Consumer Guide Album

Raekwon: Only Built 4 Cuban Linx . . . [Loud/RCA, 1995]
A lushly impenetrable jungle of sonic allusions transforms the nightmare of the crack era into a dream of cream skimmed and warmed for the bathtub--a dream with its own internal logic, moral weight, and commitment to beauty. It's an illusion, as any project denizen caught in the crossfire knows. But materially and metaphorically, Wu-Tang's power to create this illusion provides a way out of the hell underneath--especially, but not exclusively, for them A-