790. Raekwon - Only Built 4 Cuban Linx ... (1995)

Track Listing

1. Striving For Perfection
2. Knuckleheadz
3. Knowledge God
4. Criminology
5. Incarcerated Scarfaces
6. Rainy Dayz
7. Guillotine (Swordz)
8. Can It Be All So Simple (Remix)
9. Shark Niggas (Biters)
10. Ice Water
11. Glaciers Of Ice
12. Verbal Intercourse
13. Wisdom Body
14. Spot Rusherz
15. Ice Cream
16. Wu-Gambinos
17. Heaven & Hell
18. North Star (Jewels)

Review

An interesting thing about the whole Wu-Tang project is how consistent all of it is, how each album by any of the members or the Clan itself is so interconnected with everything else. It is like nothing else in music.

That being said there are different levels of success to the different albums and the nature of the thing leads to a considerable amount of overlap. You keep recognising song after song and they all owe so much to 36 Chambers that none has the impact of that album.

Still, Raekwon produces a solo Wu-Tang album which is even better than Method Man's Tical, the sampling is in the same tradition with great snippets of martial arts films and great jazzy\experimental samples. What it brings of new is the association of Gangsta with Italian Mafia, something which would be imitated to an inch of its life. So if you really love the Wu-Tang this is a great solo album for you, if not 36 Chambers is still more essential.

Track Highlights

1. Knowledge God
2. Criminology
3. Verbal Intercourse
4. Heaven & Hell

Final Grade

8/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

A member of The Wu-Tang Clan, Raekwon released Only Built 4 Cuban Linx...—originally to be titled Only Built 4 Cuban Linx Niggaz — as his first solo album. It was a diverse, theatrical criminological epic that saw The RZA move away from the raw, stripped-down beats of the early albums and towards a richer, cinematic sound more reliant on strings and classic soul samples. Lavish living and the crime underworld are referenced throughout, with the mystique of the Wu-Tang Clan deepened by the adoption of crime boss aliases and the crew name Wu-Gambinos. This album is commonly referred to as The Purple Tape because the original cassette's plastic was entirely purple. Raekwon made this decision because he wanted to make sure people knew his album, in a way similar to how drug dealers may mark their goods.

Criminology: