the signs’

Part memoir, part self-help, part philosophy, part religious text — the book “The Tao of Wu” is impossible to categorize, so we asked its author, the RZA of the Wu-Tang Clan, to help us out.

“I’d say it’s a map,” he pontificates. “A map with road signs. It’s a path to wisdom.”

At just 40 years old, the RZA is hardly an ancient sage, bestowing his life lessons from a mountain top. But between being charged with murder, watching friend Ol’ Dirty Bastard continuing a crack binge on the day he died, and beating poverty and the projects to become the  producer and spiritual leader of one of the most critically and commercially successful hip-hop groups of all  time, he kind of knows his stuff.

“People pay for my songs. They get entertainment from them. And although I do think this book can be entertaining, I really hope that people obtain knowledge and information from it,” he says. “It just gives some common sense. Living in the earth, living in America — you might come across some things you can’t figure out how to bob and weave out of. This will help.”