Quote:Original first pressing of "The Purple Tape" purchased on the release date, 20 years ago. Signed by Rae and Ghost... and the 2012 re-release of course.

Quote: Twenty Years Later – Raekwon’s Only Built 4 Cuban Linx

by: Michael Shields

Twenty Years after its release, The Purple Tape’s legend and impact remains just as potent as ever….

OB4CL



In 1995, Raekwon wasn’t so sure he was qualified to release a solo album. He was comfortable contributing on Wu-Tang’s tracks, “coming in there and throwing his darts,” as he put it, but he was unsure about stepping into the spotlight. At the urging of those around him, Raekwon went to work. Inspired by Redman, who released an album enclosed in a red plastic casing, Raekwon made the request to his studio, Loud Records, to press the cassette of his debut album, Only Built 4 Cuban Linx, in a purple casing when complete. He wanted it to stand out. He wanted his cassette to attract attention amongst all those that pile up on hip-hop junkie’s car floorboards. Humoring Raekwon, Loud Records pressed the album in a purple-tinted casing for the first 10,000 cassettes. And with this, the legend of The Purple Tape was born. With a limited availability, only the die-hards, the true Wu-Tang and Raekwon heads, ended up with The Purple Tape, a symbol that they were down from day one.

The approach paid off. In spades. Quickly, the lore of the tape grew, and demand for one of those 10,000 copies is robust even to this day. You can find shirts sold with the image of The Purple Tape portrayed upon them in all its glory. A reissue was released in 2012 where 10,000 more tapes were produced as a Limited Edition collection, complete with a 36-page hardcover book with extended artwork plus liner notes written by Brian Coleman and Raekwon. Nas raps about The Purple Tape on “Last Real Nigga Alive” on 2002’s God’s Son. And in Prodigy’s autobiography entitled, My Infamous Life, he talks about how deeply The Purple Tape impacted him, and how it had him “wanting to drive fast.” There is no question this crafty marketing decision made Only Built 4 Cuban Linx stick out amongst the myriad of exceptional hip-hop albums available in the mid-90s, a period of time flush with hard-hitting classics. But what truly mattered wasn’t the color of the cassette, but rather what happened when you unsheathed it, threw it in the boom box, and pressed PLAY.

Only Built 4 Cuban Linx was the third solo album released by a member of the Clan following the release in 1993 of the almighty, 36 Chambers. Succeeding Method Man’s Tical, and Ol’ Dirty Bastards’ Return to the 36 Chambers: The Dirty version, Only Built 4 Cuban Linx was Raekwon’s turn to strike out on his own. But like a sensible law-enforcer, Raekwon was heedful enough to bring back up, in the form of Ghostface Killah and Rza. Only Built 4 Cuban Linx is a concept album in that its inspiration is drawn from cinema. It was designed to exist in the same vein as a film, where Raekwon (Lex Diamonds) was the star, Ghostface (Tony Starks) the co-star/side-kick and the director/producer was Rza (Bobby Steels), with the rest of the Clan, the “Wu-Gambinos,” rounding out the supporting cast. Arguably, Raekwon is Wu-Tang’s best storyteller, and on Only Built 4 Cuban Linx he weaves together a slew of narratives in the style of a mafia movie. Stepping directly in the footsteps of Kool G Rap, Raekwon bridged the gap between gangster rap and the Cosa Nostra and painted a vivid portrait of black kingpins relishing in the fruits of a flourishing drug trade.

“The theme of the album is two guys that had enough of the negative life and was ready to move on, but had one more sting to pull off. They’re tired of doing what they doing, but they’re trying to make this last quarter million. That’s a lot of money in the streets. We gonna retire and see our grandbabies and get our lives together.”

– Rza

With Raekwon’s rhymes, calculating and precise, paired with Ghostface’s in your face, larger than life persona, Only Built 4 Cuban Linx was an album that demanded your attention. Featuring an expansive eighteen tracks, two of those skits1, none of which can be dismissed, it is an album whose sum is even greater than its considerable parts. And while the subject matter may weigh dramatically on the transformation of drugs into heaping stacks of dead presidents, never has the lifestyle of the rich and dangerous been portrayed with such poetic harmony and poignancy. Twenty years after its emergence, it’s still remarkable to look back at an album of such soaring quality that transcends its illicit subject matter and stands illustriously as a tightly packaged, machiavellian work of art.

Not enough can be said about Rza’s production on Only Built 4 Cuban Linx, as it is some of the finest work in his esteemed career. This was the first instance where Rza was given the opportunity to indulge in his deep-seeded affinity for cinematic soundscapes. Laying down a thick backdrop of moody, melancholy and hypnotic beats, and employing strings, mesmeric piano loops, and vocal samples, Rza constructed not just a palette for his team of MC’s to craft upon, but a full cinemascore that composed unique atmospheres for the multitude of distinct “scenes” throughout the album. Occasionally minimalistic, and at other times vast and symphonic, Rza set the tone of Only Built 4 Cuban Linx, a defining album for both Raekwon and Ghostface, but also for Rza, one of the greatest producers to ever drop a beat.

This week, almost twenty years to the day of the release of this seminal album, Raekwon and Ghostface convened at New York’s Irving Plaza for a two-day celebratory throwdown in honor of the genre-defining classic. On night one, after the stage was properly warmed up by an extended dj set by Mister Cee playing “no ratchet music tonight, only ’90s shit,” Raekwon emerged from backstage grinning from ear to ear as the introduction to Only Built 4 Cuban Link’s opening track “Striving for Perfection” welcomed the crowd to the Anniversary Bash. Forewarning the mostly forty-something audience assembled before him that they were in for some “motion picture shit,” Raekwon commenced the party spitting ferociously and was joined onstage by Ghostface just in time for “Criminology,” a bonafide barnburner. From there on, then the duo purposefully dug deep into the album, leaving no stone unturned.

Before the night was through Raekwon and Ghostface swept through favorites such as “Ice Cream,” “Verbal Intercourse,” “Rainy Dayz,” and “Guillotine (Swords),” on way to treating those in attendance to an Anniversary surprise. As the unmistakable beat for “2 Gunz Up” roared out of the loudspeakers, Jadakiss and Sheek Louch emerged onstage as Raekwon and Ghostface watched on in elation. The L.O.X members went through a medley of their own hits including “All About the Benjamins,” “Niggaz Done Started Something,” “By Your Side,” and “We Gonna Make It.” Obligation demanded Jadakiss stick around for one more track following the surprise mini-set, performing the raucous banger, “Run” with Ghostface before Raekwon and Ghostface took back the reigns of the show and closed the evening with a bevy of classics from their vast catalogs such as “Daytona 500,” “One,” “C.R.E.A.M,” and “Cherchez LaGhost.” But while the evening steered away from the Only Built For Cuban Linx at times, those in attendance were there to hail the almighty Rae and Ghost, to give praise to where praise was due, and to celebrate the esteemed Purple Tape.

Purple Tape1

It is very telling to the quality of Only Built 4 Cuban Linx that it is considered by critics and fans alike to be one of the greatest of the Wu-Tang Clan’s solo projects. The list of solid albums that have trickled out of the Wu-Tang’s camp is astounding, but yet Only Built 4 Cuban Linx sits alongside classic Wu-Tang spinoffs like Liquid Swords and Ironman as the cream of the crop. It’s an album whose first person narratives are piercing, and rife with paranoia, excess, hope and betrayal. It is an album whose lyrical complexities and gifted production reveal themselves more majestic upon each listen. The influence of Only Built 4 Cuban Linx is enormous, inspiring career-defining albums by the likes of Jay Z, Nas2, and Mobb Deep. And unsurprisingly, twenty years later, a whole new generation of MCs is striving to emerge from the gargantuan shadow cast by two of the greatest to ever do it, Raekwon and Ghostface, and the classic album they dropped on the first day of August, 1995.

Quote:The Making Of OB4CL

The Documentary:
Ten years ago, some men with rhymes changed the face of hip-hop music. In the shadow of fellow Wu-Tan Clan stars Method Man and Ol' Dirty Bastard, Raekwon and his lyrical accomplice, Ghostface Killah created Only Built 4 Cuban Linx... a criminology rap classic that hustlers worldwide relate to.

BUILDERS:
Raekwon the Chef a/k/a Lex Diamonds
RZA a/k/a Bobby Steels
Ghostface Killah a/k/a Tony Starks
Method Man a/k/a Johnny Blaze
Inspectah Deck a/k/a Rollie Fingers
Masta Killa a/k/a Noodles
GZA a/k/a Genius a/k/a Maximilian
U-God a/k/a Golden Arms a/k/a Lucky Hands
Cappadonna a/k/a Cappachino
Blue Raspberry, guest vocalist
Nas, guest rapper

INTRODUCTION TO 'THE PURPLE TAPE'
Hov and Kris can claim albums they've christened as blueprints. But if any recording from rap's modern age has earned the title, it's Raekwon the Chef's colossal Only Built 4 Cuban Linx... released on August 1, 1995, behind solo efforts from Method Man and Ol' Dirty Bastard, the Chef's showcase broke new ground, deviating from past Wu-Tang efforts, which emphasized nimble verbal jousts, and bringing something completely unexpected: a narrative - driven concept album that followed two ambitious street hoods (Rae and in a star making perfomance, partner-in-rhyme Ghostface Killah) along their rough road the riches. Cinematic in structure, infused with Rae's personality and humor and Ghost's indelible worldplay, and supporrted by some of Clan svengali RZA's finest production work, Cuban Linx inspired hip-hop hustlers everywhere to chronicle their own grimy paths to glory - from Jay-Z with Reasonable Doubt to 50 Cent with Get Rich or Die Tryin'. ."I was straight up into a drug zone vibe," raekwon recalls of making his autobiographical opus. "It was like a tablet of my life, where I wanted to go, and all thihs shit I seen. We was just showing n*ggas that we master all sides of the streets when it comes to trying to get to the top." Although East Coast rap gangstas like Kool G. Rap and Mob Style (the late 80's Harlem outfit that included Pretty Tone Capone a nd famed crime lord the original AZ) had covered similar subject matter, Cuban Linx's gritty vignettes elevated such storytelling to another level, potraying a slice of underworld life where Five Percent Nation theology, gangland robberies and recreational cocaine bumps commingled freely. The album also kick started several trends withing the rap game. Cuban Linx was the first instace of rappers adopting mafia-inspired aliases (Wu-Gambinos), songs like "Incarcerated Scarfaces" and "Ice Cream", initiated slang like "politic" and "butter-pecan Rican", into the hip-hop vernacular, and Cristal became the bubbly of choice for the ghetto fabulous set, thanks to Rae and co.'s endorsement in various song lyrics. Nothing, however was more indicative of Raekwon's allegiance to the street soldier aesthetic than the LP's intended full title, Only Built 4 Cuban Linx Niggaz - as much a declaration of its musical potency as a forewarning to those not perpared for the uncut raw contained within, (Eventually and understandibly, the N-wordr was dropped). Rae also cosmetically distinguished his product from those of other artists, insisting on a purple-tinted cassette and CD case instead of a conventional clear version. "I wanted to potray an image that if I was selling cracks or dimes in the street, you would recognize these dimes from other n*ggas' dimes", he explains "recognize that I'm putting myself in another class, where this might not reach everybody table, but for the n*ggas who table it do reach, it's like, Yo, that's some hip hop bible to the streets." Ultimately, this uncompromising approach remains Cuban Linx's most enduring legacy. Raekwon and Ghostface would create their own slang, devote skits to Wallabee Clarks, use entire dialogue passages from their favorite films as interludes, and invite just one guest star to their coming-out party (Nas), because they didn't give two shits about fitting in with what other rappers were doing. As the duo spelled out on the controversial skit "Shark Niggas (Biters)", the whole key was to "be original". In this spirit, XXL alslo breaks form - from devoting our expanded Classic Material tributes to groundbreaking works of the dearly departed. On the 10-year anniversary of Only Built 4 Cuban Linx...'s release, we spoke with Raekwon and his collaborators for their reflections and insights on the creation of this hard-boiled hip-hop classic.

01: Striving For Perfection
RAEKWON: When we sat down and did "Striving for Perfection", we knew how important the intro to an album is. We were comming in as young, scrambling n*ggas. We had visions-- goals and dreams. And when we was saying certain things, shit was relating to n*ggas' lives for real. But at the end of the day, we was just trying to let it be known that, Yo, we gonna do this and we ain't gonna stop. If we fall off, we fall off. But if we get on, this is only the beginning. It was just something like, Yo, if this shit don't work right there, gotta go another route. Probably gotta go get on some robbin' some bank shit. Some ol' other shit. So, we felt like we was just striving to get recognized in the game as those dudes that really repped the streets hard. And basically let n*ggas know: We will be rich in the next year - I guarantee you that.
RZA: The theme of the album is two guys that had enough of the negative life and was ready to move on, but had one more sting to pull off. They're tired of doing what they doing, but they're trying to make this last quarter million. That's a lot of money in the streets. We gonna retire and see our grandbabies and get our lives together. Being that Rae and Ghost was two opposite guys as far as neighborhoods was concerned, I used John Woo's The Killer. (In that movie) you got Chow Yun Fat (playing the role of Ah Jong) and Danny Lee (Inspector Lee). They have to become partners to work shit out. Mostly everything (of the spoken interludes) is from The Killer on that album, that or personal talking. I met John Woo that same year. He sent me a letter. He was honored that we did it. I felt confident we could settle anything that came up. You can usually settle that shit. It's part of the budget, man. But John Woo didn't want nothing, never no money for that. We actually became friends. He took me and Ghost to lunch and dinner many times. He gave me a lot of mentoring in film.
METHOD MAN: In RZA, you got a guy that watched karate flicks most of his childhood. He has that type of mind; his imagination is crazy. So when he put those (early Wu) albums together, he was like a kid in a candy store - like, Now I can finally make my own karate movies. So when the solo albums dropped, mine took up where Wu-Tang left off, so it was good for me to come then. Dirty's still had the kung fu element, but it was more twisted; it was like screwed music because it was seen through Dirty's eyes this time. When Raekwon's album came, since he was on some mobster shit, that's how the n*gga structured his album. Every gangster movie he could find, every quote - it's like the way he put that album together.

02: Knuckleheadz
RAEKWON: That's a track where we runnin' around. We doing what we do, getting paper. We smackin' n*ggas up. The beat just had us feeling like, Who the knucklehead wanting respect?! That was just one of them tracks where we felt like we just got finished robbing a bank and we got hohme and broke that money up. See this knucklehead n*gga try to get slick with that paper; "One for you, two for me". It's like "What are you stupid? Tom-and-Jerryin' me, n*gga?"
RZA: My idea was besides them rapping the verses, afte they talking all this brotherhood shiht, they splitting the money up and he cheating them. The idea is that U-God gets killed in "Knuckleheadz." It's like a movie. One dies, two others go on. To me, the album is a movie and shit. You get to hear U-God come in. After that song, I had to give Rae a few back-to-back solo joints.
U-GOD: I was like two days out of prison. I just came out the penitentiary. Id' just come home on Wu-Tang's debut album Enter the Wu-Tang, 36 Chambers, too. I did two years in prison. I came home on paorle - work release right before the first album was done. That's why I'm only on two songs on the first album. Then I got violated. Knucklehead cats out in the world, you know how we d o. So I got violated for another eight more months. Then I came back home and got on Rae and Ghost's album. When I did my verse for Knuckleheadz, it was a come up time, everybody trying to come up and get into the game. I ain't get a chance to do my vocals over. When I did that, I got locked up again.

03: Knowledge God
RAEKWON: Knowledge God was a serious story that I wrote. It's like I'm sitting down and writing a letter, but it folded out into the crime scene of what he was gonna do. I was talking about going to go hit up a real n*gga, a store owner like Mike Lavonia - them n*ggas that be having money in the hood and they be trying to stay out of the way of the tough guys. But at the same time, he still hold his ground because he got business out here in these streets. He's thinking, I"m not gonna be intimidated by yall young boys, but at the same time I know some of yall young boys might be scheming. That's where that character came from. In them ealry '80's, cocaine was a rich n*gga high. So if you was doing that back in the day and you had knowledge of self, you was a sharp n*gga to us, cause that was the sign of the times then. But nobody neve r said nothing about it. The sniffing at the start of the song just happened. That was a part of the take. When I did it, it wasn't like we knew that was gonna be ba part of the track.... I just did it on some (makes sniffing sound). You know , a n*gga don't gotta yell to hear the mic. A n*gga could do another sound to hear the mic. So that happened to come out. I felt when I was sitting down writing that drug pararphernalia rhyme, that I could've been a sn*gga on it like that at that time. We could have really been getting skied up, going to get this n*gga after that. So, it matched perfectly. But that wasn't like we was sniffin' coke in the studio or no shit.

04: Criminology
RZA: That was me trying to produce like a DJ, produce a breakbeat. Ghost actually asked me to make one of those beats. You listen to old DJ tapes. That's how I made that song, and he wanted hihs shit to sound like a breakbeat. He had a rhyme that he knew was going to change the game - that was the verse that got him recognized. Cypess Hill's DJ Muggs called up and was like "Yo, he killed that shit. He ripped that shit" Form that point on, he's the co-star. He wins Best Supporting Actor. Rae got nominated, maybe won or didn't - but Ghost definetly wins.
GHOSTFACE KILLAH: I wrote that verse in San Francisco. We used to carry the beat machine around a lot. We was out there a good two weeks, so RZA was making beats all day. I heard that beat and I loved that track. The year was '95. Hip hop was still hip hop, and we was going in. I don't know if I was drunk when I wrote that, but I know when I went in the booth, I had a battery in my back, fucking with the Ballantine Ale. I recorded a lot of my shit on Ballantine.

05: Incarcerated Scarfaces:
RAEKWON: The way RZA had it poppin' back thenn, we would come into his spot. It was like dudes would come in on their own time and create stuff. I remember I just came in, and the beat was just pumpin'. I wrote the hook - that was the first thing I did. I think one of my mans just got hit with some heavy time around that time. I had a lot of n*ggas up there, too. So it was like. Yo, this one gotta be for them n*ggas right here. This right here will be just fo them n*ggas in jail. It won't be for nobody else. I just wrote it out real quick. I did three verses on that, so Ghost didn't have to come in and really do anything to it.
RZA: I wasn't making that beat for Rae. I was finished with Rae. I like having 13 tracks. I don't like having 18. I was making it for GZA probably. He was next. But then Rae heard that beat, grabbed his pen and paper, and started writing. Two hours later, it was written.

06: Rainy Dayz
RAEKWON: When we wrote "Rainy Dayz", I think we was already out of the country. We was in Barbados, by the water. Some joints we had the beats to we went out of town with. And that one specifically, we wrote by the water. Had that good villa right off the ocean and shit. Three, four in the morning. wind is blowing, curtains is blowing, and we just really got a chance to put it down. I think I wrote mine out there. We just basically gave you some action on how n*ggas in the hood think. Like how a n*gga lady think - they don't act like they there to try to bring you back from doing what you gotta do, but they try to get you caught up. We was like, This is gonna be perfect for the struggling girl who can't understand her man and he a thorough n*gga. We wanted to put a girl from the movie in the skit, at the start of the song, when she said "I sing for him and he isisn't here". He ain't here, bitch , cause he makin' money! He trying to put some food on the table.
RZA: This is one of my favorites, if not my favorite track. It stayed on the grill for a long time. That's what we called it back then. I didn't take a song off until I was satisfied. I generally like to do 'em, mix 'em, put 'em away. This was too emotional and too real fo me, too close to my personal situation. This was the life we was living, just talking and rapping and hoping. Record royalties take too long to come. We had a platinum album, but we waiting on the check to come fast, like babies wanting they food.
BLUE RASPBERRY: I was on the microphone, singing thaht old song by Barbra Streisand and Donna Summe (No More Tears (Enough is Enough)), that sings "It's raining, it's pouring, my love life is boring me to tears." I was just singing that, and so then RZA started playing a track. So that's where "It's raining, he's changing" came from. That's the kind of mind state it put me in. .I got a little stumped in middle, so it's like, "No sunlight, more gunfights." When I said "No sunlight," RZA brought in the "More gunfights" which brought me intno a whole other realm of the song, where I could go ahead and complete it.

