Raekwon - Shaolin vs. Wu-Tang

The problem with Jay-Z nowadays is not that he stopped rapping about the streets, but that he started rapping about himself - his real self, that is, not the highly theatrical version of himself that used to be his main topic. There is not a lot of drama in the situations that populate Jay-Z songs now, like Jay-Z meeting Obama or whining about AutoTune, and the real drama that I'm sure is present in his life would probably be bad for RocaWear as a business if he actually talked about it. Sociopaths and idiots (especially those that care about "realness") aside, drama is the real reason that people like gangsta rap - it's a world with huge stakes and larger-than-life anti-heroes and villains.

Raekwon (who I'm sure lives in the Tri-state suburbs and sends his kids to private school in reality) gets this, which is why his own take on high-powered (albeit still criminal rap) businessman rap in Shaolin vs. Wu-Tang is so much more interesting than something like The Blueprint 3. Raekwon doesn't sacrifice the grit and vivid detail of his street reminiscences when he transitions to loftier realms - if he was talking about using milk as a secret ingredient while cooking crack before, now he's showing off the golden rocket launcher his aunt brought him from Rwanda and traveling to Scotland to hunt down a former business associate.

The micro detail in Raekwon's stuff always feels vibrant and fresh, even if his macro goal is emphatically the same exact thing it's been since 1994 - nothing but plain ol' hard-boiled criminal storytelling. Raekwon scoffs at that traditional rockist idea of innovation or progression (understandably enough given how that rule has worked out for other Wu members - Ghost's "R&B album" is among the worst things any Clan member has done, and RZA is probably hanging out in an opium den making psychedelia right now). I suspect he'd even take issue with that Big Boi chestnut about "writ[ing] knockout songs" while other rappers "spit punchlines for money" - who the fuck has time for songs? Song, at least in the rap world, implies that you have to have a hook (which I'll define here as a chorus that isn't just Raekwon himself repeating a line), something which only 4 of the 17 tracks on the album have (and one of those "hooks" is delivered by, um, Winston Churchill).

No, even if his beat selection is reliably solid, Raekwon is all about the words in a way that nearly no contemporary rapper still is, with a style dense enough to pack multitudes into lines and even fragments of lines. To wit, in "Molasses" (fueled by a great homage to an old Liquid Swords beat):

Word to the Gold Panameras, and to the wood grain in my Lambo
I go the extra mile, my flow scalpels
Crew cuts, the older niggas, the same rumors from the same goons
When niggas catch visions of killing capos

In four lines: a particularly exotic brand of Porsche, transitioned by a pair of metaphors into a two-line study of criminal bosses retaining power by carefully and dispassionately tracking and dealing with ambitious young up-and-comers. And this isn't a standout excerpt, it's a typical one! Even a casual listener catching the odd fragment of meaning will get the key vibe of these tracks - a gaudy noveau-rich lifestyle papering over the frantic anxiety of criminal life - but these stand up to repeated listening .

Most rap nowadays either has veered towards pop (Kanye, obviously, but even someone like Big Boi fits here too) or relies on something beyond the lyricism (the Odd Future-Insane Clown Posse comparison really isn't that far off on paper - it's the beats and Tyler the Creator's creepy-mesmerizing swagger that make the Wolf Gang interesting). With occassional exceptions (Freddie Gibbs and Roc Marciano come to mind), Raekwon is one of the few torch-bearers for a specific kind of vital, important rap style, and as long as his abilities are as razor-sharp as they continue to be, I don't mind his staying in his wheelhouse one bit.

Also:

- It's worth mentioning that Raekwon always has his guests firing on all cylinders - Ghostface continues his recent trend of only being worth a damn on a Raekwon album, and Rick Ross of all people drops what seems like a career best verse on "Molasses". Someone's going to have to explain the line "Ankle monitors under garments, so fuck showers" to me though - does Officer Ricky not bathe?

- While we're on Odd Future - I'll grant you the genius of Tyler, but do people really think the rest of the crew gets anywhere close to that kind of quality? To make a completely inappropriate analogy, the other Odd Future members are like the not-famous Black Eyed Peas to Tyler's Will.I.Am (Earl can be Fergie in this formulation).

Raekwon - "Molasses"


Raekwon - "Butter Knives"