Criminology

Criminology arrived on 26 June 1995 as a single, Raekwon with Ghostface Killah, before the album it belongs to. Only Built 4 Cuban Linx… came out on 1 August 1995 on Wu-Tang Records, Loud and RCA. The RZA produced the album in his basement studio. On the single the two of them rap as characters: Raekwon as Lex Diamonds, Ghostface as Tony Starks. The aliases are doing compositional work. You are hearing a crime-film scene with a soul sample under a drum, slang dense enough that the plot arrives after the voices.

The album those characters live in debuted at number 4 on the Billboard 200 and at number 2 on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart, with about 130,000 copies in the first week. The RIAA certified it gold on 2 October 1995. Those are loud numbers for a record this particular. Cuban Linx is full of skits, nicknames and interior design, purple tape and all, and Criminology is the scene that travelled first because the two voices are locked. Ghostface rushes. Raekwon lays the plan out. The beat does not soften either of them.

Wu-Tang records from that year are often filed as a group project that happened to have solo covers. This one is a solo album that cannot be imagined without the second voice. The RZA’s basement is the studio credit that matters: one producer, a fixed sound, MCs who had already decided the diary would be too small and built characters instead. Criminology is where you hear that decision in under one single.

Sources

• Criminology: single released 26 June 1995, Raekwon and Ghostface Killah.
• Only Built 4 Cuban Linx…: 1 August 1995, Wu-Tang, Loud and RCA, the RZA’s production, the Billboard peaks and the gold certification on 2 October 1995.