Known as Raekwon the Chef (he's "cookin up some marvelous sh*t to get your mouth watering,") Wu-Tang Clan's talented rapper has had immeasurable success as a solo act apart from the band of brothers in the Clan. Raekwon shuffled and hustled his way through the Staten Island Wu-Tang group alongside Method Man and Ol' Dirty Bastard in the ‘90s, spinning a successful solo career at the same time with the help of Ghostface Killah.

Before there was the tough rapper Raekwon, there was a young man named Corey Woods with a dream of striking it big in the music industry. Woods became known as Raekwon when he joined the cult-like Staten Island-based Wu-Tang Clan in the early 1990s. Contributing to the group's 1993 debut album Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers), Raekwon the Chef also started dabbling in a solo career. Wu-Tang's recording contract allowed the group's countless members to pursue solo careers with whatever label they chose, and Raekwon stuck with Loud for his debut solo single, 1994's "Heaven and Hell." The single was an instant success for the East Coast rapper, shooting up the charts to number 34 on the dance/maxi-singles chart. It also paved the way for Raekwon's debut album Only Built 4 Cuban Linx, and eventually singles like "Ice Cream" and "Criminology" led the rapper into underground hip-hop success as one of the top dogs of Wu-Tang.

Raekwon ultimately discovered a partnership with Ghostface Killah, and the two Wu-Tangers collaborated on several projects. Raekwon spent the ‘90s releasing albums for Wu-Tang like Wu-Tang Forever, also focusing on a budding solo career with 1999's Immobilarity. The 2000s have been spent recording Wu albums The W (2000) and Iron Flag (2001), and most recently Raekwon the Chef announced plans to reunite with Ghostface Killah on Cuban Linx's sequel.