Raekwon and Talib Kweli met up in Brooklyn, New York to film their upcoming video for the track they did together, "Violations." While they were filming, HotNewHipHop met up with Raekwon to pose him a question, how he thinks the internet has impacted hip- hop.
Raekwon says it goes both ways, "People is people, you know? You get some of the greatest agitators out there in the [...] internet world. That's another level, that's everybody's opinion, that comes with the territory. You just have to know how to look past it or look up to it, you know? You got people that do both."
Still, Raekwon thinks it is a matter of perspective, saying, "It's all in how you drive it, how you feel about it," before assuring us, "I know how I feel about it. I'm going to continue to do what I love to do and I'm living well doing it. So I try to not look at the negative no more. I look at everything as an experiment[...] just recognize who you is as an artist."
In fact, he manages to find a silver lining in the situation. "[The internet] turned a lot of niggas who didn't know how to read into readers now. Everybody's adjusting their words and doing certain things," Raekwon says.
It seems Raekwon has put a lot of stock into how the internet has changed things. He isn't too keen to vilify it or to praise it. As far as his genre is concerned, Raekwon reminds us, "At the end of the day, hip-hop is a culture, that all comes inside in the culture."
The official video for "Violations," both with Talib Kweli and Raekwon, will drop soon. Check out the behind-the-scenes visual and short interview below.