West Coast Connection Forum
DUBCC - Tha Connection => Outbound Connection => Topic started by: The Predator on July 03, 2025, 02:17:00 PM
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7/18
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Raekwon Announces New Album ‘The Emperor’s New Clothes’
It's out on July 18th...
Raekwon will release new album ‘The Emperor’s New Clothes’ on July 18th.
The hip-hop legend is a key part of Wu-Tang Clan, and has built an imposing solo discography. Set to be released this summer as part of Mass Appeal’s Legend Has It… series – a mammoth undertaking of new material from true icons – the album will land on July 18th.
Details are sparse right now, but guests slated for the record include Wu-Tang members Method Man, Ghostface Killah and Inspectah Deck, New York rap icon Nas, Westside Gunn, Conway The Machine and Benny The Butcher of Griselda, and British soul star Marsha Ambrosius.
Production comes courtesy of super producer Swizz Beatz, Nottz, J.U.S.T.I.C.E League and Frank G, and Roadsart.
‘The Emperor’s New Clothes’ will be released on July 18th.
Catch Raekwon on the road this summer, taking part in Wu-Tang Clan & Run The Jewels The Final Chamber tour dates.
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Wait for it!
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1. Intro
2. Bear Hill
3. Pomegranite (feat. Inspectah Deck & Carlton Fisk)
4. Veterans Only Billionaire Rehab (SKIT)
5. Wild Corsicans (feat. Conway The Machine, Benny The Butcher & Westside Gunn)
6. 1 Life (feat. Stacy Barthe)
7. Barber Shop Bullies (SKIT)
8. Open Doors (feat. Tommy Nova)
9. 600 School (feat. Ghostface Killah & Method Man)
10. The Guy That Plans It
11. Da Heavies
12. Officer Full Beard (SKIT)
13. The Omerta (feat. Nas)
14. Get Outta Here (feat. Ghostface Killah)
15. The Sober Dose Gift (SKIT)
16. Debra Night Wine (feat. Marsha Ambrosius)
17. Mac & Lobster (feat. Ghostface Killah)
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Wow, lot of gfk here!
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Compact Disc in a Digipack
Preorders Ship Late September - Street Date: September 19th
Raekwon's 8th studio album is dropping on all DSPs via Mass Appeal on July 18th. Raekwon’s The Emperor’s New Clothes is a sharp return to form, showcasing the Wu-Tang veteran’s lyrical precision and timeless street wisdom. The new album was produced by Swizz Beatz, J.U.S.T.I.C.E. League, Nottz, and Frank G. & RoadsArt with features by Wu-Tang's Ghostface Killah, Method Man, and Inspectah Deck as well as Griselda's Benny The Butcher, Conway The Machine, and Westside Gunn. Marsha Ambrosius and Stacy Barthe provide smooth, soulful hooks, adding emotional layers to the hard-edged verses. The LP is a reminder of Raekwon’s enduring power as a lyricist and curator. A veteran artist showing that mastery doesn’t need excess. The Emperor’s New Clothes is regal, streetwise, and sharply tailored for those who value craft.
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https://getondown.com/products/the-emperors-new-clothes-cd
https://venusvinyl.com/collections/pre-orders/products/raekwon-the-emperors-new-clothes-vinyl-ltd-ed-ocean-cranfire-3-color-red-yellow-black
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Raekwon’s New Album ‘The Emperor’s New Clothes’ Will Feature Guests Like Ghostface Killah and Nas
The Wu-Tang Clan co-founder Raekwon will drop his eighth studio album on July 18, featuring Nas and Method Man, and more.
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Legendary New York rapper Raekwon has announced that this month, he’ll be dropping his first solo album in eight years, per Hot New Hip-Hop.
This week, the Chef pulled back the curtain and unveiled The Emperor’s New Clothes, his new LP coming July 18 from Mass Appeal Records. The album is produced by Swizz Beatz, J.U.S.T.I.C.E. League, Nottz, and Frank G. & RoadsArt, with collaborations from Ghostface Killah, Method Man, and Inspectah Deck. Other artists who make appearances include: Nas, Westside Gunn, Benny The Butcher, Conway the Machine, Stacy Barthe, and Marsha Ambrosius.
“This heat right here is gonna apply pressure on rap’s generation!” Raekwon said about the album in an Instagram post. “You won’t have to fast forward this one at all. We paint art then display ‘Valuable imagery’ with Aggressive wordplay. No album compares im sorry -Shout out to all the great winners involved in this classic. ((( Love yall ))). Producers ,Artist… Im 4ever grateful S/O @nas x @massappealrecs for tag teaming with us. salute yall.”
“There’s a meaning behind this ALBUM being called #THEEMPERORSNEWCLOTHES,” the beloved Wu-Tang Clan member added. “TRUTH OVER TRENDS – Don’t let STATUS QUO control authenticity. In life we believe too much of anything. cut it out. peace and love to the FANS ! support the support.”
