You right, but you gotta admit he does not fukk with Divine at all. He said nothing positive about Divine the whole book and painted him as a thief and liar. He said Divine tried to make them sign contracts when they were distracted with a photoshoot.Easy with the mustard…you are taking liberties with what was said.
Rza would have 1 or 2 dope beats for every 10 he'd do in the 2000s. He was done by then. Every now and then he'd give us something like "run" or "new wu", but how often did that happen?
I just finished Raekwon's book and here are some of my thoughts. This is from Rae's perspective, so of course there is bias, but he provides a lot of evidence to back up his claims. I'll put my thoughts in a spoiler.
The Wu was never as close as we thought. They've basically been broken up since Wu-Tang Forever. They don't hang out, not even Rae and Ghost. Everything they've done since Forever has been about getting a check. Their hearts haven't been in any group album since 36 chambers.
Most, if not all, of the Wu thinks RZA fell off beat wise. They haven't really felt anything since around 96-97. Most have been begging him to let other producers work on the albums, but RZA won't allow it. They wanna know how Wu would sound over primo beats, dre beats, or other legendary producers. RZA won't sample much anymore cuz he doesn't wanna pay royalties.
Most of the core Wu doesn't really fukk with the affiliates. They want them to succeed, but feel like they watered down the brand. Rae hated seeing artists he'd never met claiming Wu-Tang.
Raekwon respected the hell out of RZA, and his opinion and validation meant more to him than anyone else in the world.
Rae always just wanted to see the paperwork of how budgets and money is distributed, but Divine and RZA refused to ever show him. When he refused to do shows, the clan still got the same amount of money, but Wu-Tang management pocketed his cut instead of splitting it with the members. These type of discrepancies made him distrustful.
Power stole from Rae in their Icewater deal and they haven't been close since.
Rae wanted to make a RZA diss track after RZA bashed him in interviews, but Rae had too much respect for the clan.
All the members on Shaolin Vs Wu-Tang don't really fukk with RZA. That album was basically Rae dividing lines.
Busta is a good dude, and deserves a lot of respect.
Ghost is a wild motherfukka.
RZA has a hell of an ego. Ghost and Rae would make up names of hollywood people and ask RZA if he knew them and he'd say yes every time
Rae really cares about his legacy and Wu's legacy and it hurts him that the quality has fallen off.
Rae doesn't take responsibility for his own failures and always blames others for them.
Overall, a dope book, and Rae makes some good points about RZA and Divine. There was definitely some shady shyt happening, but we would need RZA's full response to properly judge him. Rae breaks down the making of all his albums, which is dope.
Rae was free to work with other producers his entire career after OBFCL, and we ended up with the likes of Immobilarity, Lex Diamond and Fila.
While I do feel like he's one of the best MC's ever and doesn't get mentioned enough in those discussions, his albums rarely if ever live up to it.
Rae talks about how the mixtapes got him sharp for Cuban Linx 2. He was spending every day with Busta and Busta put him on to the mixtape game. He said Busta always had stacks of dope beats and can write verses all day. Busta is the one that told him to do Cuban Linx 2 and Busta screamed out It's Cuban Linx 2 mothafukka on a joint they did and that's what started the hype and had people calling him.
Lord Superb was the best thing that happened out that era.Facts. Even more so now with the resurgence of goon rap and all kinds of quality producers out there. Damn near everyone is doing these one mc one producer albums now, which is dope, so why can't an MC of Rae's stature put out such an album? Nas just dropped his third high quality project with Hit-Boy, Alchemist and Muggs are doing albums with everyone, Roc Marciano doing beats for Bronze Nazareth, you got Futurewave, Dirty Diggs, Sadhugold, Camouflauge Monk, Havoc...the list goes on and on
I agree with the watering down of the Wu flag. Been saying so for years. But it's not only Rza's fault : groups like Ice Water were de facto affiliates since they were associated with Raekwon. And they didn't really bring that much to the table themselves
your post is only proving me right. I clearly stated he made dope shyt, but for every dope song he did, thee was a lot of wack shyt. You named 33 tracks for 10 years in the 2000s. How much did he produce in that 10 year time period? he had a LOT of wack shyt. For all of the dope shyt you named(and I even named 2 of them initially), we have whole albums like Digi Snacks, Afro Samuari, Civilringz, Birth of a Prince, The World according ot Rza.. These are WHOLE ALBUMS!!!! hahhaa. Do you really want to put those 33 tracks up against everything Rza did in that 10 year period percentage-wise?
Wasn't just a dope Pete rock beat. It's one of his greatest beats ever. And maybe top 5 Rae track ever. Dude floated on that shyt. Him and Pete shoulda made a whole album together back then. Their styles went together perfectly.
Are you implying Rza had the hottest beats of all producers from 2000-2009?????? Is that the statement you're willing to stand by with those 33 tracks you posted? 33 hot tracks in 10 years? PRIMO HAD ABOUT 25 HOT TRACKS ALONE IN THE YEAR 2000!!!!!! And you're talking to a Rza fan so don't come in here with this "hating on Rza" bullshyt. Fro 93-97, there aren't too many guys in hip hop history that had a 4 year run like that. Someone like Marley Marl is comparable, but not many produced whole album classics in a 4 years time frame. The fact of the matter is, Rza did fall off, and it started with the Bobby Digital album. He still produced quality songs here and there, but the last classic great album he carried was probably Wutang Forever.
That's not an argument I'm making. Rae's 2nd album was trash. We all know this. And he wasn't making classic albums. That's not the argument here.
