5th Letter
New member
“Skew It on the Bar-B” by Outkast feat. Raekwon, from Aquemini (1998)
“This was back in the ’90s, in our early times, when I was actually living in Atlanta. I bumped into Big Boi, and back then, the South music and New York music wasn’t really clashing. It wasn’t like it was any animosity or nothing. It’s just that they had they thing, we had our thing. And believe it or not, this record that we did together actually bridged the culture of southern artists and New York artists merging together to do records — like, we were the first trailblazers of that. And I remember going into the studio and hearing the beat, and they knew that I could flow. They say, ‘Yo, we know that you like to rhyme off-tempo.’ They always used to say to me, ‘Yo, you can rhyme anything.’ But when I heard the beat, it was just so ill, it brought a style out of me. So while they were having fun, I just gave them something that was ill, but I was still saying shit that they could relate to, you know what I mean. I was saying shit like, ‘Deliver this through your audio …’ They was loving the fact that it’s wordplay and that I was able to bring my New York style of hip-hop to the track. And like I said, I was just saying all kinds of shit, but still using a flow that basically had a little style on it. It was a dope track.”
“100 Rounds” by Raekwon, from Immobilarity (1999)
“‘100 Rounds’ was a dope record because I’ve always wanted to tell everybody, if my rap skills is a gun, I would have a hundred rounds in my clip automatically. I really took my time and wrote to that verse. I felt like the combination of the rhymes and where I was at was just making sure to let everybody know I’m a lyrical machine that spit hard-core lyrics. I shot a video for that. Back then, in ’99, I had Floyd Mayweather in it, boxing, doing a fight-night scene. And who would ever know that one of the guys I had in my video would wind up being the highest-paid athlete in the world."
“Casablanca” by Raekwon, from Immobilarity (1999)
“‘Casablanca’ was a different style of song I wanted to write. It was a more visual story that I wanted to paint on that. It reminded me of being on the beach somewhere, just that elegant lifestyle in Miami. I pictured myself in the portrait where I had on Cuban hats, the Kangols. It just made me tell a visual story about guys going for the next level in their careers and they’re doing this type of shit now, you know. I was saying some fly shit that really was telling the story of [a] real strong businessman, almost like an Al Capone type of story.”
“Let My Niggas Live” by Wu-Tang Clan feat. Nas, from The W (2000)
“Oooh, that beat right there was a growling, hungry, hard-core hip-hop track. It comes off real energetic and real street. I love that track, you know what I mean. Me and Nas — a lot of people remember our flows in the same bracket — we both loved the track and shit. I just like how I started it, when I said ‘millionaire feet,’ meaning I’m one of those runners that’s a million-dollar beast right there. It was a lot of strong content, lyrics, and a lot of fly-metaphor shit that we was saying on the track. That’s definitely one of my top lyrics in a long time, because I was going in, you know what I mean. And the hook was saying, ‘Let my niggas live / We show and prove get paper.’ So that’s always been our lifestyle, anyway — just go out there and make a dialogue the best way we know how.”
“Fire Water” by Big Pun feat. Armageddon, Fat Joe, and Raekwon, from Endangered Species (2001)
“It was just more like a record that was actually done out of fun. Joe’s a good friend of mine, and he had called me to come up to the Bronx. I loved the beat; it was just straight hard-core-type shit. And when I stepped on the mic, I felt like I was still at my best — I was still growing as an artist. And when I came on and said, ‘Yo, control this rap like Napoleon,’ that’s how I felt, you know what I mean. I have this ego, this mind-set that I’m the illest when it comes to getting on that mic, and I control the game now because I’m a rap Napoleon. ‘Half-Mongolian, hold it, you owe me in / Rock ’em like linoneum’ — like, I just put so much into them four lines that it was like anybody automatically was like, ‘Yo, Rae, you gotta set the record off.’ And it was a dope track, you know what I mean. I was at it again. Fat Joe and Big Pun — they were some of my favorite lyricists in the game. They really get it in, too. And that was Pun’s actual first debut professionally on wax, with me and Fat Joe. It was really the more special moment, because we wanted him to shine. And he went on there and killed it and did what he was supposed to do. It’s a dope-ass record.”