Raekwon’s new album is part of Mass Appeal’s “Legend Has It…” series. The Nas co-founded record label is set to release seven albums from seven acts, including Nas & DJ PREMIER, Ghostface Killah, Mobb Deep, De La Soul, Big L, and a mystery artist who will be making a return to hip-hop, according to Hot 98.3.
Mass Appeal revealed the album plans and lineup in a trailer shared to YouTube in April, which depicts a factory pressing new vinyl records from the aforementioned hip-hop stars. Check it out below.
Raekwon is a founding member of the Wu-Tang Clan and has performed on all seven of the group’s studio albums. He almost exited around the time they were making their sixth album. A Better Tomorrow (2014), due to conflicts with fellow Wu-Tang member RZA. The pair eventually settled their issues, and Raekwon recorded some verses for the album.
The most recent Wu-Tang project is Black Samson, the Bastard Swordsman, a 2025 collaborative album with producer Mathematics.
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Wow, lot of gfk here!
Expect Raekwon on a lot of Ghost's sequel too.
Surprised to not see Cappadona the 'Cab-Driver' featured, he's always taggin along with Rae/Ghost and has been putting in the most over-time out of the Clan recently.
Too bad, he seems not invested in solo or Redman duo albums for now, but for a long while Method Man drops some of the most ear catching stand out feature verses in hip-hop...will be the case again on here no doubt.
Meth's voice, flow, lyrics are still intact just like Nas, who will also drop a killa verse.
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OUT NOW
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https://open.spotify.com/album/1hI8tHkf2aBl1zgjMblfck
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Album is very dope; as good as a late-career Raekwon album is gonna get. Lots of fire on here!
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Any info bout hard copys?!
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Cd’s and Vinyl
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Damn, that track with Ghost & Meth is fire, Swizz laced it!
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^ Yew, Ghost and Meth smashed that one.
That's 3 decent Wu releases on the trot now.
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Reviews -
Raekwon ‘The Emperor’s New Clothes’ Review: Old Duds Passed Off as Legacy Threads
The album feels more invested in preserving a myth than reimagining it.
There’s something grimly appropriate about Raekwon titling his eighth studio album The Emperor’s New Clothes. Not because the album is some grand misstep, but because it drapes itself in legacy—ornate, heavy, and familiar—and feels more invested in preserving a myth than reimagining it. It’s the work of a rapper taking great pains to show he still has “it,” while quietly admitting that he’s not quite sure what “it” even means anymore.
The Emperor’s New Clothes feels plush, with the kind of ornamental detail—like Swizz Beatz’s epic orchestral flourishes on the “600 School”—that you might expect from a late-career legend with something to prove. But the album is rather conservative in its refusal to deviate from the safest possible version of the rapper’s established aesthetic. Every proper song here could’ve comfortably dropped in from 2005.
The album’s sequencing, aside from four laborious skits, is clean, and Raekwon’s voice still carries that grainy, ageless gravity that few of his peers can summon. But after an eight-year gap and endless teasing of Cuban Linx III, this feels less like a statement than a finely pressed placeholder. While not exactly phoned in, The Emperor’s New Clothes displays a persistent thinness—a lack of urgency or much in the way of surprises. Across 40 mostly passable minutes, Raekwon doesn’t so much expand his catalog as he does curate a legacy in real time.
Ghostface Killah shows up multiple times and effortlessly steals the show with his deranged, Joe Pesci–in-a-Scorsese-film energy, while Nas, whose Mass Appeal Records released the album, delivers a stately verse on “The Omerta.” But none of these guest appearances pushes Raekwon beyond the call of duty. In fact, they feel like a familiar cast assembled to remind us that this is Important Rap from Serious Rappers.
Even the beats—mostly boom bap with light soul flourishes—do their job without ever risking alienating anyone who still believes the best hip-hop was made roughly three decades ago. “Bear Hill” glides on a loungey loop; “1 Life,” which starts off gesturing at industry critique before condemning “the devil’s in the back by the screens,” drowns under producer J.U.S.T.I.C.E. League’s smothering gloss; and “The Guy That Plans It” flips a Marvin Gaye sample into something majestic but bloodless.
Raekwon, to his credit, is never off his pen game, but he’s locked into one gear and one only. On “Wild Corsicans,” a gritty mafioso throwback with some muddily mixed drums, the Chef drops eight bars that mirror Conway the Machine and Benny the Butcher’s verses almost beat for beat, both in style and substance. Even Westside Gunn, who appears for an even briefer spot than his Griselda partners, stays within the same lane. Again, there are no curveballs to speak of, just midtempo muscle memory dressed up in velour.
Of course, fans of Only Built 4 Cuban Linx know that Raekwon was never about musical stunts—he’s more about coded slang and smoky nostalgia—but that opus had gravity and narrative momentum. It was even a little bit chaotic. The Emperor’s New Clothes is solid enough, and it’ll certainly look great next to your purple tape boxset. But as the title implies, it’s hard not to feel like everyone involved in the album’s making was too polite to admit that a seasoned statesman just wanted to stitch together old duds and hoped that they would still flatter.
Score: 2 1/2 out of 5 stars.
Label: Mass Appeal Release Date: July 18, 2025 Buy: Amazon
Paul Attard enjoys writing about experimental cinema, rap/pop music, games, and anything else that tickles their fancy. Their writing has also appeared in MUBI Notebook.
6 Comments
Gary.
says:
July 20, 2025 at 9:25 am
Don’t know how old the writer is but if you don’t have any gray hairs anywhere on you, the album wasn’t for you. Rae don’t make music to attract young new listeners so he doesn’t have to reinvent himself. That would be disingenuous and cheap. The album has been positively received from his core base and that’s all that matters.
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Rcuzo
says:
July 20, 2025 at 6:36 pm
Agreed. Also the best rap was made almost 3 decades ago. Still played today anywhere you go. Don’t think rapped has progressed much since, probably the opposite.
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Ghosst
says:
July 20, 2025 at 10:03 am
This is an accurate review.. I concur with everything said. Not enough juice..Shaolin vs Wutang and Cuban Linx 2 were the last best of Raekwon,in my subjective opinion..Still a legend though.
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Stormcloak
says:
July 20, 2025 at 5:23 pm
I agree with the review. A very unremarkable album that tells you it’s some royal offering, but it feels generic. The beats are stiff. It’s lacking any kind of fun or flexibility. It feels grouchy and complacent. Lacking the story telling and ambitious energy that made his other projects special.
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Eric Lemaire
says:
July 20, 2025 at 7:56 pm
So, Raekwon’s pen game is on point and the production is excellent (definitely more polish and more grit than Shaolin vs Wu-Tang despite the contradiction) but he’s not pushing the envelope? How is the boombap beat a critique? He’s 55, sounds timeless, still rapping at a VERY high level while still being very much himself. I remember when Eminem’s Recovery dropped, everyone was complaining that Eminem sounded like he was just rapping about how good he was and that there wasn’t any other substance and he was trying to convince us that he was still the best. And years later people regard that album as debatably his best in his later years. This article’s critique on The Emperor’s New Clothes sounds the same and despite Eminem being my favorite rapper, that critique was a little bit more deserving for Recovery than this album. critics also found so much to complain about Nas’ Kings Disease 1, 2, and 3 which has some of Nas’ best songs. It’s always hard for greatness to compete with masterpiece. At some point, no matter how good you are, a great product of yours might end up falling in 5th or 6th or 7th place in your catalog. It doesn’t make it a dud.
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830
says:
July 20, 2025 at 7:38 pm
Personally, I enjoyed the album. Good energy and no watered down tracks. If you were expecting something from 1995, sorry.
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”The Emperor’s New Clothes” Marks a Polished Mass Appeal Records Debut for Raekwon (Album Review)
Raekwon is a 55 year old MC from Staten Island, New York known for being a member of the almighty Wu-Tang Clan. His solo debut Only Built 4 Cuban Linx… & it’s sequel are both some of the most beloved albums in all of hip hop, with the overlooked Shaolin vs. Wu-Tang falling right behind them. I.M.M.O.B.I.L.A.R.I.T.Y. (I Move More Officially By Implementing Loyalty And Respect In The Youth) as well as The Lex Diamond Story & The Wild all left people divided for their own different reasons & of course F.I.L.A. (Fly International Luxurious Art) being the worst in his discography. Signing a new distribution with Mass Appeal Records however, the Ice H20 Records founder continues the Legend Has It series with his 8th album.
After the intro, the first song “Bear Hill” opens with a bit of a lounge vibe getting bricks from Hitsville as well as staying fresh & crisp for more money whereas “Pomogranite” featuring Carlton Fisk & Inspectah Deck finds the trio over a boom bap instrumental talking about Dons never bowing. After the “Veterans Only Billionaire Rehab” skit, “Wild Corsicans” featuring Griselda blends chipmunk soul & boom bap together to discuss lives being lost because they ain’t moving right while “1 Life” produced by the J.U.S.T.I.C.E League talks about hip hop being exploited for profit.
“Open Doors” following the “Barbershop Bullies” skit works in some horns dedicating itself to the type of people who be blowing their nose in the flyers horns just before Swizz Beatz pulls from orchestral music during “600 School” featuring Ghostface Killah & Method Man bringing the trio together to get on some gangsta shit. “The Guy That Plans It” returns to the boom bap with an interesting Marvin Gaye sample talking about Rae preferring to be revered than be feared at the beginning & the end, but then “Da Heavies” moderately throws it back to the Lex Diamond era.
After the “Officer Full Beard” skit, “The Omerta” featuring Nas finds the pair over a Nottz beat talking about being examples of who they said they were while “Get Outta Here” featuring Ghostface Killah soulfully breaking down the billionaire lifestyle. After the “Sober Dose” skit, “Debra Night Wine” featuring Marsha Ambrosius opens up about a woman who ended up playing him while “Mac & Lobster” featuring Ghostface Killah finishes The Emperor’s New Clothes explaining that nobody want it with them & having big plans being dreamt of.
Pushing the Legend Has It saga forward, the Chef’s official Mass Appeal debut makes us wait a little longer for Only Built 4 Cuban Linx… III by pushing the message of valuing truth over trends & blocking trends from controlling your authenticity. It’s more polished than his most recently material with the production being the strongest since Shaolin vs. Wu-Tang & a majority of the guests are more well picked out than The Wild was enhancing the aggressive wordplay use to get it’s theme across.
Score: 7/10
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The Emperor’s New Clothes’ is Raekwon refined
Raekwon’s The Emperor’s New Clothes shows the maturity and insight of a legend who’s still sharpening his sword
By Eddy "Precise" Lamarre
Rap’s elder statesmen continue to deliver some of the most compelling music in the genre, challenging the idea that hip-hop is strictly a young man’s game. Wu-Tang Clan legend Raekwon proves that experience, reflection, and lyrical craftsmanship only sharpen with time on his latest album, The Emperor’s New Clothes. Released under Mass Appeal, this is the second project from the label’s initiative spotlighting elite emcees over 50. Slick Rick set the tone earlier this year and Raekwon follows with an album that is introspective, cinematic, and skillfully constructed.
Timed with Wu-Tang Clan’s Final Chamber Tour, The Emperor’s New Clothes feels like a fitting contribution to the group’s legacy, even as it stands on its own. Raekwon delivers his signature street rhymes with the insight of a man who has lived through the rise, the fall, and everything in between. The album is a slow burn, building depth through texture, tone, and narrative rather than chasing hits or quick dopamine moments.
Production and Opening Statement
The opener “Bear Hill,” produced by Frank G, rides a smooth, rhythmic bounce. Raekwon floats over it with a solid, aggressive flow that immediately sets the tone. “Yeah, I’m not your average-type rapper/check my batting average/I’m a snapper,” he spits—bridging the past and present with style and wisdom.
On “1 Life” featuring Stacy Barthe, the theme of maturity takes center stage. It’s a soulful meditation on fame, wealth, and what it all means when you’re left alone with your thoughts. “Small circles educated gangsters with notes/ don’t let this money overlook the time we was broke/ so the jewelry don’t even got no say-so, yo/ It’s the heart, like knowing your team is the plug/We should stay that way till we under the rug” Raekwon reflects. Barthe’s ethereal hook elevates the emotional pull, and the track becomes one of the most powerful moments on the album.
Wu-Tang Chemistry Still Intact
Then there’s “600 School,” a Swizz Beatz-produced banger that reunites Ghostface Killah and Method Man for a classic Wu-Tang posse cut. Raekwon lays the groundwork with vivid storytelling, Ghostface brings his signature flair (“Shootouts on burgundy Schwins with gold handle bars”), and Meth’s flow slices clean through the beat. It’s high-level swordplay from three masters in sync, and a clear reminder that Wu-Tang’s chemistry remains untouchable.
The album’s real jewel, though, might be “The Omertŕ” featuring Nas. These two storytelling titans show why they’ve remained revered for decades. Over a moody, minimalist beat, they weave cautionary tales about loyalty, betrayal, and survival. Nas offers a deep insight: “Who has true power? The Torah or Synagogue leader?/Quran readers or palm readers/ witchcrafters or Christian pastors, rich rappers/Marx said religion is the opiate of the masses.” Raekwon answers with lines that sound like they’re delivered from the far end of a long, dangerous road. It’s not just a track—it’s a reflection session between two hip-hop philosophers.
Cinematic Storytelling
The skits on The Emperor’s New Clothes are another highlight. They’re cinematic, rooted in coded dialogue and spiritual undertones. Rather than disrupting the flow, they deepen the storytelling, serving as narrative glue between tracks. It’s a subtle touch, but one that reinforces Raekwon’s commitment to building a full experience not just an album of songs.
Raekwon isn’t chasing radio. He isn’t trying to sound like the youth. He’s making art rooted in lived experience, craftsmanship, and cultural memory. The Emperor’s New Clothes is storytelling with purpose. It’s the sound of a man who’s counted his scars, worn the crown, and chosen to pass the jewels down. In doing so, Raekwon extends his legacy and enriches it.