07: Guillotine (Swordz)
RAEKWON: To me, that was a "Symphony" track. Meth had a piece of that beat on his album that was used as a skit. Cause that's how RZA is. Sometimes he'd mix other shit in and give you a piece of something but not really act like it's gonna be assigned to that. He'll see if somebody like it and use it for filler or whatever. I had told RZA awhile ago after he did that. "Yo, I want that beat." We was the first to be talking that Cristal shit. I know that for a fact. I never even heard of Cristal before that. Back then we would go do dinners and shit with Loud Record President Steve Rifkind and them up at the label. And our mission would be like, when we sit at the table, we want the best fuckin' wine they go in the building .We might have asked for something else. We might have asked for some Mo or something and they didn't have it. So we was like "What the fuck is the next best thing, Steve?" And Steve's like "Give 'em the next best thing" They came out with Cristal. Me and Ghost liked thhe bottle, and the name on the bottle was Louie Roederer. I was like, I'm Lou Diamond, Louie Roederer. Me and Ghost is loving how fruity the bottle looked. It cost more than the muthafuckin' other , so we was like, Cristal, n*gga! That's our new shit!
RZA: For that beat right there, a very open beat, not too heavy on production. This is me trying to imitate the sound Isaac Hayes did on "Do You Thing". That da-na-na...na-na, I found a way to imitate that shit. When you plug the Yahama VL7 (keyboard) up to a MPC (sampler), because of the note cutoff of the MPC, it cause the notes to stutter, cause it don't link up perfect. I heard it and I could reproduce it, but only with those two machines. I had the prototype from Yahama cause I didn't want nobody else to get it.
GZA: I don't know why I onlyl got on one track. Maybe cause it was just a Rae and Ghost album - it was featuring Ghost, and I think he was probably pleased with me just getting on one. Just to fill in a slot.

08: Can It Be All So Simple (Remix)
RAEKWON: The remix came from when we used to do shows when Enter the Wu-Tang dropped. Me and Ghost used to come out to that part of the beat in the middle of the show. RZA did a little bit of magic to it and touched it and twirled it, and Ghost basically was talking about how he got shot back in the days when he was out of town. He started going into his story rhyme shit. Back then a lot of n*ggas we knew was in and out of different states and cities, andn you know shit could happen. So when he wrote, that I guess he was going back to the time when he got popped: "Emergency trauma Black teen headed for surgery." It was like he was just describing the moment.

09: Shark Niggas (Biters)
RAEKWON: It was one of them skits where we was looking at our competition. And when Ghost is saying whatever he was saying, we kinda knew who he was talking about, but it wasn't llike we trying to start a beef. It's just sometimes, when you get in the boothh and you start saying what you wanna say, it just happened. Back then we was feeling good. The liquor's mamking a n*gga feel stronger. We know we coming up with a good album. And we letting it be known, listen : Blah blah blah blah blah. And that's all we did.
RZA: This was the end of the first side. That's how we thought of it right then. We was letting n*ggas know, we know what we was doing, knew what we had in our hand. Don't sound like none of my crew. Eventually, n*ggas did bite. If they would of have it in that year, they would have gotten fucked up. We was enforcing, we was fucking n*ggas the fuck up. You grow up out of your meanness. Hip hop had only one rule: no biting. We knew that everybody was already jumping on it already. You had a few n*ggas trying to clone our shit, already had a few fake Meth's popping up. Fuck that, we gonna see you. At one point, a n*gga would kill you if you sounded like them.
GHOSTFACE KILLAH: I didn't want n*ggas to sound like me. Basically, we was just wilding, starting a lot of trouble. We was airing out at that time. I'm not here to fuck around and start throwing out names. But at that time, nigas knew what was going on and who n*ggas was talking about. You know how Wu came through. At that time, it was on for anybody. We came into the game, like Fuck everybody. Niggas can't touch this, whatever, whatever. That was our mind-frame back then. We ran all that shit - jails, streets, Brooklyn House, Rikers Island and Up North - Wu-Tang was what was up. So we was just them two n*ggas bugging out off of that shit. God bless the dead, I love BIG. He's a fucking icon. Even when I seen him out in Cali, I wanted to tell son, Yo, let's go ahead and make this record together because I matured through the years, and at the same time, I recognized good music. We shook hands on some peace shit, but that was all, cause they was on their way leaving out. A day or two later, n*ggas aired him out. I felt bad like damn, the n*ggas aired out one of my New York n*ggas.

10: Ice Water
RAEKWON: Everybody knew Cap from the hood. We knew Cap could rhyme, and I think he was getting hot at that time, too. Me and Ghost had already dropped our part, so we needed hhim to come up there and do his thing. He slid right in between, and he do what he do. Cappa knocked GZA out, and knocked everybody else who had rhymed over that track out. He knocked n*ggas out on the strength of the rhyme was phat; but also, when he said certain names that was from the hood, everybody went crazy. So he kinda won with a landslide. But GZA came sharp. So GZA felt robbed a little bit. He had to go back home, "Whatever, yo." We even laugh about that shit to this day. Like, a n*gga robbed GZA. But Cap won. Funny shit.
RZA: On side A, you had U-God come on the sting with them. In my mind, in the movie, he's killed already. Now there's a new n*gga coming in, with a whole new flow and shit. Cappadonna, he's hardly been to the basement. He was in jail but he still sounded good, still had it in him. I let him know. "You can pop in how Green Hornet did". And Big Un - he's in jail for life, a thorough ass n*gga, a real street n*gga. We let him do the talking between the second and third verses. He confirmed Ghost and Rae's association from the streets. He was from Stapleton with Ghost... So he's immortalized now. Music and film, it kkeeps you there forever.
INSPECTAH DECK: That's my shit. When I do shows, I come out and freestyle to that. Niggas be going crazy. That beat is RZA on his weed high. I think RZA smoked weed that day. Heh don't normally smoke. When we smoke, he don't fuck with us. He might take a pull or two, then comes with that crazy shit.
U-GOD: Cappa did eight years in prison. Cappa came home. I'm the one that came and got Cappa out of his bed when Rae and them n*ggas were recording. He didn't even wanna come, cause he was bitter. When you in jail and you come home and cats you grew up with his doing it withhout you, of course you gonna feel bitter. I got him out his fuckin' bed, slapped off all that bitterness and brung him down to the studio. Rae's carpet fell out. Cappa taught me how to rhyme! I used to be his beatbox.

11: Glaciers of Ice
RAEKWON: The opening skit was something me and Ghost really wanted to stress, because around that time we was really buying Clarks left and right. We had bumped into a Chinese n*gga who could dye shit. That was Ghost's man. And we was just runnin' back and forth to that n*gga every time we was into shoes hard. We wanted to wear Clarks because the shits was comfortable and nobody in the game was fuckin' with 'em. So you know, we'd be going to dye shit, ,and that's where Ghost came up with the idea to slice 'em. I was the solid-color n*gga, he was the striped n*gga. We started coming up with different flavors. So he was letting n*ggas know, "I wanna get a pair of Clarks like, I'm a murder 'em!" When I rhymed to "Glaciers", it wasn't even to that beat. It was the drum part of that beat I rhymed to. That day, when I went home, I didn't like my rhyme. Everybody else kept stressing that they liked my rhyme. But I didn't. RZA was like "Don't worry about it. Go home, get some rest, you tired, you buggin'". I was like fuck that, when I come back tomorow, I'm changing that shit. When I came back, it was likethe shit was a whole new different beat with the drums under it. He made Blue Raspberry hit certain notes. He'd have her scream, go crazy. That shit's nothing but an AK festival with all the screaming. I took it like he had a shooting range with a bunch of Iraq n*ggas just having a festival.
BLUE RASPBERRY: One night, I was just at the studio and I was playing around on the microphone, singing Patti LaBelle's "Over the Rainbow." I was with no music, no nothing. I was sitting there, just singing. And when I got to the end like "Why then, oh why c-a-a-n't I?" RZA recorded it. And that's where he put it in "Glaciers of Ice."
RZA: The Clarks skit is totally how Ghost is. He recorded the skit - I think we was in the car. I had a portable DAT. I made everybody get oen, cause no telling where you gonna be at when an idea hits. Put it under your bed with your bitch, whatever.
GHOSTFACE KILLAH: We was in the car one day, driving around with the DAT machine with a microphone. and we just started talking shit about how we're gonna do it this summer with the Clarks. The dying was something I was doing already. I'm an inventor. Niggas can't fuck with me when it comes to style. Only n*gga that is right there with me is probably Slick Rick. Other than that, I'm boss.

12: Verbal Intercourse
RAEKWON: We got in the studio, RZA played the beat. Nas was liking it, and he was trying different rhymes to it. We would sit there, and he'd say some of his shit. But he didn't really know which rhyme he wanted to say. and I was there, being like his little coach. And I was like, "That it son", he was like "that's it?", I was like "Nigga, that's it!" But he had already went through 3 or 4 rhymes, and he couldn't really see which one he wanted it to be. But I heard it. Once it camem out his mouth, I was like, That's it. Our main focus was just to make sure that he get his nut off and do what he gotta do. When he did his thing, I wrote something real quick, just to get this shhit really looking like something. Ghost just put the cherry on the top. No hook, cause we didn't care about hooks like that. All we had was the "RZA, Chef, Ghost and Nas" which is more or less an introductory hook. Not really a hook.
NAS: Rae would come out to Queensbridge, I would go to Staten Island. We'd just ride and hang out all night. We didn't call each other to work. We called each other to hang out. Somehow we wound up in the studio. RZA had a couple of beats ready. He played them for me. I got on both of them. The other one never came out. I was honored to be asked to be on the album. Raekwon was ahead of his time. I knew Rae was a classic artist and the album was going to be a music classic.
GHOSTFACE KILLAH: Nas banged it out in one night. He went first with his shit. We all came after. Son was fast. Nas had a couple verses. He spit one verse to us and then another, not on the mic. He just asked "How this sound?" and then we picked the one he spit. He still had the pen in his hand and all the other shit, but son got in there and just threw an ill crack verse. He was on fire.

13: Wisdom Body:
RAEKWON: In my eyes, Cuban Linx was always Ghost's album as well as it was mine. That's one thing about me. I already knew that me and him was a pair. So even through people felt like it was a Raekwon album, I looked at it like it was a Wu-Tang album, and this is me, and Ghost's departure right there, cause dudes don't really talk the street stuff like that. Or dudes talk it, but don't talk it the way we talk it. So when Ghost had put Wisdom Body up there on the album, I felt like, this track is definitely needed and it sound fly. I wasn't at the studio that day when he did it, but I knew that rhyyme he was gonna play, cause I remember RZA keep playing that beat over and over, like "Somebody gotta eat this." That's how RZA is. "Somebody gotta eat that. Whether you wanna eat it or not, somebody gotta eat that." And Ghost just ate it up alone.
RZA: This track was originally called "Fly Bitch Shit". At this time, Ghost became Tony Starks. On that song, Ghost came in and did that song one day I actually put it in the stash; it was Ghost by himself at first. Then Rae jumped on it. I was like, No, it's too personal to Ghost. It's a glitch in that performance, the way he did it the first time on ADAT. He never came with that same wetness of voice. He's more high-pitched when other producers work with him. His voice should be compressed on 90 MHZ and sloped down. I know that; other producers and engineers don't know that. I had nine compressors - one for each MC - thath I could just patch in.
GHOSTFACE KILLAH: You can hear the punches in there. There's a few punches in there right in the beginning when I say, "Check the bangin-gest". You can hear the shit switch up a little bit. RZA had to punch the other take in. Cause back then, since I was drinking, I'd slur a lot so I had to do a bunch of takes. You can hear that I'm a little bit drunk if you listen. That's why I punched in, because I fucked up one of my words. So, I just kept the beginning and put the other take in. That's the thing about these albums that we made earlier. We used to keep a lot of the fuckups. That's what made it raw. Everything ain't always gotta be too perfect.

