Interview: Raekwon For Entertainment Weekly

If your hoplessly snowed in this weekend like me take a moment to scan through this new Raekwon interview conducted by Simon Vozick-Levinson of EntertainmentWeekly.com. The Chef goes over some of the finer points concerning OBFCL II as well as answers some questions about his two newest projects, the "Wu-Massacre" with Meth and Ghost as well as what he's promising to be his latest solo piece de resistance; "Shaolin vs. Wu-Tang".

-BIG D O

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Were you happy with how Cuban Linx Part II was received?

RAEKWON: Oh definitely, definitely. It just shows that hard work and dedication can lead to success. I’m glad people accepted it. It took a minute, but it was worth the wait, though…I think my heart was in the right place. My team, everybody was really coaching me to make this album the best album it could be. We just worked hard, man. Blood, sweat, and tears. I felt confident with it. I felt I could do it again. And my prayers was answered.

EW: One of the things a lot of people liked was that the album sounded like it almost could have come out 10 years earlier or more. Was that something you were intentionally doing?

Rae: Yeah. I mean, I wanted to come with a whole new sound, but still be able to relate to the early ’90s when we made the first one. So we took a lot of time. I think the key thing to this album is the production. I think when it comes to lyrics, everybody knows I’m one of them dudes that’s going to be able to write forever. But the production was very important to me. I had a lot of superproducers involved. I had a lot of cats that wasn’t as popular as the other producers that put just the same amount of work in. Maybe even a little bit more. But at the end of the day, though, everybody came to the cause of making a classic.

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