In an era dominated by trends and speed, Raekwon slows things down and invites listeners to live with the music. The result is a grown-man classic, raw, poetic, and timeless.
Standout Tracks:
“Bear Hill”
“Wild Corsicans”
“1 Life”
“600 School”
“The Omertŕ”
Rating: 8/10
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So far, I’m loving the album.
Songs like:
Mac & Lobster
Pomegranate
Bear Hill
600 School
The Omerta
The Guy that Plans It
Debra Night Wine
Are dope songs, wasn’t really expecting this would be this tight 4/5 for sure
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zl3RaFIawE&t=2s
Both Versions Mixed in … Jim Jones Diss ? 👀
Edit - Not a JJ diss at all according to the Chef.
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Production is a little bland but Raekwon still sounds incredible and this album is very good.
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Chef cooked real good stake. Album is fire.
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An interview with Rae...
Raekwon Explains How an Old Folk Tale Inspired His New Album & Why He’s Concerned for the State of Hip-Hop: ‘I Feel Like It Ain’t Authentic No More’
Billboard
The legendary rapper and Wu-Tang Clan member returned with his new album The Emperors New Clothes last week.
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Mass Appeal
Raekwon says he often gets asked to explain what constitutes real hip-hop. As one of the founding members of Wu-Tang Clan, and as one of New York hip-hop’s long reigning titans, it’s hard not to ask him this question again.
Explore
Especially considering that as I talk with him, he’s on a tour bus with his Wu-Tang brethren — the same brethren who cultivated rap in their gritty, messy image with some of the genre’s most seminal releases, the same brethren who crafted one (quite literally one) of the most infamous albums in music history as a means to protest the devaluation of music in the digital age. This DIY nature behind Raekwon and Wu-Tang’s legacy is rank with a word the former uses a lot during our conversation: “authenticity.” Their fame and legacy are merely secondary, what Rae has always sought to do is make the most truthful art he can.
“To me, it’s like going to the movie theater,” Rae says. His bus is en route to what will soon be two legendary Wu-Tang farewell shows in New York City and California. “You go there, you go pay for what you wanna pay for — but at the same time it’s like, I can’t go see something that’s supposed to be a horror flick but it feels like a commercial horror flick. At the end of the day, give me what I expect of it and don’t allow it to be pushed under the rug, because it may not be as popular as things today is.”
As part of a massive rollout with Nas’ Mass Appeal Records, Raekwon returned with his eighth studio album The Emperor’s New Clothes last week. While we talk about the project, at this point in his career, Rae seems interested more in speaking his mind on the state of hip-hop.
“I see the industry is fouler now, and filled with the greed,” he raps on “1 Life.” “Controlling narratives, sending wrong thoughts to the seeds. Save our babies, there’s nothing else to vibe with the means.”
In a quick chat with Billboard, Raekwon elaborates on these concerns he has with the genre he’s helped define, and how an old Dutch folk tale inspired his latest LP.
Why did you feel now was the time for a new project, and why was Mass Appeal the right vehicle for this next chapter?
Number one, the Mass Appeal collaboration was kind of personal. Because me and my brother Nas, we have a 30-year friendship, and we always said that one day we would connect together and do a project together. So the timing was perfect, and I felt that it was time that I release some music that I had ready for the world that I was working on. So I just kinda leave it in God’s grace, when the time hits it hits. Right now, it was just dope timing. I’m working on a couple of other different projects, so I wanted to make sure that I take care of everything I needed to do with that.
Why did you name your album after a famous folk tale?
That title is a reality title to me. Today, everything is being followed by status quo. I’m a person that’s a big advocate of authenticity over popularity. Just because tomato is to-mato, that don’t mean that you can change the words up. I just think hip-hop is being — what’s the word I wanna say? — hip-hop is definitely being punctured right now by elements that really don’t hold onto the culture the way we know it to be.
I feel like it’s our job to stay authentic. This is not to take shots at anybody, but I just feel like hip-hop is not being represented right. There’s so many different layers on top of it that makes it not authentic to me that it’ll make you question what you know about hip-hop and what you feel. That’s something that I don’t wanna ever have to sacrifice when it comes to knowing what made me who I am today.
The Emperor’s New Clothes is an old folk tale that basically describes: “Don’t believe anything you hear.” I just love the title because I know people automatically would think it was about changing clothes. But nah, it’s really more about don’t get caught up in stuff that doesn’t equate the reality of what s—t really is.
