Raekwon The Chef / Koko, London
Presumed weakest linx cooked up bewilderingly but strongly
Words Phil Hebblethwaite / Image(s) Rachel Lipsitz
You pitch up at Wu-Tang or Wu-related shows with an impending sense of doom. Winehouse is more reliable than the Clan and even when things seem to be going to plan, you seldom get delivered quality. A drunk GZA was a train crash at the same venue a few months back and tonight Ghostface is listed on the bill too. Some fucking chance he’ll be there as well as Raekwon, people are thinking, and it seems at the start that he’s indeed AWOL. Rae hits the stage with DJ J-Love and some unknown hype man and hearts sink. The sound is a disgrace too.
But then, after Raekwon and his lackey have boshed out a couple of quick-time Wu classics, there’s an invasion of two other hype men (Theodore Unit MCs), quickly followed by Ghost. A tsunami of testosterone crashes through the crowd and a flattened atmosphere is savagely spiked with menace and excitement. Game on.
This was an ATP ‘Don’t Look Back’ gig in which Raekwon was due to play his legendary 1995 Only Built 4 Cuban Linx album in full. He may have got through it, or at least some verses of most tracks, but there was little concession to nostalgia. J-Love cut quick between Cuban Linx, Ghostface solo joints and Wu favourites in what turned out to be a totally confusing but highly charged show that, in the end, was stolen by Ghostface, 1000 times a more natural performer than Rae.
Some funny shit: the smoking ban was brilliantly ignored as people onstage and off filled the venue with the warm stench of burning skunk; Raekwon made a total tit of himself attempting to big up his “friend” Corinne Bailey Rae’s deceased husband (“What’s her name? Colleen? That’s my homegirl!); and De La Soul were given the spotlight for no reason other than to try and muster up interest in their gig the next night.
We left satisfied. This was unexpectedly good.
