Raekwon - Only Built 4 Cuban Linx pt. 2 (8/10)

"Politics, pop collars and drive violent whips.

Stay fly, hungry and wise, you know the code- honor it.

Sit back, yelling 'it's nothing'- unless his buttons get pressed.

We don't stress nothing, we only get dressed.

Stretched out, moving professional, frying more fish.

I heard it in slurs, them niggas is blessed.

While we ball to the maximum, give me the floor for real-

I show off and let my money get stretched.

Take it to a new level, new bezzle, few rebels,

few wolves with medals on, you know we get test."

from About Me

Artistically speaking, sequels are a hard sell- outside of some rare exceptions it'll just be about the artist trying to make more money based on the fact that they had one work of art do much better than average and are now trying to milk that "brand". Since I've reviewed two albums recently based on the fact that they have sequels coming out this year, I figured today would be about a fairly well executed sequel of recent years.

Raekwon is, to anyone unfamiliar with him, one of the more active members of the Wu-Tang Clan- having pretty much put out a solo release or been on an album a year since his debut- the first installment of the "Only Built 4 Cuban Linx" series. I'm not sure if there's even a theoretical connection between Only Built 4 Cuban Linx parts one and two, but it also doesn't really matter; the album is strong enough that it feels like a shame Raekwon decided to name it after his classic -95 release.

The themes of the album should be familiar to anyone who's listened to the Wu-Tang Clan before: Samples from Kung-Fu movies, lyrics seamlessly going back and forth between romanticizing crime and just talking about life in general, beats a bit all over the place.

Among the better things abotu the album is Raekwons dark, smooth flow and tight delivery. The beats, while thematically different, all feel like they work within the artistic framework of the album; whether it's Dre's typical brooding piano beats or Rza's collage style samples, Raekwon's style of rhyming is diverse enough that it doesn't matter- it's actually damn impressive.

The album features a large number of appearances by other artists; obviously other members of the Wu-Tang Clan are on a lot of tracks but the one that stands out is an incredibly strong appearance by Jadakiss on "Broken Safety". The biggest negative working against the album is the lack of direction it seems to have- there's no real theme tying the album together and most of the time it feels like little more than just a bunch of individual songs.

Granted, it is a bunch of very strong individual songs.

High point of the album: Black Mozart ft. Rza & Inspectah Deck

Low point of the album: Cold Outside ft. Ghostface