The one Wu-Tang Clan song Raekwon hated: “Everybody fought with me”
Raekwon’s debut, Only Built 4 Cuban Linx…, is considered to be one of the best ever Wu-Tang Clan albums, with the single ‘Ice Cream’ being one of its stand-outs. But even though the song is a classic, Rae himself has admitted that he once “hated” it.
‘Ice Cream’ features Method Man, Ghostface Killah and Cappadonna, appearing for the first time on a Wu-Tang track, and, lyrically, it lists off different ice-cream flavours as a metaphor for various races of women. This concept, apparently, came from the track’s producer RZA.
The song is intended as a positive gesture towards women by the group, and, compared to the hard-hitting gangsta stylings of the rest of Only Built 4 Cuban Linx…, it is fairly easy-going, lyrically speaking.
“We needed something soft but heartfelt for the album,” Rae revealed on a Vevo Footnotes clip explaining the song’s background. “I wanted to make sure women were incorporated in this concept, they played such a huge part in hip-hop culture… I had to make it happen!”
But, as Rae revealed to Complex in 2011, his feelings about the song weren’t always so positive. Given the harder themes of the rest of the album, he felt ‘Ice Cream’ didn’t fit right—and it made him despise the song. “I hated ‘Ice Cream,’” he admitted. “That’s crazy, right?”
Rae claimed that he was always into RZA’s beat, but that he just felt the song as a whole was “too soft for Cuban Linx.” His bandmates, thankfully, didn’t agree.
“When I tell you everybody fought with me, even Ghost was like, ‘Nah G, this is it,’” Rae said. “And I was like, ‘Nah, it’s too soft. We need everything hard! Gutter!’”
Raekwon was preoccupied by a desire to make “a hard album. A solid album.” He was so obsessed with this idea that, even when it came down to making the video for ‘Ice Cream,’ he still couldn’t get into the spirit of things. “It was just when it came down to doing videos, really ampin’ it up,” he said, “I was like, ‘Nah, I ain’t really feelin’ it.’”
The fact that his concerns were pushed aside ultimately proved to be for the best. The song was released as a single, and it charted at number 37 on the Billboard Hot 100. “And then you know,” Rae conceded, “the shit just end up poppin’ off on the radio and they was playing it.”
Raekwon insisted he always loved the beat and even the idea at the heart of the song, but he just didn’t think it belonged on Cuban Linx. “It was just a great concept and basically I loved the record based on that,” he said. “But it was definitely one of the ones that I could really say I looked past.”