Raekwon & Ghostface — R.A.G.U. (Rae and Ghost United Pt. 2) [unofficial]

Ghostface Killah & Raekwon The Chef return with a new recipe two years later "RAGU", they cooked "RAGU 2", Rae and Ghost United Pt. 2. There's still Dreddy Kruger's Think Differently Music behind this unofficial release. The tape maintains culinary references from the beginning, where the tradition remains of putting different titles to obscure songs in order to deceive listeners by making them pass as new songs: it happens immediately for "Fried Rice with Eggs", which is "Belt Holders / Eldarado" from "Hidden Darts", Starks' compilation.

The rest of the tracks no longer feature this joke and are all more or less faithful to the original titles, except "Rolex", already proposed in the first chapter and that you can find under the name "The Watch": "Kilos" takes an "s" from the song in "Fishcale", "What It Is" loses "It's" from the original name of the Masta Killa sophomore LP "Made in Brooklyn", "Heist" loses the definite article by Busta Rhymes' track, and so on. The rest of the tape comes close to your typical Spotify compilation, there's some of the best of Raekwon & Ghostface, finally, after having had to sweat in the first recipe of "R.A.G.U." to find something memorable by dint of inserting unpublished tracks and lacing random stanzas from casual disks. Here you get a concentrate of songs from both the beginnings of the two artists, as well as from "Wu-Tang Forever" (1997), "Supreme Clientele" (2000), "Bulletproof Wallets" (2001), "No Said Date" (2004), "Fishcale" (2006), "Vatican 3" (2006) and "Hidden Darts" (2007).

Personally, I find that the second part is much better than the first, being based more on The Purple Tape: in particular, from "Kilos" onwards the album is a beautiful velvety road in gold. It's not yet an essential tape, but it's much better than the first chapter: if you want to start from something without directly addressing the albums of both artists, this is a great starter to make you understand why these two guys are among the best performers of theirs generation, one of the best duos and one of the best group ever in hip-hop. The remix of "Rainy Dayz" is a hidden gem.