128 Oz. of Great-erade: 'Only Built 4 Cuban Linx, Pt. 2,' by Raekwon

'Chef in the kitchen cookin' up with the crimeys...'

It's 100 percent unfair to compare Only Built 4 Cuban Linx, Pt. 2 to its stone-cold classic predecessor. It just is. No matter how loud you go "OHHHHHH!" when you hear the familiar, ill loop on "Pyrex Vision" (an old Premier beat copped from one of my all-time favorite LPs, OC's Jewelz), it's not going to be the same as that first time you heard "Verbal Intercourse." Believe me, I want it to. I'm boom-bap to the bone, but the Golden Age has passed.

That said, Pt. 2 is every bit as great as I hoped it would or could be. It's easily the second-best album of Raekwon's career, and hearkens back to the original as much as it can without being deliberately backward-looking.

As someone who judges most rap songs based primarily on their production, I don't know if Rae dropped any of his best verses on the albums between the two Cuban Linx, because I truthfully have never listened to any of them in their entirety. All I know is that he dropped some sick guest verses over the past year (on Doom's joint in particular, over another old-school sample), threw down some equally excellent rhymes on two mixtapes, Blood on Chef's Apron and Cuban Revolution, and topped all three with Pt. 2. From the eerie organ on "Black Mozart" to the wavery, paranoid bassline of "Have Mercy," the record captures what I suppose I'd metaphorically call that "Usual Suspects" vibe that provided the backdrop for such intricate crime storytelling the first time around.

Rae shows that same attention to detail on tracks like "Catalina," the plucky "10 Bricks" and the hollow "laaaa's" of "Gihad." He even gets a little emotional over the perfect Dilla track in the ODB tribute "Ason Jones."




And it wouldn't be a proper Cuban Linx sequel if it wasn't guest-starring (billed right on the cover) Ghostface on at least a third of the tracks. He doesn't disappoint, blasting away on the the Clan-cut opener, "House of Flying Daggers" and the greatest Wu track in a decade, "New Wu," which will have you pulling out Enter the 36 Chambers all over again.

Some of the production exhibits a little of the clunkiness that caused older Wu records like The W and Iron Flag to drag on occasion, but it's so refreshing to hear Rae back in the saddle that it doesn't really matter. In fact, I'm gonna go ahead and dub this period of mid-'00s resurgence, from Masta Killa's No Said Date up through now, the Wu-Tang Renaissance. In that roughly five-year span, you have No Said Date, Made In Brooklyn, Fishscale (and More Fish and Another One I Can't Think Of), Chamber Music, Pro Tools, Dopium (debatable, I grant you, but still... a decent U-God solo record? That's almost a miracle), Cuban Linx II and even solid joints from former weed-carriers I had written off, like Bronze Nazareth and particularly Hell Razah (Killah Priest, I've just given up on... either he's just too deep for me, or he's the most boring intelligent rapper I've ever fucking heard. I'm also writing off Rza's Digi Snax, for reasons which should be obvious to anyone unfortunate enough to have heard it. Rza should tell Bobby Digital that he needs to stick to writing the script for the second season of "Afro Samurai").

So... welcome back, Chef. You cooked up another tasty batch.

The Mixtape Mash-Up

Above, Havoc's 'From Now On' mixtape

Work's been busy, so I haven't been posting quite as often as usual, but lately one thing I have noticed is that a lot of the stuff I've been liking lately has come in the form of mixtapes.

Now, I have a longstanding and generally mild distaste for the mixtape, as a collection of tossed-off B-sides and shitty freestyles, but I understand its function as a buzz-generator for the artist. One thing that draws me to some mixtapes is my passion for Jamaican dancehall music, which not only has mixtapes galore, but also has a variety of different artists giving their take on the same beat. Although dancehall usually takes a fairly spare beat and adds some instrumentation to go along with the verses; hip-hop mixtapes don't spice up the production much.

That said, a few have definitely caught my eye recently:

• Wu-Tang South, Wu South, Vol. 1 - This Baltimore-based group, which appears to be Rush and Cappadonna, along with a few select guests and the obligatory posthumous ODB verse, has supposedly been around since 2006, and this mixtape, hosted by DJ Saki, is seeing its "official" release (whatever that means) in 2009. Normally, anything with Cappadonna on more than half the tracks hasn't warranted my praise in the past, but this is a definite exception. "Here Today" kicks things off with a soul chop and a tinny keyboard line that feels like classic Wu without being classic Wu. "Born in NYC" mixes up a dusty synth line with a heavy piano, and "NYC City Standup" actually does do the dancehall thang, flipping Redman's "Da Goodness" with a buzzing horn hit.

• Havoc, From Now On - I've always been a huge Mobb Deep fan. And even though, starting with Murda Muzik, their work has been a little bit suspect (with a few notable exceptions), I always check out a new release from the QB crew. I have to say that it's kind of disheartening to see the G-Unit emblem on a Mobb Deep-affiliated record, but shit, times are tight all around. Is there even a Loud Records anymore? (Answer: Supposedly, it was resurrected as a part of Street Records, over the summer. Not confirmed). Anyway, I'm getting away from the point. This is a decent mixtape that retains the Mobb's menacing sound with a few new elements and little more flossiness ("We don't pop shots no more, we launch rockets"). The opener, "Smells Like 9/5," could have been a Hell on Earth B-side, "Letter to P" is a heart-to-heart sent out to Prodigy over a smooth soul choir and fuzzy guitar, and "24k Rap" nabs the bassline from Xzibit's "Los Angeles Times," adding some forlorn echoes along with verses from Ghostface Killah and the late J. Dilla. Definitely better than P's Product of the '80s.

• Bajah + the Dry Eye Crew, Kings of Salone: the DJ Gravy Mixtape - Thanks to Doc Zeus for putting me up on this Sierra Leone-based crew. They mostly truck in dancehall, with a few dashes of hip-hop thrown in from time to time. Actually, there's a fair variety of uptempo, danceable tracks on the mixtape's brief 31 minutes, ranging from party jams ("Bondo Kallay," "Laba Laba," "Any Girl") to neck-snapping hip-hop "Rapapumpum" to gladiator dancehall (the massive "Honda"). "Makossa" flips a familiar old-school beat, and "Give Me Your Number" is straight-up rocksteady. A perfect summer disc.

• Raekwon, Cuban Revolution - This is actually the second mixtape Rae's put out lately (Blood on Chef's Apron was the other) but Revolution is the latest round of material to keep everyone salivating for fall's supposed, alleged (dare I uttter it?) Cuban Linx Deuce, and it's pretty great. Featuring Ghost on a solid third of the album, it might as well be called Cuban Linx 1.5, or maybe Even More Motherfuckin' Fish. "Run Away" would fit in with any of Rae or Ghost's best solo work, "Better Shoot Something" works one of those old baroque-soul Wu loops, and "Slang Copulation" reunites out the old "Verbal Intercourse" trio with Nas, Ghost and some spooky ooh's (oh, and Cappadonna, too, but fuckit, he had his fifteen seconds earlier). Host DJ Memory Man even rounds things out with a loping soul loop that pairs up Ghost and Rae with a great Biggie verse.