Can you speak on that a little more? What aspects of hip-hop are being punctured right now?
it’s not the same anymore. A lot of things are sounding alike. People are emulating each other, [doing] whatever makes sense according to their popularity, and you have these labels that are so much in power they could change the dynamics of what hip-hop really is, you know? Rap music is rap music, but hip-hop is something that to me always had its own flagship. Rap is something I feel like anybody can do. You can learn overnight to do it, but that doesn’t make you authentic. That just shows you have the talent and the ability to create something, but a lot of times things that everybody feel are hip-hop is not hip-hop, it’s rap. I just think it’s a separation gap here. Rap to me sounds like you’re wrapping something up. I get it — but I just think that it’s a little bit too much to the left when people are still trying to figure out what is really hip-hop.
Hip-hop is not only just skills and good production and art, but it’s supposed to make you feel a certain way. A lot of times, you got all this other stuff sterilized inside of it that makes it not feel authenticated. It’s about if you popular. The bottom line: I just wanted to stay true to the culture. I just feel like hip-hop ain’t authentic no more, you know?
Still, you have Clipse reuniting and and Drake and Kendrick on top. It doesn’t feel like rap is only a young man’s sport anymore.
You just gotta be genuine with knowing that it can’t stray away from what we know it to be. It doesn’t make you less of an artist if you don’t sell a million, billion records. But if you’re authentic, and we feel like at the end of the day it makes sense to do it the way that you feel you wanna do it, and it still feels like something new and fresh… it just can’t be something that at the end of the day everybody is yapping that, “This is it!” When it’s really not it.
A lot of the times it be like that, it be like, “Where the f—k did this s—t come from?” But the popularity of it can make things become that, and then next thing you know you start to feel like you have to respect the status quo because that’s what they feel. When you know at the end of the day, it’s like, “Hol’ up, this is not what I know hip-hop to be.”
So its like you said — you got guys like the Clipse, that they have their own flagship with how they do things and they continue to stay where people expect them to stay. That’s how I feel about myself. Just stay in pocket with what you know people love about the culture and about hip-hop. We were able to express ourselves and not have to worry about listening to somebody that’s trying to capitalize off fame and fortune.
Let’s make sure at the end of the day it feels like a body of work, that it makes sense for what we all love. Even not having albums and CD’s no more in your hand! Now you gotta deal with all these different levels of how music is made. I feel like all of that is just saturating what we all love. To be able to go look at a CD and look at the inside and read the credits and know those sales, whatever they are, are realistic. The way the game is now, you don’t know who’s really selling!
It’s a different game, and not only just that, but the only way I can explain it is authenticity versus popularity. Just because you’re popular don’t necessarily mean that you’re giving us what we want. It’s a lot of stuff out there that just sounds the same.
You connected again with Griselda for this album. You’ve worked with them multiple times. What is it about Westside, Conway and Benny that appeals to you so much?
They take their craft very serious. They know what they’re doing — even when I met them, they always paid me respect and paid my team respect and knew what they had to do. They knew they had to walk a certain way to where people were respecting them. I kinda seen them when they was on they mode, really getting to where they gotta go. I seen their future ahead of time, so I kinda knew that they was gonna be great in this business because I felt it. I felt like they was putting the work in.
How have you been navigating this landscape now when it comes to making and selling music? Did you feel you had to change your practice at all?
I never really felt like I had to change my practice, I only just know I had to become sharper and continue to do what I love and make fresh music and make music that I know moves people. That shows my cleverness, that shows my level of putting my passion into it. That’s important, you don’t wanna lose passion and you also wanna keep being innovative.
I guess maybe coming from one of the biggest rap groups in the world, or the most famous one that really paid their dues, I guess we was just cut from that cloth to keep it the way we know how to keep it, and not just settle for anything. It’s like listening to one of my songs. Somebody might listen to it and be like, “That ain’t it, Chef. That ain’t your style.” You know what I mean? Sometimes you could be persuaded to do something that you think may fit you that really don’t fit you.
Having a cult following like we do, we always get criticized and judged according to our sound and things that we create, and all those things right there keep me grounded. I love criticism, I’m not expecting everybody to love what I do, but I gotta stand next to the ones that know what I’m capable of doing and let them know, “Yo listen, ain’t nothing changed.” I’m still going to give you guys a body of work. I’m always trying to make sure each record plays a significant role in the culture and I just feel like that’s my duty.
Keeping all this in mind, I can’t help but think of Drake at Wireless Fest saying that U.K. rappers are better than American rappers now. What are your thoughts on comments like that?
American rap is the king, we know that. We know where it came from, not taking anything away from European rappers. I just feel like that might have been just something that he felt at that time, but he has his own opinion and that’s cool, you know. To each his own, he may feel that way. He may not feel inspired by what is going on in this side of the world, and he has that opinion. I might beg to differ, but everybody wanna have their moments on what they like and don’t… frustration is definitely in the air.
When you go back to the title “Emperor’s New Clothes,” that’s really a Dutch folktale about a king listening to people that really are following what other people do, and thinking at the end of the day that you could come and bring something over here that’s not real. But he wind up taking the word of others until he realize somebody came out of the blue and said, “Yo, what is that? That’s not what the king should be wearing!” Are you familiar with “The Emperor’s New Clothes?”