14: Spot Rusherz
RZA: Spot Rusherz was another example of that zone. I wasn't really feeling the beat. I was done with Rae's album. Another time I was was making beats for GZA. Rae and me got a similarity. We workaholics; we dedicated to the cause. It's one of those things where he came in and aired it out. And to me, it saved the beat. I still don't like that beat. I still wanted to get it off the album. The two gun shots at the end: Just in case you got bored, I was bringing you right back.

15: Ice Cream
RZA: I gotta take total credit for the idea. I got this basement downstairs in my first nice apartment I had, in Mariner's Harbor in Staten Island. There's a line running from the basement to the production room on the second floor. I just zoned the fuck out one night and did the beat. Meth came over. I told him I got a crazy idea on this one. I wanna use girls' breasts as imaginary ice cream cones. I came up with the idea to make T-shirts to go with it. "Meth you gonna do the hook." It was the first song besides "You're All I Need to Get By" that we pressured him into. He didn't like being the pretty boy. He took those words I said "French vanilla", "butter pecan" - and put them in perfect order. It was really Wu-Tang's first reach out to women. Women wasn't even allowed into the studio. A woman wouldn't be allowed in the studio until '97. It's a distraction. It reminds me of the ingenuity of the mind I had ticking and making these songs and we thinking we can make t-shirts. We must've sold 20,000 t-shirts at the Wu-Wear store alone.
CAPPADONNA: Well, the first joint I did, the one that put me on the map was "Ice Cream" And we did that one like, that was the beginning, nobody ain't really had nothing. We had a lil' studio up on Clove Lake. RZA had an apartment over there, with the studio in the basement. That's the studio that got flooded out. They had a flood in there. But before the flood, I was out as a security guard up there at the time, and I had went in there and I heard "Ice Cream"; I had heard Rae's verse; I heard Ghost's verse on there. And I had made a joke about me getting on the track, and RZA took it seriously and was like "Yo, go ahead. Lace that."

16: Wu-Gambinos
RAEKWON: The Wu-Gambinos aliases come from how I used t o like that movie Once Upon a Time in America, with Robert De Niro and James Woods. I liked how these young little n*ggas grew up, from the ground up, not having nothing to start, but still was confused about how they treated each other. Andt he names came. You knonw, "Tony Starks" came from Iron Man. "Lou Diamond" came from me being infatuated with the diamond world. Back then I was wearing a lot of ice, was calling shit ice. But then I started giving some of my n*ggas in the crew names. Being that it's my album, I wanted n*ggas to know, You gotta have a certain a.k.a. when you're on this track. This is a Gambino track. Wu-Gambinos. I would call Masta Killa "Noodles" call GZA "Maximillian". Inside the movie, Noodles and Max was partners. I felt like GZA was like "Maximillian" because he was like the brains of the crew. He would say something real intellectual and smart, ,and I looked at him like a "Max". I called Deck "Rollie Fingers" cause of the way he roll blunts. So names just started fitting n*ggas. "Golden Arms", U-God. Then n*ggas just start making they own names up. "Bobby Steels" - RZA was on some real Black Panther, DJ, ill producer shit.
RZA: Now that these guys pulled they sting off, they got one more big sting. They gotta call the heavy hitters in on this one. It's Rae getting the rest of the team to make this thing official. Actually, that was the first one where everybody took on another name t o go along with the concept of the album. That was done intentionally. We was probably 11 songs into the album. "Everybody come with your Gambino name." My name was Bobby Steels when I was 12, 13, so I brought that back out. It was me and Ghost the last to lay our verses. Ghost goes last; everybody was up in the cut. True Master had to be the engineer to record me. I let n*ggas know I'm part of the sting. I'm coming forr that money, too. For me it was a chance to show n*ggas, because I hadn't been heard for a minute.
MASTA KILLA: That was all done in the same place. And it was a beautiful thing to see. Wu-Gambinos: You see Meth come in; he lays his verse. You see Deck come in; he lays his verse. RZA is there; he lays his verse. It's inspiring to just see other MCs come through. And not just MCs. This is your brother. This is your family. It's like the Jackson 5 and shit. They all in one room. It's going to be magical. RZA was the Beethoven of the whole shit. I think he orchestrated the whole shit. A lot of times brothers came and it was llike you came in and you rhymed; you could have left and you went wherever. When your album was completed, you came in to listen to what he stayed up putting his magic touches on things.
METHOD MAN: We were high, hanging out. It was always a relaxed atmosphere because we were so used to being there, sleeping on the floors and all that. So it was like being home, writing rhymes in your own house. You went from the floor to the booth. It took thhrere hours tops, just to put vocals on it. That was the first time we ever used our aliases, The Wu-Gambinos names. We were sitting there like, "My name gonna be this" and "My name gonna be that." People really thought my fuckin' name was Johnny Blaze. Raekwon started that. Rae always had that mobster mentality, always liked to watch gangster movies and read mob books and stuff like that, you know? So he pretty much knew the names of the cats and what they was about. He polished his whole style like that. Plus Staten Island is known for mobsters - that's where the Italians live. Not saying all Italians are mobsters, but you know, we ain't blind and shit.

17: Heaven & Hell
GHOSTFACE KILLAH: This was one of the first songs recorded fo Cuban Linx cause we made it for the Fresh soundtrack. Rae wrote all of it, and then we just broke it up. I just did it with him. So, I was right there. I was the co-singning like, I'm a say this part. There are a lot of things me and Rae do like that. I might write, and be like "Yo, here, son just say these parts." But on that one, he had did that. We recorded it the same day.
GZA: Some artists owrk together. I've thrown lines at brothers, and I've gotten lines from brothers. That's how we get down.

18: North Star (Jewels)
RAEKWON: "North Star" was a track I really, really wanted on my album. It was a track that I felt a vibe of it was motion picture-like. I was havin a vision of that song: I could just see a little kid looking out the window, just eating a $100,000 Bar. He coulda been on the seventh floor, eighth floor. And just looking out the window, just looking at these n*ggas out there in the street doing they thing. How they eat, how they get money. Back in them days, n*ggas would run up to cars and stick they drugs in the window to make n*ggas buy 'em and whatever. So that beat always reminded me of some slow, theatrical trouble that's to take place. The inspiration that Popa Wu was saying, he was more or less giving a documentary of me with the words he was saying. He was talking about me like "Yo, just keep your head up, man. Don't let nothing get you down." Just trying to really inspire me from being an OG's point of view. And in the hood, OGs is legends to us.
RZA: "Fly Bitch Shit" and "North Star" was one song, but I separated them out. The idea is Rae did everything he had to do. Eveything is over now. The job is over. Mission is over, it's a perfect closing t the album. Popa Wu was a very smart mentor in the younger days to me and ODB. I formed Wu-Tang Clan. Everybody had dibs and dabs of street knowledge, knowledge of self, I brought him in to be a mentor to these men like, I love them and you the only person I know that have the intelligence to keep them in sync with knowledge. It's very poisonous unless they got proper guidance. He was the smartest man I'd ever met at a certain time in my life. After two years, they'd turned him into a Wu-Tang member. His name used to be Freedom Allah. He was Five Percent. He came Popa Wu after the experience, went from silk pants and buttom up shirts to fatigues.

UNDERSTANDING: Ghostface reveals the science behind a musical masterpiece
Rae was hot on the Wu Album, and when Loud decided to sign one of us solo, they wanted to carry Rae. I don't know really how that went down, but RZA made the deal with Steve Rifking and asked Rae, and they had the budget for the album. He was amped We decided to do the album together because our rhyme styles was comparable. We both talked a lot of street shit and liked the flossy and glossy shit. We already had the title. The chain we used to rock back in the days was Cuban links. So Rae came up with the theory, like a Cuban link is one of the roughest chains to break. Only Built 4 Cuban Linx... Real n*ggas, strong n*ggas. We wrote it in South Beach. It was just me and Rae down there for two or three weeks. It was recorded in the basement of RZA's old house in Staten Island. We had a lot of good luck in that room. We was in our prime. Back then I was punchin' a lot of rap n*ggas in their face, and n*ggas was getting beat up in the clubs. We were banned from everything. They wouldn't even let me in the Tunnel. Niggas was scared to death when I was out there wilding. I was fucking n*ggas up, robbing n*ggas, fucking a lot bitches, just doing dumb shit - and I'm rhyming. We was on it. We was going in at the time. We did everything. Rap n*ggas sniffed coke, too. Black n*ggas sniffed coke, too. Black n*ggas was street n*ggas. I was a dusthead. Rae didn't really like that high. We was young n*ggas getting a lot of shit poppin'. Talking shit about n*ggas, all types of shit. I used to drink a lot back then, which is why I sound so aggressive on a lot of shit. I was going through a lot of real internal shit during Cuban Linx. I was drinking my pain away every day. I used to drink before I wrote my rhymes and even before I went in the booth.. We tried to make every song a single, like how Rakim had "Eric B. is President", "My Melody" and all that - every song was basically banging. We wanted to do the same thing. It wasn't plots, like: Yo, you gotta rhyme about that. RZA came with a different sound. He started off the shit that's going on right now with the little voices in the background, old samples, and it was just fresh... It just happened that the beats made us talk a lot of shit. you might have a Scarface sample on Criminology, and Wu-Gambinos hahd a mafia feel with the violins. So, we were throwing a little mobster in our rhymes. I came up with all that "a.k.a. Tony Starks, a.k.a. Ironman...", Rae came after that with "Lex Diamonds." Then other Wu members came in. Now you hear all these other rap n*ggas with aliases. A lot of dudes started taking our shit, like Cristal and skits and "politickin". Even when we start rhyming, we be in the booth like, "Hey yo, hey yo, hey yo." Raekwon started that shit. He's the first n*gga I heard do that shit. That's the biggest shit n*ggas got now on the mic. We done took that to the highest peak. We bonded as a tight family, so n*ggas is starting to try and do that right now. Everybody thinking they have a strong family. We opened up the door for a lot of n*ggas. The shit was just crazy on how it came together. It was all meant because a lot of the shit, I don't even remembe. It was just how God worked it out.

