Cuban Linx II: Should we give a shit?

I don't know what it is about white guys that leads them to constantly put together collections of things, but god bless them for it.

Yesterday, there was the great collection of late '90s era nerd rap put together by Brendan Frederick. He used to work here. You probably just forgot.

Today, I figured I might take a look at this collection of joints that may or may not end up on Cuban Linx II, put together by Noz, another fallen soldier here at the X spot.

Quite a few joints that are said to be from either Cuban Linx II or the requisite mixtape preceding Cuban Linx II have hit the Internets in the past few weeks, and I'm assuming it's mostly an economic indicator, not unlike the pregnant woman who appeared in this week's Bangbus - Raekwon can't afford to just sit around on his ass anymore. Not with the economy in the state that it's in.

Whether or not he's actually gonna put together an album worthy of the Cuban Linx name remains to be seen. I've been to enough Wu-related concerts to know that there's a significant amount of guys who still own Wu Wear jackets. Rae could probably do Little Brother numbers just on account of them, and if he's on Koch, that might be enough to save his home from foreclosure.

Below, I take a look at seven joints that may or may not be on Cuban Linx II, to see if any of them are worth a shit.

1) "Blue Eagles" - I'm assuming this is one of the joints from the mixtape, since it's one verse, and it kinda sounds like he pulled it out of his ass, and at the very end, he plugs the album. Not even Raekwon would plug his album on his own album. The production is ass, so someone might need to get Rae a copy of that memo, known as the Clipse Memo, that says that, if you want to, you can just rap over other people's shit on a mixtape.

2) "Cuban Chronicles" - The production is way better, in a budget RZA sort of way. But these days, sad as it sounds, I'll take pretty much any ol' guy doing his best RZA impression than the RZA himself. They ought to try to get Black Milk on this. The one song he did on that last GZA album was killer. Also, labels should employ people whose job it is to tell artists whether or not something's a good idea.

3) "Kids Thats Rich" - I wonder if this was Rae's conscious attempt to create a new "Incarcerated Scarfaces," similar to how he recently put out a new, shittier version of "Criminology." It's similar enough to suspect that might be the case, but if it was, something tells me he might just call it "Incarcerated Scarfaces II." Namely, the fact that he's been known to put the number 2 behind good ideas he had a long time ago.

4) "State of Grace" - And hey, it's actual dialogue from the film Scarface. Er, I think it is. I'm no expert, like most black people these days. This has been around for quite some time now, hasn't it? These lyrics even kinda sound familiar. I'd ask if it was on the Lex Diamonds Story, but I doubt anyone would know.

5) "My Corner" - Classic soul rap, which has managed to go completely in and out of vogue just in the time since the last Raekwon album was out. The Wu was doing shit like this back in the '90s, but it was a lot grimier sounding. If this was a little bit gayer, it could be Dipset. Towards the very end, Rae mentions '07, as if that was going to be the year he made his big comeback. Obviously, it wasn't.

6) "The G Hide" - And I quote: "We bought a crib next to Bill Clinton mother cuz she fuck with the Chinese." Roffle. But didn't Bill Clinton's mother die back in the 1990s, or am I imagining that? At any rate, I'd actually recommend they give this a better title and put it on the album. It's no "Criminology," but it's probably as good as anything else he's gonna come up with these days.

7) "Wu Ooh" - Finally, the song I was listening to yesterday, when I figured I might have a look at some of these new(er) Raekwon songs. It's not a hit per se, but it's got me about as psyched as I've ever been to hear a sequel to Only Built 4 Cuban Linx. Which is to say: kinda. Is it any wonder I see they're making a video for it? I just hope this is an actual harbinger of things to come, and not the very best thing he could come up with.