I haven’t read it since grade school.
Exactly, but it’s so real — because at the end of the day, somebody will tell you, “Yo, wear this shirt,” and it ain’t even a shirt, but everybody around you: “Yo, that s—t is dope, that s—t is that.” But you’ll be saying to yourself, “Yo, where’s the shirt at? It’s not even a shirt.” Everybody around you in order to please themselves and become a part of what’s going on, to just get a merit from that, they may convince themselves that it is a shirt.
It’s like Nas said a long time ago, “Y’all appointed me to bring rap justice.” I’m just part of that justice that feels at the end of the day, “Hol’ up, hol’ up, hol’ up, hol’ up — let’s figure this s—t out and put it back on track.” That’s all, not to take away from anybody else’s hip-hop. I just know what kind of hip-hop created this s—t. The minute we lose that, we lose the grip on what we created and what we built. I hope that hip-hop will still be exciting 300 years from now, but if we don’t pay attention to certain things that’s important… we wanna make sure it’s preserved.
It feels like what you’re saying is it’s important to remain a student. To know who Wu-Tang is, to understand who Dr. Dre is, in order to keep the culture grounded.
Trust me, I hear a lot of my peers, a lot of times we’re always saying the same thing. Like, when we know that there’s a person that really does something great in the culture, and created a body of work that influenced the people, I hear a lot of my friends say: “Yo, I needed a battery.” I needed this or I needed that. Because it’s too watery right now for me. We gotta keep this s—t on the right track. That’s what I’m aiming to do, to bring that feeling back to the table. It was fun listening to s—t! It was fun hearing, “Yo, what did he say? Rewind that.” It just felt good. We need that. We need that.
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Raekwon Chefs Up Some Raw Classic New York Rap On ‘The Emperor’s New Clothes’
Rolling Stone
The solid luxury-rap tales on the iconic Wu-Tang Clan member's first LP in eight years offer a perfect example of how to age gracefully in what is allegedly a young man's game
***1/2 out of5
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Hip-hop is no longer solely youth culture; it’s just culture, with cross-generational scenes full of artists intent on capturing their era’s zeitgeist. But Raekwon The Chef’s latest solo album, The Emperor’s New Clothes, was unquestionably tailored for the 35-and-up hip-hop heads who descended upon Madison Square Garden to see the Wu-Tang Clan’s possible final hometown show last week. There are no stunt features or out-of-touch Gen Z reaches here, just a 17-track dose of raw, New York City hip-hop.
As I noted in my show review, Raekwon was one of the strongest pieces on the Wu’s chessboard during their MSG farewell concert, sustaining his energy throughout the show and cutting clearly through the crowd with his husky baritone — his performance bode well for the album he namechecked multiple times that night. He was also fresh in more than one way, spending the first half of the show wearing a red Gucci apron, which was so stylish it should end up in a hip-hop fashion exhibit one day. The piece, alongside his Wu classics, symbolized his status as one of hip-hop’s original luxury drug rap connoisseurs. Before Rick Ross, Roc Marciano, Clipse, and a slew of other artists beloved for Scorcesesque valorization of the drug trade, Rae and Ghost were United.
Rae knows exactly what his place in rap history is on The Emperor’s New Clothes, his eighth solo project, and first in eight years, following up 2017’s The Wild. His previous LP was his first to feature no Wu members, and showed him (mostly) honing in on what made him great. The same is true here.
He’s a master swordsman, in recent years belying the energetic mic presence of his early work with a slower, more deliberate cadence that sounds like the audio embodiment of the “can’t speed him up, can’t slow him down” observation bestowed on NBA MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. On “Bear Hill,” “The Guy That Plans It,” and “Da Heavies,” the three songs on the album where he appears solo, the production is disparate, but his presence feels the same.
He has a knack for painting street landscapes in his rhymes, with a tinge of the flowery vocabulary shared by a generation of older East Coast scribes enraptured by films like Dolemite and Super Fly. “The Guy That Plans It” is classic Raekwon, an abbreviated, vivid crime caper of a street tussle (though I wish he didn’t need to say “queer” to fill in his “-eer” rhyme scheme).
His mic persona is unmistakably New York City; he’s one of the few who can sell a phrase as fragmented and vague as “a certain walk with a special bop” from “Open Doors.”
And throughout the project, the bars are delivered with a technical precision that could see him holding his own in a cipher of any age. Elsewhere on “Open Doors” he rhymes, “They call me Louis Gas Pipe, I’m like the mafia’s worst kid/Bentley bicycles, ten pistols, a slick bid;” it’s impossible not to want to know more about Mr. Gas Pipe in the land of “Shattered dreams, lonely pharaohs/Who ridе across the Verrazano Narrows.” Hollywood should stop rebooting the same movies and pick a verse from this album to expand into a script.
