EXCLUSIVE: RAEKWON – The ABORT Interview (Issue 12 Preview)
July 15th, 2009 Filed under: 21 & Under With..., Exclusive! by admin
(Photo- Jamie Sands)
Almost 15 years after the classic Only Built For Cuban Linx, Wu-Tang Clan’s most outspoken MC – Chef Raekwon gets prepared to drop the follow-up album bearing the same name. Only Bult For Cuban Linx Pt. II will arrive in stores worldwide on September 8th and the anticipation on the street is spreading like the swine flu. He spoke with ABORT Magazine’s E.S. Day recently to drop a dime on the star-studded cast of producers and MC’s who lace the new album with pure hardcore harmony. Yes, the Chef is back in the kitchen to cook up a new recipe and is back “On some staircase shit”, to remind us of his never-ending lyrical devastation that will define a new era of Hip-Hop.
Speaking on the upcoming Release:
E.S Day: Production wise – who’s appearing on this album besides…obviously I guess RZA is in the mix, have you thought about bringing any non-hip hop producers to give it a bit of a twist?
RAEKWON: Oh well definitely, you know I mean I feel like, you know, RZA really did his job on One, you know what I mean, and when we came together for Two, I knew that his time would be a little bit limited so, you know, I decided to, you know, make Two even more interesting and pull some of the most top producers in the whole hip hop game to be part of this project and use them as a robotic mechanism to challenge RZA’s ears.
ABORT: Haha! Wicked. Drop a dime on who’s producing some tracks – or has already done some tracks.
RAEKWON: Well you know we got the late J Dilla, and um, we got Marley Marl, who is a legend, you know, we got Dr. Dre he came in for his part, we got also got Erick Sermon
ABORT: No Way! The Green-eyed bandit!
RAEKWON: (Laughs) Yeah, yeah, you know what I mean. So like I said though, you got The Alchemist up in there – these are all top influential producers in the game and they was definitely excited to be part of the project, and I was excited to have them go into our world because, you know, a lot of people respect the RZA – respect what he done, and you know a lot of producers really felt like it was a challenge to really jump in his chamber and really, just try to uh salute his chamber and that’s what happened.
ABORT: True that, okay sounds good. So an all star cast beat-wise, and uh, definitely going to be complimenting your lyrical prowess so we’re looking forward to that. We’re going to be moving on here, so, recently in the latest issue of ABORT Magazine, we interviewed Sadat X and he had mention “the grown man category” of hip hop – your name came up. He mentioned you specifically referring to the 35 and up crowd, such as myself, is it safe to say that Cuban Linx 2 will be catering to that demographic, or are you looking to tap into a market that, you know, may not know the REAL Raekwon, aside from your Wu-Tang Clan affiliation.
RAEKWON: Nah, definitely I mean, you know, one thing about when I make this music is mutual it’s for everybody, but, yeh, for the most part I do classify this music as being for an adult crowd, you know, and plus at the same token, you know, you gotta new generation of kids so when we was doing our thing, a lot of them wasn’t even really, they was in probably in existence, but they were probably in existence – but a lot of them was probably 4 or 5 years old. Definitely I’m aiming at my crowd that basically been supportive through the years with me, and you know, whoever else that’s willing to recognize real hip-hop , of course we want you guys to be on board wit it, but, at the end of the day it’s definitely for the people that been highly anticipating this album for the last ten years.
ABORT: Okay, good good. And The first single is “The New Wu”, correct? or is it just “New Wu”
RAEKWON: Yeah, correct, yeah.
ABORT: Featuring Method Man…
RAEKWON: Yeah it’s called “The New Wu”, you know what I mean, like I said, you know, we wasn’t actually saying that is the single but we just wanted to basically light the wick up with everything we trying to do
ABORT: Okay so you’re giving people a little taste – that is from the new album, though, correct?
RAEKWON: It is. Everybody loved it, everybody loved it so much that, you know what I mean, you might as well look at it as the new single cause we’ve been getting like a hell of a response
And it’s on the mixtapes and shit, it’s been all over the place.
ABORT: Right, right… okay. So, “The New Wu” with Method Man, Ghostface Killah, available now on iTunes, the fourth coming album is Cuban Linx Pt. II available in stores and on the street September 8th on IceH2o /EMI records, meanwhile you can visit Raekwon online at www.myspace.com/raekwon. And, uh, anything you wanna say to our readers?
RAEKWON: You can definitely reach me on Twitter – @ RaekwonIceWater , and you know, just come and check in for ya boy, and um, like I said man – September 8th. Get Ready. It’s gonna be an exciting album.
ABORT: Anything you wanna say to your Canadian fans while we got ya on the line?
RAEKWON: Yeah, uh, I just wanna say much love to Vancouver, you know what I mean, and thanks for supporting me through the years. I’ll never forget these things, and that’s why I make it my business to come to Canada and do my thing and show the love back, so definitely, I just wanna say I appreciate it, man, and they always gonna be there for me and I’m gonna be there for them.
ABORT: Thanks Rae…
RAEKWON: Thank you man.
By E.S. Day
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