MY PHILOSOPHY: RZA reveales the life behind the beats
We started working on Cuban Linx after Meth's album in '94. The way we had it planned, Meth was first, Dirty was second, then Rae and GZA. At that time, it was all my word on how it would go. We attracted the children and the women with Meth; attracted the wild, crazy people not really into philosophy with ODB. Then the real street n*ggas, the n*ggas we all were shying away from, we needed to hit them. Rae was an elder as far as MCing. Rae and Ghost together, those two right there were notorious kids from two different projects. At one point, they was rivals. Ghost is from Stapleton, Rae is from Park Hill. They kinda hooked up and seen that similarity in them, and that's how it went down. They didn't know each other as well as they knew me - it was my concept. Me and Ghost was living together; I lived in Stapleton in '91, '92. Me and Rae go back to second grade. Cuban Linx was an opportunity fo Rae and Ghost to give us the street side. When we did it, I said, "yo, it's gonna be a very dangerous album; it's gonna change the game. We gonna invite those demons, every negative stereotype, and deal with them. It's like the shit was lived; a lot of it was lived or experienced in one form or another. It's so natural, it don't feel like songs. It was a chance to show the world not only how New York livs but also how Shaolin preserved New York. An older generation was leaving and getting older. We're from the crack generation - that real gritty, rough project shit. We was on corners at 15, 16, doing shit you couldn't imagine. I was getting high at 11. We're street college guys - we call it criminologists. We had a certain kind of look: cables, Guccis, Bally, Polo. We went to Red Parrot, Latin Quarter. People would be like, who the fuck is those n*ggas? In my mind, we was what New York was about. This was the real shit that was happening. People in the projects live this life. We felt we was the shit rappers rapped about. I think Cuban Linx marked an era in hip hop personally. Cuban Linx to me solidifies it. Hip hop today is basically rapping about how tough you is in the strets, how you raking in the bitches and shit, how fly a n*gga is. We wasn't trying to be R&B'd out. I wasn't going out ike that. We was velour suits, gold fronts. Rakim was a great example, '86, to '87: a fly muthafucka, super cool, respected by corporate suits or n*ggas in the streets. I made most of the Cuban Linx beats first, eight of the tracks. I gave Rae & Ghost a tape of 10 beat, sent it to Florida. They had wanted to go to Barbados. But when they got to Barbados, the racism was so crazy. It was on some slave mentality. The Blacks was being treated like shit. They stopped back in Miami, and everything was recorded in my basement. No engineer, no assistant engineer. I did everything on that shit. The only two albums I did with nobody fucking with me was Linx and Liquid Swords. I was on a mission. To make all those early albums took three and a half years of my life. I didn't come outside, didn't have too many girl relations, didn't even enjoy the shit. I just stayed in the basement. Hours and hours and days and days. Turkey burgers and bluntes. I didn't know if it was working. But nobody could hear or say nothing, no comments, no touching the board when I leave. Everything was just how I wanted it.

Quote: Raekwon Answers 20 Questions for the 20th Anniversary of ‘Only Built 4 Cuban Linx’
The Wu-Tang legend discusses the invention of Mafioso rap, discovering Cristal, and that old Biggie beef

Credit: Frazer Harrison
July 31, 2015

“It’s a great thing, man,” Raekwon says of this week’s 20th anniversary of his classic solo debut, Only Built 4 Cuban Linx…, which SPIN recently lauded as one of the 300 best albums of the last 30 years. “It’s a piece of my legacy that’s well respected and protected by the culture, so just to be able to go out there, reminisce, play a couple of tunes, pop a joint, and say thank you.”

The 1995 album helped reinvent gangsta rap as we know it, trading in N.W.A’s anarchic vision of the streets for a more complex painting of organized crime, involving sampled film dialogue and an imagistic grandiloquence that honed in on brands like Cristal, which Rae (and the co-billed Ghostface Killah) helped popularize among rappers. Nas’ guest turn on the track “Verbal Intercourse” rerouted the first half of his career entirely onto a path more R-rated than Illmatic’s wisdom from the asphalt. And if it’s possible to imagine, Biggie was accused of ripping Cuban Linx off. In honor of the album’s 20th year as a hip-hop benchmark, SPIN hopped on the phone with Raekwon to ask him 20 questions about the .

Is there anything people still don’t know about Only Built 4 Cuban Linx…?
When we talk about Cuban Linx, it’s more about the bond. To try to tell people [we] can’t break. That was the mindset. Everybody has a link in their family that may be a loose link. It’s all about keeping it strong. So this album is just defiant brothers trying to make it out of the hood, staying strong, and trying to make it, to talk about the truth and the pain that we were dealing with at that time that we were trying to escape.

What made you guys decide to try recording it first in Barbados?
Just to get away, to let the mind be free and escape all the turbulence of life and go somewhere tranquil, where you could just get a peace of mind and feel like you’re by yourself, and just really meditate. You’ve got to have a clear mind and that’s what we wanted to do making this album. We watched some of our greatest heroes of music do it. Marvin Gaye, What’s Going On, he did that on the mountainside. So me and Ghost were really on that page, said, “Yo, let’s get away, get focused and make something great.”

But instead you guys experienced a lot of racism over there?
Yeah, the hospitality wasn’t good. We felt like, you know what, we don’t feel welcome in this particular hotel. But Miami was a great spot to be at. It was quiet for us and it gave us the opportunity to really just talk to the beach.

So do you consider it more of a summer album than a winter one?
It’s universal. That’s a good question! But no, I don’t consider it a summer album. You can listen to this album if it’s raining and it does something to you. We do have some albums that cater to seasons, but Cuban Linx has [both] that warm and cold feeling. I’m glad you said that, because that’s how I do look at making albums. I make albums to attack the same climate.

Was it really the first album to name-drop Cristal?
You know, I didn’t really know anyone who was bragging about champagne back then that was making albums. We were so young at it still, and we accidentally ran across Cristal because we was asking for Dom Perignon or something and they didn’t actually have Dom Perignon. We were like, “What’s the next best s—t you got?” And he was like, “But we got Cristal,” so we were like, “Yeah, bring it in.” He put the bottle at the end of the table and we were sniffing around, looked at it, sized it up. Pretty nice bottle, with gold wrapper, gold top, looking like Dom Perignon, so we popped the bottle and drank it, and it tasted nice. It matched our outfits, it matched our tastes where we was at. So they didn’t have what we wanted so they came out with that, and after we drunk it it was like yeah, that’s some s—t. We start putting it in part with our speeches, whatever we’re talking about. Like, “Yo, we need that Cristal right there.” But it wasn’t like we was watching the wine list every five seconds.

Did you guys script the album’s skits or were they improvised?
A lot of it was improvised, because what we do is that we look at the lines as characters and we act, so certain things we know we had to put in place to make you go into our world and understand what we’re doing. Sometimes you could be hearing it like, “Well what are y’all talking about?” So we wanted to bring these pictures ahead of time, and a lot of it was just done naturally, like skits. Back then you might have had maybe 20 percent of artists who were interested in doing something like that, but we wanted ours just to be all real life.

You sampled The Killer and Scarface on the album, why not The Godfather?
It’s hard to get certain things. It could have changed the whole vibe of the album; people out there, they love us and they know that we were just painting a picture, trying to make something that was authentic.

[The Killer director] John Woo was one of those people, right?
John is a great guy.

What was it like hanging out with him after you sampled his flicks on the album?
We had the opportunity to write him a letter and just send our love and say, “Wow, you don’t even know how much you as a dope director means to us, that you make such visual movies.” That’s why we when we’re making our music, it turns into a movie. If there was somebody we had to look up to, it would be that kind of person. It was just all about acknowledgement and love and respect. I remember seeing The Killer. The Killer’s an old movie, but after that, Hollywood started to make more karate-style movies. More Jet Li movies. It’s like, wow, people’s paying attention. And that’s a great thing; all this stuff right here is just part of our world, so that’s why we wanted to get it on the album.

What do you remember about the flood in RZA’s basement that destroyed beats intended for several different Wu projects?
It wasn’t like “Damn!” but it was like, “Wow, we had some good s—t in there.” It wasn’t like it was 200 hundred songs that I felt that was missing, but there were some hot ones we know that was still on the stove that got buried that had potential to be great records. When the basement thing happened, it taught us all a lesson: have your music on a backup, have a double of it. S—t might get electrocuted, the house might burn down, or whatever, anything. Now we know how important it is to keep every little thing. That’s why any time we’re in the studio with an artist, everything is for a reason. You might miss something. Something might have felt good right now, but why didn’t it feel good then? So it’s always good to hold onto your archive.

Which version of “Can’t It All Be So Simple” do you prefer, the 36 Chambers original or your own remix?
I always loved the remix because the remix kind of made it a little bit more adventurous. That record is more like a cousin of the [original], because we’re describing certain things and where we want to be at in life, saying we have gold records and all of that before we actually had it, and we want to live this way. You see kids getting hurt and crime and the only thing is it ain’t simple to be what you want to be.

Was it a big decision to let Nas onto the album as the first Wu-Tang guest who wasn’t in the Clan?
It was a friendship that was built and I loved him as an artist. I’d seen the future of what kind of great artist he is. You know, he was my friend. He’s still my friend today. We still laugh and reminisce. At that time, we didn’t really want to do features on our albums, because we already had our own vision of who were. But in that case, we, knowing that this is my record, and I do know that we don’t do that, but this one, we have to do that because we all feel the same way, love and respect for this man to be on the album. And it was a great decision. One thing led to another and the next thing we know we’re in the studio, and he’s pulling rhymes.

Was there any hesitation about doing a more commercial song like “Ice Cream?”
Believe it or not, “Ice Cream” might have been one of the records that I didn’t have a lot of confidence in. And the team would be like, “Hell, you crazy.” I’m like, you know, this album is more like cocaine, this is a drug dealer’s album. There’s a real storyline, no time for play. But it made sense because we know at the end of the day we love the female audience. We had a female fanbase so we knew how important it was to make a record for the females, so we was like “Alright, f—k it,” so we’ll just put one up there. Because we want to keep to the concept. The record fit, it was dope, it was a different song, it resonated. So “Ice Cream” grew on me. It grew on everybody. The video just solidified what it was about, seeing all different flavors of women. And we take that all around the world now. They ask us all over, “What flavor am I?” They might not even speak English but they still know that they’re flavors. So it’s kind of dope. It just happened.

On “Glaciers of Ice” you call yourself the rap Meyer Lansky. Did you know he was only five feet tall?
Yeah, when you go back to yesterday, Meyer Lansky was a great thing. He lived for a long time and he died a peaceful death, so I respect his integrity for who he was.

