Did you know Raekwon was the first rapper to ever name-drop Cristal champagne? He pretty much single-handedly invented the subgenre of Mafioso rap, and in doing so laid the blueprint for such luminaries as Biggie Smalls, Jay Z, Rick Ross, Pusha T, and countless others. If you hear a rapper bragging about flippantly throwing stacks at some piece of designer clothing purely for the brand, they’re channelling Raekwon the Chef. If you hear a rapper talk of masterminding the importation of dozens of kilos of drugs, and using that money to fuel their taste for Russian black caviar, or steak tartare, or whatever, they’re channelling Raekwon the Chef.

Unfortunately for Rae, in the introduction to Fly International Luxurious Art he seems to be channelling RiFF RAFF, as he stands in an airport check-in absurdly mumbling to himself about suede walls and “Brooks Brothers shit” while a woman with the worst British accent I have ever heard implores him to realise that he’s maxed out all the space on his passport. “Sir? Are you listening?” “VERSACE SHOWER SPRINKLERS.” It’s a farce. The introduction to this album is unintentionally hilarious in so many ways, and I just can’t fathom how Raekwon gave this the green light. Did he really sit through this, Beats by Dr. Dre wrapped around his ears, toothpick in his mouth, bobbing his head up and down thinking “yup, that’s that shit”? Or more likely, is it possible that Raekwon, the same man who was outspoken in his protest of mentor RZA’s direction on the last Wu-Tang album, the mediocre A Better Tomorrow, was not particularly involved in the production of his own latest project? Listening to the rest of this album, it really seems like this might be the case.

Did he really sit through this, Beats by Dr. Dre wrapped around his ears, toothpick in his mouth, bobbing his head up and down thinking “yup, that’s that shit”?

Most of the songs on Fly International Luxurious Art are crap. A couple could be mistaken for leftovers from an earlier, superior project: I Got Money, Heated Nights and Revory (Wrath) are nothing special, but they aren’t bad. Of these three, the A$AP Rocky-featuring I Got Money is the one that satisfies the most — a nice beat with a cute hook slightly reminiscent of Gucci Mane’s Lemonade. It’s nice, but nothing special. Unfortunately, that’s about as good as it gets.

French Montana’s torturous nasal warble on Wall To Wall is nothing short of painful. He sounds even drunker than he usually does. He sounds like a grandpa with a cold. I’m not sure what’s going on with the beat to F.I.L.A. World — it sounds like a cut from the Kingdom Hearts soundtrack. It’s like a lullaby, the opposite of a typical Raekwon beat, the bizarreness of which is only compounded as 2 Chainz comes over the top with DEEZ N*GGAS IS DEAD ALREADY / I USE MACHETES TO EAT SPAGHETTI. Imagine throwing your Raekwon collection on shuffle and hearing that come on in between Ice Cream and New Wu. Like the rest of the album, it’s just inexplicable. That’s not to say the beat is bad, per se — it just doesn’t suit Raekwon’s voice or style at all. Hopefully it’ll shows up on a mixtape somewhere in the future, by a rapper who can really create the kind of song it ought to be made into.

Raekwon’s lyricism is exactly the same as it’s been for the last twenty years, which is arguably a good thing. However, his style has always suited the more icy, lugubrious, back-alley-stabbing-in-a-New-York-winter-type beats we last heard on Only Built 4 Cuban Linx 2. I’m not sure who songs like All About You and Worst Enemy are aiming to please, because it sure as shit isn’t Raekwon fans. Worst Enemy in particular suffers from the type of faux-emotional saccharine hook that plagues modern Eminem records — which is a shame, because the beat has something going on, and could’ve made for a great song, even if it sounds like it uses samples from the scores behind Cirque du Soleil.

And then a little song named Soundboy Kill It comes on. What the fuck. What a train wreck. Assassin’s incomprehensible dancehall garbling may suit songs like The Blacker the Berry and I’m In It, but blended up with an autotuned Menalie Fiona (yeah, me neither) and the strangest goddamn beat on an album that by this point already has producers cocking their eyebrows does not a pleasurable piece of music make. This song is an audio Frankenstein’s monster, stitched together from bits and pieces of all sorts of genres in mockery of good music. Soundboy Kill It is what happens when artists surround themselves with sycophantic Yes-Men and become incapable of looking at their own work critically. Every crew has its shooters, its weed carriers, its bruisers, but what Raekwon really need is a lone dude to just step in every now and then and say “this song? It’s not good.” F.I.L.A. needed a No Man like Rick Ross needs his Egyptian cotton sheets.

I’m not sure what’s going on with the beat to F.I.L.A. World — it sounds like a cut from the Kingdom Hearts soundtrack.

The choice of features is, like everything about this album, baffling to say the least. Ghostface Killah is present and correct as usual, and the Rick Ross feature makes sense given that he’s somebody whose style is heavily influenced by Raekwon’s own, but the rest require more explanation. It’s a combination of people who were hot back in the Cuban Linx days, and what a 45-year-old rapper who’s perhaps not as in tune with modern Hip Hop as he once was might assume are the big names of today. “So who we putting on this album? Who’s hot right now? 2 Chainz? French Montana? Uhh, Estelle? I don’t know.”

After this album wrapped up for the first time, my iTunes automatically kicked into playing Only Built 4 Cuban Linx 2, and the contrast was utterly black and white. Fly International Luxurious Art is really not a good album. Most likely it’s just an excuse for Rae to go on tour, so he can play the songs people actually want to hear, none of which will be from F.I.L.A. I’m not sure what he expected people to say. To build a career on the back of a sound so grimy and murky it had the entire East Coast scrambling to copy it for the next decade, and then to put out an album that sounds like something Fat Joe would have recorded in 2003 is nothing short of a travesty. Nothing about F.I.L.A. is original, very little is worth listening to.

In conclusion: thinking about checking this out? Don’t bother.

The verdict?

Nothing is original, and very little is worth listening to. Fly International Luxurious Art is Raekwon’s worst album, and outside of a few tracks, not even worth a spin on Spotify. Save your money.