“This was back in the ’90s, in our early times, when I was actually living in Atlanta. I bumped into Big Boi, and back then, the South music and New York music wasn’t really clashing. It wasn’t like it was any animosity or nothing. It’s just that they had they thing, we had our thing. And believe it or not, this record that we did together actually bridged the culture of southern artists and New York artists merging together to do records — like, we were the first trailblazers of that. And I remember going into the studio and hearing the beat, and they knew that I could flow. They say, ‘Yo, we know that you like to rhyme off-tempo.’ They always used to say to me, ‘Yo, you can rhyme anything.’ But when I heard the beat, it was just so ill, it brought a style out of me. So while they were having fun, I just gave them something that was ill, but I was still saying shit that they could relate to, you know what I mean. I was saying shit like, ‘Deliver this through your audio …’ They was loving the fact that it’s wordplay and that I was able to bring my New York style of hip-hop to the track. And like I said, I was just saying all kinds of shit, but still using a flow that basically had a little style on it. It was a dope track.”
“100 Rounds” by Raekwon, from Immobilarity (1999)
“‘100 Rounds’ was a dope record because I’ve always wanted to tell everybody, if my rap skills is a gun, I would have a hundred rounds in my clip automatically. I really took my time and wrote to that verse. I felt like the combination of the rhymes and where I was at was just making sure to let everybody know I’m a lyrical machine that spit hard-core lyrics. I shot a video for that. Back then, in ’99, I had Floyd Mayweather in it, boxing, doing a fight-night scene. And who would ever know that one of the guys I had in my video would wind up being the highest-paid athlete in the world."
“Casablanca” by Raekwon, from Immobilarity (1999)
“‘Casablanca’ was a different style of song I wanted to write. It was a more visual story that I wanted to paint on that. It reminded me of being on the beach somewhere, just that elegant lifestyle in Miami. I pictured myself in the portrait where I had on Cuban hats, the Kangols. It just made me tell a visual story about guys going for the next level in their careers and they’re doing this type of shit now, you know. I was saying some fly shit that really was telling the story of [a] real strong businessman, almost like an Al Capone type of story.”
“Let My Niggas Live” by Wu-Tang Clan feat. Nas, from The W (2000)
“Oooh, that beat right there was a growling, hungry, hard-core hip-hop track. It comes off real energetic and real street. I love that track, you know what I mean. Me and Nas — a lot of people remember our flows in the same bracket — we both loved the track and shit. I just like how I started it, when I said ‘millionaire feet,’ meaning I’m one of those runners that’s a million-dollar beast right there. It was a lot of strong content, lyrics, and a lot of fly-metaphor shit that we was saying on the track. That’s definitely one of my top lyrics in a long time, because I was going in, you know what I mean. And the hook was saying, ‘Let my niggas live / We show and prove get paper.’ So that’s always been our lifestyle, anyway — just go out there and make a dialogue the best way we know how.”
“Fire Water” by Big Pun feat. Armageddon, Fat Joe, and Raekwon, from Endangered Species (2001)
“It was just more like a record that was actually done out of fun. Joe’s a good friend of mine, and he had called me to come up to the Bronx. I loved the beat; it was just straight hard-core-type shit. And when I stepped on the mic, I felt like I was still at my best — I was still growing as an artist. And when I came on and said, ‘Yo, control this rap like Napoleon,’ that’s how I felt, you know what I mean. I have this ego, this mind-set that I’m the illest when it comes to getting on that mic, and I control the game now because I’m a rap Napoleon. ‘Half-Mongolian, hold it, you owe me in / Rock ’em like linoneum’ — like, I just put so much into them four lines that it was like anybody automatically was like, ‘Yo, Rae, you gotta set the record off.’ And it was a dope track, you know what I mean. I was at it again. Fat Joe and Big Pun — they were some of my favorite lyricists in the game. They really get it in, too. And that was Pun’s actual first debut professionally on wax, with me and Fat Joe. It was really the more special moment, because we wanted him to shine. And he went on there and killed it and did what he was supposed to do. It’s a dope-ass record.”
