Years ago Me and Da Vinci had a conversation with a Baltimore emcee named
Dre The Beloved (hey Dre sorry if I spelled that wrong) about music. It was after an open mic show called
Season The Microphone Mondays, hosted by one of my favorite Baltimore emcees,
Tislam The Great. According to Dre, the Wu-Tang sound was over, and he couldn't even listen to
Enter The 36 Chambers anymore. Blaspheme!
As a Wu-head from birth, it brings me much joy to say that
Wu-Tang has come back with a vengeance. Of course they never really left. But you can't deny that they fell back for a while. The only members still consistently putting out albums were
Ghostface and
Gza, and I've neverz been huge on Gza. He got too cerebral for my tastes after
Liquid Swords (Killa Hills and
Cold World are still my shits tho). But I've liked every Ghost album ever made. Now in the span of like a month, both Ghost and
Raekwon drop two very different albums that show that
the W is definitely not dead.
(This is the "Only Built For Cuban Linx 2 Face", all rights reserved)
Raekwon's new joint brings him back to square one, in the best way possible.
Only Built For Cuban Linx 2 just may be the only rap sequel to stand up to it's predecessor. I won't waste time going track for track, but I will say that there's only 3 joints on it that I skip sometimes. If you know my pickiness, you know that that's a great accomplishment for a 22-track album.
So I'll start with the bad: Some tracks have annoying singers. Meh, it's the classic Wu sound, you gotta take the bad with the good. Sometimes the untrained voices work, sometimes they don't. So I liked
Blue Raspberry on
Have Mercy, didn't like (uncredited) singer on
Mean Streets. And I can't stand
Busta Rhymes on
About Me. His new not-so-hype-at-all gravely voice and lazy flow annoy the fuck outta me. Why do good still-new-ish rappers retire (
Lupe!) yet his ass continues to poison my ears?
Now the good. Raekwon has paradoxically and inexplicably succeeded in channeling the old content and sound without
sounding old. He's completely on the drug rap tip, and he does it this go-round better than the last time in my humble opinion. I'll admit that I didn't listen deeply to the original Cuban Linx when I first got it, as Raekwon's style was hard for me to get into. He doesn't
really rap per se, at least not like most rappers. He
always tells stories. Even on a song about bragging, the way he brags is just, well,
different, like he's telling a bunch of micro-stories about how live he is. I've since absorbed Cuban Linx, and I still gotta say I like this one better. The content is much more cohesive this time around. I feel like his songwriting skill has grown like crazy. And the beats are better because they vary more. Raekwon used a lot of guest producers, but he purposefully chose beats to fit the mood of this album. The
Dilla and
Scram Jones beats steal the show, but all are good.
The whole thing plays out like the drug movie
Hype Williams wishes
Belly was. Not with any real narrative that I can perceive, but more so that each song is a scene from the hypothetical drug/hood movie that Raekwon made the soundtrack to.
I'll end my ramblings here, and talk about Ghost's album in my next post. If you haven't already, go buy Raekwon's album! He sold around 150k so far, and the album is independent (up until distribution and some radio promotion, which is handled by EMI). So you can rest assured that more of your money will go into his pockets.
~Knowledge the Wu-Fanboy
