Raekwon feat. Inspectah Deck, GZA, Ghostface Killah & Method Man – house of flying daggers

What came first: white middle class boy's love of badly dubbed ninja films or their love of The Wu Tang Clan? The great chicken and egg conundrum. Either way after 15 years The Wu are still drawing influence from the bad dubbing and dubious plot lines of old ninja flicks- oddly it's yet to wear thin.

The video for House of Flying Daggers fails to do the song justice, lazy and cheap animation lets down what is another quality release from some of the original Wu members. Though the animation is spot on trend it lacks any style or sophistication to make it look better than some cheap internet animation thrown together by a couple of bored students. Even when viewed on a large monitor or a TV screen you are still left feeling that little money, imagination or talent was spent on this video. Understandably the video features ninjas -it is a Wu Tang video after all so your hands are tied re: the ninja quota- but I just think that with a little imagination this video could have been so much more than the cheap cliché that it is.

The track itself is excellent, featuring production from the late J Dilla and is a reminder that after many years and a few deaths the Wu can still pump out their unique style of Hip-Hop and make it sound fresh- which is harder than it sounds. Look at the Prodigy for example, they now sound like a poor man's Pendulum and Pendulum sound terrible even with a head full of ecstasy.

House of Flying Daggers features on Raekwon's forthcoming album Only Built 4 Cuban Linx II to be released September 8th.