Raekwon

Hip-hop had more or less written off Raekwon when he was unceremoniously dropped from Dr. Dre’s Aftermath label while still at work on a sequel to Only Built 4 Cuban Linx... , arguably the greatest Wu-Tang solo album of all time. Only Built 4 Cuban Linx... Pt. 2 briefly threatened to become theChinese Democracy of hip-hop, but Raekwon shocked everyone in late 2009 by releasing a follow-up worthy of the original: a dense, overstuffed opus rich with grimy atmosphere and novelistic detail. Raekwon’s recent mix-tape, Unexpected Victory, isn’t the, um, unexpected victory of Pt. 2, but it does match some killer verses from The Chef. 

Updated 04/17/2012