Milestones: Only Built 4 Cuban Linx… by Raekwon
Raekwon’s masterpiece of a debut LP is a musical ghetto version of a John Woo classic.
Skipping school, chugging Holsten, smoking in the basement, nodding your head, kicking it on the Amiga—only built 4 a C-average in ‘95. Sorry, Mom, I’m “Striving for Perfection,” but which teenager really wants to go to religion or math class in the afternoon when Raekwon’s telling you about “Knowledge God”? “Yo, why’s my niggas always yellin that broke shit/Let’s get money Son, now you wanna smoke shit/Chill God, yo the Son don’t chill Allah/What’s today’s mathematic Son? Knowledge God.”
Exactly—even if you didn’t really understand anything besides “Chill God.” And while the Wu-Tang head chef and his brilliant Ghostface buddy are audibly snorting coke up their left nostril—only to then chase big Kung-Fu-Mafia-drug cinema into the smoky suburban room over a classic head-nodder dish with delicious loop assortments from the RZA—beer and a prepped cola bottle are right there, ready for “homework.” Like I said, the head nods, the relaxation builds, and everyone ad-libs: “Italiano, slanted-eyed bangin them fat Milano.” Yeah, Mom, we learn better with music, and thanks for the sandwiches.
Two years and grades earlier, West Coast lowriders from Cypress Hill, Dr. Dre, or Ice Cube were still blasting from the windows in that same kids’ room, just like from 3-series BMWs, alternative discos, and youth centers. But when the Clan’s debut shook the G-Funk foundations of the cassette decks down to the last spool a year later, the little world was different. The two Wu members, ODB and Method Man, followed up high, but it was Raekwon’s first solo work, Only Built 4 Cuban Linx… in 1995, that delivered the final Black Sunday for the Compton crew and co., as their laid-back cruise albums literally flew out of the stereos. The Purple Tape had arrived.
The unbroken fascination with the album to this day has many facets, but only one core: OB4CL is the musical ghetto version of a John Woo classic (“The Killer” samples included). Raekwon and Ghostface tell partly true, partly totally exaggerated drug stories from the Mafia world (in the Wu home base of Staten Island/New York, a few famous “godfathers” live too) and smack you with slang expressions including complex imagery. “Stand on the block, Reebok gun cocked/Avalanche rock get paid off mass murderous services/Chef break ‘em, watch the alley cats bake ‘em” (“Glaciers of Ice”).
Since there was no Wikipedia or genius.com back then, the lyrics and understanding were often two different pairs of Clarks—and it didn’t matter anyway. The duo, backed by the Clan and Nas, raps as tight as JAY-Z and Missy would love to be—“Me and Missy be the new Tag Team/“Whoomp! There It Is”/We like, Rae & Ghost, A.G. and Show”—and the RZA pulls a dense, multi-layered sound carpet from the depths of his studio that doesn’t leave the smallest gap, like Bruce Lee’s guard. The drums pump straight, the bass fills bellies, the loops come and go, break and shine, and the teenage head nods itself into outta-space with super-gangster head cinema.
“Ricans be givin’ me much shit, the dutch shit/Stay cool papi, seize it with enough shit” (“Wu-Gambinos”). Screw our suburban white-bread class of ’95 when the merciless, hypnotizing, always slightly off-kilter century-beat on “Criminology” cuts sharp string-synths into your nerves on “Rainy Dayz,” Nas-Rae-Ghost reinvent rap without tricks on “Verbal Intercourse,” and in the end, evil deeds are sworn off to the smoothest on “Heaven and Hell” and “North Star.”
Many youngsters back then didn’t catch the hip-hop beef drama—who’s really listening bombed or with elbows out to the “Shark Niggaz” skit on the Purple Tape (Only Built… also came out as a purple cassette alongside the CD), where Rae and Ghost diss Notorious B.I.G. Colleague Nas described it years later on “Last Real Niggas Alive”: “BIG was ahead of his time, him and Raekwon/My niggas, but dig it, they couldn’t get along/That’s when Ghostface said it on the Purple Tape/Bad Boy biting Nas album cover, wait/BIG told me Rae was stealing my slang/And Rae told me out in Shaolin BIG would do the same thing/But I borrowed from both them niggas.”
And it wasn’t just Nas who was Only Built 4 Cuban Linx… and influenced by this work. Rappers like Pusha T or even stars like Kanye West would sound different today. Around the turn of the 2000s, Dr. Dre dictated something like this into a German magazine’s tape recorder: “Raekwon’s first album is timeless and I’d still light up a sports cigarette to it today.” In the 2012 update of Rolling Stone’s “500 Greatest Albums of All Time,” Cuban Linx landed at number 480. The stoned high-school dorks from the basement couldn’t have cared less back then, as soon as the next munchies hit. Ey yo, go upstairs to the street, digga: “The Ice Cream Man is coooming!”
Masterpiece (★★★★★)