One of the most visible members of the Wu-Tang Clan, Raekwon the Chef never gave up his spiked bat. He's simply not swinging it as much as he did 20 years ago. But young MCs beware, Rae still has bars for days. His latest EP Lost Jewelry, which dropped earlier this year, proved his street-savvy tales never went rusty. Now, with the spring and summertime encroaching, and talks of his new full-length album F.I.L.A. (Fly International Luxurious Art) in high demand amongst Wu-Tang fanatics across the world, Lex Diamond shares new details on his upcoming sixth "movie." Plus, he sheds light on plans surrounding Wu-Tang Clan's 20th anniversary. —Jaeki Cho (@JaekiCho)

Lost Jewelry_Raekwon_Feature
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Lost Jewelry:

"My set-up was just to give my fans some new music because they ain't hear from me in a minute. So this music right here, "The Lost Jewelry", was just certain pieces of joints that I had that I didn't finish up that I felt I had a lot of good songs and shit I just never threw them out. But at the same time I did give them all new, free, quality music. You know what I mean? It wasn't like a mixtape. All this was stuff that I didn't really fuck with but they was hot still.

"Yeah, Roads Arc and my man Frank G. They pretty much is big fans of my music. It's almost like it's funny how I met them because they already envisioned themselves working with me. I love pulling in young guys because that's what it's all about. The new generation of hip-hop accepting the newer generation of hip-hop. People still look at me as a relevant artist because I keep myself knowing fresh all the time. So you got these young kids that's still out there looking at my bars and saying, 'Yo, we need to rock!' And that just happened with these producers and they came with some fire.

"Buck is a legend. He's from the Diggin' in the Crates Crew. We always wanted to work together, but we never had an opportunity. So one time he gave me some music. But I was like, 'Yo, that's some chick, radio shit.' I like that for the girls. So I never really got an opportunity to work with it but at the same time I did contact my girl Faith [Evans], and told her to get on it. Like, 'Yo, Faith, Fizzy. This your world right here.'

"[Freddie Gibbs] is a real good friend of mine. We always talked about doing a joint. Because a lot of times I might've seen him at a show and shit and we was like, 'Yo, we gonna do a joint together.' So that we gave him, 'A New Day,' it's for me working with merging international and domestic artists that I never got an opportunity to work with before. [Freddie Gibbs] is from the Midwest. That's all in the Chi-Town area and Indiana and all these places that I know love me and love Wu that we never got to touch. So I feel like me and him merging was letting them niggas know out there like, 'Yo, Chef fucsk with us. he fucks with one of ours.' You know what I mean? That's important right there."

Young Artists_Raekwon_Feature
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Thoughts on the New Generation of Artists:

“Cats like Freddie Gibbs. I like the young A$AP Rockies and the Bada$$es and Lamars. For me being a legend in the game and seeing that type of power that they're possessing, it's like your uncle saying, 'Yo, that's how you're supposed to do it.'

“Well, I mean there's still a lot of shit that I don't feel is on my level, but more importantly it's about the association with the music world that I respect more. Sometimes the music may not be what I want to try, but at the end of the day I think the work ethic is what attracts me to them. Everybody doesn’t make dope music to catch everybody's ear. Like me I'm an artist that pays attention to the wittiness and the skills, the style, the posture, the hustle, all in one. But more importantly I'm not a hater to recognizing the new, young school cats got they fan bases. When you got a fan base, that's a job done.

"So I'm not the one to judge your rap category, but I do respect your rap because the people respect it. We come from the same shit so when you see young cats come up and they doing' they own thing without the help of these labels I love that shit. You don't sit around and wait for a co-sign. You co-sign yourself."

Charity Concert_Raekwon_Feature
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Charity Concert for Hurricane Sandy Victims

“The turn out wasn't as great as we wanted it to be. It was like the locations and the timing of everything was a little off though. But everybody's heart was in the right place for it. A lot of people came out, but a lot of people didn’t know where it was at because it was somewhere in Brooklyn. We should've more or less had it in Manhattan, but the location didn't really make everything come together.

“I felt like you got to show some type of concern for people in the greatest situation. Us being artist and having money to do other shit and you got to think about the other people that are not fortunate right now. Sometimes you may want to help and it's just the thought that counts. And that's why I said, for my city; I plan on doing a bunch of other things as well. Like really doing a clothes giveaway or something like that.

“At the end of the day, like I said, I would give all that up in a second for my people. Just so they know I care.”

36th Chambers_Raekwon_Feature
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20th Anniversary of Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)

“It's a great thing. My thing is when you think of 20 years and still saying that people is accepting you, it's important to do the job the best way that you're supposed to do it. So for me Wu-Tang 20 years doesn’t feel like 20 years to me. And I know that there's still time for dudes to get it going again. Because if we going to do one more we got to go in! And that's my attitude with that. I want to go in on it. I don't want to play no games with it and show people that it don't stop there. At the end of the day, we have been here 20 years. You think of Jay-Z, you think of NaS, you think of Bus', you think of a lot of cats. A lot of cats been here for the same period of time but it's like after that what do you do? When you reach that 20-year mark. Do you show off more or do you fade back? Nah, we not supposed to fade back. We're supposed to move forward or I want to move forward.”

FILA_Raekwon_Feature
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F.I.L.A. (Fly International Luxurious Art)

The Lost Jewels was just a portion of my appreciation for the fans that have been sticking with us and at the same time it’s an opportunity to get them prepared for the F.I.L.A. project. It's called F.I.L.A. for the acronym "Fly International Luxurious Art." When people see it, I don't want them to automatically think that it's named after the shoe. It just happened to be the acronym that spells that. Ya feel me?

“The theme is just Rae stepping it up into another aspect of that life. That he'd been living for so long in the game. A lot of people look at me like one of the livest niggas in the game. Style, lyrics, good energy, good ear. On top of being a fly nigga, I'm looked at as one of the guys that brought style to the table. And I know it's real because we have been rocking jewelry ever since we came in the game. Spiders and whatever, whatever. We don't just make albums that sit with only one or two or three works. We give you an artist's drawing.

“It's something completely different from Cuban Links. It's me on a higher level right now.

“We're thinking maybe in the June department. It'll be nice and get ready for the summer. I never want to rush a record when I feel that the record has so much potential.

“One thing about the Raekwon brand, I'm going to bring different things that I initiate into the world. There's so many thing that we're doing right now from building a studio to even giving cats an opportunity to work next door next to me. To having sit downs with kids to talk to them about the perils and the situations inside the music industry. I just hired a new management company to really help me guide my career in a better way. So now books, films, more interaction with the communities, branding factors. All of these things is gonna present themselves in the Raekwon franchise.

“To me that's where the ‘international’ comes in with the F.I.L.A. because I can sit here and talk to an Asian kid that is so inspired that it makes me international. Cats such as yourself and other cats that studied the Wu-Tang Bible and say, ‘Yo, that really taught me how to walk today.’ It really did that to a lot of people in the world.”

Being a Real Chef_Raekwon_Feature
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Being a Real Chef

“I can cook up something nice and spicy and leave it where it's in a clean atmosphere. I think as men we do this. But I think one-day maybe everybody will get a chance to see a ‘Chef Saga’ show or something. I'm into this type of things now. You never know. Any type of Food Networks or any kind of people that want to call and talk about, I'm up for it because yeah I do cook. I don't just eat anything so if I make shit, it's going to be good.

“I can flip a chicken Parmesan and that ain't easy to make. For real though, you got to add bread crumbs that shit is really serious shit. But not anybody can cook but everybody got flavor. That's the key thing.”

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