Raekwon talks Shaolin vs Wu-Tang

If last year’s Wu Massacre – co-helmed by Method Man and Ghostface Killah – helped exorcise any residual dismay over the way 8 Diagrams’ expansive production represented the Clan back in 2007, Raekwon’s forthcoming solo album is about much more than the sharpening of his swords.

Titled Shaolin vs Wu-Tang, the release takes its cue from the story arc of Gordon Liu’s 1985 kung fu classic Shaolin and Wu-Tang – poetically, the source of various soundbytes used throughout Wu-Tang Clan’s rugged 1993 debut. Mirroring the film’s penultimate scene where the two eponymous schools do battle in a traditional tournament, Raekwon pulls a cast including Meth, Ghost and Inspectah Deck – as well as old friends Nas, Black Thought and Busta Rhymes – into a plot hell-bent on reinstating his group as a vital force in rap music.  

---

You announced this album before 8 Diagrams even came out, as a response to your frustration with RZA’s production at the time. You’ve all toured collectively and guested on each other’s projects since then, but there’s still speculation about what Shaolin vs Wu-Tang says about relations within the group. Can you clear that up once and for all?

Number one, nothing is personal right here. We did speak about making this album a while ago, because we felt at the end of the day it was a bad rep to come with [8 Diagrams] at the time. We did speak about wanting to pick the right production, to show [RZA] what [Wu-Tang] is really supposed to be like. When you’re dealing with your brothers, you don’t want to make them feel like it’s anything personal. But at the end of the day we’ve got careers, we’ve got lives, we’ve got kids we’ve got to take care of. We just felt ‘we’ve got to come with another album,’ and keep our legacy alive. We wanted to do it the right way.

When we last spoke you said that when it comes to Wu-Tang, “the competition is what makes us stronger.” Is this where the parallel with Gordon Liu’s film comes in?

Wu-Tang is the style – it’s the slang. Shaolin is the militant discipline, the truer living where everything comes from – the origin. These are two schools that represent the same thing, but they’re going through something right now and challenging one another. The movie definitely inspired the album; when you think of Wu-Tang Clan you think of great flicks like this that need to be spoken about on an album. I feel like this is a great topic for hip-hop, it’s going to be an action concept album and it just fits our criteria of work, nah’mean?

The association with the film also calls that atmosphere of clanging blades and dubbed dialogue from the group’s first album to mind. The tracks you’ve released so far – particularly Butter Knives – sound like vintage Wu…

Yeah, we just wanted to make this album more cinematic and put it in a more typical Wu-Tang format. People want to hear that. So this was definitely designed to go back to that sound of the early 90s, but at the same time to expand and deal with growth and development within the music. So we meshed everything together and made a great situation happen. When people hear it they’re going to know for sure that it’s painted out to be classic Wu, but by the same token we have to make everything a little fresh. I think we did that.

There are over a dozen guest producers and MCs featuring across the album, did you have strict instructions for everyone involved?

Absolutely. Of course, with me having a couple of guys from the Clan involved with it, and putting a few features on there, I definitely had to be the skipper of the ship and basically let everyone know the direction I wanted to go in. We carefully crafted it, and the producers we got came in, they listened to me when I told them ‘this album is straight for the Wu-Tang fans first and foremost.’ It still gots to be gritty. Everybody came through.

It’s our duty to ask, what’s the story behind the track called Last Trip To Scotland?

[imitates Flava Flav] Yeeeah, [laughs] You know me, when you think of Rae he’s always going to say something ill and crazy. I’m always coming up with a fly name for somethin’. Scotland definitely happened to be on my mind; it’s a storyline and it was assassination day for whoever we were looking for at that time. Me and [Lloyd] Banks went in, tellin’ our story – you don’t really catch Banks in a storytelling chamber too much. He came up and followed where I was going with it. The record was produced by Scram Jones, a good friend of mine, and I just felt like the beat was sinister, where we went with it was ill, cinematic and I just came with that fly title…I guess I just like Scotland! I’ve definitely had a lot of fun out there.

One of the big collaborations on the album is with Nas, and fans have been vocal about that being a partnership they’d like to see more of…

Nas is a good brother of mine and we wanted to come up with something that’ll have the fans going crazy. For some reason, a lot of people like our formula when we get together and do what we do. We just had to come with something that we felt was hot, that people could relate to. That record is definitely sizzlin’ – I have this guy named Sean C who produced the track, and he’s a big fan of me and Nas. This is something he felt he really needed to be involved with – he brought the heat and we did what we had to do. I wanted to serve the fans in a great way, because they’ve been supportive of me in the last couple of years. I had to make this happen for them.

There’s a sense that some of your best music has emerged over these past few years. Is there any particular part of your older catalogue you’d like to urge readers to reinvestigate now?

It was a good struggle because I’ve learned so much, and I had the right team around me to put me in the right perspective. My vision went blurry for a couple of years before I dropped the Cuban Linx II album, because I’ve been going through some changes. But at the end of the day I’m a winner and I won’t allow myself to come out with anything that’s gonna discredit who I am as an artist. So I took my time.

A lot of people know my potential but don’t know my full potential; I plan on showing them that over the next couple of years. I feel like I’ve got a lot to prove right now, and don’t get me wrong, I love to feel the challenge but I’m here to show and prove. Go back and listen to Immobilarity, man. Play it loud and understand that it’s just one chamber I took you to.