Did you initially raise an eyebrow when Jay Z and other rappers adapted the album’s themes for Reasonable Doubt and other mafioso rap albums?
We loved it. It was borough talk, different boroughs speaking about their life and we all had the same stories. So I looked at that like, “Wow, he got a story to tell, and he got a story to tell.” Everybody would just describe their pain and their glory all in one, like a war report. A specific kind of hip-hop that I loved, because I could relate. I want the s—t that kids ain’t supposed to listen to. I want to study this s—t. It becomes the fight, it becomes competition, but it also becomes part of that underworld of hardcore lyrics, street s—t. We like to party, we get into that, but we tell tales.

Was U-God absent from Only Built 4 Cuban Linx…Pt. 2 because he got killed off in the first one, or was that not intentional?
When we was making the [second] album, we wanted to get everybody on the album. That’s my family. Of course, I would always want them to be on any album.

When did you first realize you wanted to do the sequel?
I was forced into the sequel. The fans were just like, “We want it, we want it, we want it.” And I waited years like, I don’t really try sequels like that. I’m not into that. If I made that album at that specific time, that’s what it was and I’m onto another entree. They just loved that food, they wanted that food, to where it started to become an agenda, like “Yo, gotta do it.” It was the request that really brought me in. I talked to some great firends and they was like, “It’s time.” And I was like, “Yeah, you’re right.” I was running from it, because I’m a chef, man, they call me a chef for a reason. I live that name naturally because that’s how I am. I’m always thinking of something new — clothes, fashion, this, that. People don’t know I’m like that. They just know I like cars — they don’t know I like designing s—t.

Was the Biggie beef on “Shark Niggas (Biters)” ever discussed with Meth who appeared on Big’s Ready to Die?
We always loved each other, man. We always had a relationship. But [Meth] never spoke on anything, and I never spoke on anything because that music is dope, and it was never a hatred thing. A lot of people, they get this [idea], but no. You want to go to Burger King, you’ve gotta go to 34th street. You want to go here, you have to go to 22nd street. And we were competitive and it just went somewhere else. But that never affected the music, though. The love was there. We played shows together, we went around the world together, we smoked weed together. I haven’t had the opportunity [to call Biggie] a great legend himself, but we all spoke highly, like, “That’s my brother.” He really was.

What song on Cuban Linx is your absolute favorite?
It might have to be the last one: “North Star.” It’s just the sound. It sounds like I’m going back into my life. If I was to make a movie of Cuban Linx, I would start with that track, because that track has a lot of pain and a lot of remembrance, those highs, those good days, those bad days, those dreary days, those struggle days. It was like the beat was making me vibe to it from another perspective, but the rhyme came out like a play in a movie: This nigga bust a shot and hit my man’s wife. You go in the club and your wife gets shot. There’s so much s—t going through your mind, because it’s like oh s—t. What do I do now? I don’t expect everybody to love it. I expect everyone to vibe to it, though. You don’t have to love that record, but just vibe to it. And that’s what it’s all about. That’s one of my favorite songs.

What other plans do you have for the anniversary?
We’ve got a dope CL95 Cuban Link beach jacket that’s coming out for the anniversary. People can take pre-orders now. It’s a dope jacket, it will have the purple hood; I could easily give you a t-shirt but to give you a working raincoat that you can wear, all-terrain, good quality and a little warmth in it, that makes me feel good to give that to y’all. It’s just a timepiece, though, that you can take and give to someone 20 years later and it’s still gonna look the same way it’s supposed to look. Like not much else on the shelves. And also we’re coming with an in-depth documentary, The Purple Tape Files, so we’ve got a lot of good things coming up.

Quote:Raekwon Reflects on How 'Only Built 4 Cuban Linx' Came Together on 20-Year Anniversary: Exclusive

ArticlesColumnsThe Juice

By Paul Meara | August 01, 2015 9:00 AM EDT
Raekwon

Raekwon also recalls RZA approaching him about being a member of the Wu-Tang Clan.

On an otherwise uneventful Thursday night in Columbus, Ohio, the Only Built 4 Cuban Linx anniversary tour rolled through the Buckeye State and undertook its third stop. The crowd was typical of a Wu-Tang Clan show. Old heads feigning for that bit of nostalgia to reminisce their youthful days coincided with younger fans appreciating the novelty that has become the Wu brand over the past two decades. It's part of the reason Raekwon and Ghostface Killah are able to perform to packed houses 20 years after releasing arguably the Clan's greatest solo LP.

Raekwon Talks 'F.I.L.A.,' 'A Better Tomorrow' & More: 'Wu-Tang Will Make a Dope Album Again'

Similar to other veteran artists who've crossed the often unspoken, yet acknowledged point of understanding that fans desire the music of their hero's pinnacle prose, the Chef trotted out nothing but cuts from his debut effort. Toward the middle of his set, Rae performed "Can It Be All So Simple (Remix)" and interestingly let the Gladys Knight-sampled hook ride out beyond the song's instrumentals.

"This song saved my life," he yelled out as the vivid use of "The Way We Were (Try To Remember)" continued to repeat. It was at that point the show became more like a smoked out Sunday night over at Raekwon's early 90s Staten Island residency than it did a tour stop hundreds of miles away. It also proved that not much has changed between then and now. Rae still rains supreme as the Wu's street slang ambassador but perhaps more importantly, deep down, he's still that misunderstood petty hustler from Park Hill who would do anything to fulfill his musical prophecy.

From inception, Only Built 4 Cuban Linx, released on August 1, 1995, was to be the defining example of Wu-Tang Clan's street side. Everything within–whether it be Shallah Diamond's apologue of perilous attempts at escaping the street life, as referenced in "Rainy Dayz," to "Criminology's" tales of triumph–the album exemplified Raekwon's knack for turning his memoirs into a musical movie. Cooked up in RZA's legendary basement studio, Cuban Linx separated itself from other classics at the time and even previous Wu releases. It became obvious that the Abbot handled OB4CL with kid gloves. The cinematic nature it embodied set a new standard for Mafioso rap never to be recreated.

Two decades after Raekwon's debut solo album hit shelves and in the midst of Rae and Ghost's anniversary tour, Billboard spoke with the man responsible for the landmark LP about Only Built 4 Cuban Linx and its legacy. He describes the project's lasting impact, current day influence and dropped some gems about how it came together. Even after 20 years, one listen can still feed the appetites of every Tommy Hil' Ice rocker, Wu-Gambino, and spot rusher.

You're on tour with Ghostface Killah in honor of Cuban Linx's 20-year anniversary. Talk about what it means to tour off of something two decades old.
Raekwon: Yeah, it's a special moment. It's a special time where we made a classic album 20-years ago and it got respected through out the whole game. It don't even feel like it's 20 years. We just want to go out there, do something for the people and celebrate, pop bottles and just pay homage to our album and sing it to people again. They love when we perform that album. We got a whole couple of weeks now of representing and having fun for that time.

Take me back to the old days before Wu-Tang, even before rap. What was teenage Raekwon like and what did you do to survive?
The thing about me was I was always trying to be successful at whatever I do. I remember the days where I used to envision myself just being an artist. All I needed was a shot. I feel I have it. I have my confidence at where I need to be at. I think every man's life, that journey is already written to where it's going to play out. I was just taking it day by day and I was living off the land. I had a little bit of rhymes and a whole lot of hip-hop in me. When you come from my neighborhood, the music is a language that we felt at that time we only knew. I was inspired by others that was in it before me and paved the way so they were like the big brother or big sister you never had and they teach you about music and the culture and the life. I always had a vision but I didn't know when it was going to strike.

When did the possibility of a career in hip-hop start to get more real for you?
When I was in my '20s that's when I started to feel a little hopeful of the things we was doing. We were definitely into it heavy. I remember it as a youngster, of course but when you get in your 18's or 20's it's like your life is already in your hands so whichever way you want to play, you going to play it. I was always into music. I remember days where we would go see producers that we didn't even know was famous. A person like Easy Mo Bee, who helped put Biggie on, we didn't even know who he was. All I knew was he was a dope producer and was giving us the opportunity to come to his house. All this nostalgia that I guess was written, we didn't even know what was happening.

You and Ghost came from different projects and back then Staten Island was really separated by its neighborhoods. Tell us about that dynamic and originally meeting him.
We always knew each other because our projects were down the streets from each other. We pretty much grew up in the same high school. We never knew we were going to have the chemistry we have but we knew when it came to doing the job and assisting this franchise that we got, we got close. We would laugh about a lot of things that we record on or reminisce on but at the same time we got to focus and we've got a goal and that's to represent the fans. I remember Ghost telling me one day that, 'yo, you inspire me,' and I'm like, 'well you inspire me!' But he was like, 'nah, you inspire me to be creative and write things that I never imagined even being an artist that writes.' I look at that like, 'wow, thank you!' I never looked at it like that but I guess he seen something in me and I seen something in him. The chemistry became organic and it was what it was.

How big were the Force MDs when you were coming up?
My whole hip-hop movement was started around the time of ‘87/'88 when things were going on. Their name was big. The Force MDs it was like they were dope because they was the vehicle, they was around the way. It was like, 'oh shit! Wow!' Seeing them come through the Park Hill days and Stapleton days, just being available for us to see them and tell them that they were definitely one of the illist groups ever to do it. That was more inspiration as a kid.

Now, I magnify that because them being from around my way--they wasn't actually from Park Hill--but they was from Staten Island so that gives you hope and when you start picking out people from around the way that it's like, 'yo he want it, yo he's chasing a deal, he's doing this,' that was me and RZA coming up. He was doing it in a slow way but it's correct in my eyes. It made me want to get more out. It was like, 'he did it, why can't you do it? Why can't you show me how to do it after you do it?' I just wanted to be in the mix. It was nourishment for me. It was a way to escape pain, poverty life and in ‘88/'89 all that music was powerful and with them coming with the R&B and coming out as emcees at the same time, you wouldn't imagine how much inspiration that is for a kid from the neighborhood. You really feel like you can do it.

RZA and GZA were really the only two Clan members that attained some decent fame prior to everyone releasing music as Wu-Tang. How big were they in getting things moving forward for you?
Yeah man, I mean these are our heroes, man. When I look at RZA and GZA I looked at somebody that mastered poetry and knowing how to rhyme and just make great music that could affect the world. I got to say I've got to be one of the biggest fans at the time because I was kind of one of the first members that they really, really said, 'yo, we're doing this thing. We need you here.' I always told members of the crew, 'yo, I knew RZA longer than you,' or, 'I knew GZA longer, we have a history.' And everybody respected that because they was always in and out.

