It's hard to question someone's judgement when they've been responsible for a pretty good run of quality material, especially when he's giving some shine to his friends. Raekwon hasn't had the extended streak of holy-shit greatness that fellow Wu-Tang members Ghostface and GZA have, but he started a legacy with Only Built 4 Cuban Linx-- a coke-rap catalyst so widely revered that people are still fiending for the long-delayed sequel-- and if later solo records Immobilarity and The Lex Diamond Story aren't nearly as acclaimed, they're at least good enough to keep the Chef from staining his rep. So when he says in interviews that the Ice Water crew are on his level, another dynasty, that no big-name stars would be seen collaborating with them if they weren't real on some level...shit, he had enough faith in these dudes to mentor them, tutor them, even let 'em share a name with one of the sickest tracks from Cuban Linx; better give him benefit of the doubt.
Don't strain yourself too hard, because the doubt will set in about four tracks in to Polluted Water. Ice Water has kicked around Staten Island spitting thug raps for a while, with one of the members, Raekwon's longtime friend Polite, having ricocheted through assorted Wu-family offshoots. Polite could've theoretically joined the Wu at the beginning if he wasn't in prison at the time the group was formed, but he went on to pay dues in American Cream Team and an early version of Ghostface Killah's Theodore Unit, so he's got some mileage. It's easy to recognize Polite amongst the other members of Ice Water, not necessarily because of his voice-- which is authoritative in a fairly indistinct way-- but because he's the member that isn't in over his head.
The other three MCs debuted on The Lex Diamond Story and proved to be less memorable than the skit where the dude gets killed by chimpanzees. They've hardly improved here: Stomach starts hitching for breath by the end of his verses, apparently a sign that dumb punchlines ("They said I'm wylin'/ Plus I'm from the Island, somethin' like Gilligan") and uncreative threats ("I'm spittin' ammunition, now your man is missin'/ And your body gets found by an old man fishin'") can be a heftier workout than previously thought. The crew is rounded out by Paulie Caskets and Donnie Cash, who go by the helpful abbreviations P.C. and D.C. (as if they weren't interchangeable enough) and generally jockey for position as to who can spend more time being an indistinct third-verse tough guy. (P.C. at least gets points for his what-the-fuck ambush-job verse in "Click Click": "Everybody in the spot thought that I was a chick, I played it so cool/ Sippin' a martini with a wig on.")
And they rarely have anything illuminating to say: Ice Water have exact same hey-didja-remember-when BDP/Kane/MC Shan rap nostalgia as everyone else ("Hip-Hop Tribute"), the same complaints about golddiggers ("Love Don't Cost [A Thing]"), the same I-push-weight swagger (the entire middle third of the album). Their ordinariness is thrown into greater relief when the guests come filing in, Raekwon himself chief among them. Rae's got seven guest spots on a 17-track album, and he's consistently good, not just compared to the headliners but in keeping with his typical material; when he spits status raps on "Do It Big" alongside a grimy Busta Rhymes or cases a joint in "Click Click", it lends weight to an overlong record that desperately needs it.
But it's impossible to pin everything that goes wrong during this album on Ice Water themselves. The production is scattershot and almost uniformly irritating, with the soulful, Marvin Gaye-derived "Mercy Me" and the grindhouse funk of "Let's Get It" the closest the album comes to any sort of Wu atmosphere. Everything else sounds like mercenary club music, indecisive as to whether it wants to be Dirty South or thugged-out NYC. Most of the production pushes towards straight-up annoyance (re "I'm a Boss": Oh, so that's why some people hate Rick Ross) when, like the quarter-assed g-funk of "Actin' Fly" or the tinkly Jim Henson's G-Unit Babies non-bump of "Gangsta", it isn't busy being too perfunctory to even register as anything other than a half-step above a click track. Still, while you can't blame all the bad beats and the lyrical dullness on Raekwon himself, it's pretty obvious that Ice Water's mentor still has a whole lot of lessons to teach them.
