Raekwon names his favourite album of all-time
Raekwon is, of course, a respected New York City rapper and earned respect from the hip-hop fraternity as a member of the Wu-Tang Clan. His debut album, Only Built 4 Cuban Linx, was a platinum-selling record and is still considered an East Coast classic to this day.
The musician (real name Corey Woods) was one of the most lyrically talented members of the Clan, but outside of his work with the collective, Woods successfully developed a solo career following their dissolution.
Although Raekwon was born and raised in Brooklyn, he went to high school in Staten Island. During this period, he met Ghostface Killah, and they embarked upon a friendship that changed hip-hop forever. He would later become close friends with Remedy, Method Man and Inspectah Deck, who’d later join the duo on their mission.
When Woods first began rapping, he went under the stage name Sha Rider. However, upon joining Wu-Tang Clan in 1992, Woods switched his pseudonym to Raekwon The Chef, which eventually became just Raekwon.
Following the release of the legendary Wu-Tang anthem ‘C.R.E.A.M.’, Woods began working on his debut album Only Built 4 Cuban Linx. As the collective was on Loud Records, its artists were afforded solo record deals. Although Raekwon’s debut album was highly successful, it didn’t reach the same dizzying heights as Method Man’s Tical.
Only Built 4 Cuban Linx was solely produced by Wu-Tang’s legendary beatmaker and founder, RZA, who was regarded for his lo-fi and gritty production style and heavily featured Ghostface Killah. He then released other projects and has released seven full-length studio albums.
That said, before releasing his own projects, Woods was a musical aficionado, including various hip-hop albums. In a 2020 interview with the music publication Rolling Stone, the Staten Island lyricist opened up about albums that influenced him growing up and named his favourite.
One of Woods’ selections was the 1987 Boogie Down Productions LP Criminal Minded. Speaking about BDP’s KRS-One and Scott La Rock, the rapper stated, “KRS-One was a lyrical professor and a street talker. Songs like ‘South Bronx’ really meant a lot to us coming up in the game — and I’m talking about the street game, the hustle factor.”
Raekwon then revealed that it made him greatly admire rap, explaining, “It made me want to get up and enjoy hip-hop even more. This is when I started to hang out with my dudes, and we would go to other people’s cities and shit. ‘Yo, let’s go uptown. Yo, let’s go to the Bronx. Yo, let’s go to Queens.'”
Woods unveiled that he loved the legendary ‘Bridge Wars’ between Boogie Down Productions and Juice Crew and insisted that ‘South Bronx’ was a New York anthem of the ’80s, recalling, “We would love to go to a party and they’d play that shit, and the whole fucking crowd would go crazy. You didn’t even have to be from South Bronx to be singing it’.
However, the album that meant the most to Woods was the debut Eric B and Rakim project Paid In Full. Explaining the significance of the record, Raekwon detailed, “This is a special, special album to me. When Rakim first came out, I was about 15 years old. I saw him on the cover. He had outfits on there; they had money in their hand, jewellery. At that time, that was the way. Big gold chains and rings. Rakim was the trailblazer.”
He concluded, “The shit he was saying was just amazing. Everything he was saying, I felt like I was living it, I was going through it. Records like ‘Eric B. for President,’ oh my god. When I first heard that fucking track! It was clubs that was jumping. New York City was a different time, where emcees were really showing off, and Rakim came through the door, killing it. He had knowledge of self, he was intelligent, and his wordplay was like, ‘God damn.'”