When they came to Staten Island they would break out. To make a long story short I think that they seen something back then that made a lot of sense to they personalities. Hip-hop was just an essential that allowed them to be the people that they are and it spoke in the music. I'm like wow, being inspired by smart men that love hip-hop but really look at the science of making great music. I was intrigued after that. I would always do a lot of hanging around, especially [around] RZA but GZA. He was always in and out. He would come through to the video shoots one time and when they represented for them I felt good for them. It felt good to know a rhymer that did something I love and all of that meant more and more inspiration to take on.

How did RZA approach you about being a member of Wu-Tang?
RZA used to live in our neighborhood and he was always known for that. He was always a hustler in his own way. I used to always go back to selling newspapers on the bridge, standing out in the cold or stuff like that. I always knew he had talent and he knew I was good at things and I was a smart individual and we stuck around each other and the fruits of our labor came mad years later [laughs]. It's just like I said like, things started to giddy up but it took 10 years or it took five or six years for them to really get it right and get it where we were going. It's just a lot of family biz because we were young still. We would get on the train with no money, jump off the train, go get a sandwich with only two dollars in our pocket and we would be outside at 6 AM. [It would be the] middle of the night and we would be on the train but that's how much we loved to move around and that's how much we loved music.

RZA had a vision, he would be like, 'come with me,' and it was like, 'ain't nothing on this fucking block for me. Why not come with you? I love what you're doing,' and that's what I would do. It was just a way to escape the neighborhood and feel like, 'damn, I had a good day,' and not have to sit around and be subjected to all the bullshit all the time. It was a lot of negativity in my neighborhood in those days and it felt good to be off the block.

You were the only member of Wu-Tang to choose to do your freshman solo deal with Loud Records, the company the group as a whole was signed to. What made Loud appealing to you moving toward Cuban Linx?
It was an opportunity I had and we had a little bit of resources and the resources that we had allowed us more hope than the other dudes who did a deal. That was always the move but when we had the resources it was like, 'now we got to go work,' because alright it's one thing to know you're getting play but now it's another thing to get up and go look for a situation and that's what we did right away, all of us. We got up, we was in vans and we would come to RZA house, have a meeting and say, 'yo look, we need to go up here and play this record.' It was all about going and seeing what your situation would be while a few of the Wu-Tang management guys would come in and go fish out meetings [with perspective record labels].

All we wanted was to get a great deal and give us all an opportunity to make some money. When it came to our record being one of the hottest records, that might've came after the deal. That might've came when we was already done with our album and we already had our name caught up in the game as far as people knowing who we was. Next thing we know, going to get a deal, it was like, "Who's going to take this deal? Who's going to try not to jerk us?" We was always smart about not being jerked as a group as far as what we were doing but we knew we had an individual run. We needed to make sure that whatever deal came at us it benefited the future of us. We all sat down and said, "Yeah, we can do the deal if we stay Clansmen but still at the end of the day–I got an album, he got an album, he got an album." RZA knew that all this music he had worked on so he had to work in this philosophy and if he didn't, we would've been shortchanging and would've receded the plan of everybody having they own shot at they own personal career.
You got to remember, back then it was hard to get a deal if you was one person or two people so to try to come in and get 10 people [a deal] it's like saying, "Well do got 10 albums or 10 situations that you know you can fulfill?' RZA answered that question with, "Yes." It was so much not needed or not wanted at that time because it was so much of a risk of not really making it. It went the other way but we was young and we took the best thing that we felt was there. It was a little money now but it was the platform and we've got that solo understanding together.

Obviously Mafioso films like Scarface heavily influenced the album. How big were movies like that to you when you were younger and when you were putting this album together?
I was always into those kinds of movies: The Godfather, Once Upon A Time In America, Scarface; these are all movies of our people that come from nothing and sharpen they're livelihoods. These movies are always in the back of my head 'cause they was movies that I felt like, 'damn, I could relate but I could only relate on my side, which is the street side of things.' I knew there was more than one guy in front of me that had a family and I have a family. The movies are just a narration of what was going on in my world as well. I just felt like that album was needed because I never really considered myself the favorite emcee-type. I envisioned myself as the storyteller emcee, the visionary emcee. That [type] was my favorite because I was out there. I was living in times where we had to make a living to survive more than anybody else so looking at these movies and being inspired and when it came down to making my album I knew that I didn't want to have the fancy album. I wanted an album that was strong and something that represented my life and my pain that I was caught up in and everything and loving the fact that I had a legendary team at a young age. We knew we was legends at that time and I knew that I was destined to make a powerful album and I knew that that's where my mind was going to go.
Kool G Rap is considered the "Godfather" of Mafioso rap.

I know you have an affinity for Queens hip-hop, but how big was G Rap in what you specifically wanted to do as a solo artist?
He was the grandfather of my style. He taught us the ropes. He said everything that needed saying. I thought he was talking to me. He was a hero to us and still is a hero and the crazy shit about it is I still converse with G Rap today.

What does he tell you?
He's my brother; he's my big brother. He would just call me and let me know... Last time I talked to him he talked about doing like a sitcom, like he wanted me attached to it and I'm like, 'damn that's big coming from someone who inspired me today.' He's good. That's my big brother. Rakim, [Big Daddy] Kane, Slick Rick, Public Enemy, Salt N Pepa, Queen Latifah, it's like those are my ancestors. They told me how to walk and stand for something for real in music, which is artistry. You can't just act like you an artist. You got to be an artist.

One day, I was on a radio station and I bumped into Kane and he told me, he was like, 'yo Chef, you're in the books.' Do you know how that felt for me? Do you know that feeling? It's a beautiful thing. He's a good brother and he's certified in the game and that meant everything in the world to me. Rakim said, "Yo, I actually want you to help me do my album." These are the guys I love, that I could've cried in front of. It just shows that I was a great student.

Mobb Deep Talk Career Beginnings & 'The Infamous' on Its 20th Anniversary

I've also been told by your A&Rs at the time that Mobb Deep's The Infamous was influential for you as far as what you wanted to put together with Cuban Linx. That true?
We come from the city, New York, where every borough has somebody special and when we came out every borough embraced us and we embraced every borough and out of every borough I was always was a big fan of hip-hop n----s from Queens even back in the Run-D.M.C. days, MC Shan, Queens willies. To see the generation after them, around the same time, I felt like we had the best teachers and these are the niggas. I love they rhymes. These niggas really know how to rhyme. I grew up in Queens so I felt like I had a little bit of history there and of course I'm from Brooklyn as well but Queens like, I felt attached. Me and Nas was cool, Mobb Deep. Even though we was on the same label there was a relationship--a friendship first, before anything--then came the fan shit. At the end of the day we fed off each other and the albums that was made were inspired from great emcees inside the boroughs. We had to be just as ill as they was.

Every Wu member aside from Ol' Dirty Bastard made the album. Was it a conscious effort on your part to include the rest of the Clan on Cuban Linx?
That was always the plan. Every album will always have every one of us attached to it because that was important. Every album represented something out of that Wu-Tang family. Ol' Dirty at that time, he was moving around, his album just became live. He was just popping off so he wasn't able to do it. Son was cool but he was the man that gave me the inspiration anyway from it. Before Wu-Tang Clan he was the inspiration so I don't take offense to it. It was like, 'you know what? That's my brother. Not everyone going to make it.' His power and confidence he instilled in me inspired me to make something great so he was proud of it. He did come to the photo shoot and was like, 'I'm not on your album but I'm here.'

A lot of songs on the album whether it be "Can It Be All So Simple (Remix)" or "Rainy Dayz" touch on topics that are heavily prevalent today, especially when it comes to urban plight and justice. Those songs seem so timeless…
Yeah, it's like depression, growing up in the inner city, we're always subjected to these kinds of situations and it goes on and becomes a tradition. Every year I believe a cop is going to kill an innocent person. That's just where we come from where we think like that. We were speaking on that music, like I said it was a lot of pain, it was a lot of glory on there, it was a lot of love but more important it was reality and you can't run from reality. For me to see a lot of things that we talked about that are still going on it's like, "Wow, where's the real justice at?" When you're in certain situations, you're a target for it. I'm so blessed that I have children that I'm able to say don't come from that because who said that my kid ain't a target? [It's] because of the situation and the reality of where we at. We can't run from that and a lot of music that's taking place is about the slums and the inner city.

I was just giving you a piece of Raekwon. I believe every artist should give you a reflection of where he's at and where he come from. I was the ones being made in the hood with no father. My mother was my father. She's not lesbian but she was like, 'I'm your father too.' I had to respect it, but the streets was my father. I had to grow up and go through certain experiences that I think made me a man and I wanted to represent that in this music. I don't have Wu-Tang style, I don't feel I had that. I feel I had that reality music that people weren't able to front on. I didn't lie about damn cocaine. I was an addict. I never did freebase or nothing, but I sniffed mad coke as a kid growing up. We saw [the] Scarface [actor] do it. We wanted to do it. I had a full life so I'm just telling you what I know reflects that. Now when I see things 20 years later that album has created that for people to see and I'm still here living off of that.

I've always been curious on how the skits and samples that were used on Cuban Linx came together. Was it a part of the script or something more spontaneous that just happened?
It was already planned. The album had a concept and I knew at the end of the day there were certain things that I wanted to speak on, RZA had ideas, Ghost had ideas and we put it together but it was all something we agreed on ahead of time. Even the birds chirping in the back, the skits, the killer movie, these were all my inspirations, these were all the things that was going on in my life at the time. All we was doing was giving you what was around us and saying, 'that's it, that's real.' We incorporated everything ‘cause I felt like I was sitting around the table with geniuses. These guys are geniuses.

RZA was already a legend from making so many classic albums. You're not going to be able to find one rap group that has so many artists on that bar with so many classics. One group! Classics, not regular albums. I knew [RZA] was ahead of his time and he knew specifically everybody, every individual had his own style and all he had to do was get them in a room and that's what he did. He got them in a room and said, 'listen, it's your turn. I'll tell you something right now, a lot of people have been trying to emulate this style.' I would be like, 'what do you mean by that?' He was like, 'we're talking about what's going on and taking Wu-Tang [and fans] to another side of the table where now reality music kicks in even more.' First it was the gimmick factor of the karate flicks but then now it becomes records like "C.R.E.A.M." that people still want to hear from your solo album. He said it, 'a lot of people want to be stuck in this chamber. A lot of records and a lot of albums is made based on that same kind of philosophy.'

What were some of your best memories either of recording the album or even being in New York City when creating it?
I was scared to make an album solo. One thing, when we all started I knew we had the individual powers to do our own thing but it's still a myth because we never did it, we just knew that we could be that. It's like believing in yourself but not really knowing if we could do it. For me, when it was my time to be chosen to make an album, I was scared. I was determined to do it but I didn't know how. I just went in there and said, "You know what? I got to give them me. I can't give them nothing that I wouldn't be talking about." The streets was always something that always stayed in the back of my mind; that struggle.