The album has a slew of features but unlike on junctures of his next-to-last solo FILA, which had oblong collaborations with ASAP Rocky and French Montana, the Emperor’s New Clothes features fit the festivities. Several of Rae’s Wu comrades are on the album. Inspectah Deck is technically precise, but sounds a step slow over the sinister beat on “Pomogranite.” Ghostface Killah is solid on his three appearances, most notably “600 School,” where he, Raekwon and Method Man commandeer a Swizz Beats beat and show off the chemistry that made Wu-Massacre a memorable project from the Clan’s later years. It’s the kind of moment that reminds one of Junior Soprano talking to his nephew Tony about an old school crew of hitmen on the classic mob drama: “They may be old, my little nephew, but those dogs can still hunt.”
Nas impresses on “The Omerta,” with a verse that ponders religion but has some questionable conclusions on the nature of the Dutch’s relationship with the Lenape people. The verse’s last third might spark some side-eyes, but the Mass Appeal co-founder (the company distributed this album) sounds hungry. Raekwon delivered with his own inspired verse demonstrating that he knew the stakes of matching their previous track record. Benny the Butcher, Conway the Machine, and Westside Gunn also feature on energetic standout “Wild Corscians.”
It’s Westside Gunn’s presence that exemplifies the one thing keeping The Emperor’s New Clothes from reaching its full potential: the production. In 2022, Gunn expressed an interest in executive producing a Rae and Ghost album, and hip-hop heads have been clamoring for what that would sound like. On Rae’s new album, only frequent collaborator Frank G shows up on the project with multiple production credits. It feels like a more streamlined beat selection process could have been the best move, and few would have been better than Gunn, who’s credited with helping inject indie rap with golden era-quality sonics.
While only “Debra Night Wine,” a shaky interpolation of The Syncophonic Orchestra’s “Quasimodo’s Marriage” (sampled by Just Blaze for Beanie Sigel’s “What Your Life Like Pt. 2”), is an outright misstep on the album, and there are some impressive beats, few of them stick after the initial listening. The beats do enough to keep your head nodding, but Rae’s lyrical effort deserved some face-scrunching chops and soul loops you can’t get out of your head.
Still, it’s a strong effort from a rap OG who embodies the 52-year-old Malice’s recent assertion on aging in rap: “Either you got the talent or you don’t. You could be old, you could be young. If you ain’t got it, then you don’t have it.” At this point, the spectre of 40-plus year-old rappers isn’t a new or distinct phenomenon. It’s no longer a trackless frontier, but a bustling environment with defined thoroughfares. Any east coast artist looking to age gracefully can follow Rae’s path.
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''Get Outta Here'' feat Ghost is so ill 8)
Raekwon’s The Emperor’s New Clothes is a 17-track, 43-minute return that crackles with the Wu-Tang legend’s cinematic storytelling. After an eight-year solo hiatus, The Chef delivers vivid street narratives over crisp, modernized boom-bap beats, proving his lyrical edge remains sharp at 55.
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The album’s sound, driven by producers like Nottz, Swizz Beatz, and J.U.S.T.I.C.E. League, blends dusty soul chops with clean drums. “Pomegranate,” featuring Inspectah Deck and Carlton Fisk, hums with sinister strings and tight snares, evoking a late-night hustle. “The Guy That Plans It” layers a Marvin Gaye sample with crisp kicks, painting a tense crime caper. Soulful cuts like “Debra Night Wine,” with Marsha Ambrosius’ silky vocals, add warmth, though Swizz Beatz’s beat on “600 School” feels dated, leaning on overfamiliar New York tropes. The production, while polished, occasionally lacks the gritty punch of Raekwon’s 90s classics.
The LP is confident and also reflective, balancing luxury rap with street wisdom. Raekwon’s husky baritone cuts through on “The Omertŕ,” where Nas’ verse weaves power and faith over a brooding beat. “Wild Corsicans,” with Griselda’s Conway, Benny, and Westside Gunn, pulses with raw East Coast energy, each rapper spitting vivid tales of survival. Ghostface Killah’s three appearances, especially on the plush “Mac & Lobster,” showcase timeless chemistry, while Method Man’s fiery verse on “600 School” steals the spotlight. Raekwon’s solo tracks, like “Bear Hill,” detail Black life with intricate slang, though they lack the bite of feature-heavy cuts.
Structured with skits like “Veterans Only Billionaire Rehab,” the album flows like a mob flick, though interludes occasionally disrupt momentum. Despite a few safe beats, Raekwon’s technical precision and evocative imagery keep the project engaging. The Emperor’s New Clothes is a strong, nostalgic dose of New York Hip Hop, tailored for longtime fans.