The Chef. Lex Diamonds. Whatever you address him as, no one should ever make the mistake of calling Raekwon scared. In this candid interview Rae fearlessly tells HipHopDX what’s really going on with the delayed release of his long-awaited Cuban Linx II album. He also frankly addresses rumors that the Wu-Tang Clan’s 8 Diagrams may never see the light of day, and that a certain former Team member is actually a Ghost writer. And before Rae can jet back to the kitchen to cook up some more heat, he lets us all know why we should cop his extended fam Icewater’s Polluted Water on August 28th, and why he is now officially a Lil’ Wayne fan.

HHDX: Is the Wu album really gonna drop this year? That URB article seemed to suggest the whole project may be falling apart.
Raekwon: Yeah, it’s gonna drop. We like 90% done with it. It’s a couple more things that we gotta add to the situation with it. It’s a classic in my eyes, as far as production and just what you would normally expect from Wu-Tang. It’s a good project and it’s definitely gonna be out this year.

HHDX: At the end of that same article, RZA is quoted as saying, with regards to 8 Diagrams, “If it’s not coming this year, it ain’t coming at all…If it doesn’t come this year, it don’t mean nothing no more.” Do you agree with his statement?
Raekwon: Yeah, I agree with that. We never wanted to put out a project with not everybody on it. So I respect that [statement]. People wanna see the whole Clan on the album. We all do our own personal shit, so everybody had to sacrifice the time to appear on the record. If that wasn’t gonna happen, then it wouldn’t have been worth doing.

HHDX: And that segues perfectly into my next question. Again in that same article RZA said Ghostface hadn’t recorded at all for the album. Is that still true?
Raekwon: Nah, Ghost is on the record. He did a couple of things on it. I guess at the time Ghost had a lot of things he had to do. Before Wu-Tang attained legendary status, we all came in as a family. But at the end of the day, we all got individual obligations that we gotta fulfill. So it gets rough sometimes. But it’s about sacrificing. And we all came to that agreement, that the fans love us when we do our thing together so we gonna give ‘em that. We knew how important doing this record was and so it got done. Continued on page 2 »