You never really lose that struggle from the hood so it's like I know that my album would have that involved in it. I just went in and said 'yo, I'm going to make it, this is my time.' Of course it was assisted by my brothers, Wu-Tang Clan. I felt that comfortability and I felt that confidence that I knew I still had to make something. I went in with my heart and just said, 'yo, I ain't going to lose, my team ain't going to have me go out there looking crazy.' It was just an album that came from the heart and we're celebrating 20-years later. That shit bring me back to not having nothing, not having a career, not having children, just wild like we grew up, right? We told the truth, we let them know your history. That album is a testimony.

You've got a very interesting jacket you're releasing for the 20-year anniversary of the album. The Linx Beach jacket, which is a recreation of the one you were wearing in the "Can It Be All So Simple (Remix)" video. Why a jacket and why now?
I wanted to come out with something from the '90s because I know how important certain things of that nature are to people. People put me on the fashion list in hip-hop like, 'he's one of those guys.' [I used to come] out of the clubs with [Clarks] Wallabees on and the chains and all different styles of fashion and I felt like I wanted to do something for the 20th anniversary and give people the opportunity to get something that meant a lot to me and inspired me too. That Linx Beach jacket is me connecting with a new team of guys that's really heavy in making a great jacket and something that's representing that time when we made Cuban Linx. We have a couple of things coming out as well. I don't want to tell too much. I like to surprise people and have them go crazy. There's going to be a lot of things going on with the Purple Tape. The hood represents that Purple Tape. I know people going to go out there and get it and cop that memorabilia piece because it's only right.

You're also working on the documentary for Only Built 4 Cuban Linx… What's it like going from literal storyteller in your rhymes to somewhat directing, kind of like RZA has done over the years?
We're about 50 percent into it. We're in the process of talking about it to the world even more. For me, the film side of it was always there when making the music because we're doing a documentary so it's more like we're having a conversation about how the album was made, who was instrumental, what made us come up with that title… Just giving you some nice insight but also giving y'all an opportunity to go into our mind in-depth and just make it interesting. Something that take like 50 minutes and you like, 'wow! that's what the Purple Tape was about.' Get ready for it. We're going to have a couple of friends on there as well that was inspired. It's going to be an interesting piece.

Finally, it's been now over 10 years since we've lost Ol' Dirty Bastard. I know he was a big influence of yours, just within the group. What did he do for you and your musical legacy?
He was the wick. He was the one that gave us the belief and the vision to say I can do it for real. He seen something that we all thought we seen but he seen it and he was our biggest cheerleader. When our confidence got a little low he lifted it back up. He had a good heart. A lot of people didn't know he was a producer as well. Dirty was just feeling everything. He was a beat boxer back in the day so he kind of emulated Biz Markie. Biz is on that rap professor shit. Old Dirty was like his disciple. Dirty had so much hip-hop in him because he had great icons that he looked up to. From everybody in the game, Biz was more [his] style. Dirty was the liver, the lungs to our breathing.

Quote:20 Years Later: Why “Only Built 4 Cuban Linx” May Be 1995’s Greatest Hip-Hop Album

By WatchLOUD · On August 1, 2015

Words by Jesse Fairfax

Though the popular sound, style, dialects and messages of Hip-Hop have changed over time, many rap careers have been historically born out of hopelessness. Instant hood superstars since the low budget clip for “Protect Ya Neck,” the Wu-Tang Clan was responsible for a major shift in New York’s popular sound in the early 1990s. Their breakout star was Method Man, a roughneck who had a hint of Casanova about him, with Ol’ Dirty Bastard’s unpredictable antics helping to put himself on the map as well. As each member desired to share spotlight their brothers, the Wu-Tang solo debut generally accepted as a true masterpiece of their breakout era is Raekwon The Chef’s Only Built 4 Cuban Linx.



If the stories like “C.R.E.A.M.” (and the urban legend of Ghostface Killah originally wearing a mask to avoid warrants) were to be taken as truth, the Clan hustled from rock bottom to make a way for themselves. This hunger and determination found on Enter The Wu-Tang: 36 Chambers was the natural byproduct of trying to better their lives through music. Still rough around the edges on cameos like ODB’s “Raw Hide” and Method Man’s “Meth vs. Chef,” on Only Built 4 Cuban Linx the still mostly unproven Raekwon had his moment to be heard. Making good on RZA’s unprecedented deal where each Killa Bee was welcome to pursue separate record labels, Rae wound up with Steve Rifkind’s Loud Records, a suitable fit following the label’s success with East coast stalwarts Mobb Deep.



With respect to The Gravediggaz’ horror based debut 6 Feet Deep, Only Built 4 Cuban Lynx was the first Wu-Tang related project adhering to a fleshed out story. Envisioning themselves amongst the ranks of mobsters, Raekwon & Ghostface Killah vividly meshed fiction and reality (an idea that continues today through Ghost’s Twelve Reasons To Die album series.) The title stemmed from the idea that a Cuban link chain is tough to break, symbolic of not only the duo’s brotherly bond but their rough and thorough demeanor. An extension of Raekwon’s vision for the album, day one purchasers would find the cassette was purple. Though Masta Ace’s Slaughtahouse was contained on a yellow tape and Redman’s Dare Iz A Darkside tape was red, Rae explained his logic to XXL magazine in 20o5, “I wanted to portray an image that if I was selling crack or dimes in the street, you would recognize these dimes from other niggas’ dimes.”



Hailing from the respective Park Hill and Stapleton Projects, with Only Built 4 Cuban Linx Raekwon & Ghostface Killah discovered a musical chemistry that makes them inseparable to this day. Basing the cinematic project around this brotherhood, the overarching theme was a hustle to get enough money to leave the illegal life behind. Placing meticulous thought into something as basic the album’s intro, “Striving For Perfection” had Ghost narrating his plans for the future. As Tony Starks threw all caution to the wind, his comrade in arms agreed “Let’s not think like we gon’ be stagnated.” Another mission fully executed by The RZA, the album made the nihilistic feel of Mobb Deep’s The Infamous (released just months prior) into something more adventurous. Looking back at his premonitions for this classic, the Clan’s leader said “When we did it, I said, ‘Yo, it’s gonna be a very dangerous album; it’s gonna change the game.’ It’s like the shit was lived; a lot of it was lived or experienced in one form or another.”



While Only Built 4 Cuban Linx was more plot driven than any prior Wu release, it maintained the familiar elements of Five Percent lingo and kung-fu movie fandom. Creatively blending real life aspirations of rap stardom with quasi-fictional illicit enterprise, Raekwon elevated his crew’s rugged stature where some thought their breakout talent could be limited. Imagining himself akin to a ghetto Scorcese, it was fitting that the album’s precursor “Heaven & Hell” would appear on the soundtrack to the 1994 hood saga Fresh. Less than a year later street single “Glaciers Of Ice” would premiere on late night mix shows, just a glimpse of the united front that would be taken as Ghostface proclaimed “My seeds/Roll with his seeds/Marry his seeds/That’s how we keep Wu-Tang money all up in the family.”

Indicative of a far different era for New York radio, album cuts “Criminology” and “Incarcerated Scarfaces” would wind up in Hot 97’s daily rotation. Simultaneously setting a platform for Ghost’s triumphant career to come, Raekwon became revered for his slick talk with lines like “For real, it’s just slang rap democracy/Here’s the policy, slide off the rings plus the Wallabees.” Speaking of the Clark’s shoe, it’s worth noting Cuban Linx started Hip-Hop’s obsession with this footwear (in addition to the expensive Cristal brand of champagne).

In a climate fueled by competition and ego, tension amongst the East coast’s lyrical giants was all but inevitable. Just a summer before Jay Z’s seminal debut Reasonable Doubt attempted to follow in Raekwon’s footsteps with far more finesse, Ghostface Killah sent flying darts at Brooklyn’s hometown hero The Notorious B.I.G. on “Shark Niggas (Biters).” Dishing out the same uncut hell recently caught by Action Bronson, Ghost used this skit to launch accusations of swagger jacking against his city’s reigning king at the time. Not only speaking up in defense of their newfound rap compatriot Nas (whose 1994 release Illmatic arguably influenced the illustrative stories on Only Built 4 Cuban Lynx), Rae and Ghost’s loyalty extended so far as to grant the Queensbridge commando the album’s only guest spot not reserved for Wu members.

“Verbal Intercourse” birthed Nas’ switch from Nasty to Escobar, also netting him a coveted Hip-Hop Quotable in one time cultural bible “The Source” magazine. Taking this concept further, “Wu-Gambinos” was a posse cut that had Masta Killa, Method Man and RZA tagging along to create Italian alter-egos long before Donald Glover discovered his stage name from an online name generator.

Examining the perils of criminal life from another perspective, “Rainy Dayz” spoke to the hearts and minds of women gravely concerned about the risks their mates took. Accentuated by the sweet yet commanding vocals of songstress Blue Raspberry, Ghostface was found on the verge of mental collapse, contrasted by Raekwon’s far more optimistic outlook. Determined to one day go straight, the Chef dropped jewels including “I pump what’s only right, leave the poison alone” (along a similar vein he mused “I’m all about G-Notes/No time for weed mixed with coke/I wash my mouth out with soap” on the album’s remix to “Can It Be All So Simple”).

Also directed at ladies, “Ice Cream” proved the Wu could expand their reach without compromising their sound (a mission achieved once more by Rae & Ghost in 1995 on Jodeci’s “Freek’n You” remix). Moreover, “Ice Cream” was a big break for Cappadonna, (a Clan affiliate plagued by legal troubles) who made the most of this opportunity with memorable appearances such as “’97 Mentality” and “Winter Warz” down the line.

As New York runs the continual risk of extinction within the mainstream, the importance of Only Built 4 Cuban Linx cant possibly go overstated. Representing a time when the Big Apple’s boroughs were far less friendly or gentrified, this was a life soundtrack for troubled hoodlums, Wu-Tang diehards, and Hip-Hop purists alike. RZA’s soulful yet edgy work behind the boards took street rap to new heights, as Raekwon and Ghostface Killah sought to catch breaks in a world where the people distributing and consuming hard drugs were often one and the same. Having set the bar so high together in these hungrier days, Rae’s publicized frustration with the producer in recent years likely stems from the camp’s inability to fully reunite since taking separate paths. Despite Cuban Linx being repackaged into limited edition box sets and being celebrated with a 20 year anniversary tour, the original purple tape remains a nostalgic collector’s item and a stamp of authenticity for those who were there from the jump.